NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

13 November 1960

Dearest Fido,

A long day at the office, and although much remains to be done--including the review for the *Saturday Review*, I have made a little headway. Alas, this week will be frightful, since we go to Cooperstown, New York, on Friday for the weekend, and have Angus Wilson with us Wednesday and Thursday, and if not Wednesday then we are supposed to have supper with R.P. Blackmur, the critic, and cocktails on Tuesday withaul Bellow, the young novelist. And tomorrow night is Villiers.

I enclosed fragments of this and that. I like very much the sentiment of the money in the wooden leg, and thought you would be amused at the outcome of the mystery of the "stolen" (?) letter. And it seemed to me that Heeren and I were right about the extra push Pantheon would give this particular book, for this is a good spread to have been planned before the reviews came with their quotable bits. How extraordinarily opposed the two views of Rosemary's Knight's Fee are! The favorable one you may want to give to her. You can make up your own mind about the one in the *Times*, also today.

Especially I wanted to thank you for sending me the copy of Szilard's speech, especially as it led me to listen last night to the tv program I enclose a notice of. It was absolutely remarkable, the sort of thing which makes it important to have a tv, although Saturday night seemed an odd time to find the many who should have listened. here were two men, obviously brilliant in their fields, wonderfully witty and good humored, seriously opposed and insisting that others take the argument seriously.

Teller would insist on finishing sentences even though it threw the time schedule off, and I was with him. I think you would admire Szilard, although like myself find it hard to believe that Russians are not now making secret atomic tests underground. He is attractive in his point of view however, and one respects him even though not following him. I should say your Trude had an immensely distinguished husband. He got through the program beautifully although he was announced as coming from the hospital where he was a cancer patient. How I wish you could have heard and seen the program.

It was a beautiful day in the bowl yesterday, and Yale won easily from Princeton, to remain still unbeaten. I wish you could have seen it with us. Next week's game is at harvard--the last--but I have had my Boston ausflug.

Do greet Edith for me, and Rosemary, and George, and give our love to Doris.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 November 1960

Dearest Fido,

What a perfectly ghastly time you must have had in
London, with all this uncertainty about Doris and the anxiety
about Edith. Susan and I both breathed an immense sigh of relief
at this afternoon's letter which said that she after all was going
to be able to be operated on. Poor woman, she has absolute courage
at least to sustain her. You were right, I think, in not staying
on. Nor would Doris have wanted you to. Letters will help. You
did not give us her hospital address. If there is time to write her
there, be sure to let us know.

This is late at the office on Monday, where I have been
working to get my overdue budget for 1961-62 in. It is always immensely
frustrating to have to plan for another year when the present one has
scarcely begun. And this year will bring so many departures and
leaves of absence that my head spins a little. Though not half so
much as the head of administration will spin when he tries to decipher
it.

So this can only be an note, really to Hilda and yourself,
to say that I am well and that we had a very pleasant weekend in
Cooperstown, New York--from Friday early afternoon until Sunday night.
The mid-New York State landscape was most interesting although not so
appealing as Vermont and New Hampshire on our trip there. I shall
spell all this out in later letters to one or the other.

And our visit from Angus Wilson was most pleasant. His
lecture was really brilliant. He likes Colin MacInnes, but startled
me by telling me that MacInnes was Angela Thirkel's son by her first
marriage to an Australian opera singer! Wilson says the new one he
feels is not quite up to the last, but that the early ones he thinks
have real interest and importance. His pet is William Golding, though
again in terms not of the last book or two. I was most grateful to you
for your thumbnail sketch of him give me by the Lexington Green. It
was a lifesaver.

All love to you and all

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN • CONN

26 November 1960

Dearest Fido,

I really should be, of course, at work on the heap of
undone papers on my desk, or at home playing nurseman to the two
grandchildren. But I shall be the latter later in the day, and my
letter to you has already been too sadly postponed.

Your letter postmarked the 28th arrived yesterday. I
comment on it and others as I open and re-read. I am sorry about Hilda's
rheumatism, of course. One must expect touches of it, I fear, because
of the dampness from the Lake. But one's life is a counting house book
and there are many entries to a balanced table. Your yellowback with
Jocelyn's letter and Alberto's has not come. But I note with approval
both of your recommendations. I have always liked Jocelyn--perhaps it
is my Puritan habit to like anyone who works seriously--and want to meet
him some day so that one can pick up if anything is ever indicated. As
for Alberto, I think it is chiefly a question of lack of will. This
will keep him, I fear, from ever writing anything of much interest,
and his only hope lies in p.a. But I doubt that he will respond to
it, from fear of knowing himself. Isn't his hope really to find some
older man to whom he can be companion and secretary. I should think
he would take care of travelling problems and correspondence well.
There is so often a problem with the de-racinated like himself, especially
when they wish to be literary.

Naturally I am eager to hear about Doris, but presume it will
be weeks before the doctors will have much idea of the success of what has
been done. She has gone through absolute hell, and I am not underestimating
the hell for you too (for empathy and a feeling of helplessness such as
you must have had can be wearing.)

I find your story of Edith's (and Sachie's) conviction that
Lawrence was writing about Lady S quite startling for several reasons. The
first is as pure dirt: there must be some sort of story or gossip that
has worried them about LadyIda, and this distresses me that it should linger
with pain over so many years. Of course one could counter their idea by
showing that the thesis of the story would have been spoiled if Lady C were
really an aristocrat of LadyIda's proportions. She is much more Bloomsbury,
and if I recall correctly Sir Clifford has been knighted as well as be-knighted.
No I agree that someone like Frieda is more likely on the social side, with
the passion Lawrence had for proving himself a stud from the lower classes.
He represents the vigor of the noble workman, much as Nancy Cunard liked to
think of the vigor of the noble blackman.

It doesn't quite sound as though you had found the solution for
your typing yet. But it will work out. I was sorry my hunch about Rosemary's
typist didn't prove true.

I suppose if the Kennedy family is reported as anti-British it is

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

a hangover from Joseph Kennedy, the Ambassador, who had the Irish slant, and was nearly pro-Nazi during his term in London. But I don't think this will play any important role now.

You spoke of Collins and his lion. I thought you and then he might be amused at the clipping I enclose as from the New York Times.

Have heard of the two Henty collections, but am not sure where they are. Will check. The University of Indiana also has an important collection of Henty. I wonder if these collectors have moved on to Ballantyne and Fenn?

To return to Edith and that party of hers. Susan is convinced that she has arterio sclerosis with its effect on the brain. I do think something like this is indicated. It is so like Susan's poor uncle, and like the old king of Sweden (to put it into higher circles). I think you will find a continuing deterioration in her, but at the same time she will have the intermittent power to accomplish really commendable things. I would doubt however that she would do many poems, for this is too sustained and too intricate in its requirements. Your friendship, therefore, will mean, more than ever, much to her. I think it is quite proper to say that you are her only friend outside the family; and one cannot live entirely within a family. Certainly she cannot.

I sent you an envelope crammed full of things, all of which except the letter from Marianne (in a sense to both of us) you can toss out. I thought you might be interested in the science fiction discussions. Do they cite any books you'd like me to get for you?

The last fortnight before Thanksgiving was really impossibly hectic, and quite left me exhausted and without time to write. It exhausts me even now simply to look at my engagement pad as I write you (and presumably Hilda simultaneously) about it. I am however immeasurably glad that you didn't stay over to hear Villers lecture on Monsoon Adventures. It was not perhaps a fraud, but it was certainly a disappointment--for all he did was to talk to accompany a kind of Burton Holmes travelogue that had nothing whatsoever to do with the sea: only a visit to Goa, then to some islands in the Pacific where they did native dances for tourists(literally no more), and then a trip in a paddlewheeler up a river in India across the border to Pakistan. The hall was crowded, and parents had brought their younger children to get a taste of windjammers. What they go was water buffalos. He was very hearty in his talk, and sounded like the vicar imitating a man before the mask. Wednesday night we had to go out to dinner for R.P. Blackmur, a critic of repute and of such egocentrism that he steps between you and whomever he is talking or writing about. I have known him for many years. Thursday Angus Wilson came, we gave a cocktail party for him after his lecture, and he left the next mid-morning after doing a tape for the radio.

You had described Wilson so accurately to me that it was almost as though I were meeting an old acquaintance. He is some four years younger than I am, but I think looks a little older, probably because of his bushy white hair and slightly over-ripe figure. Actually we were at Oxford at the same time, and had many friends from there and later in common. He is easily and almost professionally social, and accomplishment which either resulted from his years as assistant deputy to the Head of the Reading Room at the B.M., or made him a natural for it. He spent the war years at Bletchley, where of course we again had friends in common, but had several breakdowns during that period and went into analysis afterwards. His beginning to write was part of his prescribed therapy.

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

His mother was a South African, and his father a man who inherited a slight competence and then did nothing. He and his friend talked a good deal against their respective fathers, and the fact that men have resigned their responsibilities to women. One sees something of this in their books. I think I told you that he brought his friend, in one of those Greenlandic arrangements which all self-respecting English intellectuals seems to have worked out for themselves. Tony is middle-class with a good deal of culture, and is actually a probation officer so that he had much of interest to say about Teddies and Teens. I should think there was about the same difference in age as between Islay and Kenneth; and Tony does much the same sort of thing: drives the car, makes arrangements about travel, keeps a little in reserve, but is not at all lazy and even helps Wilson with the garden at home.

We talked a good deal about the current British novel. He admires William Golding immensely, at least the earlier books, and also the author of *The Bell* (a woman) whom I do not care so much for as I am supposed to. He liked MacInnes, but did not think the latest as good as *Shades* pr the two earliest, which he said were neglected. He is violently anti Snow, as being a fraud in his pretensions. But Snow has American so buffaloed and swayed up, that it must make any fellow countryment of Snow's white with rage.

Friday noon we went to Cooperstown and on Saturday to Utica, having ideal November weather and lovely countrysides to look at. Our trip to Utica was to see a new art gallery there, and a couple we knew from Syracuse New York drove the 100 miles to Utica to meet us there for an hour. Susan and I both thought of you when we saw deer browsing by the roadside in the late evening light.

So it has gone. When we returned from Cooperstown on Sunday, Susan had a telephone call from Lizzie saying that she had given back his ring to the boy and returned to no more than a dating basis. Actually I feel pretty sure she has rejected him permanently, and if so the important thing is that she has done it on her own. This was, as I told you, what lay behind my urging to the Institute to let them see each other, at the same time that I urged time enough for them really to know each other. It would seem that his idea of stopping work for a vacation until February, while he built a house, and refusing a good job offered him in Simsbury, made her fear that she was drawn towards a facsimile of her father. Also he drank too much, she said. And was highly dogmatic and arbitrary about all things. There could be nothing but the severest classical music played in the house. Etc Etc. I will not say more than that it seems to me an immense step forward when she can go through a crise like this and not crack up, as she appears not to have done. On the whole I may be glad that every step since early July has taken place, if as a result she stands nearer to self-responsibility.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

29 November 1960

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you in yesterday's or today's mail. But I hardly deserve one, having left you in the lurch for so long a period of silence. Still, except for the desire to communicate, so to speak, not very much has happened which is eventful. Both Susan and I have colds as a farewell gift from the grandchildren. I seem to be shaking mine, but Susan is having more difficulty. Tonight she has given up going to the Boston Symphony and will stay home and nurse herself. Alas, I have to come down to hear a talk at the American Studies Club. This is the burden of chairmanship. Otherwise "Protestantism and Democracy" would not tempt me out on a rainy November night.

I was much intrigued by the last batch of London letters in your white paper. Especially by Edith's racy memoirs. They do have the quiver of sex as salt, but she manages it in an amused and amusing manner. Reading the article has given me a hunch of what may have caused her to associate Lawrence with her mother. That is the account she gives of meeting Freeda and him in Tuscany. "He talked to us a great deal about our parents, explaining their characters to us." I am a little shaky on my dates, but if this was the time he was writing Lady Chatterley, wouldn't it have been quite possible to transfer from the novel-in-progress to any unhappy upper-class couple like the Sitwell's some of his philosophy about the need of gamekeepers or anyhow non-decadents. Edith would of course come to reverse the line of direction so that the conversation preceded the situation in the novel. Hilda might know about the dates of composition of the book.

I sent you a copy of the review in the Christian Science Monitor, but could not make out the end of it. Now Donald Gallup has given me a copy of the original and I send it on to you. I couldn't help smiling a little as I read it. Perhaps I should have snorted. The final line's summary of the book seems like a classic mistatement: just the sort of thing I myself might have written about a novel of Christian Science.

Lizzie still seems to be standing up well. However, today was Susan's day for her visit, and she may have more to relate tonight when I go home for dinner.

Had a nice huge postcard from Pup on the Coast. She seems to have enjoyed herself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

4 December 1960

Dearest Fido,

We are both wretched with colds in the head which we cannot seem to shake off, and which the 28º temperatures do nothing to help. And we have been over-engaged of course as usual. Tuesday night I had to go to the American Studies Club meeting-- ex officio--to hear a talk on "Protestantism and Democracy" which I made very little of on any intellectual grounds. And on Wednesday afternoon, after my seminar, to hear a don from Corpus Christi talk on "The Yale School of Formalist Criticism." It was witty and not very well informed; I am not a formalist critic but at least I know what they are after, which seemed to escape the speaker. Later that evening we had dinner with him and his wife (and others) and talked about agriculture in England. This was much more satisfactory. I liked Mrs Bateson who is doing youth movement work around Oxford. She had not heard of MacInness whom I recommended. But she agreed with you and him that a vast problem was in the fact that money power was in the hands of the young. She did not worry so much about the girls, since she said typists at least had to have a modicum of intelligence. But she cited boys almost illiterate whose daddies were earning seven pounds a week, and the boys (as unskilled workers) were getting nineteen quid. The average pay to the home by them, she said, was less than a pound. The rest was theirs to spend.

Did I not tell you about Absolute Beginners? I thought I had. I found the language very lively, and the narration of it convincing although often slipping out of mask into metaphors and observations impossible to a teenager, and readily available only to a son of Thirkell. It is of course a reportorial novel, rather like what John Hershey has written on this side: a fictionalized journalistic report with a very thin plot line. I do not see him as really having sustained the riot as climax, although the airport scene is good. So--with all that I found it immensely interesting and am eager to read more by him. It was far more illuminating than any non fictional report could be, and I am all for this sort of service on the part of literature.

Thursday night I went to the Fellows' Dinner of Jonathan Edwards College, and then to hear a lecture on the Greater English Lyric by a professor at Cornell, Mike Abramson, whom I know and so had to report present. I was tired and slept a little in the back row, but I seemed to understand it all and judged it might have been said in fifteen concentrated minutes. But this was a formal lecture and very dignified, and this demands a full course lecture.

Friday night I took Susan and Sue and Jim, and Mrs. Bennett, and Bézie and a friend (it would have been her fiance when I bought the ticket) to hear Hal Holbrook do his evening of Mark Twain as lecturer. It was a very superior performance, and one I think you would like if he goes back to Europe with it. It is rather like the Dickens imitations that were being done a few years ago. I have known Holbrook for several years, and we lunched and spent the early afternoon together Saturday. I should have gone to Princeton to see my mother, but I get so tired by evening, with this cold, that we decided not to go.

Did you see Edith's note to the T.L.S. on Lawrence and Lady Chatterly
in the issue for November 11th. One presumes it will come out in the open eventually.
But I hope not, for a while anyway.

Have been going over more letters for filing, and could not identify
someone named Snap (?). Writing you as from Lugano in June.

This was wonderful news about Doris, and I shall pray that all continues so successfully. Observance will be made of your instructions re Viola Jordan's husband's book, etc. As for the Saillet books, yes it is most difficult to get good French books in New Haven at least. One presumes that in New York it is rather a different matter. I am always delighted to have the sense of what is up, and Saillet has served you well in this respect always. And send over the Euripides and I will see what sort of price it will get on this side.

Carlebach sent me--perhaps I told you--all the provenance for the first
group of forty eskimo articles, so that we have them now for all. his is most
important.

Kennedy seems to be going all right so far. One or two people who
have been to Washington come back excited with all the life that they feel to
be stirring. All this is of course in the spirit of the Roosevelt era. Whether
this is entirely good I don't know, but I am at least happy when Washington is
not a graveyard. The market is watchful for the moment.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 December 1960

Dearest Fido,

Why did the dear Lord who made us not create us impervious
to germs. Susan is in bed with her cold; I should be. I ought to be
able to cook her a dinner but I cannot; I feel too soggy to eat much of
anything she cooks for me. Really it is a world in which only muscular
memory causes one to grit the teeth and hang on.

Still this is minor. It is worse for others, including Horace.
I think I told you I tried to phone him over the weekend but without luck.
I tried again yesterday evening from the office. Then at seven o'clock I
had a long distance telephone call from him, as from Baltimore where he and
Marya and Patrick (presumably) had been for the Thanksgiving weekend. His
walking had grown progressively worse, so Joanna insisted that he go into
the Johns Hopkins Clinic for a diagnosis. They told him, finally, that he
had lateral sclerosis and that he would have to, henceforth, exist between
a wheelchair and the help of two canes. He certainly felt mighty blue, and
I can't say I blame him. He said he had thought he had resiliency, but
he couldn't seem to summons it now. I tried to tell him we were both old
rubber balls, but that eventually we could be bounced. He was waiting for
word from Sarah Lawrence as to what would be the situation there. Fortunately,
he said, his mind was fresh and he could type and write. I told him there
was no reason why he should not go on with the Dorothy Richardson; actually
it is a godsend that he has this to occupy himself with, over the difficult
period of adjustment. He needn't go to London; if necessary we can fly Odle
to him. I can arrange for him to use the Yale papers at his own home, I feel sure.
That is, under the circumstances. I told him I would give him the 3000 before
Christmas. He has not yet filed his application for a Guggenheim; they have a
health clause, and I wonder what will happen there. I know the directors, and
will have a talk with them about it. I could weep, knowing what it must be to
Horace to submit to this, after so brave a personal struggle with life. I shall
keep in close touch.

Many thanks for the yellowbacks which brought a wealth of letters
to be commented on. It is true, one does not really know what people feel about
*Ruan*, but it may be their inhibitions in writing about it to a writer. All, that
is, except Wendy. I was amused by her brief paragraph of professional appraisal
of the Scilly sections. That out of the way, she could get to more important matters!
"Let's talk about *my* writing," was the spirit of the next

Surely it was an amazement to see René's letter. It is odd how completely
he has dropped out of my consciousness. *Mary Herr*: I do feel sorry for her and
her faithful retainer. I remember the latter well, as with you and that late dinner
we inflicted on her after the snowstorm. *Melitta*: well, I guess I am not after all
surprised. London must have existed for her chiefly as an escape fantasy. *Perhaps*

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

she will be better off from having had to reject it. I sent Angus Wilson's friend to her, because of the juvenile delinquency angle; but perhaps he never went. There are so many variant ways of coming to understand the problem that he may have chosen more direct empathy. **Sachie**: It seems so odd for a writer to say he likes Brazil, "but not to be shut up for months afterwards writing about it." **Ethel**: as for the thing which "will not go around" her, and which she gave to Dean, why not send me her measurements and let us buy one and send to her as an "unsolicited birthday gift." **Barbara Jordan**: yes, they must be helped. Poor Viola, with her pride, to end like a baby. I have developed a great affection for her, although perhaps I prefer this to be in absentia. When I think she sold Ezra's letters to her so that the money could go to Mary, and then gave Hilda's and William 'arlos Williams' I could weep from shame at her need.

And then of course what I take to be Elsie's September 10th pictures of Hilda, with one of the two of you. Do congratulate her. The one of Hilda with the sunflowers is most striking, everything is in excellent framing and of the right relationship. She has a real talent.

It is a quater to six and I must hurry home to help with supper. We have given away our tickets to the concert tonight, and I will try to prepare my lessons on Robert Frost, and on the Scarlet Letter for tomorrow. Fortunately I have already the latter, which they say has been selling very well.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 December 1960

Dearest Fido,

We are both still fighting our colds, but perhaps a little better. The temperature keeps at below 20, so that shifts between inside and outside become perilous. Other people go in and out, however, so that it keeps me following them. These are always busy days.

Wednesday night we had had tickets for the theatre, but Susan's cold was so bad she did not want to go. So I asked Donald Gallup who met me there. It was hardly worth it, really little more than a series of nightclub routines strung together into a musical of sorts. Thursday I should have gone to hear the young English critic A. Alvarez talk on "Modern British Poetry." Unfortunately I had to go to a graduate school meeting of directors of graduate study in the various departments. But we went to the Cleanth Brooks for dinner with him afterwards. I rather liked him in a way, or at least found him outgoing ("My name is Al") in a communicable way. He is very much of the times, not scornful of knowledge but very much so of rank ("The Sitwells, my God, what I can't stand is all this royalty stuff; she doesn't have anything to say, really"'), Stephen Spender ("Just a washed-out old shirt"), Auden ("fritter, fritter, fritter,"), business men in literary circles, even though he sounded a good deal like one himself. It was interesting too to see what a professional thing he makes out of his situation as a Jew in the modern world. As a friend of mine says in a manuscript book I read yesterday, "the urban Jewish writer like the Southern novelist has emerged from the ragic underground of culture as the true spokesman of mid-century America." Only Alvarez would seem to make him more ubiquitous as spokesman. Edith loathes him, I know, and it is pretty hard to see how the twain could mix.

A letter from Horace, dated the 8th from Baltimore, came yesterday. He says: "When I talked to you by phone I was still a bit shocked by the report from Johns Hopkins--'lateral sclerosis'--there was scarcely time for me to regain my stance. For the moment I shall have to wear a crutch, a stick, and for state occasions, a wheel chair. Yet within the last two days I've made some progress in regaining the use of my left hand--enough to make sure that I can use the typewriter. It's my left side (thank God it's not my right) that has gone wrong. Well, both of us have fought down dragons of this kind before. On fighting this one, I'm sure what style I have will take on greater sharpness and economy. / Your good news could not have come at a better time. Ray of the Uggenheim told me I had until Feb 1st for my request for a renewal. Next week, (probably midweek), Marya and I will be back in Palisades. Pat is holding the fort there. He's just secured an editorial post on a magazine in New York--which will have its first appearance in '61./ Will you be in NY before Christmas? Do let me know. May I thank you many times?/ Marya and I send love to Susan and you..."

Well, I'm glad I could say what I could say over the phone, about the three thousand before the end of the year. I shall go to the bank tomorrow and transfer it and the fifteen hundred for Hodgson from the savings account to the checking account. There is plenty to cover it.

I don't think I've written you since you sent the money to younger Susan. I know they are most grateful, from what my Susan says. But this should definitely be the last time.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

About the Goughs, I am sure one could arrange a few lectures for him, especially with Ingholt's help. Enough at least for him to visit Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Boston, and New Haven--the centers for his sort of thing I imagine. He may wish to wait until he has been in Ankara for a year, so that he can come as with the dignity of his office there. The Catholic part doesn't really enter into it, except as a help. I could probably fix some lectures at Catholic colleges since they are always eager to show how well individual sheep in the flock have done.

Delighted at the continued good news from Doris. The main thing is that she will have her good eye, and the chance for still more with her second operation.

What is *La Route des Flandres* in the traditional line of? or does it strike out for itself?

A note from Maggs says that they are sending out a copy of Cluny's "The American Traveller". It sounds intriguing. I did by the way just order some six or seven inexpensive additions to allantyne and Fenn. The Henty items are of course hard to find.

Spent this morning signing 200 form letters and then writing so-called personal notes to 45 of them, all about fellowships for next year in American Studies. The chores never cease nor get resolved. Last night I had a phone call from the director of the summer program saying he had to back out. Letters for that, announcing him, have been printed and were ready to go out tomorrow. Now I shall have to do the whole thing over! I fume.

And Christmas cards! When can I hope to get those done. Don't expect any from us, but at least your bundles did go off some time ago. To Kusnacht where I asked Hilda to be dragon.

All love as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

21 December 1960

Dearest Fido,

I mutter so much about these being ghastly weeks that perhaps I only waste time when I might be working. But the weather has been awful, so have everyone's cold and everyone's temper. My secretary is just back from a week's absence, and spends of her time preparing for her family's Christmas. But so, I guess, do I. For I should have driven to the nursing home today to see my mother if there had not threatened to be a severe snow storm with several inches fall. I thought of those back roads and dared not risk it. It rained here instead of snowing, but since it is much colder as one goes north no doubt they did have some of the six or seven inches that were promised.

Meanwhile I have been working like mad to get my Christmas cards out. Some 350 or more of them, which is a plain absurdity; except that many and more come to us, chiefly with little messages on them. What has happened? I have typed away until my fingers dropped, and you have heard nothing from me for weeks.

Several letters have come in from you, as well as three or four yellowjackets. Also the four Masefield volumes, plus the Virgil Jordan book and Nigel Dennis's *Cards of Identity*. And of course paramount among books, the Cluny. Forgive me for thinking, from the Maggs advance note, that it was connected with the Musee de Cluny. I do blush, but keep warm with happiness in the igloo. It is rebound but as clean and broad marginned as on the day it was released. A real gem of a copy, with all maps intact. It is a great treasure, indeed, and I thank you with suitable woofs. I woof too of course for the check which is also here. If only our packages arrive safely at your end --and this letter-- it will have been a tidier Christmas in that respect than usual. I am sending this to Kusnacht as nearer an airport, and therefore a little greater margin of possibility.

I was shocked at Pups's letter about Mary Herr's death. Just the day before I had sent her a card with a longish typed letter in it. I think she must have overstrained herself because of the illness of her maid. Yet I am glad she never lingered only to die from cancer. I remember how worried I was-- and you too--and I think she herself--at the possibility because of the persistence of her skin trouble.

Did you think I particularly admired Alvarez? It was only that he surprised me so, and interested me, as being quite a new type from any I used to know in England. A younger journalist-critic. Perhaps a sportier version of Clement Shorter, cast in up-to-date clothes.

I spoke of your interest in the Loyalists who went to Canada. There are it seems a number of magazine articles on them, but the young Canadian historian to whom I talked said that a brilliant reputation could be made from the sort of a book you described. I asked him in these Loyalists had influenced' Canadian thought. He said that the ultra conservatism of the Maritime Provinces was completed dominated by this tradition. You see you have the instinct! It looks to me as though a tour of the maritime provinces and French Quebec was indicated some time. One ought to give it at least ten days I should think, with HQs established at Quebec and perhaps at Halifax. Some of it will be depressing, the rest fascinating. I will see what I can do in the way of bibliog-

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

raphy. But my young adviser says really not much has been written.

Pantheon used, if I am correct, not to advertise in these big
issues of the the Times Book Section. There are actually others. They
prefer to advertise at other times when they are not crowded out of attention.
And especially in the daily *Times*. But Helen will know this better than I
remember it.

This is very bad news about Urzidil. (He sent me an offprint of his
latest article for Christmas.) I suppose the best thing to do is to wait and
see how it develops. Meanwhile I hope he can still manage his trip to Switzerland.

I was much amused by the research done on the Eskimo mask of wood which I told you about. Carlebach sent a photograph of it for identification to the Director of the Heye Museum of the American Indian (including eskimo, and probably the largest collection of eskimo things in the country I am told, tho most are in storage), who says of it: "This is, I think, clearly an example of the work of the Kuskokwim River people, and characteristic of their technique." Simuláá eously he sent a photograph to the director of the Adirondack Museum who is, by chance also an "authority" on eskimo artifacts. He says! This appears to be from the northern eskimo. It is totally unlike the material which comes from the Kuskokwim River area or the Yukon River area. I cannot be any more positive than this about it. The Point Barrow might be the tribe but one cannot be positive. Stylistically it seems to fit this area better than most others." I am completely charmed and delighted by the confusion. It makes the mask all the more intriguing. I wish you could see it.

Christmas will apparently be a busy weekend for us, and on Monday noon I have to leave to spend the week in Philadelphia at the Modern Language Association convention. I come back on the 29th in order to be home at least for dinner on Susan's birthday. Little Susan and her husband and the two children have decided they would like to spend this, in all probability, last Christmas at home with us. So they will bring the children at noon on Saturday and stay until Monday. It will be fun especially to see little Justus's excitement with the tree and the presents. Lizzie will be working late Christmas Eve and will only come out for breakfast Christmas morning. And then spend the day. We have our tree Christmas morning, and then Susan's mother and aunt come for lunch. We have arranged to have casseroles cooked by the Lawn Club the day before, so these will only have to be heated up for the meal. And we will have fancy ice creams for desert. It is almost like a Puritan Sunday, when the housewifes were not allowed to cook after Saturday Sundown. That evening we will go to Mrs Bennett's for a supper and another tree. This is awfully crowded and a little boring, but fortunately I think we can bring the children back early and so not have to string on.

"ave not had much chance to comment on the political set-up, but on the whole the choices for the cabinet seem to be good ones. There is considerable unfavorable comment even in democratic circles about the choice of his brother for Attorney General, but if he does a good job it will die out. Most hope comes in relation to the new secretary of state and the likely ambassadors. A good deal has already been done for the morale of the State Department. But I can go into the pros and cons later.

Much more important is to send you my deepest love for Christmas as for always. Susan joins with hers to you and to Hilda for the season. We shall be thinking of you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 December 1960

Dearest Fido,

Will you still be at Kusnacht when this arrives? I hope
so, though it is perhaps too much to ask of the American postoffice and
the jets. I only wish I had one of the latter yesterday, when I drove
to Princeton, Massachusetts to see my mother. The temperature never rose
above the 20's, but of course the car was warm. The only trouble is the
long three-hour drive without company like your own. Susan has been going
daily to see the maid we used to have for the children, who went to England
with her and stood through all the years when she was getting her divorce.
Cancer has at last caught up, she is in an oxygen tent, and will die in ten
days if not sooner. I am talking about the former maid, of course (She
later became an IBM operator and made large salaries). As for my mother,
she actually seemed much better, recognized me as a friend and we had a good
talk for a half hour or so. She told me about her son in New Haven, and of
her plans to go home soon.

I am still working at my desk like mad, as though everything I
wrote even up to the last minute of Christmas Eve carried a special dispensa-
tion with it. I have been going through all the unacknowledged offprints
sent to me, volumes of poetry, and writing notes on greetings cards to thank.
As well as clearing up last moment chores of a more strictly academic nature
(I should say administrative, altho everything comes because of everything else
and so each is indistinguishable from the others). I thought, as a new year's
treat I would share some poems that were just sent me by one Austin West, of
Quaker Hill, Connecticut. I hope Hilda and you will both like them, but I shall
only select.

(1) The Naked Sea

While dawn is splashing at the water's rim
With crimson colors out for a swim

The sea slips off her dress of night,
And lifts her face to kiss my sight.

She stretches and sways in a veil of green
With curving thighs that to shore careen

As I stand and stare at the naked sea
And fall in love quite shamelessly.

(2) In Pastures High

The clouds are wooly sheep
They know no earthly grief.
They skid upon the air
But never quite fall off.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

(3) I will give you only the last verse of:

A Voice that is Silent Never

Yes, I am --I am the sea!
My wizardry is grand
But in stygian glooms and silent tombs
I weep on the soft wet sand.

I wrote him that his poetry was delightful.

I think you once asked me for figures on the sales of your books
at Pantheon (total sales that is). Schaberth called me on the phone
this morning about the French, German and Italian rights to the books
as a whole, and in this connection said that he thought *Ruan* was running
ahead of all other books as of analagous periods of sale. He did not
not have the exact figure as of this moment, but the last figure was 3,900.
For the other books, *October* has now sold 4,900; *Gate to the Sea*, 5,600;
*Player's Boy*, 3,300; and *Roman Wall*, 7,900.

Tonight we shall bring the tree into the house, and I presume Susan
will have finished decorating the mantelpieces etc., so that Hilda's
lovefeast candles will be invitingly on the fireplace in the study. We
shall think of both of you tomorrow as we light them.

My very deepest love to you both,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

26 December 1960

Dearest Fido,

This is just a hurried morning-after-Christmas note from
office in the hour I have to get together all the papers for the
Philadelphia meeting of the Modern Language Association for which I
leave by the noon train. I must plan the agenda for tonight's
executive committee meeting and what I can say to introduce the
various program speakers *tomorrow*, and the noon luncheon speaker.
I come back Thursday noon a little before the end of the convention,
all my duties being discharged by that time.

We had a pleasant incidentless holiday yesterday, with
little Justus in a constant glow of Paradise because of the steam shovel,
fire engine, mock driving panel for a car (which flashes lights, hums
like a motor, has a windshield wiper which works automatically etc.),
a mock electric razor so he can shave like his father etc. Lizzie was
home for the day and in a good mood, although I think she is a little
saddened and "outside" by so much talk of small children both at our
home and at her grandmothers where we all went for supper.

Your cable arrived in good time and was enjoyed by all,
as were all the various remembrances.

Your letter of the 19th arrived in the afternoon mail. I
am so glad you are taking George away for a bit from the British climate.
Switzerland, with you, is at least cold and dry.

I was terribly sorry about your trouble with *Ruan*. But I am
afraid I don't understand, really. Either you or Collins. I took great
pains to send him an absolutely clean copy (the first copy, not even the
carbon) of the typescript, as requested by you, and absolutely as you
wrote it. I told him that you wished the British edition to be like
that copy, without a single change. There is no possible advantage in
having you correct the American printed text under the circumstances,
since the typescript is errorless and as you want it. I can only imagine
that secretly he may have .... well, it doesn't matter. At any rate,
there never was an question of Collins importing sheets. Certainly not
from America, although it is occasionally (very occasionally) done with
volumes of poetry. Anyhow you need not at all worry about this possibility,
and my advise is simply to remind him that he has a copy of the text already
in the form you want it. I really do not know what to say about the
introduction of quoted conversation in the midst of a sentence. All of your
books published by Pantheon have used this formality. I had only one
immediately available British ordinary publication at hand: *Absolute Beginners*,
and opened it to a page where the British had done the same. Collins has
followed this practise in his other editions of your novels. Unfortunately
I do not have my manual of British typographical conventions at hand--someone
borrowed it and has not returned it. But this is of course irrelevant anyhow,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

since this is apparently a matter of experimental writing rather than
the older Anglo-American controversy about punctuation, and spelling.

As for the Memoirs, I don't really know why they couldn't
come out first in England. Or any book, now that you are established
as a writer. It was only when they didn't want your books in England
that it seemed best to appear in the States and for that reason make
what seemed at that time to be concessions. The only reason for not
giving Collins the right to all first publications, including the
memoirs, would be because of the connection Helen might make and your
desire to help her. Even then it might not really matter, for you
would be able to deal more directly with Collins and his editors by
the chance for frequent trips back and forth to England to go over
the proof etc. Anyhow, why not wait until the Memoirs are finished
to your liking before you settle the matter. I do hope the new year
will give you a little more freedom in which to work. If only those
of us who are your friends could cease to be constant burdens, you
could settle down to write for six months without a break. This is
what you need, like all professional writers. It is a marvel that
you have accomplished so much without any extended free period like
this.

Elsie's card came a day or two after I had mailed ours to
her, so they must have pleasantly crossed in mid-air.

I doubt that I will have time to write before Friday when I
am back in the office. Meanwhile don't fret about the copy for Ruan.
Just tell Collins to do what he was supposed to do with the typescript
you had delivered to him last summer.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 December 1960

Dearest Fido,

I came back from Philadelphia late Thursday afternoon in time for Susan's birthday dinner, and spent yesterday in the office with my desk so filled with accumulated mail (during my absence) and a somewhat unexpected progression of business vistors that I could not do more than rejoice in the four letters from you. Now this morning, after a graduate student from Colorado has been in with his parents, so I could meet them, and I have put into a beginning of order my notes and debris from the Modern Language Association convention, I can say thank you again and send you my love for the new year.

Yes, it was sad about Mary Herr in one sense, -- and, as you say, a merciful blessing in another. I shall miss her; she had a special quality of character. Gerald's situation is certainly distressing. One does not know really what to do; but of course--as with Doris--one fears for his eye. I quite agree that he should have been told about the diabetes. It seems criminally negligent not to, and if there are no funds for such treatment under the national health plan then the plan should be restudied.

I'm delighted to know you told Maggs to send out the Hentys. One can always get rid of any duplicates, and meanwhile be sure one retains the better copy. I have just got for the collection two issues of THE BOY'S OWN PAPER, comtaing Manville Fenn's "Something Like a Snake", and also parts of Gordon Staple's "Cruise of the 'Arctic Fox'". The original cost of each issue of the paper was one penny; they now cost somewhat more. Ten bob as I recall.

Yes, McInnes's father was an Australian opera singer, and he was brought up out there. It gives him, I think, just the right sort of distance to write what he is now doing.

Your Christmas must have been hectic, but we were happy that you managed to get to Kusnacht with at least some degree of ease. Thank God for Elsie's cousin's husband. Your Verne book sounds great fun. And I am happy you liked Ship Boy. I did feel it was yours, even though we are ship boys together.

No I do think it quite possible that a book will come out of this whole loyalist refugee situation. It will take time, and I think a little prowling is indicated. One center could be Boston and environs for several days while you make notes on color and some house. Then I think a little longer in the maritime provinces with or without me or us. For example you might possibly find it easier to get quickly into the situation (Canadian) if you visited and talked alone and sniffed at and with Hilda's Nova Scotian cousin. I do think one needs to worry about overland trails, though you will indeed want to see Maine and get a feeling for the woods, etc. I think almost to a man they went by boat to the Maritimes. We can do a little digging on that so that you can get the feel and then forget the fact. I am on track of a book about Boston loyalists with a somewhat extended account (I am told) of the migration of one or two families. I will try to get together what sort of a bibliography we can. It's possible you could (for the sake of ease of

2.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

sketching in the milieu you might have your hero return to England, or rather
already have returned to find he has new eyes and a troubled sense of being
apart. Anyhow I agree that a history may be needed but not by you. I meant
only to indicate how little had been done on the subject. Why not make me a
new list of what I have given you and what you have read as from London Library;
then I can see what is available and how to answer your questions.

You speak of the Canadian's anti-Americanism. It is I suspect true
along somewhat the same lines that there is hidden anti-British feeling. What
is at bottom is the now familiar nationalism both culturally and economically.
At the moment Canada is one of the most prosperous economies and having no
international responsibilities is determined to have no economic strings put
on by the States to hold her back. Thus she has long had economic ties with
Red China, and--I suspect--even acted as a quiet entrepreneur for those in the
States who would like to. Thus similarly in the present attempts to weaken the
Castro pro-Communist Cuban government (done with the concurrence of the Latin
American unions) she does not want to lose any money by concurring in boycotts,
and has indeed made a great thing of saying how much additionally Canada can
now profit by picking up plums. They did in fact keep their banks a little
longer than the States did (in Cuba, I mean), but these have now been seized.
I think Canada may well be naive in feeling herself invulnerable in regard
to Cuba and China.

Many little packages in as from you, for which thanks. The Masefield
ST KATHERINE OF LEDBURY and WITH THE LIVING VOICE will join the others. As will
the program of Bergner's ESCAPE ME NEVER joins its appropriate others. Did you
have a reason for thinking the Samoan geography was by "arianne's brother? Or
rather of course you did, I meant to ask what reason.

The yellow backs intrigued as always, and I am delighted that your friends
do really seem to like Ruan. You feared the opposite, but I don't think it's working
out that way. Gladys wrote me she thinks it the best!

Was glad of other news too. Mary Hotson must have been as busy as ever
at Christmas with directing her plays and church fairs. We did not hear from
them nor have we seen them for some months. Nor has anyone. Mary I feel sure
wants to protect Leslie but it is rather too bad that she obscures him. I did
love her rehearsing the little ones over the telephone. She does indeed have
energy and imagination, and of course the greatest loyalty to Leslie.

Rita's letter was interesting as usual, and I am glad she is not against
the new administration. But I think her inclinations are in other directions. I
only fear she will get to be a martinet in administration rather than an executive.
Sometimes one has to spend £2 for a half hour, if one ever wants a favor from any
of the 28 airlines who used to call on her.

Is Robins the whilom Renishaw butler? And did they let him go? I was
touched that you had remembered him. This is excellent.

I am so sorry about Urzidel, but think we must wait to see what later
developments are.

I was delighted that the Prescotts had seen Elies in Africa. It must
be great fun to visit the game parks there, but I think this is not quite the
moment to do it in.

In George's letter to you he mentioned a lift at Brunner. Are you having

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

one installed. Surely it would be a blessing for Hilda, but equally surely for everyone else including the staff. This is one instance, at least, where I approve the American enthusiasm which would say one was necessary.

Like yourself, I was rather struck by Monica Redlich's phrasing: "now that you have so many contacts I hope you will be able to have your wishes satisfied. Do you think I should write the Christensen of the Greenland Company? Or would it be a good idea for you to pop there perhaps when Rita goes for her Congress, or when you are en route to England some time. It is so easy to turn aside a letter and so difficult to escape a request direct from the mouth. If one of the other plans for next summer worked out--that is, Turkey or the Greek islands or the channel cruise I suppose I could go by way of Copenhagen and do this in person for the following year. (Incidentally, a devoted and very talented Greek student of mine has just married an English-speaking woman, perhaps an American, and now lives on the island of, or with the address of Anargyrios and Korgialeninos, School of Spetsai, Greece, and is anxious to have us all visit him. He has been a wonderful guide for Susan's sister and daughter, and for Eugene Waith, both of whom I sent to him. He might manage as courier if we chose that!) To return to Monica, I can of course be very wrong, but I don't think that Madrid was their first hope. Certainly no appointment there would depend on Spanish elections! It may be that the Kennedy victory meant that the Danes wanted a more vigorous type in Washington than her husband would have been.

Lawk-amercy, Alberto is incorrigible. What did you do? I like the idea of his "A loan will be a good discipline." *Cet type la!*

I thought that was an awfully good interview with Rosemary, in *Books and Bookmen*, but I was rather staggered by the photograph. I don't know that you have ever described her to me, and so my picture of her has grown from the impression of her letters. She has seemed like a young girl, perhaps twenty now but a little younger than that in actual years. It is all clear enough why, but I am somehow a little saddened by the thought of what will happen when there is no daddy to fill the needed role. Yet there is a poise evident in this interview which makes me feel sure she actually will be able to cope beautifully. I hope so.

Marya's letter was sad, and I have another from Horace as of the 27th, thanking for the check. It is anything but resilient. He was so pleased with Hilda's letter to him. But I will talk about all this in my next, or send the letter to you. There is nothing to do at the moment.

A letter too from Brother Volant to whom I sent fifty dollars as from us both. I will send the letter.

There is enough for us to talk about forever and longer. And enough love.

Zborman

CANADA: CASE HISTORY

This is the case of a high-school land,
dead-set in adolescence;
loud treble laughs and sudden fists,
bright cheeks, the gangling presence.
This boy is wonderful at sports
and physically quite healthy;
he's taken to church on Sunday still
and keeps his prurience stealthy.
He doesn't like books, except about bears,
collects new coins and models old planes,
never refuses a dare.
His Uncle spoils him with candy, of course,
yet shouts him down when he talks at table.
You will note he has some of his French mother's looks,
though he's not so witty and no more stable.
He's really much more like his father, and yet
if you say so he'll pull a great face.
He wants to be different from everyone else
and daydreams of winning the global race.
Parents unmarried and living abroad,
relatives keen to bag the estate,
schizophrenia not excluded,
will he learn to grow up before it's too late?

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

8 January 1960

Dearest Fido,

Your and Hilda's letters were to have been the first ones of
the new year; now a week has passed, it is getting dark and ready to snow
again, I have been spending all day with the poetry board of the Wesleyan
University Press and Friday night and a lot of Saturday with the Bollingen
Prize Committee, and my desk is at a high ebb and I feel at a low ebb.
Your letters at any rate have sustained me.

And as you read this, or shortly after, George will be with you.
How I envy him his chance to rub noses. Give him my deepest love. Angels
can feel this sort of exchange simply because they are angels, and we are all
angels in Bryherland.

**The Revolution:** I wait for the list of what you cannot get at the London Library, and what you think you would like to have. I am rather tempted to help a graduate student in colonial history by paying him a bit to draw up a bibliography of articles etc about the refugees. It would help him pay for his typing of his dissertation, and could include the articles etc which I should never get. By articles I mean especially the texts of journals, diaries etc in historical quarterlys.

**Lady Shakespeare's Lover.** Oh dear, I would not have suspected that the affair between Olivia S and W B Y would have upset Hilda. Perhaps it is not having known that bothers, rather more than what did happen. Actually, without lears, it was always said that O.S. was what **Time** would call Yeats' "great, good friend," and in fact the inevitable result has been the usual intimation that Dorothy was Yeats' child. I believe scholars (!) reckon the fingers of their hands that Yeats was not introduced in time for this. As to Virginia Moore, she seems to live uninstitutionalized in a college, in Virginia. More than that she is well thought of, I do not know.

**Canadian Conservatism.** Among the poetry manuscripts was one by an Earle Birney at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver. Birney seems to be one of these Oxford graduates who is tutor to native princes in Borneo, lives in a brothel in Shanghai, and then becomes a Buddhist monk in Japan, before settling down to teach English in North America. (I am speaking in fantasy of course). There was a poem about how the protagonist pushed a man over a cliff in the Canadian Rockies, and then the enclosed poem (see Exhibit A) which I thought might interest you as opinion, though hardly as verse.

**The Holidays.** Except for missing being with you and Hilda over the fêtes, I am not really sad to have missed the Italians singing and the tree lit. But I would have given anything to hear Hilda sing "Our Old Kentucky Home", But why did you not tell me what you sang

I will inquire as to the best modern biography of Washington. I suspect
you really need the big ones, for details, or do you want simply the outlines at
this point?

2,

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

**Plans for Summer.** I had a long pleading letter, with temptingly large sums offered if I would go to teach six weeks, or four weeks, or two weeks in Minneapolis this summer. But I really don't see how I can, or really want to. Your plan for the boat for yourself sounds ideal, but I should think you would prefer Brittany this time rather than the north coast of Wales. Especially if you were going to be tempted to dangle your toes in the water some time. I shall be curious to know what you find. I think letters to Denmark will do no good. One has to go in person.

**Alberto.** Somehow I really am a little saddened. If there were only some stamina. One guesses the outcome.

**Horace.** I enclose a copy of his letter to me. The examination period at Yale comes in about ten days. I think I shall try to drive down to Palisades and see him. I did have a chance in Philadelphia to talk to the new head of the Guggenheim Foundation about Horace's application for a fellowship, using the matter of health examinations as an introduction. For they require physical examinations, and if this would outlaw Horace I would not want him to apply. It will not, and it gave me a chance to talk about the situation in a way I should not care to do in a letter. Saturday noon at luncheon with the Bollingen judges I was able also to drop a bug in the ear of one of the chancellors of the Academy of American oets which gives out a five thousand dollar award each year (some years two) out of money left by Mrs Lamont. I get along well with Mrs Bullock, the grande dame of the organization, and with the other judges, and have been able to steer the award on several occasions onto beneficial corners. I shall hope that in a year or two they will give one to him. So it will go, but this will not solve the problem. It may only help to bolster his morale. But what hell that it should come only now, when it will seem to come out of pity rather than for poetry.

**Hodgsons.** I enclose the pleasant but somewhat sad letter from Aurelia. Can George help on the origin of "Oh dear, what can the matter be....? He wants to know its source more specifically than Johnny has gone to the fair. (O'll try to get at it, but when can I do Stefannson's chores too.). I sent them 2, which I d scovered was what I had done last year, and in a month or two will send the additional 1 (one) which we sent in the spring. I can't believe it will last much longer. For his birthday (the 90th) in September I think I shall bring together a boxful of epistolary tributes to him. Eliot would give me one, I know, and Dame Edith perhaps, and Masefield, and the others. Ask George which of the earlier generation I can write to. On this side, Frost, Auden, MacLeish etc etc. I can think of nothing better. But why don't you come out and we can go there for tea on the 9th?

**Hotsons.** I had heard nothing of their disasters, and when your letter came I spent two days trying to get them on the phone. The line was always busy which probably meant that the phone had been left off the hook so that they needn't answer, or at least Mary needn't. Yesterday however I got through and had a little chat with her. She seemed quieter somehow, without that intensity which almost seems hyperthyroid at times. But with the same good spirits which are a hallmark, and she is still eager to get to the south of Spain to see the choir boys dance and through their capes into a blood red pool of cloth before the altar. "Thornie"

3

(Thornton Wilder) says it is the climax of a lifetime. They are making her a special brace so she need not wear crutches, and warn her not to slip and break it again, since this break was precisely in the spot of the other one. They think the pin must have been receding. It happened the night of her church recital, just after the final curtain, so at least she had accomplished what she wanted. Actually I suspect she wants to go to Spain to watch the dancing so that the little boys of Northford can be trained to rock and roll in prayer and then toss their scarlet lumber jackets at the feet of Our Lady. I scolded her for not letting me know, but do not think there is much I can do now. "Les and I" are having lots of fun, cooking our little meals and washing our little dishes, while he finds more and more important things about Mr ----"

Marianne Moore. I received the enclosed, (Exhibit D) from her in answer to my Christmas greetings, and feel rather ffrightened about it. Do you think I should get in touch with her brother and see if I can stand guard? However she has auch a troop of guards watching the corners of her bed and board that I am not sure the kindest thing would be to leave her alone. I send it because her letter to me goes a little further than hers to you.

Were there newspaper accounts of brother John in the Daily Mail that you did not send? And what is his flight to the sun in Chicago? I am intrigued.

Stupidly I have forgotten who Peter Wells is.

In horror I see it is six and I must hurry home to take Susan to Lizzie's for Sunday dinner.

Yvor Winters was given the Bollingen prize this year.

and the sun was actually warm. Actually I suppose we mind
today's sudden cold and high wind more because of it. Anyway
I've been cold all day, and the house is really plenty warm.

Perhaps the last tag end of my cold makes me feel it
more. I had a return of it, all in my chest, last week, and
finally gave up and stayed home, doing as little as possible
in the hope that it could finally get the better of it. I
think today that I have, but only time will tell, though I
shall be mightily disappointed if it comes back again after
all this. Norman feels the way I do, though he didn't have
the chesty return that I got. He's cold too, and hasn't
the energy he should have, though I think he feels better
today. Yesterday he had a meeting of the jury for the
Wesleyan press to choose more of the new poets to publish.
They met in his office in the morning, went to lunch to-
gether and then back to discussion for most of the after-
noon, and when we went to Liz's apartment for supper he
nearly fell asleep sitting after dinner, and we came home
rather earlier than we might have. I wish vacation came soon-
er, as I do think he needs a break, but he won't have classes
soon, due to exams, and maybe he can take things more
easily for a couple of weeks now. We are going away
for spring vacation, to Charleston, South Carolina, but
not till March 19th. Then we will have two weeks, and
that should be good for both of us. It won't be hot there,
but it will be warmer than here, and if we just have good
weather we should also have fun exploring one of the really
old southern towns, and seeing some gardens.

Christmas was great fun, as we had all the children
here, and somehow seeing Christmas with Justus was an
elating experience. He did so enjoy all of it, and tried
to help Susan do the same. She was good, and smiling and
happy, but the occasion couldn't mean much to her at ten
months, however hard Justus tried to interest her.

Thank you ever so much for my presents, and a very
Happy New Year to you, and to Elsie too.

Love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 January 1961

Dearest Fido,

At last I have finished with the grading of undergraduate papers, and--much more laboriously--going over a manuscript of a collection of essays by the Charles Fenton who committed suicide last summer. Some of them are quite good, but if the book is published I shall have to check his facts (he is sometimes wrong, I know) and re-order them and the like. Now it is half-sleeting, half-snowing outside and I shall probably skid all over in getting home. This has been in fact a skidding week, at least I have slithered my way from hour to hour on paths of slippery duties. God save us all.

Your letters of the 4th and 6th are here, and I am sorry not to have answered them, as well as having delayed so long before my last letter. Susan is going to New York for next week, to the Garden Clubs, so I should be able to work nights at the office and catch up a little. I only hope your silence since 12th Night does not mean you have been ill with colds. Or that George has been unwell.

The examination period begins this week and goes on for ten days or so. During it I hope not only to be able to get up to see my mother, but also to drive down to see Horace. I think the thing to do is to hold back before rushing into any financial plan for him. Perhaps it could even wait until your visit next spring or next fall. That is, if meanwhile we can get going on the Dorothy Richardson project, with help for that. I'd like also to see what will turn up in the way of editorial work. I'll keep a close eye, don't fear.

I was enchanted by the Lethbridge letter and the translation. It is exactly what a wag would have carved. My impression is that there was a vogue for this sort of runic work in the last century; I can, I think, dig up the references from an article on an inscription found near Martha's Vineyard, and carved by a wagster from New Bedford. (That is, as it finally turned out.)

I knew about George's collection of Gordon Craig which he once offered to give me. But I agree that he should sell it. If he were willing to do so, why doesn't he ship it all over to me and then let me have it evaluated on this side. Or it could be evaluated by Maggs if that seemed better. Once it was here, I could see whether it would go to a higher bidder in Texas or at Yale, or elsewhere. I do think it ought to be kept together and as a memorial for George. Craig really is important. So is George.

Many thanks for the little group of three French books, especially the Michaux, which has illustrations of his paintings in it. Also for the package of asefield novels: *Dead Bed*, and the poems: *Selected Poems* and *On The Hill*.

Hilda will be upset at Durand's death. It turns out he was a Haitian, the son of a Haitian ambassador to France.

We are all in a bit of a flurry at the news from Gardner. Its largest factory, manufacturers of chairs and theatre seating, employing some 1200 men (one third of all those employed in Gardner), and having a payroll of five millions, has

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

gone out of business on three days notice because the workers would not vote
immediately to accept a ten percent cut. The president issued the order from
Chicago where he had gone for the furniture sales. I am not necessarily pro-
labor but it seems to me the president acted in a pretty arbitrary fashion even
if they had been losing money. I have stock in the company, but much worse than
that is the effect on the family store in Gardner. This could be enough to put that
under, though of course minds may be changed or eventually other businesses be somehow
induced to come in. In any event the interim will be hell on my brother and my
brother-in-law, and not present much of a rosy dawn for the future. It's rather
comic how one's expectations hardly work out. But as we all like to say, it can
be a challenge to me.

It is snowing harder, and I really must go. First I'll trudge to the
mailbox and put this and the check for my income tax (due with today's postmark)
in.

Do give my love to George if he's still with you, and as always all of
all for yourself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 January 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am determined to give you for once at least a midweek note, although it is eleven o'clock at the office and I ought to be heading toward home. Especially because while Susan is away I must keep the plants in the windows and greenhouse fresh, and the dishes washed, but not (let me whisper it) the beds made.

Susan was off yesterday morning to New York by her car, for the involvements of strikes are such that the tugboat operators are picketing the railroads. The New York Central closed all trains into New York yesterday, and today the New York, New Haven and Hartford has done the same. I think she is lucky, or she might otherwise not get back on Friday without my driving into town to fetch her. I did myself go down by train but had to face no picket lines. Still, the police were out in some force, and it was all a little as though Mr K were back in town. My chief purpose for the trip was a meeting of the National Book Award Committee, and for my sins I was given the task of naming the committee for 1961's prize for the best book of non-fiction. But of all things! How you can get a committee who can judge between a biography, a science book, travel, and political essays. I shall have to pick some three-yolk eggheads.

I ate on the train, and having three-quarters of an hour, no an hour, before the committee meeting at the 42nd Street Library Trustees Room, I took a cab to a dealer in archaeological things and in primtive art who was recommended to me by a young man named Coe. He was said to have a prime collection of northwest coast ivories and true eskimaux antiquities. What he had was a collection formed in 1850 by the first head of the museum in Copenhagen. I believe the name was Wirtz, but Arald Ingholt can tell me. He did in fact have at least what is left from it, and also a few pieces from a prime collection in Baltimore at the museum there, which you and I must see sometime. These were brought by a midcentury whaling captain in the Pacific who had a taste for art. He had nothing from the East Arctic, but no one ever does. I did have to laugh. Here were these lovely objects, and some identical in style with the whales and human figures you bought me from Spinks. "I have some like those, that came from Spinks," I said. "Oh yes," he replied, "they came originally from us." So now we have it. They run a little less than Spinks, which is natural, but not so shamefully less than Spinks can be accused of anything but a reasonable profit. Well, my mouth watered, and there are some real beauties that would make your mouth water too. I couldn't resist a fertility goddess, armless, in ivory, about three to four inches tall, and bought it as a birthday present for myself. And a second oddity of ivory, two coupled seals with human heads that was designed as a toggle, which I shall give myself for Easter or Shrove Tuesday. These will come out of my own money, but I know you would approve. The ivory lady is, I think, a real work of art. I liked the dealer fully as much as Carlebach, but I am not at all sorry that we have the other two lots, for they are real artifacts of antiquity. This man had nothing in the way of harpoon heads, etc.

Glad you are getting ahead with your reading. Andrews was the just-

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

retired teacher of my colonial history teacher. His great thesis was that each colony could only properly be regarded as a unit in what is known to us as the first British empire. His emphasis on the West Indian colonies was a result, as well as the first thorough-going examination of data in the Records Office. His was a delayed reaction to the <u>pancroft</u> feeling that the Revolution was the climax of evolution, and that the lines of heaven had extended straight down to us. I created havoc in the colonial class by keeping up a constant criticism of the absolute validity of Andrews approach, saying I thought we would gavin little by going on to refine details of it. <u>Labarree</u> was always respectful of me, but furious that I should criticise his maitre. So one day when I went into the seminar room who should be there but <u>Abdrews</u>. I brought him, <u>Labaree</u> said, so you could tell him directly your objections. I gulped. This was quite a challenge, but I went at it manfully as I could. When I finished, Andrews said, "You're right; if I were a young historian I should do exactly what you propose. One cannot go on doing the same thing forever."

You speak of few people studying American history outside of the United States. It's true, they don't. we get many who come here to learn about American literature, but hardly a one interested in history. I have discussed this matter with the Ford Foundation people, who are interested in seeing what can be done.

I'll try to get the student at making out a list. He will be glad to be earning the money.

I weep for you about the manuscript of your memoirs. Better let me take care of it as from this end until the right person comes along. I daresay she will eventually. Anyhow there will be no problem about family leaks.

I love my error on John's trip to Chicago. Chicago didn't seem so good a mousetrap that he would beat his path to it.

Much of interest to write you about, but I really must get back to my kennel. However there is a chance I shall be flying to Munich in late June to give three lectures in German at the University. Along with nine other Yale professors. To be paid for by the Germans. It sounds rather quaint. Also I have just heard from Bull that Mary Butts daughter and literary executor say Yale can have her journals, papers etc. "e says he told me this by letter a year or so ago. Nonsense! He thinks he did. I could certainly not forget this. Well, it would be nice if we could get them to go alongside D.R.'s.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

21 January 1961

Dearest Fido,

It was like Chesterfield yesterday. I was snowed in
again by a blizzard, properly defined as such by the weather man,
but had been warned of it so I had brought back two book manuscripts
to read. I read half of one. The rest of the time, it being
Inauguration Day, I spent watching television, and indeed--quite
apart from the fact that it was cosier to watch from a warm room
than a freezing street corner--one could not have seen so much had
he been a member of the cabinet. There were cameras everywhere,
and always closeups of facial expressions usually smiling ones
even on Eisenhower and Nixon. One could notice Mrs Kennedy's courage
grow duing the course of the day. And watch them rush the furniture
out of the Kennedy house, with their clothing, so that it could be
installed in the White House by the time they returned there two
hours later. t.v. is really made for this sort of thing.

Many thanks to George for his offer to write to Sylvia Baker
about Hodgson. I shall be interested to know how best to proceed. I
suppose the real thing is to get some one in England to take charge of
it over there. Eric White would be eager to do it, but I'm not sure
I'm eager to have him. Actually if one only knew the particular friends
of Hodgson, as well as the obvious "names" like Eliot's, Edith's, and
the like, I could write them myself, and ask them to send such a birthday
greeting to Authors; I am sure they would act for me in this way. The
difficulty with asking some Englishman to serve as solicitor general is
that one is apt to get involved in feuds.

I have been too busy to transfer the last moneys from the savings
account to my own, and I paid the Christmas gifts to Hodgson out of the
check you sent me. But I will try to clarify all that this weekend, and
can tell you if we need more. Actually I can say flatly that more would
only be in terms of future needs rather than present ones.

The name of the head of the Greenland Trade Commission is Mr
H.G.Christiansen, Strandgade, Tel. Sundby 9810. Which is all I have in the
way of notation on him. Presumably Else Hansen could get you a fuller
address.

That was a silly potboiler by Pamela Hansford Johnson. The two
of them really don't miss a trick do they.

You ask about the study of 18th century American History. Yes,
there is a good deal of writing about the revolution and its causes, and
inded this topic was one of the most popular topics for historians. In
a way I think it was run into the ground, and is just beginning to
emerge. Colleges are always looking for a good colonial historian; there
are not many young graduate students to fill the bills. Undergraduates,

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

however, prefer 19th century more; or rather the life of the United
States as a nation. But at Yale, thanks to the popularity of Ed Morgan
who teaches the course there are about sixty who take it. The earlier
teacher, who went over to be editor of the Franklin Papers, was Len Labarree
whose book on conservatism I think I sent you. He used to have fifteen to
twenty in his class, but altho a first-rate historian he was always a little
dull as a teacher. The Civil War is of course the great American jag for
this decade. I am not quite sure what p.a. aspects this has. People refer
to it as "our" war. Personally it bores me. Events leading up to wars
and following wars are immensely interesting. Wars themselves bore me,
unless I'm in them.

I think I did say yes, by all means send over your manuscripts to
this side whatever stage you may prefer.

The bill has come for the two Eskimaux ivories. They were collected
in 1850 by one Jens J. Worsaae, historian and Danish archaeologist, who was
Director in 1866 of the Museum of Scandinavian Antiquities and Ethnography.
Did I tell you that Brother Volant sent down as a gift the most superb
carving from bone of a white arctic owl. It must be about six inches tall,
and is really a gem. I think of it as being sent also to you, but it
may be difficult to send on to you because of customs and the possibility
of breaking. I think he must have regarded it as something special. I
write to him this afternoon, and then will send his letter along to you surface

The French books have been coming, and do by all means send along
the copies of the <u>Mercure</u> as they come. Hecquet's <u>Les Collégiens</u>, Bloch's
...<u>Et Compagnie</u>, Bost's <u>Un Grand Personnage</u>, Thomas' <u>John Perkins</u>, and
...'<u>De L'Abjection</u>, are in. Also Quentin Steven's poems, <u>The Succession</u>.
For all of which many thanks.

We go tonight to see the African Ballet. The French group from the
Congo.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

22 January 1961

Dearest Fido,

Everything glistens outside, and why not. For it was
minus six degrees this morning when I got up.

I shall hold this letter until tomorrow morning, on the
chance that there might be another letter from you in the mail; but
I did discover a little group of letters I had extracted from the yellow
backs (two of which have come--no more, because there were your letters
to Hilda also).

I was enchanted as always with Lotte Reiniger's card. Do
you think there ought to be a print of one or two of her films in the
Eastman House Collection in Rochester. For the sake of the record on
this side? I think they have the more important collection of films,
rather than the Museum of Modern Art. The latter rather gets my back up.

Amused to see the design on White's Christmas card, by the
dishwasher at St. Mary's. It did look a little like a greasy pot! I'm
not sure that White's poem sent me into ecstasy.

And was delighted with the Jermyn Street girl who tried to
pick up Kenneth. Also, that you ate at my old Prunier's. Is it still
good. There have been so many years since I ate there.

What a nice note from Chris in Greenland. It would be fun
to see him again some time.

And Margery Hicks is a woman I become fonder of all the time.
Her spirit is immense.

Oh yes, I forgot too to say that apparently the Gardner factory
is going to open again, for a while at least. So that weight is at least
temporarily off one's shoulders. The workers ate crow of course, the owner
laid down the terms on which he would continue, etc. But I fear it will
happen again when such temperaments are involved.

Monday - nothing from Kenwen, so I send this along
but no more than other day's love -

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

30 January 1961

Dearest Fido,

Am just now in the midst of one of those periods of being pressed-in-on
that become so devastating, and have no relief by any possibility of blaming others.
But when I see the pile of examination papers to be corrected still, and think of
the hundred undone chores, I quiver with weariness.

The chief task at the moment is getting my British nephew settled in
as a special freshman for one term. Had he come in the fall of course he would
have been indoctrinated with everyone else. Now I have to take him to the library,
get his linen and bedding, arrange his schedule, see that he writes his mother etc.
It was my idea to fill in the time between Bryanston and King's Cambridge, this
way. I think it will work out well, and he is taking it in reasonable stride. But
it is hard, I know, to break into groups in the middle of the year after they have
well established themselves. He wants to be a scientist, or is at least trained
that way by having had absolutely nothing for the past two years (he is 18) but
science. He wanted to know how old an American boy had to be before he must choose
his profession, saying that to have to choose at 16 as he did (they just told me--
"they" being the school-- that this was what counted) was too early. So except for
a course in astronomy which I suggested he is taking more nearly cultural courses
here before he gets back to the labs in Cambridge. A course in logic, one in the
history of Music, one in U.S. history since 1865 (he has never been taught anything
about U.S. history in all his schooling), and the second term of the 20th century
American literature course (since he has not been taught any literature since
beginning science. I am actually a little skeptical about this British idea of
nothing but mathematics. It sound a little too Russian for the best long term
results.

Tom arrived Friday night at midnight, after a thirteen hour delay by plane,
because of the snowstorms and expected blizzards--they made them stay at the London
airport until four, before bunking them up for a four hours sleep before departure.
Saturday morning (I had had only 4 hours of sleep too) I spent with him and the
Freshman Dean, and then bought his books, saw the room etc. Alas, my evening was
crowded by necessity: at 4:45 I had to go to a party for the Cummington Art
Center, at least so I could seem not to spurn it; then to a cocktail party given
by my lawyer (now nearly 80) at 5:30, and leave to be at a dinner and entertainment
in honor of Indian Republic Day. I was dead by the time I got back. Sunday I
fixed out papers for the boy, drove to the shore to do an errand, and in the afternoon
had to entertain the Hartford relatives who came down to learn things about Trumbull
ancestors so that Susan's sister could give a paper at her club. I took the boy
to the room on campus last night, and today have only taken him on an errand or two.

The errand at the shore--very pretty the shore was, with the harbor frozen,
and the snow deep on the land--was to get stainless cutlery from the house we rent
out, so that a Japanese Professor who is suddenly bringing his wife over can have
equipment to live off of. We are lending them a set of china and the knives and
spoons, and, secretly, I am buying towels, glassware, and some cooking things and
pretending I had them to lend. It is economically mad for him to bring his non-
English-speaking wife over, but it will at least give them an experience together.
He is very nice but considerably helpless.

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I hardly remember when I wrote last, but I think it was not after the 22nd. And so: Monday night I had engaged myself to take Susan and the next-door neighbors to see the Russian Olympic Gymnast team. The display of physical dexterity was amazing, the men being very masculine on the one half of their display, and the women very feminine. I had never seen a gymnastics exhibition before and found it very interesting. But having seen one once, I think that will suffice. Tuesday night we went to hear Myra Hess play the last three sonatas of Beethoven, and it was an extraordinary event to hear the three together. She has aged considerably but is still very handsome in her way. What a long time I have been hearing her: since 1928 so far as I am concerned, and she always comes to New Haven because of friends of ours with whom she was a fellow student in London in the old days. Another pianist of the same group whom I often saw and met was Harold Samuels; and from a slightly younger generation there was Harriet Cogen and her cousin Ray Lev. Friday night we had the posyponed dinner party and dance, and I did my picking up of the nephew at the station while still in my evening clothes. I took him home, gave him milk and cookies and then went back to the dance.

Various yellowbacks have come in, for which many thanks, as well as several packages of French books. And the skimaux book which I took home but cannot remember the name of. It looked good, however. Also the Quaker letter, which again I left at the house. So I will speak of these later.

I think it would be splendid, as I told you before, if Hilda were to come over in April, and if she came on the 12th it would be the day before my birthday. Perhaps she and Susan and I could have supper in New York, with our little glass of champagne in the room beforehand. My own feeling would be to try the Stanhope again, and she can look around and see if there is some other place which seems better for her. There may be a few places somewhat cheaper, but not with the same advantages for her particular likes and needs.

I am so glad that the doctors were able to diagnose George's arthritis. You must beg him for my sake to become a Sybarite and have electricity and an electric blanket. He must guard against Pride which is devastating as arthritis. Not seriously of course, but perhaps he will relent to keep the dampness out.

So sorry about your germ. Be sure that you keep warm too.

And I will surely find a grateful owner of the Wooden O. I did see Leslie for a moment this afternoon in the rare Book Room when I was showing Tomy the library. He said Mary was doing well but found the brace uncomfortable. We could do little more than exchange a word. I thought he looked thin and a little tired. It would not be surprising if he were just that.

Alas, I don't know the Munich dates yet, or even if it comes off. There are so many last minute hitches in these things. It will be presumably after 18th of June. But your Hitzacker trip this time with Consie and Gladys sounds rather more like family. In the Chicago style of your brother. (What a clipping; it's a curious strain now showing in him--or his wife--a kind of Lady Docker behind curtains which are as obvious as leopard skins.

If George does want to send out his Craig Collection, I should suggest sending it as through Maggs or his Tunbridge Wells dealer, in smaller packages to me. For

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

if his sister brings it with her by boat there might well be several annoyances. Firstly, it would be another bulky set of packages for her to take. Secondly, she would have to go into the whole matter with the customs people, and there would need to be the unpacking at the customs, the reference to specialists if any books were newer than thirty years, the fact that these were not her property but being brought on behalf of her brother etc. I think this is rather more than she should be asked to take on.

Have had further letters from Bull about the Butts papers, and now must write her literary executor myself to see what can be done. I hope it is not too late. Bull it seems was a young man of 23 who met her in Paris and, I gather, was her cavalier servante from then on. I had thought he was a Greenlandic friend of Tony's, but apparently not.

The Gardner affair seems to have turned out all right for the moment at least, but both Susan and I were deeply touched by the gift you sent her to act as a kind of cushion, in case things went as badly as it seemed they might. But under the circumstances there won't be any need for it. Would you rather it was sent back to you, or deposited in the general account. The it could be drawn on suddenly if the need arose. Or put towards Horace or the others.

Both pieces from the new source of eskimaux material have now arrived, and I am immensely happy with them. There are other good pieces, I can think of three or four especially which one can buy eventually. I did have offered me several pieces (late, I think, but primitive and interesting) of Eskimaux scrimshaw work. I need some advice on these, and anyhow will wait. For 'arlebach wrote saying he was sending (taking the liberty of so doing) four or five new pieces of carving that had come in. The important thing is to be a little choosy at this stage. Especially with ethnological pieces; the truly archaeological are so rarely come on that they constitute another problem.

Your letter of the 26th was in today's mail, after you had heard from Vebaek. I think really the only practical thing to do is to take the round trip as before on a small steamer, and work fast (as we did) when ashore. One has to learn one's limits, and of course I can never be more than a summer arctic man. One does feel however that a touch of the east coast will be important before one finishes. It comes closer to the ur-iceberg, and as your instincts always told us, Greenland is really the story. Then of course once we do the Hudson Bay fall trip in the boat, and perhaps once somewhere in Alaska. Alas, as Stef told us, the Mackenzie is out. Again as to East Greenland, I could of course go alone but it would not be half the fun it would be with a double dog team.

Yes, Tom Jones is quite a book, with a wonderful clarity of style and diction. But I have to say flatly that the 18th century is not my cup of tea, although I think we perhaps often re-brew it wrongly.

This Sunday's *New York Times* was filled with irritated letters at Pamela Hansford Johnson. You will see them in time. A chief annoyance was with her use pf "less" instead of "fewer" in "We use less propositions than you do." How do you stand on this American usage.

You may recall Ralf Hodgson's repeated query about the source of "what can the matter be." I decided to settle it as best I could, and so got one of the

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

reference librarians to work on it, with the enclosed results.

A Vast number of interesting letters in the yellowbacks recently. I am not one to take sides either for the ruined maiden or the lustful male, but I do sympathize with poor Edith in being forced into the situation. Actually I think it is as much revenge on the girl's part, for she does get a satisfaction in knowing that someone outside the family knows of it. But it is grossly unfair to bring Edith to the girl's heel. The whole thing has an 18th century touch of melodrama.

Melitta's letter was most, most interesting. This man of hers seems to have opened her up, and she is of course quite right in saying that what she seeks most is an evident, public success. It stems back to the mamma, I feel sure, and to what was perhaps a father-seeking image in Walter. I suspect the whole story is put down in this last bedridden note.

Thank you for sending me the news of Signora Agresti's death. Hilda will be sorry, as I was. I paid her a visit one night when you and I were in Rome, as you know. The apartment was filled with drawings and chromo reminiscences of William Michael I and his circle.

O.B.'s Edwardian cookbook arrived, and Susan has been spending delighted time with it. She says it is very good, and that she may even be lavish and try one of the recipes sometime. What arctic books did he send along?

Herring's letter saddened me as always, for I think of the talent which has been dissipated. He lives now in the halo of authorship; he does not believe in it any longer, but he makes his service of words dutifully.

Joanna's letter was nice I thought, and Horace's helpful. I did not get down during the examination period because of the blizzards, but will try to do so soon. I need to visit my mother too.

Do let me know when Hilda's letter about Mary Herr comes out in the Bryn Mawr magazine. I shall want a copy of the issue for the collection. I am so glad Hilda did this.

Is there anything you want me to do for Viola's Barbara. She seems such a lost person.

Have finally read Urzidel's article on Amerika u die Antike which I thought quite remarkable in its data and sympathy for the subject. I have written to tell him so. Naturally I am pleased that his fears in regard to health did not so turn out.

Cole has as much energy as ever. If only someone could bottle that, and ship me a case. What power I would have!

Did you want me to send Ruan to the National Jewish Hospital at Denver? I must say I personally react a little cool-ly to people who only thank for a previous gift when they request another!

Was glad to know that Rosemary was home again. I am sure she will enjoy her t.v.

George vis-a-vis her daughter-in-law sounds a little like Edith. I do

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

hope they can manage to be civil to each other. It certainly helps.

I have always meant to ask you whether or not you did inquire in London about the cost of a t.v. for my old Alice, house dame. She is well along in her 80's now, and almost completely confined to her house. I keep wondering whether I ought not to get her a second-hand one, or something of the sort. But have no idea how much the cost would be etc.

The boy, or rather instructor in history, is at work on your list and should have it ready by the end of the week. I told him to make a beginning one. I will send this direct to London, or to Doris, probably London, so that you can have a go at it when you are at the London Library.

Am very busy these days with committees etc while we look for my successor as for two years from now. He ought of course to have a year or two on deck before I retire from the bridge. I am of course assuming that the college will give me a year's leave of absence with pay, and another without pay. Much bickering etc about whom to bring in, and of course they will have to pay a salary of nearly twice what they pay me. But this always happens when one is a stay-at-home.

Three new Ballantynes in from R.A.Brimmell. He seems to turn up the most in this field, it is a specialty of his I gather. he is 220 Uxbridge Road, Hampton Hill, Middlesex, if ever you get that way and want to take a look. The new three are *Tales of Adventure*, *Wrecked but not Ruined*, and *The Light House*. The Ballantyne group begins to take on proportions, but I still have no idea how many books Mr B published. One never sees letters of him either.

Lizzie seems to be doing well with her job, and still keeps her small apartment outside. The hospital lets her stay there one or two nights a week; otherwise she returns to the Institute. I believe next week she is to begin with an outside analyst: this time a woman, at the Institute's suggestion. A Viennese, Else Redlich, who is said to be good. Meanwhile her present psychiatrist will stay on in New Haven until July 1st, and is to act as a liaison or case officer with Dr Redlich. I rather like this, in fact almost insisted on the continuity, in case Liz started to put anything over. I naturally expect a crise or two, possibly even a return to the hospital briefly, but on the whole we feel encourages. I think she may leave the hospital in a month or two.

I am terribly sorry about these last few weeks when I seem not to have been able to write often than once a week. But you forgive me I know, and feel my wet nose rubbing yours on all possible in-between moments. Perhaps things will clear up, though when I will do my over-due article for the New Statesman I can't guess. I shall have to come back to the office tonight anyhow.

All possible love to Hilda, to George, and to yourself.

NORMAN

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 February 1961

Dearest Fido,

For the first time in years you will not have had a Valentine from
me on the 14th. I can only count on some sort of crystal ball operating on my
behalf then. These have been wretched weeks of distractions of one sort or
another. The chief diversion of last weekend was a snowstorm beginning Friday
evening which continued steadily until Sunday, leaving some new eighteen inches
of whiteness to make four feet on the level everywhere and the drifts of course
much higher. The drifts in front of our front door were over five feet high, and
the same by the garage. We were quite literally snowed in, igloo-fashion, until
Sunday noon when the men came to dig us out. The world sparkled in the sun,
but no one could get anywhere because of the confusion in the streets, and every-
one's temper was intolerable during these past days. Yesterday the temperature
rose above freezing and some snow has melted in the streets. We still have more
than enough.

But engagements have blizzarded too. Monday night I had to go to
the American Studies Club to hear a talk on New England gravestones and their
relationship to intellectual currents during the colonial period. It was really
rather fascinating. Wednesday night we entertained Hilda's friend Denise Levertov,
who had given a reading of her poems at the university that afternoon (as chairman
this year of the lecture committee I get horribly involved; thank God this will be
over in June). We took her to dinner at the Lawn Club and then had my graduate
seminar in for the evening, thus entertaining her and them simultaneously. It was
a great success; she is a good poet and easily social, so the students could feel
some real contact with her. Only, they stayed late, and then we had to sit up a
little longer, and I was sorely fatigued. Friday night we went to a lecture on the
archaeology of Costa Rica, which was fun and given by the son and grandson of the
man who gave the money for American Studies here, but again it was late. Yesterday
we were to have gone with the Proutys to a new Hungarian restaurant, but fortunately
it did not open so we did not have to go out at all. Now I am trying to clear things
away so I can leave for Northampton, Mass, where I am to speak to the students to-
morrow morning. I believe people are asked in tonight for supper so that I can meet
them.

Horace called yesterday on the phone, chiefly to chat I think. He said
he was having one of his better days, and had been able to take a few steps with the
help of a cane. But basically he is deeply distressed. And I don't know what the
answer will be. He is finishing his translations of Ovid's love poems; his Whistler
is being brought out in England so he can correct some of the printer's mistakes in the
first and perhaps add an index; his book of poems and his book of essays will be out
this spring. He did send in his application to the Guggenheims, but of course it is
too early for that. I gather he now doubts that Sarah Lawrence can do any more for him
because of their poor financial condition. Pat may have an offer from a regular
publishing firm. Horace thinks this may help the Dorothy Richardson, which is too bad
from my point of view. I hate to think he will have so little confidence in the book
on its own that he will tie himself to at's apron strings. But we can see.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

I have written Hilda this morning, and tried to make amends about Durant. But I am frankly a little puzzled. I did comment on her Küsnacht notes when she sent them over many many weeks ago, but she never did send me any copies of the long poems she was doing on Durant et al, of which she has spoken so many times in her letters. I would not have called the Küsnacht notes a work on Durant. And after all it was I who told her about his death, and wrote about him at that time in terms of the mystery. I do so much admire whatever Hilda writes that I would not like her to think I in any way ignored it.

I look forward to the sections of the memoirs when they come, but thus far nothing has arrived. Mails seem to be slow now. Only last week I received Christmas cards from england, mailed in good time there. The postoffices at this end must have fallen down completely.

I told you, I think, that my nephew said he had never been taught any American history at all in his British school. But do they teach modern European history either, I wonder? So far as he was concerned there has been nothing but science for the past two years. I gather he is rather enjoying the change to history and things of that sort, and only hope it doesn't debauch him for King's next fall.

I enclose a brief list of books for you to see whether or not the London Library can make them available. I have kept a duplicate list.

No reason for you to comment on books unless you really want to help them. Publishers are always sending tidbits out. Often they don't use what one sends back to them. I rarely do.

Your eighty ton boat sounds like great fun, and a kind of cruise you would not normally get. I don't think you would find it hard to get a group of women passengers. For who wouldn't like it?

I'm sorry about the east coast of Greenland, and most grateful to you for going to so much trouble for me. Perhaps if one had offered to go to Jacobshaven one might have considered. But I think not the old Disco run again unless one were to stay over between boats. And this summer there won't be time for that, I shouldn't think. I'm not sure when the Munich affair is scheduled for. I might go by way of Copenhagen and work a day or two at the museum, or hop to Zurich afterwards for a day or two to see Hilda. London is out I think, because of tourists in June.

I won't try to go into the Hodgson letters this time, but I was much intrigued by this peephole into the past provided by the letters to George. I suspect the living ex wife may have been the chief reason he never went back to England. (One whispers a wonder if he was ever actually divorced, at least in British courts.)

3

I enclose a clipping of Elsa's last hours. It is as impressive as the death of Queen Victoria. Personally I think the Adamsons poisoned her--or perhaps Collins did--in order to add poignancy and sales to the third book.

Several bundles of books have come in, but they perhaps do not need listing. And yellowbacks. I liked the Masefield card, and indeed it should be saved. And I was much intrigued by Rita's description of Copenhagen. I have not heard from the Hansens lately, and presume they are safely nestled in again. Much better that they should solve his problems in Denmark than abroad.

Was delighted with the card from Elsie, George and yourself. I am sure the visit did him immense good.

Susan joins in all love to Doris and yourself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 February 1961

Dearest Fido,

The past weeks have been ghastlier than ever. I hang on. It is really a good thing that the spring holidays come in three weeks or so. I fall behind in everything, and now it looks as though a tomorrow's letter would have to be to the *New Statesman* renigging on my article for them. At the moment I am still harrassed by papers to be corrected and only of the applications for fellowships which have to be gone over, adjudicated, and then doled out to. But all this is a bore to you! The important thing to me is that I have not been able to write, and the sweet thing for me is as always that you have not faltered. I really am glad you made the trip for Doris' sake. I gather your attention had to be chiefly to her, but I am sure it was worth it. This is the moment when she does need you desperately. Yet one senses a happy ending, and I hope it will be for her.

There is such a mass of letters etc from you that perhaps I ought to start with that, on the basis that at least Mrs Dingle can get at filing that, and my desk and ambiente will not be so cluttered. So:

Thanks for the new Christmas drawing by Max Barsis. And the offprint by heymann. And especially for the first package of "The Heart to Artemis." I keep to my promise to be good and not read it until all is here; but I shall have to keep it out of sight and temptation. Still, as with Kurt, I can the sense get better when I do have the whole.

And did I ever, or never thank you for the Moravian manuscript you sent earlier this month? That is, the Fothergill letter, which I found most interesting. I am delighted to have it to add to the Americana.

I am sure I can not keep up with the books that have been coming in, and from Maggs comes (no from a packager) an announcement of still more to come. Of the French books I was obedient to your orders, and having taken out one or two for me to read I called in a friend in the French department and he took the rest for himself and for other younger members of the department who would not otherwise have seen the books. They were most grateful to you, for as I told you it is not easy to get things of this sort in New Haven at least. I suppose New York is different. Of the others, there are The Cautious Heart and Among the Dahlias, by Sansom; Prescott's book, The Kaets's Shakespeare which I shall keep at the office against the time when I teach Shakespeare again; the copy of Manchester, which I remember because it was the first thing of yours I ever read, and in this copy--you had it in New York when we first met--; Edith's Celebration; another copy of The LightHearted Student; Vernyn atkins's Death Bell; and Rosemary Sutcliff's Knight's Fee (the jacket of which I rather liked).

And now to your letters, for such comment as I can make at this late hour (actually and figuratively, both). I think I said that I did not quite think the west coast of Greenland was indicated this summer, unless you very much wanted to. I think the next step would be to stop over between boats at Julianhaab and get back and back again to the ruins. But there is too much to be done as of here for that just at the moment. As to Hilda and the matter of Durant, I did write and try to explain. I hope she understood; I think she did. But you must keep me

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

informed, for it is so easy for me to neglect what I intended.-----George's visit must have been angelic for him. I do hope he can come to the States for the worst of the winter. I think his troublesome sister has (to judge from her letter) now accepted her age.-----How both Susan and I have envied the daffodils greeting you in Scilly. Some day I hope we can see them. -----I wonder if you haven't stumbled on to something in Nicholas Cresswell's diary. That is, one might translate the whole episode into the New England region and have the line for your story. I still like your idea of setting it later, as from his reminiscences in England and bringing into his mind the kind of speculation you made about the sons of Cromwell.-------the Qust sounds wonderful again, only of course I am sorry that it will come just at the time of my lectures in M'rich (June 18th to the 24th), so that I will miss you both ends.------I was furious of course to think of my letter having gone surface to Kenwin and thence on to you in the Scillies. It is maddening. And I sent one to the Scillies which you didn't mention, so I assume it never reached you.-----Don't worry really over the Lotte Reiniger film, it was just one of those ideas, and wholly peripheral.-- Yes, I see the letter c/c Doris did reach you.------I am much struck by Horace's letter to you, and will comment on it in my next. But Pat I think simply does not want to have analysis, and as you know it is no good if the pup isn't keen for it. One knows this sort of thing invariably works that way. I think help in that direction is not longer indicated. I have just had a request from the Guggenheim' for a recommendation for the renewal of his fellowship. Let us see how successful that is. I spoke to him on the phone recently, and Pat is to go with a publishing house and so seems to be all right for the moment-----Which reminds me that Helen wrote about her alliance with M'arcourt Brace. I know you feel they were harsh on Sylvia; I'm not sure that Sylvia is the most impartial judge. I know her editor whom I like very much. Janovich is said to be hard, but he does work with his mind; the trouble with the new combined houses is that they work with an IBM machine. I'll take the tough mind as opponent.-----You are wonderfully kind to have dug up all this about my Mrs Ash and t.v. The terms you speak of sound most reasonable. She is Miss Alice Hitchcock, 40 Okehampton Road, Kensal Rise, London, N.W.10. If they will bill me directly, this first time I will remit to them. If not will you pay and send me the bill and I can pay you or put in the account here. After the initial payment I can send the money in ahead of the day due. Alice is so old that I do think I ought to do this for these days when she can't get out. The figure sounds reasonable to me.------Will do what I can to find about the Cornish Studies in Seattle. I can at least find out about the Fowler at work on Piers Plowman.--- I was enchanted by your report of conversations about Dame Edith and by Dame Edith (you see how well I know my manners!)---The little maggerie sounds fun.--I have picked up one or two more items from the Brimmel who specializes in this sort of thing. And was delighted with your clipping of Ballantyne, from the Illustrated News. I put it in the catalogue of books where it can be safe and comfortably close to his own catalogue.-----Also delighted with the card from Elsie, George and myself. Please thank Elsie for me.------I thought Reeve Lindberg wrote rather a nice letter. I should think he might have rather a time of it.-----Excellent news that Nicholas is to be in Valentine's school, but imagine they may have to watch it or Nicholas may become difficult. This sibling rivalry is so awfully dangerous.

I didn't send you a Valentine to the islands because it would never have gotten there. But I can send you a jewel now in this advertisement for a speed-up reading kit. Please read paras one and three of Father Donovan's letter. I hope it will amaze and amuse you. Perhaps it should go on to the boys in Rome, for Mons. Hemmrich and the Pope. Who knows what time it might save Papa himself!

There is nothing so dear I would not part with it for you! All all my love. I will write again tomorrow or the next day.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 March 1961

Dearest Fido,

Trying desperately to catch up, somehow, perhaps the easiest way of clearing my desk, so that I can be free to write you about the important things, uncluttered by detail, will be to do a series of letters to you at once. This being so to speak a clearance, then.

And so my thanks for the Campbell _Masks_ which is an excellent book for me to have, which I know of course and am delighted to shelve against the day you may need it again.--The second batch of the new text of the Memoirs has arrived, and will be put away against the completion. If you get through the revision before you leave for the Quest, I think I will have my own secretary (Mrs Dingle) do it this summer. She will need work in July and August when things are otherwise slack. And this will save money and mean I can superbise the text at least so such an extent that I know she is doing what you want her to do. Other books in were the superb group of presentation copies from Herman Hesse _tp_ you which have been taken home and put in the case. The pamphlets I have put in with his letters to you so that they can be kept more safely. The presentation copy of Pound's Fenollosa is of course welcome (to me), and Eric White's _Parnassus to Let_ which will be kept safely. The two red volumes of Euripides are sweet. There is something about an Aldine edition which perpetually deligts me. I have had it properly catalogued, as of 1503, and it is now safely at Goodrich Street with the other books.

The yellowbacks have come in and been read and mostly have been filed. There are only a few queries or comments. Did you explain the letter to the prince, in 1831? If not, will you, or will you again anyhow? Also Ninon's copy of a pair of notices of _Ruan_. I did not recognize them. Were they by her?-----Catha's letters seem much happier. She seems to be able to fill her own world with discoveries of what she likes. So much seems naive, and yet pleasantly fresh. But R.A. must be bewildered by her.----The various news from Cole and Gerald are of course depressing. Gerald does indeed sound wrteched. I suppose you and I must look forward to the rest of our lives being surrounded and packed with dying friends.-----I probably repeat in saying how delighted I was at knowing Hilda had sent in the tribute to Mary. Be sure to let me know when it is printed so that I can write them for a copy for the files.-----Heydt's difficulties seem to pursue him. The tone of his letters seems so different now that I feel I am reading from a stranger. I am not quite sure what it signifies. (I don't mean letters to me, of course, but to you. In the old days I could sense him through them).-----Let me know if the Goughs decide to come over, and I will see what I can do in the way of a lecture here. If he comes after 1961-62 however of course I can get Ingholt to help. Next year Ingholt will be in Denmark.

So sorry to hear of Edith's difficulties. It is impossible to think of her except in terms of the Sesame. I suppose she simply will not have,

2
NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

could not keep on good terms with a companion. I suspect things will
become increasingly difficult.

You asked about the Professor D.C.Fowler who is working on the
Cornish words in Piers Plowman. It seems that the School of Cornish Studies
is really his own invention of himself, and he apparently has no standing.
Talbot Donaldson, at Yale, who is the chief editor of the B text--or is it
the C text is my informant. Donaldson says he might be right in the end,
but not by means of his scholarship which is medicoe. However, we both
know how academic academics can be in their judgments.

Everything about Doris's condition has delighted me. And she of
course has been an absolute trump as one knew she would be. I hope she can
keep her spirits up until the next operation. If only we could get eorge
to the States I know we could do much for him. And make him much happier
because of that.

Alas, I have not gotten to re-read Gladys's manuscript yet. What
did she say about it, or haven't you seen her this last time you were in
England?

Am sorry to learn from Sachie's letter that he is having difficulties
in finding an American public. I fear he has no real following here for the
sort of travel book he does. They are rather too journalistic and literary,
I feel; as a result they offer nothing very fresh or new. No, perhaps this
isn't the real reason. Maybe it lies in the fact that one writes travel books
with a particular audience in mind, and his British audience is not the American
one. Sachie always depends a little on a delicate snob appeal, of having met
just the right persons socially, having stayed at the right inn, or seen the
right porcelains in the slightly obscure museums, or seen the slightly obscure
objects in the cliched repository. Sachie does write with immense grace and
sensibility and I like to read all his books. But there aren't enough of me.

It is nice that Sylvia Dobson likes California. She does seem genuinely to like it.

I see Annie Reich's letter and am reminded that Pat did not ever see
her. I suspect he did not want to offend you or hurt your feelings, but did
not actually want to see her or anyone else. I doubt one can do much under
the circumstances, and in any event it is now more important to help Horace.
If I can get to it this afternoon I must write his recommendation for a
Guggenheim, they having now sent the recommendation form to me. I hope he does
get it. It will mean 3-4000 for this year, which he will have earned himself.
Horace's statement of accounts is pretty grim, although he has done well to
accumulate 30,000 in savings. But I think he ought to put this into something
like a mutual fund instead of at savings. Not only because he could get a full one
percent or more in return each year, and have some hedge in terms of inflation
of capital. We must have it deposited in a savings bank or in government bonds.
I still have not been able to get down to see him, but am anxious to know which
way the Guggenheim turns. The lines of communication however are well established.
Joanna's letters seem mature.

3

5 March 1961

Dearest Fido,

Of course I knew that the roof would fall in some day, but I suppose have never really permitted myself to think that the Sanitarium Brunner would close. I was especially grateful for your letter of explanation after talking to Brunner. No one can say the Swiss are not canny about such matters. I do not quite seem up to thinking out the solution for this, and dare say that time will help a little on both sides. Meanwhile I am sure, as you are, that one ought to take advantage of even the last few months of the place. There is no hope I suppose of persuading Hilda to take on a Miss Raber as companion, with a little first floor flat in Kusnacht. It is really the matter of the companion which raises the biggest problem for her. Or rather, I still wonder if it would be better to present the person as secretary. This somehow seems more dignified. But food and management and all the rest--my heart trembles to think of it. I have never been idle in thinking about possible "chez Brunner" in the States. But here they are for the really decrepit like my mother, or really mentally ill. You speak of a place where she could have a room and care and a garden to sit in and friends nearby. But the only place where they are friends in the plural is New York, and there is no garden there to which people would come. Even Long Island is beyond commuting distance for tea, as you know. If Hilda would do spring and fall in New York at a hotel like the Stanhope, and winter in California or Florida where she could be outdoors, this would be possible in terms of climate. But she won't, and you aren't really keen, you used to say, to have her go to either of those places, certainly not California (at least when she wanted to go there). There is no place like this in New Haven, even if there were enough friends besides Susan and myself to entertain her at tea. If only she would have a companion one could perhaps spend the money for her to have a flat over the East River with a balcony, as at Beekman Place. But this would be expensive, more so than the Stanhope. What she needs of course is just the group downstairs to go to or avoid, as the whim strikes her; the sense of community activity to enjoy or be appalled at, as in Kusnacht; the television to be shared with other people, even if one runs away afterwards. I have discussed the matter with the Institute here on many occasions, but they know of no place except the intolerably expensive ones for actual treatment. I will however see about a hotel in Washington, Connecticut, where my brother-in-law's aunt lives--the one who was Jung's amanuensis, and is not rather dotty. I believe several old dames live there, but the trouble is that Hilda isn't really an old dame and doesn't consider herself such. This rambles; how can I do else, when we have been over this so many times without arriving at a solution. I wonder if Hilda will not come to one on her own, or perhaps when I see her this June (wherever and however) she and I can talk it out together. For I think she is going to have to make some concessions, just as she had to when her hip broke. Oddly enough, I think she ultimately will and can.

Now as to my visit to Munich, I couldn't tell you the dates before because I didn't know them. And even now there has been no public announcement of the trip. It was only ten days ago that the German government

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

agreed to foot the bill. They will fly us over tourist class, although we can go and return by whatever line we will and whenever we want to. I don't really know that I'll feel I can jump to first class for something of this sort, but haven't bought my ticket yet not knowing what I could do. Hamburg and Hitzacker would be fun, but I fear would interfere with the Quest, and I think that comes first. I had also wondered if I shouldn't fly to Berlin and spend three or four days there to get the feel of it. Divided Berlin is a fact as well as a symbol, and I sometimes feel that as a fact it will not endure much longer. You would know best about this. Do you think I should see Berlin? During the Munich period we are being taken care of by the university, which probably means not the Vierjahrzeiten but some professorial home. After Munich I had thought to jump to Switzerland to see Hilda. I suppose I could take her to enice if that meant a good deal to her, or meet her in Venice if arrangements for the stay there could be arranged by the boys. In any event I ought to be back in the States in time for the Fourth of July, since I doubt that Susan can go and I have made arrangements to employ two graduate students from then on to work on the revision of the Oxford Anthology with me, and they are depending on the salary. I am still not quite clear just what your dates for the Quest are. Were you to be in London before the 14th say I could see you there for a couple of days and cut out Berlin. But I don't think, weather being what it can be, that I ought to chance getting off on the Quest even briefly.

As to the lectures it is not certain yet whether I am to lecture in German or English. I agreed locally to do the former; then it occurred to me that this might seem insulting, so it has been left up to the Germans. I have not settled finally on the titles, but the three would have to do with the nineteenth century writers and the European frontier (the use of Europe on the test of Europe), the search of the twentieth-century American poet for a language; and the theme of community in the work of American novelists. This would allow me to be general as well as particular, and bring into engagement a wider audience.

Tomorrow I drive to Cambridge, Mass, with Susan, by way of Princeton so that I can see my mother whom I have not visited since Princeton. Then Tuesday I leacture in cambridge on Viking Greenland, and Susan is to run the camera. We drive back Tuesday night for what will be a rugged three days of visit by a alifornian professor whom we are trying to enveigle into coming to ale eventually to take my place when I go on my two years' leave of absence. I have told them I will not do administration after my return either.

By the way I understand that the two best dealers for eskimaux artifacts and archaeological specimens are Frederick H. North, at Marylebone, High Street, and someone named John Hewitt. Following your advice I did buy a few more pieces of ivory, chiefly ethnoographical, which I think you will like. One or two are superb. Do see what North and Hewitt have when you go next, just so one can get the idea of what is available. No reason to buy anything, just look. You can always dodge the issue of buying by asking them to send me photographs. They will.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

12 March 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am desolated to have caused you distress by my silence. And this week has been no better than those recent ones. Even now I wonder how I will get through the next week before we go off. I work desperately at the office today to try to get things into shape.

The book sent by Maggs on *Whaling and Old Salem* has come, for which my thanks. It looks interesting.

Also the laureate lines to the Queen, by Masefield. By the way do you think Masefield would send a greeting to Hodgson for his 90th birthday. I do not mean a poem of course, simply a note of salutation. And if so would you write and ask him to do this, or would you prefer to have me do this. I had thought also of the same question as to whether you would be willing to write Edith and Osbert. Edith I remember likes Hodgson's things, or at least remembers them with nostalgia. I don't want you to do this if you don't want to. But I do hope we can have a few letters from just that sort of person. I had a nice note from Aurelia a day or two ago, but will wait to have it copied by Mrs Dingle before sending on to you.

Ingholt has just shown me a new little pamhlet book on Gandhara, with many illustrations by Islay and many references to the great book. You have probably seen it; Islay certainly has. But for the sake of the record it is by Dieter Ahrens, and is called *Die Römischen Grundlagen der Gandharakunst*, published by Aschendorff, in Münster. The book will please you I think as an indication of just what the Pakistan book accomplished.

Your plans for the Quest really are complicated by the Munich dates. I am truly sorry but could not let you know before I did. I might be able to manage four or five days before the 16th --I am not sure yet just when my own lectures come nor have we had any notice of the common dinners and such engagements. If that were long enough for Hitzacker we could meet in Hamburg. Or I could come direct to Zurich and see you and Hilda beforehand, and then do something like Berlin or Copenhagen afterwards. The only thing is I must be back in the States by the Fourth when I have engaged two graduate students to work for me on bibliographies etc during the rest of the summer. The Oxford Press has continued to nag me about revising the anthology. I thought if I could have the two helpers and be pressed to work to keep up with them as they looked up articles to list for the teachers, pasted the copy, and searched out dates of composition, then I might be able to have it done by Christmas. I do this only if Oxford will give me two thousand dollars advance royalties to pay them with, and meet other expenses. But I see you and Hilda if possible. But I think the Quest comes first for you, and I will understand if it does not prove feasible. I count mostly on your visit to the States in the fall, and if Hilda is not here we can plan another New England ausflug. She might not mind anyhow.

Many thanks for the offer re the French department, but I don't think it's indicated to make a thing of it. The man took his first batch of books, but has never come back for the ones he couldn't carry. This is nearly three weeks ago, and is perhaps indicative.

Going on to your letter of the 1st, we can see about Hilda and the 'Venice trip. It would be nice but perhaps complicated. I do however want to make her happy if we can. Incidentally the more I think about the small flat in Verena the more of a possibility it comes to be as a pied-a-terre. If Brunner would look in occasionally, and one of the maids could take over.

All love, always
NORMAN

2

I am much amused about the possible filming of *Tender is the Night* at Brunner's. Because when I taught the book all I could think of was Brunner's. The sanatorium part is only a part of the book, but an important part. The rest takes place in the South of France. Do you know the book? I can send it in paperback if you or Hilda are interested.

You ask about Drew Pearson. It is hard to say. My brother-in-law who is managing editor of the *Hartford Courant* thinks him a positive shame to the reputation of newspapering. he is an excellent example of the American newspaper within a newspaper, the syndicated columnist who expressed views and publishes opinion which the paper itself will not be responsible for. Pearson and men like him (the Alsops etc) are much used in grudge fights. Enemies of some individual spill the dirt to the columnist who then prints it; or, more favorably, the columnist is used for a trial balloon. A columnist begins to feel himself a man of great power, and demand inside information in return for previous favors. The longer he goes on the more glomaniac he becomes. Pearson has gone on a long time. I was not an Eisenhower admirer as you know, but I became tired of every-day-always innuendos about Eisenhower's corruption, knowing it was because Eisenhower wouldn't help him. Pearson played hard for Kennedy's favor, a difficult trick because Pearson had been so anti Kennedy's father. He seems to have gotten nowhere and now is attacking the administration. Yet I read him because he has information one doesn't see elsewhere, and so will send them on from time to time. Whatever he includes has been fed him by someone. Pearson is also a great pal, or used to be, of J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover used to feed him lots when Hoover was trying to take over the external espionage and counter-espionage systems. Fortunately, Hoover didn't win out. It is never a good idea to combine an M.I.-5 and an M.I.-6.

The royalty statements came in from Pantheon as until October 31st, but of course did not include *Ruan* which was published in November. The total was $666.15 including 8.64 for tribute to Freud, which I deducted and deposited in the Hilda account. The rest went into yours, and with it the money you sent Susan and me as for my mother. *Beowulf* sold 62 copies and returned 55.27; *Gandhara* sold 22 copies and returned 134.72. *October* sold 161 copies, and including 19.93 as one half of British royalties, returned 146.93. *Player's Boysold* 54 copies, and including 11.41 as one half of British royalties, paid 59.89. *Roman Wall* sold 207 copies, and including 5.85 as one half of British royalties, paid 211.74. *Gate to the Sea* sold 162 copies, and including 48.83 from one half of British royalties, returned 112.40. The comparative figures are interesting, but I am always a little surprised at the very small amounts which British publications have brought us. I must discuss this with Helen sometime when she is over.

Actually this is income tax season, and I must spend most of the afternoon beginning to get things in shape so I can turn over to the tax man before we leave for Charleston on Sunday. As I told you we are flying south to Charleston where we will be from the 19th until Easter Monday, April 3rd. It will take about a day longer than to New Haven out of New York if you and Hilda want to write there. Or Mrs Dingle can forward mail if you prefer that way. We will be staying at the Fort Sumter Hotel. No other address necessary than the name of the hotel, and Charleston, South Carolina. When I did not take Susan on any vacation at all last summer I promised her we would go away this spring holiday. I am really pretty tired, and daresay it will be a good thing for us. I can take along some work and do it when we are not sightseeing. But it is all good American a for me, so my Puritan conscience is satisfied.

Will try to write tomorrow if I can. An extra class in the morning, and alas we must go out for dinner at night.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

9 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

I have been agonizing over your situation for weeks now, and only wish I could have been close by so that at least I might have rubbed noses while we bayed at the moon together. Obviously Brunner became completely demoralized, his only outlet from feeling guilt-ridden that of seeming to act like the stern business man. When I said that it would be interesting for Hilda to be in on the death gasps of the sanitarium I never guessed they would be like this. Of course it is completely unnecessary, for anyone could have managed to close the place and still have some sort of consideration for finding spots for the patients to go to.

The Sonnenberg sounds at least possible for the summer. It may of course work out better than one thinks. I hope that you or Heydt will be able to find a little tea room near by, or that Hilda can be persuaded to take a car and driver occasionally. I only wish mid-June were nearer so that we could discuss the matter orally.

By then at any rate I will have seen Perdita and talked with her. She wrote asking if she could come up to New Haven for dinner some night so that we could talk, her New York schedule being so higgeldy-piggeldy. "I would like to talk to you, and it might be helpful to you to talk it all over with me, involved as I am, yet also detached." An odd way to phrase it, but I suppose she must have something in mind like what you quote as from Philip. I rather hope so, for then we can get matters straight. So far as New York is concerned, it is the only place for a pied-a-terre for Hilda, which provides friends and diversion. If Perdita doesn't like it, she can--as they say--lump it. She does not of course have to drop in as often as when Hilda was here for a visit. Once a week or once a fortnight can be enough. And as for the real supervision of Hilda's well-being, that will probably fall on my shoulders anyhow rather than on Perdita's. I doubt very much that a daughter could be firm or be thoughtful or be loving in the quite the same way that you and I can be to her. I am really rather angry at Pup for having spoken in this way to Philip, although of course we know from the past that she is anxious to be on her own and free from any responsibilities outside the house. I think there is a little p.a. element involved in all this too, but that doesn't help. What is important is that I love you and I love Hilda, and will do anything for either of you. This being so, you are never really alone.

Many thanks for trying with Edith and Osbert for a letter for Hodgson. It is not surprising that they should forget now. Perhaps if sometime when you actually were with the Dame in person you might ask her for a scrap to be given you instanter. But it doesn't really matter, and I am sure I can get enough to be meaningful. Most of all he will like your own greeting, and Hilda might be willing to give one.

I was furious in another direction on Friday, when Horace phoned to say he had been told he was not to be given a Guggenheim. He was in good spirits about it, but I am not. No one has a better right to one, nor has a

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

better project. But of course the latter is in my view. Horace says that all publishers shy away from the prospect of a book on D.R. I'm not surprised; but their tune will change some day. The important thing is to get the notes ready for the new music. I also saw a woman who used to teach at arah Lawrence, a great friend of Horace's, who had seen Marya in Boston when she recorded her poems at Harvard. Marya seemed in much better spirits, and said Horace was indeed better. The phone call was the second; I cannot remember whether I wrote you about the first or not. He said the doctors told him he had had no sclerosis (I rather doubt the truth of that) and that he would continue to recover until he could walk again a little with the aid of a cane. He was already trying to walk on crutches to his new electric typewriter, once a day. What spirit he has! He and Doris are paragons.

This week has been hell, and next week will be just as bad. I got back to an overflowing desk and filled engagement pad of appointments for people who had been lined up to see me. Thursday morning I had to give a talk to 1200 high school students in Hartford (at 8:45 a.m., which meant I had to leave here at an ungodly hour), and on Friday I had another extra class at Yale. My niece and her husband have been here over the weekend. Senior comprehensive exams were given Wednesday and Thursday, and are to be corrected by me. Starting tomorrow every moment is filled with fifteen-minute consecutive appointments with students who want to major in American Studies and need to make out their schedules.

At last I have found that I only need to be in Munich by dinner-time on Sunday the 18th of June. (The 17th being a holiday). And I can leave the 24th in the evening at the latest. I do not yet know when my lectures actually come. It seems to me it might be wiser to see Hilda after Munich but I leave that to you. I will go wherever she wants to, to Lugano or at her new hotel, or anywhere her fancy desires. I am not anxious to see Pound unless she wants to. He is in too depressed a mood at this time. As for our being together I should think that the three places to choose between would be Copenhagen, Hamburg, and Berlin. Copenhagen might be pleasant, but possibly too much Hansens. If they want you to go to Hitzacker why don't we do that and then Berlin. We could meet at Hamburg, stay there or in Hitzacker; spend one or two days at Hitzacker, and then go on to Berlin. Or you could take Gladys out to Hitzacker and spend two or three days with her there, and then I could come out to meet you there, possibly starting from Hamburg early by bus and or by car and then bring you back with me at the end of the day. Meanwhile you and Gladys could have been "familiar" with the town. I wonder if that doesn't make sense, and permit you more of a visit with Gladys, and a better visit for her. And it will be fine with me if you'd like to have her go to Berlin too. Why don't you think along these lines, although I suppose we'll have to decide soon. I could fly from Berlin to Munich on Sunday or Saturday the 17th. I think it will be better if you arrange accommodations at Hamburg at the Vier Jahreszeiten and the Kempinski in Berlin. I believe the German government is taking care of me in Munich--I hope not in a private home. Let me know as soon as you and Gladys decide on your schedule so that I can put in for plane accommodations. Fortunately a single place ought not to be too hard to find, especially if I fly first-class.

You should hear from me regularly from now on.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

Have been sweating like an absolute dog all week, with nary a moment to breathe between appointments. My birthday more or less came and went, but I was delighted to have your cable as well as a letter from you on the very day. We did go to little Susan's for a birthday dinner and Justus enjoyed wishing me birthday and presenting me with a book.

I still smart with anger about Brunner and his brutality. It is quite unforgiveable. It may for Joan however be a good thing, a sort of jolt into taking up her British life again. One can only see. I am glad she had the cruise with her mother as preparation, as well as last summer's visit. Probably it will be better to keep her away from Papa. Something goes, there.

Your Tibetan jaunt was extraordinary. I was delighted with your account.

The week has been so busy I have not been able to inquire about the visa stay. But will early in the week. Tomorrow after appointments I have rush to New York for a black tie dinner of the trustess of the 'ale Library. I shall try to see Pup at the Yale Club beforehand to find out what's cooking. Unless of course she is still in the country.

The books continue to come in, for which my thanks. No harm in Martinelli's doing a mag for the 75, but I will cope. Yes, you might as well continue to send the Mercure. It can do good somewhere.

acher

I see Gladys says no Hitzberger. But if you ask her to go with you I think she might. Your German is excellent, and your interest impeccable. Let me know if we are to meet in Hamburg, and when. Or Berlin, or Copenhagen, or wherever you want.

Hurried love. I drive to Massachusetts tomorrow to see my mother whose birthday is Tuesday. She seems well and even wrote me part of a letter recently.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

This is quite the reverse way of beginning a letter, but
since I am trying to rest between bouts of reading poetry mss for the
Wesleyan Press I can shift my stance on the desk chair by turning for
a moment to the typewriter, and you, and at least thank you for some of
the books etc which have been coming in during the time since I last wrote
you. My better letter will come tonight, for I shall return to the office
to write Hilda and yourself.

I was absolutely delighted to have the complete poems of Emily Dickinson in the one-volume edition. You sent me the two-volume edition as from Jean Starr's gift to you, and the letters as well. But the average scholarly reference will (I think) be to the one-volume text. So I should have had to buy it. It will not need to go into other hands to do good. The volume of the Maggs catalogues I shall add to the other collected volumes. They are useful as reference. The biography of Frost I had myself bought, but will perhaps give this to the Korean professor who has been here studying under me. The Saturday Review Galley has some interesting articles in it (for reference) though I am not a Saturday Review fan, as you know. Hilda's various Hesses, presentation copies from Merrill Moore and the others of her things will be stored against the time when she establishes her pied-a-terre on this side. I hope that won't be too far off in time. Wyndham's *Gentle Savage* I shall want to read myself; I saw interesting references to it only a few days ago, and discovered it was not in the Yale Library. How beautiful both the men and the women are he photographed. Where did you know him? The Cowley *Literary Situation* will obviously be useful. The *Indian Art* I shall keep for reference in the office. Had you noticed there were a few eskimo objects illustrated? (I have been picking up a few more eskimo pieces but will write about them and discuss them later.) The Leonard Woolf autobiography is interesting. I am keen on memoirs as you know. I learn my history from them. The James and Wells letters I did not have, and go on my scholarly shelves at the office. I am most grateful for this. The Cournos goes with Hilda's book, tho after his letter one is ready to burn it up. Susan will be delighted with the Diana Holman-Hunt, which her mother (just back from Florida on Friday night) praised to us at lunch this noon. The Goyen and Susan Keeney go also with Hilda's. Will you report to her for me on these? And I was most pleased with the Gough's new book. My son-in-law picked it up with excitement, because there is so little in that field.

(After a supper interval, and finishing that batch of mss). Two packages of O.B.'s sketches arrived, one in time for my birthday--but I hardly know whether or not I thanked you. Certainly not properly, and I shall try to write him tomorrow if I can to say how much I really like them. The best have a real charm, and not jests at all.

The saddest news if of course that of Cole's death. Though at the same time she was so unhappy and increasingly so helpless that I am not sure she relished the idea of living very much. Yet the death is a shock, and I hope that Gerald can make some sort of adjustment. Is there someone he can go to live with? The money will go a little further now, and he might perhaps even be able to have some sort of housekeeper. I presume you will want to flip over once Hilda is settled to see Doris and his and George. What a group you have, and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

Edith will be an increasing problem. I doubt that Sachie is in much of a
position to help. Younger brothers seldom are. I am delighted, incidentally,
that Reresby could get out. It must have been important.

I find I cannot keep Melitta's affairs straight. I fear this must be
a rough time of life for her on the physical side, while on the emotional side
she cannot quite adjust to the fact that she is unlikely to be head of any
world congress. For one as able as Melitta, this must be frustrating.

Sorry too to hear of the death of old Mrs Brook-Jackson, and realize how
much your Jack had become involved. But it is rather hard not to have what he
expected in the way of furnishings and belongings. The old can be extremely
difficult as they come to regard themselves as shrewd. I refer to the auntie,
uncle.

Catha continues to delight me. Originally I thought of her as being
rather mature. Now she seems exceptionally sweet and charming and naive.

Such a nice letter from the Bebaks, and it was good to see the picture
of the mother and two daughters. And I was pleased to know that Mary and Leslie
were happily settled, and that she was getting good things and ideas for her
Sunday School class. I have not heard from them at all, and rather fear I am
off their list for the moment. They live such intense lives here that they
see no one except the parish members. But I have given up worrying, and know
they know they can turn to me in a crisis; and that I am keeping my eyes peeled
for danger to them.

I saw that Jocelyn Brooke had settled a financial difficulty or two by
selling another ms of Denton Welch. I wonder what he has left, and what he
gets for them.

I regard to Harold Doolittle's letter to you about Hilda's making a
substantial turning over of funds to Perdita, I wonder if (quite apart from
any other considerations) this is quite the time to do it. Under normal
circumstances of course he is right. But Hilda will have a certain freedom of
movement in the States just because of the money and its income, and there is at
least a real possibility that she might want to lease a small flat in a hotel
apartment house in New York where she could maintain her books and things as a
pied a terre. I need not also speak of course of the possibility of her British
funds again becoming blocked, as one consequence of these hazardous times. My
advice would be not to do so, and one presumes that he will is sayisfactory to
her as it now stands. For the moment I think, to repeat myself, that she can
afford to be a little selfish in regard to her own needs. I doubt that Harold
can anticipate these needs.

And indeed the times are as rough as I have seen them. This incredible
blundering mess of the States in respect to Cuba, plus Laos, and then as of
tonight all of the Algerian horror on top of the Congo. I do not see but that
we are already in the war if not at the very edge of it. The Cuban affair makes
it impossible to hope for anything out of Laos. One will have to get out of
there. And we are far from getting Cuba in order, though I suppose we must or
else give over to Russian bases within the hemisphere. I enclose a clipping from
the New York Times with what I imagine must be a pretty straight account of how
the CIA managed the affair. Imagine their managing it at all, as an intelligence
service. It is as stupid as the U-2, which you must remember was another CIA
matter. Well of course I am not in the business now, and cannot hope to guess
at all of the ramifications. But I hope I would have insisted that it is the
president and the state department who control America's foreign policy, rather
than an agency whose function is advisory. The British are right in separating

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

SOE from the MI-'s. well I froth at the mouth and burn with shame. One does not start something without going through with it. We claim not to have done the first, which is not true, and we seemed unable to recognize the latter.

Monday I went in to New York for the Library Trustees meeting, and since my only train connections left me a free 3/4 of an hour after I had changed into my dinner jacket at the Yale Club, I had phoned Pup in the morning and asked her if she would have cocktails with me on the roof. She was delighted to, and we had a good conversation. Or should I say more accurately that I had a chance to tell her that the situation was no longer a question of preference, that what she had asked Philip was simply not possible, and that sooner or later Hilda would have to come to the States, and that the only possible place for her to live was in New York. I said that of course it would be wrong for her (Pup) to try to carry on any such schedule of visits as she had done during the last visit, and that once a week or once a fortnight was enough. In any event Hilda would not be physically able to "drop in on her at will", which is what Pup most fears, and the Stanhope seemed to be an answer for the beginning at least. Actually it all ended amicably on the surface, and one hopes beneath. It was not as harsh as I have made it sound. But I felt there was no point in beating about the bush. Only let me handle this. And don't really be too angry with her for being human about it. Dean takes your advice, but presumably wouldn't take her mother's. Jean wouldn't take her mother's. Partly it's the wisdom of your advice that persuades Dean, partly it's the fact simply that you're not in command of her and so she needn't fight for her independence from you. Pup is in a different situation.

Meanwhile I should send as much of Hilda's things over as she is willing to part with. And if there are things in England still, why not send them over, too. They can wait here even if she keeps a room at the Sonnenberg or elsewhere for a year or two.

As to my visit I have been promised a full schedule tomorrow and can write you better then. I am sorry to have waited, but they have been unclear. In general however I should think we could plan as follows. I must get to Munich on the 18th, where I will be staying at the Bayerischer Hof. I leave to you whether two or three days in Berlin in addition to the holiday on the 17th, when we might not be able to do much. Meanwhile you and Elsie and Gladys go to Hamburg and then Hitzacker, staying in Hitzacker for a real visit four or five days I should think. I drive there and pick you up. Let me know whether we should try to go from Hamburg to Berlin together on the same plane, or I get my passage here. Well, it is late and my mind is a little fuzzy. I'll write you more about this tomorrow.

Has any more turned up about the Pole who might have been Joan's? I write you about the ms also tomorrow.

Don't take the Tibetan pup on. It becomes difficult once you have spun the prayer wheel once or twice for novelty.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

Back at the office again tonight, with as much work to do as ever. But since I promised to send you the schedule today, I must at least report that I was not given it. Now it is promised for tomorrow. I did however get down down to the savings bank, for enough money to balance my overdrawn checking account (the money came from my savings account, so have no fear!), and to the Passport people to arrange about having my passport renewed. I asked about how long a visa would permit you to stay in the States, and they said this varied according to how long you asked for, and that your visa would have a notation of how long it was good for. In any event there is no problem in having a visitor's visa renewed indefinitely, so long as you are not working for a living here--and then it is a matter of a different type of visa when you enter. So you can come for several years in succession if you want.

I thought you might be interested in the enclosed about the rocketmen. It is not at all surprising, nor anything against their achievement. One can as easily call it patriotism on their part as callousness. Only I suspect it is a combination of both, with the patriotism due at least in part to good training for the goal. But I am no Russian and prefer our own way, bumbling though it is.

The safari has echoes of our own doctor. But might be fun some time.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

25 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

Back at the office again tonight and since I said I would write you when given the memorandum I will. Actually not very much was added to my knowledge except for the title of the lectures of which there will be far too many. Perhaps I shall never get mine written, so that the balance can be restored.

I am told that I am expected in Munich on Sunday June 18th, possibly in time for festivities that evening. The 17th is a national holiday in commemoration of the popular revolts in the Soviet zone. Whether this will make it hard to get anything accomplished in West Berlin I don't know. Of course it may present an interesting spectacle. I think I will leave it to you to decide on what day you wish me to arrive in Hamburg so that I can drive to Hitzacker the next day to pick you up. The following day I gather you and I go on to Berlin. Shall I, when I know the date for flying to Berlin, try to get my passage from Hamburg to Berlin as from this side, or leave that to you? It would mean we flew separately if I did it, but perhaps it is too complicated otherwise. I will arrange from Berlin to Munich as on the 17th or 18th, depending on flights. Will you arrange hotel rooms for me as well as yourself at the Vierjahrezeiten in Hamburg and wherever you wish to be in Berlin. Your experience will choose best in that. the chief thing is to be together so that we can go over things.

The last day of Munich is on the 24th, and I would plan to fly from there to Zurich or wherever you and Hilda are to be, on Sunday the 25th. Perhaps I should stay at the same hotel in Zurich as before. If Hilda wished however to go to some little resort for the week, I would be happy to do that. I would plan to fly back to the States on the 1st or 2nd of July to be here for the Fourth and so my workers can begin on the 5th as I promised them they might. I will arrange that flight when you let me know what your dates are. Of course since I am traveling alone it is easier to get passages shifted. I think I may get a first class passage instead of tourist so as to facilitate things.

I will have the instructions for me thermofaxed tomorrow and sent on to you so that you and Hilda can smile.

All love as always,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

26 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

It is sheer melodrama, these last days of Sanitarium Brunner! Your letters of the 22nd and 23rd arrived this afternoon in the mail and are uncomfortably vivid. The difficulty for me is that I know these Küsnachter, and I weep for them. To think of Herfie in an old folks Swiss home. And Merlin without her bolster: no wonder she stripped herself naked to show how bare she was to the world's winds. And Gabriel and the Turkish lady, all of them, all of them. I am so grateful to Heydt for being there to help. I think he properly sensed this inevitable outcome when he severed his connections.

The truth is, I am really furious at Brunner and his callousness. For that is precisely what it is. And unethical to an extreme. I truly should not have thought it possible.

I am glad that the dream of Charleston came at just this moment for Hilda, and it is indeed a possibility. And I am glad too that you plan to run as far as you can in the other direction from all this torment of the past year. There has been no year like it, personally or internationally. I feel in advising you as I did in advising an older friend whose husband of 93 had been dying for four years and would not let her out of his sight. What shall I do when he is gone, she wailed, but not from the sense of regretting him. Go around the world twice without stopping, I said. Her husband finally died while we were in South Carolina. I haven't seen her since. Maybe she's on her first circumnavigation.

I enclose a set of the not very informative instructions sent me regarding the Munich trip. I thought you and Hilda might be diverted by them.

All love as always,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

29 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

This really is hell for you! I shall be glad when Hilda
is safely settled. Then I think you really ought to pop out to London
and the Scillies for a few days, to see Gerald and Doris especially.
This will hardly be gay, but it will be a change. And I think Hilda
will settle in a little better by the chance to be alone and talk it
out with Heydt. I thank God for Heydt and the fact that he will pick
up again for a bit.

The world situation is of course intensely dangerous, as
you will know I too feel from my recent letters. On the other hand I
do not think that Dr Brunner's testimony is the best at this moment.
If only he can scare the daylights out of you he will justify himself
in regard to the klinik. Then he can say this was the reason he did it,
that so far as Hilda is concerned he has really only done her a great
favor.

We can talk these things over in June (do let me know when
you set your dates so that I can try for my plane passage!), but my feeling
for the moment would be that it was much preferable for Hilda to spend
the summer and early fall in Switzerland if she can. New York is no
place for her to be in summer because no one will be available to keep
her company. She would not like Long Island and being so dependent on
Pup for the long summer months, especially because the only hotel nearby
is so unsuited to her walking. With Switzerland and Heydt to bridge the
gap she will know much better what she wants. However I think she ought
to continue to send across for me to store as many of her treasures as she
might ever want on this side, to make things familiar. On these terms
even her correspondences from Aldington and Kenneth, not to be opened by me
but put aside for her pied a terre. I would send the same sort of thing
which may still be stored with you, or in London. I can't think what may
still be in London except for a few books and the Wm Morris reading stand.
But why not send that; it would be rather gay in any flat she had, even in
Charleston. And her rose books etc. The important thing will be that these
are on this side to make any new pied a terre seem familiar. I do not worry
about her flying back to the States in case of a disaster, because she now
has the will power to sustain this, and as a famous person people will take
care of her. The important thing is for her to be where she wishes to be
and can be happy; even if something went wrong it can always go wrong anywhere.
And I keep repeating that I will stir things to help her just as I will stir
things to help you. Anyhow, let her drift with Heydt at Sonnenberg just now.
In this instance I regard "drifting" as a positive rather than a negative
action.

Your letter of the 25th was of course also in this morning's mail,
and I do indeed pat you for the Hilda notebook as of 1961. How would it be
to suggest to her that she send over at least one complete set of her carbons
to be held for the pied a terre on this side. Then she would be so to speak
equipped wherever she was. But maybe, since June is so near, it would be better

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

to wait until I get over and can talk with her.

I rather wondered if it wouldn't be better for me to stay in Zurich itself as I did before, rather than at the Sonnenberg. Hilda rather seemed to like to have her mornings to herself, and a free period after lunch. I fear if I were at the S she might feel she had to be hostess or worry about what I was to do. I can always wander in Zurich, look in at museums, or perhaps best of all talk with you without seeming to be in a huddle as at S. As for the Dolder, I'd much rather be in town. I like people, and the Dolder is like an empty railroad station.

These have been frightful days here for me, but in a different sense from the frightfulness which you have faced. Mine is simply the too-much work which faces me. I have four dissertations, two senior theses to read, and huge stacks of papers to correct. This Thursday night I fly out to Detroit, leaving here at six in the evening, for a conference on the Archives of American Art on Saturday and Sunday. I go as for Friday in order to check Hawthorne manuscripts, in actuality and also in potentiality, and to talk to the book review editors about what is wrong or right about the National Book Awards. That is, I will meet one or two of the leading editors there. At the conference I have to give a twenty minute talk on what needs to be researched.

I still become livid about the Cuban affair, and repeat that the States have never experienced such humiliation in history. I thought you might be interested in Reston's article with its intimation that Dulles would be out. He is kind in saying that Cambridge fails the test: of the four he mentions, only Schlesinger is Harvard--the other three were all trained at Yale. The episode of holding the Cuban chiefs in coventry is beyond belief. Where can we move to and settle in peace and chickens?

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 April 1961

Dearest Fido,

Having finished a brief review of a rather tiresome dissertation on the movement towards international copyright in the nineteenth century by a Catholic priest (the subject was all right, but the writing was tedious), I can get a few minutes at my desk before beginning the first of four dissertations submitted here for the doctorate. I thought the two enclosed clippings from the morning paper might amuse you. And I realise that I never did acknowledge the typescript of Urzidel's translation of By Avon River.

It has been raining all week and Susan's daffodils have suffered. Fortunately you have only budded, so although I see an appealing swelling of your beauty you have not yet been outraged by the elements. —the daffodils

There are always people at a university who are eager to have these. If they are not already in the library of course I give there, as thus being more available to the greatest number. The Sitwells should certainly be here. After your connection there should be a reasonably complete collection; perhaps eventually one could fill out what the Library doesn't have and you don't have. I think one really helps on all sides, including the Sitwells, byt this memorial resource.

All love,

Zareem

10 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

This is a hurried night letter, filling out the cable I was at last able to send you today. Finally I got to the ticket office this morning and made my reservations. I really could not give you useful details until I had. The way it now stands is this, but of course we can always change as from Hamburg to Berlin (where there are many flights), or out of Berlin if it gets boring):

Flight

401 Idlewild-Hamburg, Luft Hansa 6/9 7:30 p.m. 9:45 a.m. (First class)
604 Hamburg-Berlin Pan-Am 6/13 1:30 p.m. 2:20 p.m. (Tourist)
783 Berlin-Munich Air France 6/18 12:25p.m. 2:15 p.m. (First)
227 Munich Zurich Swiss Air 6/25 3:35 p.m. 4:35p.m. (Tourist)
803 Zurich Idlewild TWA 7/1 10:25 a.m. 3:30 p.m. (First class)

This all seems pretty chaotic, but I guess it will work out. I will be tired when I get to Hamburg, and can sleep during the day since I will be sitting up jet on the way over. Then I come for you Sunday or Monday as you and Elise prefer. This may be too long for Berlin, but it is as good a place for us to talk as any. Or we can take a couple of days in Vienna if you'd like, before Munich.

Your today's letter about John's plans with Phillip were maddening. I don't really laugh about it at all, only I feel as I told Pup that they can like it or lump it: Hilda is coming to the States and New York is the only place for her h.q. One tries Charleston if she wants to try it. After all why should we decide for her. Actually I have not discussed Charleston with John except as through Perdita and possibly once on the phone. The poet in residence idea is ludicrous.

Don't worry about finding someone to keep an eye on Hilda if you and I were both away. Susan gets along well with her of course, and I will very quickly find the right person in New York. It is entirely possible that Denise Levertov might work out. She is an entirely sensible and attractive person. I have just met the curator of prints at the Met, and he is pleased that Hilda may be again at the Stanhope. We can find the right hotel for you easily. There are many in the midblock midtown area. And I know an excellent one uptown on Lexington Avenue which I feel sure you would like. No more expensive than the Beekman, and on the bus lines and walking distance from the Stanhope.

I think Storchen. The Bau au Lac is not quite my cup of tea, and I rather like breakfast on the balcony when it doesn't rain. We have the big storage cases for Hilda's books (Kora usw), they should be on this side. Yes why not send out Havelock Ellis. Yale bought his library, but I doubt has a real collection of his own books. The Interplanetary Journals I feel sure the Library would like. Again send out paleontology

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

God has given me an extra evening of my life. By which I mean that the director of the Washington Irving Memorial who had wanted to spend the evening and night at the house did appear as scheduled this noon but announced that he had to go on to Mystic for dinner tonight. So I can read my book before tomorrow's class, and perhaps begin on the fourth dissertation of those I have to read. I made the mistake, however, of eating dinner at a restaurant with a psychiatrist who suddenly became vehement against the world, and it was an extra long time before I could decently slip away from the table.

Your letter of the 11th arrived today, and by now you will have had more details of my plans. Certainly it would be aboard to spend sixty dollars for a taxi to Hitzacker. I had curiosities about it of course, but because of you. So I shall wait patiently for you both at the Four Seasons or wherever else you want to put me up. Any planes after that we can arrange as convenient for you. I am scheduled as tourist from Hamburg to Berlin, and from there to Munich, and from Munich to Zurich. Berlin hotels I leave to you. I had not really meant seriously to ask addresses from them, but queried more as a courtesy. I fear you are right and that Berlin will prove expensive. But I think we can find some small quite satisfactory restaurants, depending always on your German. I hate to think of your not being in Zurich except for a couple of days and perhaps should have arranged to go on to London. But that would not have worked too well, for you will be chock-a-block of invahds to see.

What ghastly bad luck with the Irwins. But one simply can't help such misunderstandings, and all things considered it was not very polite of them to take such an uppity manner.

I was pleased to have John's letter to you waiting for my return Saturday night from Philadelphia. Your answer was, it seemed to me, excellent. It is far better to say half of what one thinks than to say nothing at all. Poor John, he does have an infallible instinct for the stuffy. I shudder to think what he will be like at sixty, but fortunately I shall either be dead or too old to care. As for the addition to the house, this may well be a wise move to make, but this is for them to decided out of their own pockets, not really for you. It is astonishing to think of their house as being worth $100,000. It makes one's little savings seem insufficient even for a kennel! John is of course insensitive or he could not realize the implications of what he saying. I suppose he honestly feels he is sharing his wisdom. And as for "we have discussed plans for Hilda's future residence with Norman and with Philip, I see that his references are to what I said to Pup. I suppose I am a little irked to think that Philip *shouldn't* feel, or *may* feel, that this is any of

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

his business. I suspect of course that Pup and John secretly feel that
this is also true of me. Except that I have given really a good deal
of my energy and life to helping Hilda not only in literary matters but
in just those personal affairs where neither you nor I would have to worry
if only they recognized some responsibility. I did mention Beekman Place
as a possible possibility because of the balcony out over the river, but
cited precisely the difficulties that John mentions so smugly as though
they were his own. And if only he wouldn't refer to his children as "our
darlings" and to Hilda as "their distinguished grandmother." This is like
an old lady presiding at a Woman's Club luncheon. Or phrases like "at
some slight remove from our household." No wonder "ertrude Stein felt the
language sometimes just gets worn out, and the vitality of people exhausted
with it. Anyhow, we can cope otherwise.

The Philadelphia trip was a little exhausting although I wisely
did nothing except attend the Saturday meetings in the morning and afternoon.
Thursday I had had to go to New York for a National Book Award Committee
meeting, and then back to New Haven to change into formal wear for the Yale
News annual banquet. Friday noon I took the train to Philadelphia (a thru
train) arriving towards the end of the afternoon, and went for an hour to
the Pennsylvania Museum of Art. Then I had cocktails with the director of
the Rosenbach Museum (he was the notorious bookdealer), had dinner by
myself and sat in my room to read a 450 page dissertation on Lawrence's
critical theories. I was not inspired by the candidate. Saturday I finished
reading this before the meeting, and on the train coming back and afterwards
at home (Susan having gone to Philadelphia the same day to the same hotel
room) for a week at the national convention of garden clubs) *A Heart to Artemis*.
I had withheld from reading it according to your instructions until I had it
all. But I wanted to get it typed so that I could send over to Helen and to
yourself and perhaps go over with you what you have done so far. I was immensely
moved and pleased by what you have written. It is altogether richer and
tighter than before. I have nothing to suggest as change up as far as you have
gone in Part One, and Part Two is again excellent but perhaps will make you
feel that you want a little tightening of dialogue in the cafe scene. I am
really excited by what you have accomplished, and with precisely the technique
I hope you will eventually use for another modern novel. Your ear and eye
are fauttless. I have queried one or two (really for the fingers of the hands)
spots but we can go over them when we are together. I was a good boy in not
fooling with the punctuation and I hope you will feel I deserve a rubbing of
noses. I will bring your copies of the ms to Hamburg if there is not time
to send before and airmail to Helen directly from here. Perhaps she can come
to Zurich while I am there, so we can discuss matters. Or should I try to
slip over to them. I am innocent of time and distances involved, never having
been in Locarno.

As to Hilda's affairs, I have contracts for each of our books as
with you, plus an overall contract for everything in the past. The papers are
of course still her property, and my understanding was that you had told me she
had left these to you in her will. You can then dispose of them of course as
you wish to. I don't know exactly what kind of an additional paper Philip
could approve. Should you by the way be a little careful of what you say to
Philip since he seems to be on such intimate terms with Pup and John? he might
be likely to repeat, though I think not.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

Life seems more than a little hectic, and having just finished the annual Pundit picnic on the steps of the library (the ancien club of undergraduates, founded in the 1880's which is my chore) I feel a certain relaxation as I wait for the reporters to discuss it with, by writing to you.

I had the first two sets of innoculations yesterday morning, and to my surprise found myself beset with actual chills and chatterings last night, so that I was in agony until I took a stiff sleeping pill to knock myself out. I presume it was because I feel a little tired.

[The reporter has just been here, and all is well.]

Quite to complicate matters my brother has sold our Gardner house (with my blessing for the sale but not quite for the timing.) The difficulty is that the house must be vacated by June 24th, and the necessity for my going and taking what I want to from the furnishings and the papers is something I cannot quite imagine how I will find time to cope with. Yet the accumulations of my boyhood are there and although on the one hand I might bless a fire that destroyed them all, nevertheless a casual resignation of them seems to me to be a rejection of my entire youth. And that I cannot do. I suppose all this can be accomplished, but when I shall write my lectures for Munich I do not know. In any event don't worry about how I spend my time in Hamburg. I shall divide it between the penguins at the zoo and the pencils at my desk.

Yesterday was blessed by an angry letter from John Schaffner directed against me, and enclosing a copy of his letter to you in reply to the situation I had created. I have written a somewhat cool reply, a copy of which I can show you when we are together; and since he spoke of the fact that Susan would understand the situation better than I, said that he might indeed feel free to invite her to discuss the matter in New York, but that I myself did not see how I would find time to do this until after my return from Germany. Apparently the suggestion of a psychiatrist was what stung him and Perdita most. On the whole I suspect that all this will do much to clear the air. He sent me a copy of his reply to you, and your letter to him. He asked for the return of both, which I did. I think you and I understand the situation well enough without going into it in too great detail by mail. Not that I object in the slightest about writing on the subject. I can if you wish send you his letter and mine, however, if you want. I am not quite sure what Philip's role is; how precisely did he phrase the message from them to you?

Have tonight had the first quarter of the your memoirs back from the typist, who says she likes it as much as I did. I shall try to proof-read this section tonight, as well as read a 350 page dissertation on the Plymouth Colony.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

18 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am just catching my breath at night at the office--Susan does not come back from her week in Philadelphia until tomorrow --where I am reading away at my fourth dissertation, this one on the history of Plymouth Colony. Oddly enough no one has ever written about what happened there after, say, 1630. I had been supposed to go to Hartford to the annual meeting of the Mark Twain Memorial. But with all this coming up about the Gardner home it seemed to me better to keep at my knitting.

I forgod to say in my last letter that a new little batch of five books came in for the juvenile collection. One called _Red Cloud_, or _The Solitary Sioux_ (1882) by some Lt. Col. Butler. One by Fenn called _Commodore Junk_ (1888); and another by him called "What happened to his grandfather", but in an issue of _Young England_ in 1889. The best from our point of view, and you must remember to ask me for it when you come, especially because of its forty illustrations is _The Knights of the Frozen Sea: a Narrative of Arctic Discovery and Adventures_ (1867). The silliest, and I ordered it without much thinking is a Ballantyne we didn't have/. It is _The Robber Kitten_, and just that: the retold nursery rhyme.

23 May 1961

Dearest Fido (still),

The difference between the two dates will give you some idea of what life has been like. I have stayed at the office until I am blue in the face. Certainly I can't be red in the face from tan, since the sun hasn't shone for ten days or more. It is now nearly 9:30 p.m. at the office, with a new set of examination papers come in this afternoon. But I must write you, and I am almost too exhausted to be fair to the exams. I was called on the phone at 11:45 last night when I got back from the office, with Lizzie in a "do" again as reported elsewhere. It was nearly two before Susan and I gave up without being able to get in to her flat. This morning has been spent on the phone with psychiatrists and the rest. Oh lord, lord, lord, lord, lord!

I am not quite sure whether the Schaffner explosion has subsided or not. After my long old-man letter to John in answer to his scorcher, I had, which he in turn answers by saying "it is good to feel, as we always do, that we have your understanding and patience." In this afternoon's mail was a three and a half page letter from Pup explaining how much she does love her mother and how crowded they are in their house, but actually a perfectly good letter and on the whole a friendly one, especially considering the extraprdinary role I am suddenly playing within their family lives. I can see how bewildering it must be to them, simply from my own sense of self-bewilderment. On the whole

2,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

rather imagine that a good deal of good has been accomplished by all the flare-ups. They have been forced at any rate to look squarely at the situation rather than evade it or think it can be planned out of existence. To have brought things out in the open sometimes helps to dissipate things; certainly they cannot be evaded when en plein air.

At the moment I feel much to exhausted to believe I will ever get abroad, and presumably will have to write my lectures after I get there. But to get to the points of the trip as we now seem to see them. I suspect it would be foolish to try to go to Hitzacker, since I could hardly get there before the time when you would have to be starting back. The car is out in any event. But if you like and time enough is given I can go by bus as you did and come back by bus the same day as you originally did. I leave to your judgment. Otherwise I shall wait at the hotel for you at whatever time you expect to be back at the Vierjahreszeiten. But do tell me approximately when to expect you, for I might go out to sleep in the sun or look at pictures or penguins if I knew how long I could allow.

My plane trip from Berlin to Munich has been changed anyhow. My feeling is that if it seems wise we can go together on some plane we arrange for as from Berlin.

By the way I was visited today by the literary editor of the West Berlin Tagesblat, or something like that who offers to speak to us and perhaps arrange for us to see some things if you like. He was much impressed with your books, which I am sending over.

I had heard of the merger of Pantheon with Random House by a letter from Schabent, and then discussed it at some length with Alfred Knopf when he was in New Haven last Thursday and invited me for lunch. There will not be time for me to speak to Pantheon before I come back, and in any event I will need to discuss the matter with our New York lawyer first. He is Melville Cane, to whom I sent Helen, so he will be sympathetic. Helen mentioned in her note that Jovanovich had agreed to take over all titles, but of course he has not written me about this and I would have to confer with him also before discussing with Pantheon. Actually Helen understands all this. I presume I ought to see her and Kurt when I am in Switzerland. Do you think I should go over to Locarno and back some day. Never having been there I am a little vague. Or shall I have Helen dome to see me? I seek your advice and experience on this.

Kurt's suggestion for a little more about your father in the memoirs does probably make some sense for the American market, and of course would even in England be a kind of memorial of him. You have told me so much about him, and I have lived so much with your letters and writings that he seems familiar and full to me. I rather trust Kurt's instinct on this matter. Another section of the first part has just arrived from Maishman (this time pages 256-74) and I have given them over to the typist. She will have finished all she has of Part One and Part Two by tomorrow. I had given to her before your instructions came to wait. I have had an original and two copies made, and we will have them on hand against the time you have finished. This will save infinite time then. I will bring the copy you sent with me, which has the pencilled suggestions on it. We can ship this back to the States when we have finished.

3

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

I am glad Helen likes the Paris '20s section. I did too, much better than the earlier version. It only seemed to me that your ear would probably tighten up the cafe conversations. Occasionally it doesn't hear well.

Your plans for the Scillies and Durrell's island zoo sound fun, but Doris' condition worries me and I wish I had better news of Gerald's condition. george's letters have lost something and I worry there too. I think you must do all possible to persuade him to try the States in the fall, and get some sort of treatment for his aches. One doesn't really of course know how much can be done; but he is hardly in shape to leave alone any longer. And I have a funny little feeling that he is now afraid. Try him on setting an example for Hilda. He is such a good man, this might work.

All in all the yellow backs have been rather sad (typing just interrupted by a phone from my secretary saying her mother-in-law has just died, so that will take care of a few days.) (I forgot to say I broke a back tooth this afternoon nibbling a gelusil tablet against ulcers.)

Why don't you give up and send the data to Who's Who. Give me the blanks and I'll fill in with you when we get to Berlin. Don't laugh at me, but I rather think your father would be proud to see you in it.

Was amused at young Tom's purchase of a Mark Twain record. The actor is my friend Hal Holbrook whom I helped when he was getting up his material.

Write BRYHER on as'crap of paper and send it to me and I'll mail on to Mr Manfred who seeks your autograph.

What deeply-felt letters Gerald wrote about the end of Cole. I got other glimpses of her from Brigit Patmore's letters to Hilda. If Gerald ever wanted to preserve Brigit's letters to Cole I would be delighted to store them. Or her letters from anyone. Was she really a good painter. I think of her as a talented, once gay, and latterly rather bitter woman.

Alberto is a fool.

Islay is not. His letters from Greece were excellent.

Knopf spoke very warmly of Pat Gregory, which of course pleased me. His letters are still a little artificial, by which I mean literary. But he begins to loosen. I daresay he will never be really loose.

How wonderful it will be to see you in Hamburg. I hope I get there.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

24 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

A nerve-wracking day, chiefly because I got nothing done. Mrs Dingle did come in for a bit at noon, but the rest of the day I have spent answering the phone, having boys crowd at the door to query about examination times, etc.--all the things she normally takes care of. And tomorrow is the day of the funeral, so she will not be in at all. We had planned to go to Gardner for Friday and Saturday; now Susan calls to say her cold has turned into a fever. One can only wait to see what the doctor has to say, but she has been feeling miserable. However I did not have to have an inlay for my broken tooth. It could be mended with a simple filling.

Yours of the 21st and 22nd were in today's mail. Which is fast flying indeed. I was pleased that Mary Gough's visit went so well. Curious what different points of view one has about Berlin. My newspaper editor from West Berlin says there is no problem at all, and one goes regularly to East Berlin to the theatre etc. I do not propose to, and anyhow he may be speaking as a German.

One can settle the Berlin matter once we are in Hamburg. I know how you feel, and all this Schaffner squabble has not helped to ease the burden. I feel a good deal that way myself. But one does not need to be on the go in Berlin; there is always the Wannsee for the afternoon. The thing is for us to be cut off from elsewhere as in a kind of Greenland enclave. You can rest while I work on my lectures. God knows how I shall get them done otherwise. It is really a marvelous chance for us to be able to talk out things over a period of time.

I have a feeling that it works out for the best to have brought into the open this antagonism to Hilda's coming to New York, and that in the end they will face up to it better because they know how we stand. I doubt that Pup has really been able to face the fact. She protests in favor of it, and then shifts swiftly to "but do you think she will really enjoy New York?" I thought your letter was excellent. I made precisely the same comment about the house addition, that this was their decision, that I did imagine something would have to be done to get more room, and that she and John must decide how best to meet the problem.

All this simply to be up to date, though I should be grading papers before going to dinner at Mrs Wohlenberg's. Susan alas can't come. She is of course Mrs Roblie now.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

It is nearly eleven at night, at the office, but I must at least write a note to you and take it to the postoffice tonight so that as short a time as possible will intervene between my unhappy cable and this letter. Susan is at home in bed, ill with a cold since she returned from her week's convention and it getting steadily so worse, and the doctor ordering now for the third day that we postpone the trip to Gardner, that I called my brother tonight and said I could not come up with her until the 3rd and 4th of June. For some reason he has sold it so fast that workmen are to be coming in by then, but I simply cannot help it. Susan would only collapse (her temperature was over 100 today) is she got there; and Monday Tuesday and Wednesday are the Honors students examinations, while on Thursday I have to fly to Minneapolis to talk to the alumni there, fluing back to New Haven on Friday, arriving in the evening, and off then to Gardner as of the earliest possible time. I think he has no concept of an academic's life at this season of the year.

I think I told you that my secretary's mother-in-law died Tuesday night, so she was out Wednesday and Thursday for funerals etc., and I spent the entire day answering phones, doing errands, typing notices etc all of which she would have done. She was very good about it and came in for two hours on Wednesday, but the whole thing was just bad luck.

Then Tuesday night when I got home from the office at a quarter to twelve, I was called by one of the staff at the Institute to say that one of the patients had been with Lizzie who reported she was off to Florida the next day to live with her aunt. There were other gory details of a reminiscent nature, and of course we were upset and were urged to do something. We got Lizzie on the phone who listened but would say nothing, for a quarter hour until we said we were coming to her apartment and please would she let us in to talk over things. Susan dressed, with her cold, and we drove, but the light went out as we stopped and she would not answer the bell. We spoke the next morning, she was very nice & said she would talk to the psychiatrists etc., repeated this on a second talk with her mother, etc etc etc. That night she had left in a hired car, her furniture in storage, and nothing but her lies or broken promises as a farewell present. Perhaps it is for the best, and she is really on her own now. At least I am glad there is an aunt (of sorts) for her to live with until she finds a job and place to live on her own. It makes no rational sense of course. At the moment we wash out hands.

I have not left the office before eleven any night, and am not likely to do so, with all the papers to get at etc. One set of Junior examinations still to go, as well as more graduate school papers. An encyclopedia article on Nathaniel Ward due on the 1st. It is mad to have agreed long since to go to Minneapolis, but who would have guessed I would be in such a fix. And I have back out of engagements like this all year. Alas, it has been announced in the papers there or I would back out again. They told me I could jet out in the afternoon, speak, and jet back that night. Now it is taking two whole days.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

If I bring anything back from Gardner I will have to do something
of putting it away. I cannot dump all this simply on Susan when it arrives.
Couldn't they have asked me about the suitability of the dates for getting
everything out. My brother is usually so meticulous about such matters. I
think he so hates the idea of giving up the house that he wants the whole thing
done and over with as speedily as possible. There is something in this, but
not for me just at the moment. But the deed of sale has been signed.

I simply have not begun to write even the first of my three
lectures. And I would be so tired and so interested in Hamburg and Berlin
that even if the other chores were all attended to, I wouldn't be able to
concentrate on them. Here I can simply shut myself more or less off, and at
least have my texts at hand for quotations and my wonderful electric typewriter
for speeding the product out, and Mrs Dingle to retype any drafts. If I go
I should be as tense and ulcerous as I was on the way back from Greenland
when I sometimes snapped, to my horror--not knowing what was really happening.

You can't help but be angry and disappointed, and I don't really
think I ought to be forgiven. But if you will, then I'll come to Zurich on
exactly as originally planned from Munich, and if we can have two days together,
or even three if as you said you could put your flight back a day, we would
have time to go over the memoirs and talk about New York in the fall etc. Grove
Press says they will send Hilda's ms--either galleys either to Munich or to Zurich
so that I could read proof against her ms and go over any queries in regard to
it after you had flown.

I hope you will understand and will forgive me by having a few
unexpected days to work on the memoirs.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

I still feel an immense disappointment at not being able to see Hamburg and Berlin, and especially not to be with you for the longer period. And I hope you will still make the Elsie part of the trip to Hitzacker. You spoke of my scolding you if you found yourself unable to go to Berlin, and perhaps you will understand a little of the position I have found myself in. I suppose Lizzie's vamoosing has been nervously exhausting, even while one feels a little ease for the moment at least--out of sight, out of mind--yes, it is true! However Mrs Bennett has called her daughter-in-law to find that Lizzie had arrived safely in her rented Herz car. It was all inevitable anyhow. Susan coughed most of the night but her temperature has gone down a little. It is arranged now that we try to go to Gardner on the 3rd and 4th after my return on the night of the 2nd from Minneapolis. My brother was much distressed, but I think he simply has no idea of what sort of life I lead, any more than most people have of yours. They are really the free ones. I only hope we don't squabble about things; it is nerve-wracking enough to break up a sixty-year home without having to do it pell-mell.

Did I write you I had broken a tooth earlier in the week, and that my secretary lost her mother-in-law? Well, the tooth is back in my mouth, and the mother-in-law is underground. I hope those chapters are closed.

I was immensely disappointed after all the to-do to find out from Angus Davidson that Camilla Israel had decided, after all, not to give up any of Mary Butts' things. "I don't think it can be right to give away some of the papers over the children's heads: I might be reproached later because the journals in particular represent the only contact the boys will ever have with their grandmother and also, in a way, their grandfather." I had just ordered a presentation copy of one of Mary's books to go with the papers since I had been assured they would come. Davidson says she may change her mind; he will work on it. My own point of view is that the greater debt is to Mary as an artist (that she should be remembered for her art) than to the grandchildren (that she should remain a grandmama). Well, we will see.

All love as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 May 1961

Dearest Fido,

You are a trooper as always. And your understanding sustains me. I still feel immensely tired, perhaps from so much seeming to happen academically at one time; but a certain pressure has been removed, and nothing seems quite so hopeless. I think Susan's virus is in some sense due to the strain she has been under, although she caught it while at her meeting in Philadelphia, and the bug seems to be on a ubiquitous rampage. Many have been stricken with it. Being tired I suspect she does not recover from it so rapidly. But she still hopes to be able to go to Gardner on Saturday and Sunday after my return from Minneapolis. I fly there tomorrow, make my speach to the alumni at night and then take a plane back the following day.

I am troubled about

[The day has gone in between. I have even given a steak picnic for the senior Honors majors at the shore, and washed the dishes at home since. Now it is after ten o'clock, and I am at the office to put together things to work on while I fly tomorrow out, and the day after back.]

Hilda because it seems to me altogether inevitable that she should have a real depression after the shock of all that happened chez Brunner. The miracle is that she has not gone under completely. I do believe she will come out of this, but perhaps slowly. My visit may possibly be of some help. What worries me more is what we have spoken of several times. Her need for just the daily contacts which the saniatrium provided even when she might think she was shrinking from them. It is not right for either of you that you should think of living in a hotel with her, so put that out of your mind. I am much too tired to try to think out possible solutions, but we can talk and talk about all this when we are together.

Perdita simply does not understand the situation except as it relates to herself. But I think she may come around in time. Meanwhile there may be some agonies.

And I could weep for Doris. Yes, I think it would be worth having Prutting take a look at her if her heart can stand the flight over. I agree completely with you that Switzerland is out of the question. The language barrier presents too much, and it would be too great a burden on you and possibly even dangerous just at this moment for Joan.

An odd letter in from Lizzie today, to be circulated to all members of the family, and written much in the manner of a round-the-world traveler--highly impersonal in a rather majestic fashion, in the manner of Washington is a beautiful city and everyone should visit it at some time.

My tooth trouble was a broken tooth, and

How increasingly sad, Viola's letters are. I am most troubled about Doris, but you can judge nothing until
you see her. Also with George. Poor Gerald must be in a tizzy. Although I suspect (or at least hope) that
some of his Round Table Knights will spring to his company. It will be loneliness which will be most
difficult.

5 June 1961

Dearest Fido,

The trip to Gardner was rather exhausting, but went off pleasantly enough. My brother and sister (he especially) had worked hard at sorting out the things to be divided, so that one got at it with comparatovely little effort. There was not a great deal that we would have room for here in New Haven, but we chose a few pieces of furniture to put in the second house we own at the shore. I did this chiefly so as to seem a part of the whole thing. Then I took some linens and blankets, the latter of which I can lend out to the foreign students (married ones) who come without any provision against the winters. I must once have given most of my juveniles to nephews and nieces; at least there didn't seem to be too many of them left. What was really sad for me was to stop at Princeton on the way back to see my mother, and have her show us flowers from "my garden." To her this garden is at her birthplace, but I felt a good deal like Judas. Except of course that the house really was falling apart, she would never go to it again, and this relieves my brother and sister of a responsibility I can't share. Still, still, still...

I had hoped to begin on my lectures today, but I can see it
will take tonight at the least at my office before I can begin to begin.

Your letters of the 31st and 2nd were in today's mail. I am
sorry about the snow. You must be catching some of our incredibly bad
spring weather. I was interested to learn that Mary Renault was staying
with Pantheon. She was one of the very few authors that came to Pantheon
through an agent, so her personal connections with Helen and Kurt were
not very great.

Did I tell you that intelligent girl who typed your memoirs as
of this side speaking to me of wishing she had a stronger picture of your Dada's
personality, that he was a little blurred in her mind--not so much from
being hidden as from being too much taken for granted. I believe that Kurt
urged you to heighten Sir John a little...... I enjoyed the clipping about
John. What fun it must be to add to the excitement of life in this way. And
what a superb means of bolstering the ego; for I can't believe anyone really
cares what he does or does not do, or where he goes or does not go. I suspect
he wishes they did. And I still believe it is a sort of extrapolation of
what he thinks to have been the image of his father.

Your plan for a day's trip to Mannern sounds like fun. I should
love to do it, and it would give me a chance to see a little more of Switzer-
land. I hardly know the country, as you know. As for Helen I suspect you are
right and that she would prefer to come to Zurich for a break. We can discuss
all matters then.

Hard to plan about London, but will let you know in a day or two.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

6 June 1961

Dearest Fido,

All day I have been sitting glumly at my desk, ever since Susan called to read me your cable about Hilda. I wasn't sure where it came from, I was too stupid to cable you care of the Rote Kreuz, and so sent to Kenwin on the hope that Elsie could reach you. I would have said may I come over had not John phoned me after their cable to say that Perdita was going across, wanted very much to go for her mother's sake and yours, and hers as well. I said I thought she should, and I think she should. And I said she should go jet first-class because you can always get a single first class seat on a jet, and she will be tired enough nervously as well as physically without adding the confinement of tourist. There was no asking and no hinting, but when I volunteered to send her a check for the passage, John said it would relieve one of Pup's worries. I said it was from you, that is from a little account you had set up for emergencies. Tonight at supper, John called again after Heydt's phone call. I think at both moments they perhaps wanted approval for her going, and I gave it again. It doesn't really matter in terms of her going, what happens: she will be there as to help you. We mustn't make people continue to feel guilty, as I think they do. I assured John you had liked Pup's last letter (I didn't say you had sent it) and they had been relieved by yours. That's all past, forget it, I said; so make her feel that way. I know why you had Heydt call. Anyhow I was glad to get from John some further details.

And so how do we know what will happen, and how we can take care of the future? One usually knows in a few days what the course of fate is likely to be. Nor do I quite know what I wish it would be if it is to be other than complete recovery. I do not want to think, for her sake and yours. (And of course I am thinking all the time). If by some good fortune, however, Hilda should recover, why do you not let me stand guard for an extra week after July 1st so that you can have your trip on the Quest and your visit to England. At least you must do the latter for a change, and Doris and the others need you. Susan is agreeable to this, for we discussed it tonight at dinner. It won't be a happy vacation for you, but you must have the change. You must have the change.

It is not right for me to come just now; this would seem like competition to Pup, and I don't want things spoiled for her.

Let us look out to sea together.

My dearest love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

7 June 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 5th arrived in the noon mail. Some day when you are historically minded you must see how alert you were in the anticipation of catastrophe for Hilda. It is like some of her letters while still recently at Brunner's about the dark newsweekman as an angel of death. How glad I am that she had her Gold Medal and her seventieth birthday exhibition.

I have been fearful of a telegram, but happily none has come. Actually I did not mail your letter last night until midnight, having stayed at the office to work as long as I could keep my eyes open. I finished the page proofs for Mary de Achewiltz which I had had since last fall: for the first thirty cantos which she is translating into Italian. This was the sort of work I could do. It kept me concentrating on the sheets before me rather than on a Zurich which is too far away.

Is there a new book by Moore on Lawrence? I am not sure what Aldington is referring to at just this time, since there has been so long an interval since the last book I know of by Moore on Lawrence. Don't forget that Moore has certain D.H.Lawrence letters full of H.D. and C.G. and the consequences, which I think would be unhappy to have appear but which would not in the States be necessarily libelous. I had to threaten blackmail on Moore before, when Aldington presented Hilda with his fantasy of tricking Moore out of possession of the letters and then having her destroy them. Who would send out anything but copies! I do not think so much about your own satisfaction, but rather more about the involvement of others like Pup and the grandchildren. But all this is a little irrelevant, since with Hilda ill it is only Aldington who could bring suit against Moore. He would be the only one libelled, one presumes.

I am just talking! I really don't care about anything except Hilda and the burden on you, willing though you are to assume it at such a dire moment as this.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 June 1961

Dearest Fido,

I was so immensely relieved when Susan called this
morning with the cable about Hilda's condition and Perdita's
arrival. Then in the morning's post was an exceptionally nice
letter from Pup, so that altogether I felt in touch. That is,
in touch with everything except my Munich lectures. What would
have happened had I been leaving tomorrow, as originally planned,
I don't know. There have simply been too many interruptions.
Tonight at the office (this time I am writing in late afternoon)
perhaps I can get down to it.

I thought you might be interested in the enclosed
from Tuesday's paper. Evidently Harcourt is going to expand
in a substantial way. By today the stock had dropped $3.50 to
$36.00 a share, but of course Jovanovich was only hoping to peg
it at a higher price, so the decline is not very meaningful. I
imagine that Kurt and Helen are not involved in the stock angle
anyhow.

I think I told you that there was much division of
household things from Gardner, even though Susan and I took com-
paratively little, living more simply and in a much smaller house
than either of the other two. Almost my only choice from the
things in the garage was an aluminum snow shovel, on the basis
that one can always use another. Today I had a letter saying that
it really belonged to a man who rented garage space after my mother
went to the hospital. So it must be returned, by the truck which
is to bring some furniture to the next-door house at the shore.

Gradually I reassemble myself, however. The raincoat
I left in the car which took me from Idlewild to New Haven, after
the Minneapolis trip, has been returned by mail; and the glasses
I dropped as I got out of the car at my brother's were advertised for
in the *Gardner News* and returned, having been picked up by an eager
urchin.

We think of you constantly. All love to Hilda, Pup, and
yourself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

10 June 1961

Dearest Fido,

I was much relieved to have your letter of the 6th and

to have some details of all that had happened on Monday. I phoned
John and read the relevant parts to him so that he could have a better
idea, and when Horace phoned to ask if I had known any more than when
I wrote him I read parts to him also. We can only wait.

We must discuss the Moore element when I come, although
I still do not know what it is precisely that Moore intends to do.
He pretty much promised me that he would not print the letters without
excusions. Aldington played cosy with Moore for so long that I should
think he could do something with Moore's publishers about the matter.
Obviously a suit would please an American publisher, but they can be
decent at the same time. Just be sure that you have all the facts from
Aldington before I come. As you know, I despise Moore, but bravery is
not quite the issue.

A yellowback of Borderline closeups has come. And they
have put me in the best of humor. There were also several letters. Do
tell me why the visitor's have a separate telephone at Tregarthen. It
makes sense, but I have never seen this elsewhere.

Well, not quite in the best of humor for only this afternoon
was I able to start my Munich lectures, and did manage to do only 2 and a
half pages, which I shall no doubt throw away. Alas, we are having the
grandchildren for the weekend--they came yesterday afternoon-- so that
their mother could go back to Smith for her 10th reunion. And Monday is
Jim's graduation from architecture school. Pray for me.

You have my prayers always/

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 June 1961

Dearest Fido,

Am feeling a little groggy having only gotten to bed at three a.m., but at least I finished the first of the Munich lectures. I gave it this morning to the woman who is translating it. I rather hope that I can have finished the second one by Wednesday morning so that she can get that finished also. The third one I can perhaps get Kurt's daughter to do in Munich, or leave with the woman here to air mail to me. Probably the last idea is the best one.

This morning was graduation day. I did not march in the procession, but worked at my desk. However at noon I went to the architecture school to see Jim get his diploma, and then to Mory's for a graduation lunch. Alas, people have insisted on coming in this afternoon. I don't even know that I can keep my eyes open so long again tonight.

The best about today however is the group of four letters from you which arrived together. One of the 6th, two of the 8th, and one of the 9th. Do not feel that you must write regularly, although naturally I am always eager to know how things go. Yesterday I had a lengthy report from Heydt, sent special delivery, which was most kind of him. Will you tell him of my two lectures still to go, and ask his forgiveness if I do not write to him. I look forward very much to seeing him and Dori when I arrive.

My hopes are that if Hilda has shown such recuperative powers thus far, *that* she may very well make even further recovery and perhaps regain her powers of speech. I do not like to contemplate how awful it would be for her not to be able to talk. A younger person might be able to accommodate herself to such a situation, but at Hilda's age it could only be anguish.

I am glad you are taking, or rather have taken, the little break to Kenwin. And you ought certainly to take the long absence you speak of. I agree that it is imperative. I can talk to Susan about coming over this time, but I doubt very much that she will want to because of the grandchildren at the shore. Next fall they go to France for a year and then will live on the west coast. So this is a sort of last chance for her to see and enjoy them. At any rate why don't you hop over to London anyhow while I stay with Hilda. I don't know how long Perdita will feel she can stay on, but I am very glad she has come. I say hop over to London, not quite counting that as the change you want. I wish I were free so that we could all flip to Japan together.

"The weather is unbelievably muggy. As a Victorian lady would say, "I glow."

AN BORD DES LUFTHANSA-SENATOR-DIENSTES

1 July 1961

Dearest Fido,

It is just barely the first, but the Heydts have just left, and I hasten to drop you a note before I begin to pack and then go to bed. The day has been quite full. I had a nice visit with Helen, and I think things seem to be going reasonably well with them. They go over at the end of October for the month of November, and she does not expect that you will go with them. They are to be in New York rather than Princeton I am glad to say. We spoke of the earlier books, and the matter will be taken up with Harcourt when they go over. She does not think that Harcourt would be interested in anything except your books, however. I agree that you would be better off with one publisher rather than have your titles listed under two. I told her about your plans for the memoirs. Her idea is to have it for a next June date if you get it finished, but I warned her that everything depended on Hilda's condition.

I saw Hilda this morning and again this afternoon. We seemed to have a good contact, and when I left this afternoon she got to her feet, took her two sticks, and went to the doorway to stand there to wave me goodbye as I took the elevator. The Sister was there, but Hilda walked easily and completely without anyone supporting her. It was an excellent farewell present.

Had a good chance for a talk with Erich at dinner, and Dori came down for a cup of coffee after the opera. The opera was good, but sitting in the front row, with the deep orchestra pit immediately in front of me made me feel a little as though I were watching animals at the Hamburg zoo. It was finally left that I would not bother to consult Pup about cremation and place of burial, since she had specifically told Dori that she thought it would be better for Hilda to be buried on this side. I told the Heydts we would take

Hilda's ashes back to Bethlehem. For God's sake Where would bury Hilda in Zurich? So that is settled, and I hope you will not object to my decision. I made plans also for Straumann to speak at the cremation. He is now Recktor of the University of Zurich and would lend the proper tone. Erich and Dori feel some sort of speech is necessary, or if we do not then Brunner will speak. I bow to their, or rather Dori's sense of Swiss decorum, just as I would bow to Elsie's.

I had to be rather apologetic when I called Straumann last night at eleven-thirty, but he still wanted me to go to his home. So I did, met his new young wife (a student I should think) and did not get back to the hotel until one.

Now I must pack. Give my love to Doris and George, and my greetings as indicated.

Thanks.

All love, and infinite

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

6 July 1961

Dearest Fido,

Don't ever come back to a desk. I warn you. It is much better to stay away. And even my efforts to break through to you last Monday do not seem to have been successful, as the enclosed letter indicates. Alas, when I wrote it I did not know that the postal rates had gone up on this sort of letter, since I left. Anyhow I had sent it to Doris's care rather than Ethel's, so it may be just as well. Now I don't even remember quite what I said to you.

The trip back was really most uneventful, and I read a good deal in Hilda's manuscript, and slept a good deal too. That is except when we flew over the Cape Farvel and I could see the great ice cap spread out below me, and the fjord through which we passed by moonlight on that first out-of-space night, and the land around Nanorålik and Erik's land. There were huge icebergs in the water off Farvel, and my heart grew lonely to be back. But later when we passed over Connecticut I could look down on Johnson's Point, and it was better I suppose for me to be there than "where the bears are."

I made contact with the bus which was to take me back to New Haven, but I had to stand for an hour outside the YWA terminal while they seemed to miss me. Why no porter was willing to stand and guard my bags while I phoned again, I cannot fathom. Anyhow at last I was rescued, and reached New Haven about 8:30.

I came in on Sunday morning to the office to get Hilda's ms of Helen but I could not really get down to working on it until the Fourth, and finished it by the afternoon of yesterday, which is why you had no letter from me except for the returned envelope I enclose. Susan took the proofs to New York with her today when she went to the hairdresser, and Grove Press was to have sent a messenger to pick it up from her at the Ritz. I did try to go over it with the utmost care, and Grove in fact had done an excellent job of proofreading and querying, which made things simpler for me. They asked about a dedication, but since Hilda had never responded to my several requests long ago for some designation, I simply let it go without one. I can't really think of anyone except her mother, since she did not rise to that before.

Your own letters have been coming in regularly, and I suspect you were much better to be on your own in London than had I been with you. Thought I do miss not seeing you as we had the chance to do in Zurich almost better than ever before. Certainly we never had a moment when it was more usefully in practise than then.

Boor Edith. How sad it is for her, and also for Osbert. Your reporting of the conversation was immaculate, and another cue for me to implore of you that you do your best to write a book. I spoke of this to Helen Woolff, who was delighted with the idea, and agreed that there is nothing like it presently.

I must say that I thought the reviews of your book were stupid to say the least. The reviewers hardly seemed to understand the genres of novels, quite

apart from the matter of whether or not they should have liked it, or not have
liked it. One simply had no confidence in their judgment one way or another.
I am not suprised that Collins was angry. As for the interview--and I do thank
you for sending it along--it could have been, as you say, much worse. In fact
it was very complimentary in an unusual way. You won a complete victory over
him. It is a wonderful asset to have your poise. I am glad you did not send
him away. It will do you good, I think; by which I mean it quite clears the
air, and completely distinguishes yourself from brother John.

Don't worry about the matter of burial. Perhaps it was I who over-
stated or misunderstood. What Dori Heydt said was "buried here." "Here" may
indeed have meant Switzerland and not Zürich. I suspect Pup was thinking of
Kenwin, and Vevey, and Lausanne, and the many years of Hilda's life tied in
with Switzerland. And, as I said, she has no plot in New York, and probably
does not know of the family plot in Bethlehem. If anything does happen to Hilda,
however, I think it might (after all) be indicated that I flip over if you want
me to. It would at any rate relieve you of the macabre details of the funeral
services. I know how to cope with such things, and can relieve you a little.
Anyhow let us hope that all this discussion will be nothing but a precaution
for a long time to come.

The Fourth was a little quieter at the Point than usual. Except for
Mrs Bennett's luncheon on the Fourth there was only one meeting of the clan, when
Susan and a sister gave a cold supper for some 32 of the family. Susan had cooked
Milton Mowbray pies, and the sister had prepared jellied veal. I perhaps did not
tell you that finally I bought a largish sailboat, with a keel, for Justus. He has
been in seventh heaven with it: a big boy's boat. And it does sail beautifully, I
must say. Little Susan was delighted with her doll from the Heimatswerk, which she
calls "ba-by" and clutches to her always. On the eve of the Fourth when the others
went out on the boat to watch the fireworks, Susan and I baby-sat. Justus could not
go to sleep from the excitement, until finally he and I had a series of "pretend
good dreams" to offset the "bad dream" he said he had had. I asked him what a
really good dream would be about, and he said "boats." His next suggestion was
"ice-cream." He wanted a "pretend bad dream", but I backed that.

Apparently Lizzie's Florida aunt has decided that she (the aunt) needs
someone to live with her, and so Lizzie is to stay on. Both Susan and I feel re-
lived at this, even though the aunt is somewhat neurotic herself. But they will
sustain each other and have much in common.

My two assistants in research reported this morning, and have made excellent
progress. I must keep at my desk so that I can begin to work with them from next
week on.

My greetings to Ethel, and love to Doris when you see her. And to yourself

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 July 1961

Dearest Fido,

A muggy Saturday in the office, but fortunately no one except
a fool comes in, so I have been completely undisturbed. I can't really say
that I have been intellectual, only industrious. But my bankbook is in order
again, the bills on hand have been paid, and innumerable notes of thanks
or sympathy have been penned. I did my report (annual) for the President
of the University, and made a selection of seven autumn poems for the Bulletin
of the Academy of American Poets. This is a task I have twice put off, and
so now it is done.

You would really have envied me yesterday, when I attended the
enclosed invitation and met His Holiness in person. There were a number of
Tais present, including some priests in their bright orange robes. These
were always on their knees before His Holiness. I only stood at my presentation.
"His Holiness does not shake hands," the priest whispered in my ear. I had not
stretched mine out, and so all was well. I said it was a great honor for Yale,
etc. The interpreter interpreted back that it was a great honor for His
Holiness. I said, rather exaggerating, that in Switzerland I had been in
contact with the group which was helping Tibetan refugees. This was duly
translated to His Holiness who seemed completely uninterested, and made not
even a murmur in response. Thus ended my presentation, although I talked some
with the priests, and also with the young American who was escorting him around
the world, and whom I had known when he was a graduate student at Yale learning
Laotian, and far-eastern history.
My only wonder was whether you
and the sweet young Swiss mädl would be out in the cold if you flipped out to
the Tibetan camps. Better find out first whether they can be in the presence
of women, or touch them. Not that you want to be touched, of course; only this
might debar. I rather doubt it, and surely you could touch the women. My gang
here was too sacred. I have promised to send out a copy of the Gandharan book
to be presented to His Holiness for the temple library. I hope Islay will like
that.

Today I had a request for permission to use two photogaphs from the
book in an article on Siamese art. Ingholt tells me the man who requests is the
best in the field. Your book marches, you see, if slowly.

Four new books have come for the juvenile collection: two by Fenn:
Cutlass & Cudgel, and Nic Revel; one by Stables, The Pearl Dovers; and one by
Suffling, Fur Traders in the West. I bought the last for the subject matter.

John forwarded up for me to answer (he answered nicely with a note
saying he was referring) an invitation from the Institute of Contemporary Arts,
in Washington, D.C. for Hilda to come there: "We wish to honor you on your
75th birthday with special guests from The White House, The Cabinet, The Court,
The Congress, and the Diplomatic, with Robert Duncan and others giving short
papers on your work to frame your reading." Alas! I think she might have
liked this. I had to write that it was impossible, but offered the use of her

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

taped reading of "Helen" on the slight chance that they might wish to do
the program anyway. I will send you a copy of my answer surface. I am not
sending on the invitation to Hilda. Either she will not comprehend it, or
if she does will be too much upset by not going. At least this is my idea.
There is plenty of time to send it over if you want. We might wait and see
both how she is, and whether they take the chance of a program anyhow. I doubt
they will, though I pointed out that the recording has never publicly been
heard.

I wonder whether you found Rita's letter tempting, with its offer
to drive you back to Switzerland at high speed in her new Jaguar? I suspect
not.

I called Horace by phone this morning. After some difficulty he came
to the phone and sounded very cheerful and hopeful. Marya, on the other hand,
sounded depressed and Horace himself said that she was rather tied down since
she had to dress him etc. I suggested that if he could find someone to come
for a week or two, we would give that as a special off-birthday present, so
that arya could perhaps visit Joanna or go off with Pat. I doubt that she
has other friends she can turn to. Horace seemed pleased with the thought,
but I am not sure whether in fact it will happen. I do think it's important
for her, just as it is for Viola's Barbara. or for you!

I hope all has gone well with the cruise. Distribute my affection
generously, and chew on the hard core of my love for yourself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

12 July 1961

My dearest Fido,

I plod on. Today I really did finish up the little jewel-boxed selection of eight (8) autumn poems for Poetry Pilot, the publication of the Academy of American Poets. And sent it off with a letter asking the Academy to send me greetings to take from them to Hodgson on his 90th. This is one of my chores now. Then I checked the quotations and copy of my Voice of America talk, which is to be published in a little volume here. It is rather like the Munich speech. Etc etc. The jacket material for Hilda's book has come, and I shall try to go over that tomorrow morning when I am a little fresher.

A letter in from a magazine in India wanting a piece. Also from Zurich asking for a contribution to the festschrift being prepared for the Rektor at the University there. There is also some talk still of a German publication. We shall see. First there is my desk to be cleared. And then the anthology to be done. The two students I have working on it have done a good job so far. It will be hard to keep up with them.

I sent off on Monday a copy of the interview with me on Hemingway. Forgive the grammar of discourse. I assure you it was not always as I put it, although he was faithful to the ideas. The only point of regret there was his omission of several bridges which would have made the going easier. I hope you do not think I was making a plea against suicide. But you know me too well for that. I was talking about something else in answering the reporter's questions. Incidentally I am told that this week's *Time* states bluntly that he put the shotgun in his mouth and fired off both barrels.

I think I forgot to thank you for the check from the Union Bank which arrived safely, and is deposited in the savings account.

Two letters have come since I wrote you last, and I was glad the trip had begun so well. The news about Doris of course cheered both Susan and myself. And it is good news also about Rosemary. I rather believe it becomes s.o.p. to bring psychiatrists in on cases like this, when it is so important for the spirits to be maintained. And good news too that George will come. I look forward to seeing him. Do you want me to speak to Prutting about seeing him before he goes on to Carlisle?

Glad to see the Times review of your book. It is obviously favorable; but like most British reviews doesn't really give you much to go on.

As for Phyllis on the Revolution, I was delighted that history remains both fresh and simple.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN

14 July 1961

My dearest Fido,

This is one of those unforgiveable days when I literally
drip from the humidity. If only it would rain. The ground is dry, and
poor Susan's plants gasp for water. We do what we can with sprinkling,
but not being in town is a drawback. I spent the morning reading a
microfilm of an 1857 trip to Italy by an American artist, and wished I
could have been there with him. Two little-blue-letters from you have
arrived, written after you set out on the Quest. And I wished I might
have been with you even in the midst of the wash from the big boats.

My copy of the letter from Dori arrived yesterday, and
yours will have reached you perhaps before this does. I am a little
apprehensive about the speech, but delighted that she is up and about
and needs nickers-knickers.

O.B. sent a copy of latest offprint, plus a most charming
letter. I shall try to write to him within a few days. I seem to be
awfully slow in getting much of anything done, but at least my desk is
somewhat clearer always. Except for the mss of novels, books on Pound,
and the like which have been sent to me for my "advice." It really is
an imposition, but it is part of the game I suppose. What is worse is
that having just finished reading the manuscripts of five or six books
of poetry submitted to Wesleyan, they have just sent me the manuscripts
of seventeen more volumes. The quality of poetry may be dying out, but
certainly not the quantity. Yet much work though such reading is, it does
keep me more in touch with what is going on than I would otherwise be.
Without it I would simply re-read the older ones in preparation for my
classes.

I had a check for five thousand for my share of the Gardner
house, and have bought some insurance stock with it. There is little or no
income to be derived, but considerable chance for a capital gain. I am also
finally going to sell some stock I had which has returned no income for eight
years. I always held on against its recovery, but think it better to put
even the small amount involved into income-producing and possibly capital
enlarging possibilities.

A letter from Lizzie seemed well-adjusted. She has had a rise
in salary and been going to evening classes as part of a training program.
The tone was particularly pleasing. I hope all goes well with her.

If you see Edith when you are in London, do you think if you
asked in person for a scribbled one-line happy birthday to Hodgson, she would
sign it? I have an idea it would mean much more to him than a half-a-dozen
from American poets, though he will have those too, I hope. This is my next
project.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 July 1961

Dearest Fido,

You gave no address for after the 21st, and I dare not
send this care of Ethel. But I hope you will not have left Cornwall
without visiting Doris, and so I risk this in her care. Your letter
came this morning as from your visit with the Durrells. Your card came
yesterday. What fun! I envy you. I only wish we had been able to
go with you. Do many people visit? I know none of the Channel Islands.
How curious it is that when I was a student at Oxford I always wanted
to go to the Scillies. And since then to Sark and the others. I am
fascinated at the ban on French. Of course many go. I had forgotten yours
of arrival there.

I spent most of today drawing up the jacket material for
[Helen in Egypt](https://www.knopf.com/books/9780387763740), copies of which I enclose. I hope Horace will not be
offended. I did not quote him, in order to let his introduction speak
for itself. Mine was a re-draft (rather extensive, almost de novo) of
what Grove had prepared. But the statement of the theme of the poem
belongs to the woman who is Hilda's editor. I thought it quite good.
In the biographical sketch I omitted any reference to her residence
abroad. Enough has been said about this, and of course I want the
reviewers and critics to think of her as an American. Who knows, it
might even get some prize, and prize committees rather go for local
talent. I take it to New York tomorrow to go over this and any other
problems with the publishers. Probably I shall simply go in and take
the next train back. I have so very much to do at my desk, and only
another week of my secretary.

Last night I finished the manuscript volumes of poetry
submitted to Wesleyan. Altogether 23 in this lot, and it was an ex-
hausting experience. One or two were interesting, but I did not learn
very much from this experience.

Yes, Dori's letter had its sad side; I simply do not know
and cannot know. All I do know is that there is really no reason for you
to hurry back from Doris, and I hope you won't. I think at the moment it
is indicated to leave Hilda by herself. The mockery, Dori speaks of is
of course simply an exaggeration of half a habit Hilda has always had.
Now it becomes a way of communicating, by facial expressions instead of
words. Her energy has to find some outlet, and it may be that the injury
is permanent. If so, I only agree with you.

The copy of the English *Ruan* has come. Actually I like it
better than the New York one. The blue and red add to the effect. If only
they had had the good sense to follow the Pantheon designs before, instead
of some of the horrors they put on.

A frightful rain on Saturday, though much needed, and it has
been unbearably muggy and warm since. Those at the shore have found it
rather wretched as holiday weather. Susan Jean in love with Doris

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

31 July 1961

Dearest Fido,

I have been dripping all day, except at the funeral parlor in Branford where I went this morning to the services for our assistant caretaker at the Point, who dropped dead while rolling the tennis court last Friday. It is a wonder more people have not died, for the temperature has been in the 90's for a fortnight, with the highest possible humidity. My secretary goes on her month's holiday on Wednesday, and I have been trying desperately to clear as much as possible from my desk before she goes. It looks a little better, but she did not help (though it was hardly her fault) by having such migraine because of the heat that she was absent three days last week. It was annoyingly distracting, for it meant that I had to answer the telephone, see people unnecessarily and otherwise waste precious moments. She seemed to be in good fettle today however.

I was happy to have your letter today after seeing Hilda. It is good to know her health is recovering though I am increasingly worried about the problem of her speech. And that she is, as I thought before, aware of most of what is happening. I do feel that you and I can get through to her inner being in a special, and somewhat frightening way. I say frightening because it indicates pretty clearly to me that you must take the greatest care not to become her slave. Again as Heydt says, this is an aspect of her disease and her condition. She will cling to you increasingly if you let her. This will not be good for her I am sure. I am completely certain it will not be good for her, and strain her by the very effort to communicate with you. I am not simply urging a form of self-protection on you for your sake; I mean it also for hers. You might go over again in a fortnight if it is indicated, but after that one a month for three or four days will be enough. Heydt spoke in his last letter of the possibility of a nearby nursing home where they can keep the closest watch on her while continuing the anti-coagulants. I see no alternative for this for another six months, as we spoke before. When you come over in the fall we will be in a much better position to discuss the eventual future. Only I demand that you protect yourself.

I followed your cruise with intense interest and jealousy. You acted like an experienced sailor in letting the boat go out without you, and meeting you later. I am sure the crew appreciated this. They had enough to do and you could not possibly have helped.

I was glad that news about Doris was at least faintly more hopeful. In some ways I wish she could have had these things done for her on this side; but on the other hand I feel pretty sure that it is better for her to be with her own family and families and among friends.

Cheers for your putting the burr under the Collins' saddle. Ruan could have done wonderfully well with trippers and the like; it will, in time, of course, but I hate to see it miss this first flare of approval. If the British are like American cousins they go their own way in picking books, and in masses do not follow the polite reviewers at all. If you would only write a

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

prayer book for seals or lions, then Billy would wake up.

I should so much have liked to see the Dorchester museum and
the clipper model that Masefield built for Hardy. Masefield's two water-
colors look very well at the shore and are the subject of much conversation.
We are keeping them up for the season, as though we were running an art show.
Then they can be put away to preserve the colors.

I have been reading manuscripts like mad. Two weekends ago I read
some twenty volumes of poetry, and so it goes. I have also been trying to do
the last chores in sending out letters asking for birthday greetings for Hodgson's
90th. Archibald MacLeish quite scared the pants off of me by writing that he
would happy to write but his calculations made it to be the 89th. I went to
Untermeyer's anthology and sure enough the birthyear was given as 1872. My
heart sank, for this is just the sort of mistake I might make. But fortunately
all other reference books including *Who's Who* give it as 1871, so I feel safe
in going ahead. I had a nice note from Marianne, another from Mark Van Doren,
a beautiful letter from a poet named John Holmes, one from Richard Wilbur etc.
I shall give Hodgson an anthology or so to accompany the letters, so that he
can look up the poems if he wants to. Last Saturday I wrote 24 more letters,
and have a half dozen still to go. Not all will answer, and not all certainly
have from the first trial I sent out. But we will have a good group to send.
Did you have any luck with getting one of out Dame Edith. I do wish she would;
this would be meaningful to him I know. I made one wild gesture in sending out
a letter, by asking a friend (acquaintance, rather) who is Special Assistant to
President Kennedy, if he could get Kennedy to send greetings. I doubt it will
work, but the chance is worth it. It would be rather splashy I must say. I
am planning to send Aurelia the 1961 summer check for a thousand dollars now
rather than wait for September. It would normally have come, and she may well
depend on it for emergency. Whether I myself actually go out for the 9th
naturally depends upon her signals.

A further note or two from Lizzie seem to indicate that she is
getting along well. Her aunt is to visit here this week or next and I expect
that we will hear further news. Little Susan and her husband continue to
make plans for spending the winter in France; he has a rather wild idea of
taking a house sight unseen and furnishing it. Aldington is having Catha
drive over to see it but I had a welcome discouraging letter from him about
the general prospect of this sort of a house in this morning's mail. It is
just what I hoped he would have sent as a warning. It is all very well to
rough it as a young couple, but as he says the fact of two children puts a
quite different slant to a heatless, lightless, waterless dwelling. If they
actually saw it this would be one thing. I am infinitely grateful to him.

I sent a report to Harold Doolittle, who replied just as he was
leaving on a tour throughout the west coast and up to Alaska. He promises to
send Hilda cards. I sent Dori's letter, or part of it, to Pup, and have also
sent a copy of Heydt's. I presume you will write them and Aldington after this
visit.

Do tell me what happened to Elsie on her kur, and give her my greetings.
I will write until caught up. And then afterwards too of course.

Depest love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

3 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

My secretary is now on vacation. I shall survive, but my desk looks as untoldly full as ever and I have spent most of today answering phone calls. However I have managed to write still a few more letters about Hodgson's birthday. Three or four more and I shall be through. I hope some decent ones appear. I may have told you before, but I think I shall send Aurelia the summer one thousand dollars before the birthday. I had first thought to wait, but now it seems to me that she may have been expecting it and therefore need it.

Your letter of the 30th came. I know precisely how you feel about Hilda's situation. I cannot bear to think of her suffering this sense of frustration, and it is all the greater reason for your not being with her too much and doubling the agony of wanting to communicate with you. I suspect that a nursing home is about indicated. It is possible that this may give her a little more the feeling of her better days at Brunner's. I shall be anxious to see what you think of the Heydts' suggestion of a place.

I was glad to know by your letter of the 28th that Edith was so much improved. But in a situation like hers I suspect there will be many ups and many downs. Poor Sachie's letter about her and Osbent's situation was heartbreaking. Were you able to persuade her to write a letter for Hodgson? I remember that she held a soft spot for him at one time. If she will, have her send it to you and then you can send it to me. By the way, I hope of course that you too will write a letter to go with the rest; or, better, a special letter which can have a place of its own. It will not be a birthday without one from you; the rest is sheer window-dressing.

It is sad about Gerald, and I suspect he is wise not to try to be head of the Knights, but lucky that he can maintain his active connection as secretary. I imagine it is more his cup of tea anyhow.

I was terribly pleased that your Cornish holiday had turned out so well, or rather your Scillonian one. It makes a vital escape valve, so use it often.

Rita's July letter was queer indeed. I wonder why, suddenly, she expects all of these Russian affairs (as for instance, Kuwait) will "blow over." And "most fascinating" is not quite the phrase I would choose for Berlin and China. And where did she get the idea that you were on holidays with the Pearsons. I think she must have written in something of a fit of distraction.

I still felt a little sad when I read Mary Hotson's letter saying that Leslie had been able to buy the picture. Especially when in the same

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

breath she announces that he should have no trouble in getting it out of English because a second copy exists at the Victoria and Albert. Somehow it seems to me this detracts from the market value, which seems to be the main objective. But I am such a bad judge of commercial transactions of this sort that I am sure my distrust only guarantees the complete success of his venture.

I was furious in picking up my copy of the TLS for July 14th and reading the brief notice of Ruan with its conclusion that "the Cornish kingdom...seems a very rum place." This is quite preposterously flip, and I wonder if the reviewer actually read the book at all. What is said could be said after flicking a dozen pages! I really think that the British have no real respect for the novel as an art form. Quite unlike the French who if they were to criticise you or any one else would do so on grounds that would be taken seriously even if disagreed with.

I forgot to tell you that a good deal of last week went into rewriting a two hour lecture to be given by a postdoctoral Japanese student here--a professor in Japan--at the University of Wisconsin. It was on Hawthorne, James and Soseki--an unlikely combination with the latter at best. But that was his concern. What troubled me was that he wrote such an English, with such disregard for structure, that I could not make any consecutive head or tail of it or any part of it. I did not want him to embarrass the audience or be embarrassed by them, so the only thing to do was to sit down and rewrite it for him. I told him that this was what I had done when my lectures were touched up for a German audience, and thus saved him face as he stood before a mirror. He came in today, quite pleased with the reception of the piece. I believe he is to publish it in Japan, but I shall never show it to you. That is, unless you are mad about Soseki, of whom I had never heard before and am not sure I want to read.

Tomorrow I hope to go across the street to the library, for the first time. But this will mean real housecleaning: --with mop and dusters!

All love,
Norman

Whora ghostly English with the Swiss omnibus.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

I did not answer your letters of the 31st and 1st yesterday when they arrived, so that I could "sleep on it" as the saying goes. I have, or at least I spent much of last night thinking about it, which worked rather against sleep. Now if only we could discuss the matters together as we could do in Zurich, for I know very deeply how troubled you are and how much you feel the exigencies of Hilda's situation. At the moment she herself is not so much what comes in question, as you yourself. One talks about her only because she deeply involves you, not just now but in the future and for the long run.

I only wish I might put my arms around you as we talk, remembering our long years together and what has always been our mutual confidence in each other.

You speak of three points to be considered primarily, but of the three the last really comes first: "Am I considered by you all expendable or not?" Perdita, as you say, has to be left completely out of the question; and now with this long-suspected crisis with Nicki erupting, her life will be too complicated and too importantly focused on trying to ensure a long and healthy life for him. Heydt and Dori really matter very little except as we use them for Hilda's benefit, or she finds them congenial to her own adjustment. "You all", then, can only refer to me, not by your will but by the necessities of reality. Do I think you expendable as a sacrifice to Hilda? The answer is of course no, as I have tried to show by love, by what I have tried to do for her for your sake, by my promises to see that Hilda should never be abandoned, and most of all by what (even if so very little) I have given so much of myself for in helping you to develop your own potenti- ality as a writer and to bring to your writing the true critical respect and right kind of popularity which it deserves. Had I ever thought you were expendable, all this latter category of effort on my part would have been an idle, careless gesture. It is not simply my love for you that counts; it is my sustained belief in you as an artist.

As you know, I have thought that Hilda should come back to the States; and it was for that reason that I made such efforts to get back her American citizenship, do everything I could to make her visits to the States comfortable and attractive for her, and search out ways and means for her to find the right kind of a situation into which to fit her here. One can only face, as I have always faced, the reality of this sort of future. Leaving Perdita out of it, as we both agree, it is not very realistic to say that her future in the States or even in Switzerland is not my responsibility, or that no burden would be or should be on my shoulders. When she comes to the States, as I hope she will, the burden of her will be entirely on my shoulders. I have always

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

recognized this and agreed to it. I know now that my life will find what expression it has out of helping others who are more gifted and in a position to be more dedicated directly to art and its making. When she comes she will depend entirely on me, and there will be no other on whom she can or should depend.

When we spoke of her and you in Zurich in June, I said that I thought the important consideration at the moment was the recapturing of her health, so that at the end of six months (or even longer, if the doctors thought this advisable) we would know what kind of a human being Hilda became in terms of her health, her abilities, and her incapacities. Her treatment by Dr Meili seems in many ways to have been unexpectedly successful, especially in reference to his use of anti-boagulants. He said to me, and I believed him, that while this treatment was being administered she must be under constant medical observation. Such observation of course depends upon continuity on the part of the observer, just as in the dangerous days of my own hip trouble only a man familiar with the earlier x-rays could read in later ones the changes that had occurred. Meili stopped giving her the anti-coagulants as an experiment. She slowed down in her recovery. At Heydt's suggestion the dosages were resumed. Her speech and her circulation (and mobility) have continued to improve. At least, even if only bird noises come forth, and her memory resumes even a little of its capacity, we can only read this as improvement. How the nurses react to this is essentially irrelevant. I do not see how, without a tremendous sense of guilt we could want to interrupt her treatment by the violence of disrupting the observations of Meili.

We are lucky too in having Heydt and his wife willing to do for Hilda all the things they are doing and will happily continue to do for the foreseeable future. We must take advantage of them, especially in reference to the psychiatric problems which Hilda is facing and will face. It will take a long time for an American psychiatrist to learn enough about her past to guide her, and at the same time to gain her confidence. We will find such a person, but the situation seems to me even more clearly to fall into the pattern of expectancy that we recognized when we were together with her.

All this is very well, you say; "but what about me?" And this is not an idle or a selfish question on your part. Nor is it simply a question of recognizing the miraculous love and attention that you have paid her over the years in making her life and her lives possible and fruitful. You do have yourself to consider, and you must consider yourself. You have had to bear too much, and it is a wonder that you still stand. I want you to stand, and I want you to stand free and firm again.

If Hilda should be flown to New York tomorrow, you quite rightly say that you could "come and visit her twice a year." Then why not make the same resolve during the period that she remains in Switzerland. Once a month at the very most is enough for you to see her; once every three months would be much better. There is no need during this period when she is in Zurich than if she were in New York or anywhere in the States,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

since we already have the doctors there of the sort that we would seek for her here. Meili and Heydt are, aren't they, "the doctors who could be trusted to handle this type of case"? I am perfectly willing to let the communications about Hilda's Zurich period be between Meili and Heydt and myself, and I can fly over every three months during the interval to confer with them. On the medical side this would be, with intervening letters, or telephone calls, about what I would be doing here, yet we would have the advantage of not interrupting the treatment.

You simply must not try to see Hilda in Zurich on anything like the old basis. The period in September you can make as an exception if you want to, but once is enough. I think the VolksClinik sounds like the best (although not perfect) solution in terms of her treatments, and I think she must have the speech and arms therapy. It may well be, in fact, that during this period of treatment it would be better for her too if you were not to go more often than 4/5 completely necessary; since we felt before, that our visits overstimulated her and made it more difficult for her to accustom herself to her position.

I say then quite seriously that I think you should permit me to take over the lines of communication with Meili and Heydt, and with your permission I can make the arrangements with Heydt when he visits here at the end of August. We can begin when he goes back. I know him well enough to manage him, and got along well with Dr Meili. I do not know how long this will have to be carried out before the doctors think she should come here. I will fly over to Zurich at the end of November or in December or at their request. Meanwhile your only freedom can come through your own determination to be free of worry and responsibility. The distance of an ocean between the two of you will not in itself free you. This freedom just come in your own mind, reinforced by the sense that the responsibility is no longer yours but mine. Mine, because Perdita cannot act in this way no matter how much we might wish she would; and mine, because it will make me happy to do this for her and especially for you.

5 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

You speak of three points to be considered primarily, but of the three the last really comes first: "Am I considered by you all expendable or not?" Perdita, as you say, has to be left completely out of the question; and now with this long-suspected crisis with Nicki erupting her life will be too complicated and too importantly focused on trying to ensure a long and healthy life for him. Heydt and Dori really matter very little except as we use them for Hilda's benefit, or she finds them congenial to her own adjustment. "You all", then, can only refer to me, not by your will but by the necessities of reality. Do I think you expendable as a sacrifice to Hilda? The answer is of course no, as I have tried to show by love, by what I have tried to do for her for your sake, by my promises to see that Hilda should never be abandoned, and most of all by what (even if so very little) I have given much of myself for in helping you to develop your own potenti-ality as a writer and to bring to your writing the true critical respect and right kind of popularity which it deserves. Had I ever thought you were expendable, all this latter category of effort on my part would have been an idle, careless gesture. It is not simply my love for you that counts; it is my sustained belief in you as an artist.

When we spoke of her and you in Zurich in June, I said that I
thought the important consideration at the moment was the recapturing
of her health, so that at the end of six months (or even longer, if the
doctors thought this advisable) we would know what kind of a human being
Hilda became in terms of her health, her abilities, and her incapacities.
Her treatment by Dr Meili seems in many ways to have been unexpectedly
successful, especially in reference to his use of anti-coagulants. He
said to me, and I believed him, that while this treatment was being
administered she must be under constant medical observation. Such
observation of course depends upon continuity on the part of the ob-
server, just as in the dangerous days of my own hip trouble only a
man familiar with the earlier x-rays could read in later ones the
changes that had occurred. Meili stopped giving her the anti-coagulants
as an experiment. She slowed down in her recovery. At Heydt's suggestion
the dosages were resumed. Her speech and her circulation (and mobility)
have continued to improve. At least, even if only bird noises come
forth, and her memory resumes even a little of its capacity, we can only
read this as improvement. How the nurses react to this is essentially
irrelevant. I do not see how, without a tremendous sense of guilt we
could want to interrupt her treatment by the violence of disrupting the
observations of Meili.

All this is very well, you say; "but what about me?" And this is
not an idle or a selfish question on your part. Nor is it simply a
question of recognizing the miraculous love and attention that you have
paid for her over the years in making her life and her lives possible
and fruitful. You do have yourself to consider, and you must believe
yourself. You have had to bear too much, and it is a wonder that you
still stand. I want you to stand, and I want you to stand free and firm
again.

If Hilda should be flown to New York tomorrow, you quite rightly say
that you could "come and visit her twice a year." Then why not make the
same resolve during the period that she remains in Switzerland. Once a
month at the very most is enough for you to see her; once every three months
would be much better. There is no more need for more during this period
when she is in Zurich than if she were in New York or anywhere in the States,

since we already have the doctors there of the sort that we would seek
for her here. Meili and Heydt are, aren't they, "the doctors who could
be trusted to handle this case"? I am perfectly willing to
let the communications about Hilda's Zurich period be between Meili and
Heydt and myself, and I can fly over every three months during the
interval to confer with them. On the medical side this would be, with
intervening letters, or telephone calls, about what I would be doing
her; yet we would have the advantage of not interrupting the treatment.

You simply must not try to see Hilda in Zurich on anything like
the old basis. The period in September you can make as an exception if
you want to, but once is enough. I think the Volksslinik sounds like
the best (although not perfect)solution in terms of her treatments, and
I think she must have the speech and arms therapy. It may well be, in
fact, that during this period of treatment it would be better for her
too if you were not to go more often than *completely* necessary; since
we felt before that our visits overstimulated her and made it more
difficult for her to accustom herself to her position.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

This is an afternoon letter, I wanting to get the other
into the mail before lunch. I do hope you take what I say seriously.
You must simply understand that you cannot do all these things for
Hilda add retain your own strength and creativity. And I know that
Heydt would work closely with me. If only Sachs were still alive, I
know that he would advise the same as I do.

I had a letter from Richard Wilbur, the poet, I thought
quite nicely asking if Hilda were in needs of funds. He must make
suggestions to the American Academy of American Poets for their five
thousand dollar award next winter. I wrote that she did not, but that
I hoped they would consider Horace. As tactfully as I could I spelled
out Horace's situation. I mentioned it to another member of the same
committee before last year's prize, but it was too late. But it will
have been boosted twice now, and in the past I have had reasonably
good luck in getting the award for three indirect nominations by me.

I may be letting myself into a frightful jamb, vis-a-vis
Hodgson's 90th birthday. I have been going, as you know, by the date
that Aurelia gave me--the 9th of this coming September. Yesterday
afternoon I read a University of Pennsylvania dissertation on his
biography and poems, a film of which the library got me long since but
which I had not until now had time to read. Horrors! It states that
he was born March 12, 1872 at Bradford, England, the son of one Seth
Hodgson, a dyewroks drier, and Ann Green Hodgson. I checked the source
in a article in *PoetsLore*, which gave this bare information and said the
date was otherwise often incorrectly given. But Who's Who as well as
Aurelia give 1871. In any event I shall have to go through with it.
Actually the dissertation had been able to dig up very little. The first
thirty years, up to 1904, are "all but unknown." From 1904-07 he was a
journalist in London, having his first poems accepted. He was said to be
a sporting cartoonist for the *Evening News* and told an American professor
once that he was employed as a cartoonist for the N.Y. World. He is said
to have been either a boxer or wrestley professionally, or a ring official
for both. During World War I he was a lieutenant in the Labour Corps, and
in his application for a commission stated earlier service in the British
Navy. He was also an editor of a sports magazine known as *Fry's Magazing*
just before entering World War I. He served in the war from 1916-21. Shortly
after leaving the army he met a man named Charles Kenyon on the day he was
said to have had some great tragedy, but this was unspecified. He was well
known as a bull-terrier and mastiff specialist and in 1923 met two Japns
and said he wanted to go to Japan to see a breed of dogs known as Akito.
They were professors at Sendai College, and wrote back securing him a
position as lecturer on English literature, and he went out in 1924 with
his wife on a three year appointment. "Mrs Hodgson missed her cordial
society of London very keenly and after one year's stay she left Japan, and
after five year's separation was finally divorced." Rafe went back to
England in 1927, but then returned and stayed on in Japan until 1938 when
his contract was not renewed because of the approaching war. In 1933 he

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

was married to Lydia Aurelia Bollinger who received her B.A. in 1921. Her father was a clergyman in the Reformed Church, and was working in a mission of this church in Japan when his daughter was married. After coming to the States in 1938 they lived in Philadelphia, first in a hotel and then in an apartment, and finally chose Minerva.

But that date of birth!

So much else has been on my mind that I did not mention before how much I had liked Horace's article on you in his new book of essays, *The Dying Gladiator*. I thought it was excellent, a rewrite of one or more of his reviews.

As for the TLS review I had not thought it so much a criticism of your scholarship, as a stupid jejeune conclusion that the material wasn't worthwhile or interesting. I suspect he felt Cornwall and the Scillies not to be *dig*. But my general opinion of British reviewing of the novel is low, as you know. This only confirms it. I am anxious to see what came out in *Punch*.

The weather has really been wrteched, high humidity and the wind always from the southeast, which always means rain or potential rain. n any event the skies are always overcast. At nights the thermometer goes down to 60, so that one can at least sleep.

Don't forget to give me a bulletin on Elsie's stay at the kurhaus, and on Frau Herf.

I think of you always, and tenderly.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

7 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 4th sped here for this morning.
I am glad my letter to you finally came. I wallow in frustration
here as I try desperately to get down to my own work. But at
least this morning I was able to get an hour and a half in on
the revision of the *Oxford Anthology* and the selection of Hawthorne
critical essays that I shall try to do this summer.

The Kingsley Amis came in, for which my thanks; as also
for the William Cooper Scenes from *Provincial Life*. The former will
be helpful for the talk I must give in Chicago in December on
science fiction; the latter will build up my sense of the modern
British novel. Over the weekend I read a 500-page dissertation
on the 19th century actress Laura Keene (god forbid I repeat)
and a new British novel, *My Friend Judas*, by one Andrew Sinclair,
which is to be published here next month. I do not recommend,
even though it doesn't use quotation marks or commas. Its chief
virtue is to show the influence of Sallenger's *Catcher in the Rye*
on Cambridge.

I did hear finally from the man who inquired about the
foundation. He is an English teacher in California who is at work
on Paris in the 1920's, was told of the manuscripts at Yale and
my interest in Gertrude Stein etc., looked me up in Who's Who in
America and saw the connection with the foundation cited. He
thought it might have helped writers then.

I had a letter from Dori today about Hilda, which
was hopeful except for the matter of pseech. She enclosed a
card of the proposed sanitarium, which certainly has attractive
balconies for good weather.

I shall be curious about Rita. Something is going on,
although it may be physiological rather than political. The newest
Russian feat may send her spinning. But I must say I admire and
wonder. The whole thing is a marvel in the history of man. I don't
of course just mean Russian man.

Is the flower study by Rinette one of her silk embroid-
eries, or does she work in paints as well.

Finlay must be, I suppose, the Harvard classical scholar.
A very able man.

My first refusal to write for Hodgson came in today.
From abette Deutsch who quite honestly said she did not like his
poetry and could not congratulate anyone for living to 90 in a world
like this one.

All love
Homer

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON
231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN, CONN

10 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

Just a hurried note at the end of a day before I
hurry home to guests for dinner. At noon I lectured to the
foreign students (some fifty of them) who are here for an
orientation course before beginning their studies at various
American universities in the fall. Fortunately I seemed able
to speak.

Tuesday night we went to Stratford and saw an *amenable*
production of *Macbeth* but of that more anon. Tomorrow I drive to
Princeton to see my mother. I hope it is less hot than it is
today. I roast.

Many thanks for your letter of the 7th which came
today. I shall send the money to the Hotsons.

A letter came from Horace telling of his illness.
He did not try to sign it. I had asked him if he and Marya
would send a birthday greeting to Hodgson, and was amused by
his reply. "I doubt if it would really help old Hodgson if
Marya and I were included in a birthday round robin. (When William
Cowper was ill, a friend got a number of well known people--
Cowper had never met them--to send him letters--the result: Cowper
went off his head completely; he thought he was being made fun
of!) We've never met Hodgson, but of course we bear him all the
good will in the world. I think Hodgson should hear from people
like Frost and Eliot, Masefield, Robert Graves and Wilfred Gibson--
these should make his eyes light up. The list should be small."

So you must expect the worst in consequence of my
poor effort!

Give Elsie my belated birthday greetings.

And all love to yourself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

I was sorry to write such a hasty note in my last, but I was infinitely rushed. I have been trying to spend some time at the library while I prepared a volume of selected essays on Hawthorne, as well as revise The Oxford Anthology. But students keep coming and my time at the office is hardly my own.

The performance of _Macbeth_ was really atrocious. It was almost as though Pat Hingle, who played the title role, was parodying Shakespeare. Prouty told me with horror that the director had told him that certain concessions had to be made because "of course we all know that Hingle can't speak blank verse." Then why sign him up, as Prouty said. Anyhow the director has been fired as of the end of the season. _TFOilus and Creeseida_ has been put on in Civil War costume. It was lambasted by the critics not only for the mounting but the acting. However the house is usually full, so they won't have to close.

No letter from you for a couple of days, since yours of the 7th. I liked your letter to Green. I read _Loving_ and a couple of others with respect but no great excitement. The copy of _Punch_ came today. Brandbury was formerly a student of mine here, and he has written a light novel or two. I was glad he showed respect but do not at all approve of these gobbety reviews.

Masefield replied to my letter about Hodgson with an exceptionally friendly note, saying he would send me something in time. It was due to you of course, for I mentioned your name. Altogether I have somewhat over twenty good letters so far, with the English group still to hear from. I must say it takes an immense amount of time to write in the first place, and then to have to write again in acknowledgement.

Both Susan and I have begun again to inquire about possible nursing homes in New York or Connecticut for Hilda. One possibility exists in New Haven, but unfortunately it is not on the ground floor and in none of them is there an elevator. She will want to get out of doors occasionally. If this one worked out, and there was room at the right time, I could perhaps remodel a room and redecorate it and get a private attendant. I have also heard of a Catholic Home in New York, on 59th Street, which is said to be comfortable. The lowest cost seems to be about $200 a week, not counting medical care or private attendance.

My visit to my mother yesterday was disheartening for the first time. I went at noon and she was still abed, saying she was no longer allowed to get up. The television was going, and in the doorway another old dame sat with her eyes fixed on me while I talked. Or rather listened, for my mother did not seem to follow much that I said, and simply returned to the account of

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN

fantasies and troubles. Mostly it was her arrangements to move, and she had the servants and gardiner lined up from the past. A faded crysanthemum was on the dresser, which she said had come from her garden. A watercolor of the house where she was born was on the wall, and she outlined her plans for making it comfortable. She looked tired and very old, and when I left, she said, "Yes you had better go home, and not have to think about all my troubles." When I spoke to the nurses afterwards, they said it was not true she could no longer get up. And indeed she was up for five hours each day. So it goes. Death is slower than the American mails.

Many thanks for the various photos etc from London, for the early cookbook which I have given Susan, and for the yellowbacks which have come filled with letters to you. I wish I quite shared Bertie's optimism about Herring. I fear the boredom of returning to London where there will be no middle-class neighbors to drop in on for a chat and tea will lead him back towards guardsmen again. I was delighted, however, that Catha had gotten through her examinations. You should feel pleased for having made it possible.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

I feel a little relieved. A letter from Aurelia in this morning's mail confirmed the 9th. I shall have to get at the mystery when I go. It was rather a sad letter, however:

What a comfort you are! Theoretically these years might have been quite worrisome, and somehow we have friends who simply say, 'Just let us know!' (And I do.)

Last week I wrote you a letter and tore it up. On his low days (which seem to be hot, humid weather), Ralph has considerable trouble with speech. Not as completely as poor H.D. but enough that he says, 'Tell Pearson my wits have left me, or are leaving me.' That same evening a man from Pennsylvania dropped in and he brightened up -- so I tore up the letter.

He laughed with pleasure at your letter and said, 'Of course I'll see him, but it's an absurdly long trip to take ....'

Forgive me, but this summer I've stopped letter writing. ('Lower the blind now... A few matches in this box.... It's time for news ... Three spoons of sugar...') I weep a few tears in the pantry, and then back to the kitchen... You'll understand.

Would you believe it, I haven't yet thought of the birthday delicacy you mentioned. Diet and reading are restricted: oh yes, a new, moderately long-stemmed pipe (Meerschaum?) light in weight, would please him immensely. That I know!

We send our love and gratitude for your friendship.

So'll I get a meerschaum for him (even if I have to make a special trip into New York), and not tear up the birthday letters to him, and go on out.

The day was also brightened by your three letters of the 9th and double 10th. Many thanks. I didn't know about the Mary Butts from O.B. since that letter from him hasn't reached me yet. Naturally I am delighted. I can arrange something, not as from you, in payment.

You were not at all clumsy in your letter, and you must not think so. It is only by talking openly that we can hope to work out situations. I do know how you feel, I think, only one must be sure of precisely what line of argument we are discussing. Your last letter goes onto a new emphasis from that of your other. That was a question of your expendability, and the importance of your writing. Now we are talking about the crisis of war. I still feel the decision is not one we ourselves can make about Hilda, but what the doctors feel about the effect at this moment on her recovery if she is to be moved into a new locale and new treatment. In these matters it is Meili who is arbiter. I shall of course discuss the general situation with Heydt, but I certainly will not discuss you. I never have except as your and my being near Hilda just now puts too great a strain on her, as I felt and feel it does. This will not be true later. But I still think you should let me take over the responsibility while she is in Switzerland. For this I want your OK so that I can make arrangements with Heydt when he is here.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

I feel considerably exhausted today, at the end of work, especially because we became hosts last night in an enormous way when the four sisters and two husbands entertained over sixty guests for cocktails on our lawn. The guests were all from Johnson's Point, and it was a kind of sweeping cancellation of social debts to them over several years. Fortunately, however, the Point is not really very social, and there are never more than one or two parties to which we must go in any season. We hired caterers and two bar tenders, so that part of the entertaining was made easier; what was tiring was simply having to talk to everyone about nothing.

Alas, I have mislaid the address of the nice Tibetan lamb whom we lunched with in Zurich, and so cannot send her the enclosed letter from the curator of Tibetan material in the Yale Library. You must meet him when you come over. He is clerk in a local furniture store, never went to college I imagine, has never been able to afford to travel, became interested in Tibetan and taught himself the language and history and iconography until he is now really learned. Yale gave him an honorary M.A. last year, which was a nice gesture.

The William Cowper, whom Horace mentioned, was not the reviewer and writer of present-day monographs, but the 18th-century English poet. It is not surprising that you didn't recognize him, however, for you hardly would do so unless you had been an Oxford girl and his name had been woven into your blue stockings.

Rinette's watercolor arrived today, along with many yellowbacks, and the photographs from England. I thought the flowers were very lovely. She obviously has talent. I simply remembered the silk embroideries by her which Adrienne once showed me in her Paris flat.

Gallatin is well known here. I will see what is available.

I sent birthday packages for you and Hilda both to Kenwin, thinking Hilda might have been transferred to another place by then. I hope they arrive in time. It was almost impossible to think of anything for Hilda.

Aldington, as he told you, wrote an excellent letter about my son-in-law's plans for France. It was effective and they have given up the idea of that particular solution. I am most grateful; I sensed it was an impractical move. Without children it might have been a different matter.

O.B.'s Butts came in this morning's mail (no yesterday's). It is obviously a gem. I could not be more delighted. I think a check for

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

a hundred dollars will be all right, and I will it indicate it as from
a little fund. I shall give the Library the manuscript, however, as in
his name.

Marya's letter was pathetic. I had already written Horace
suggesting I send him five hundred to hire someone for ten days or so
while Marya got a change. He had liked the idea over the phone. But
I have had no answer. I am planning to visit them on the afternoon of
the 10th on my way back from Hodgson. The easiest way for me seems
to be to drive to Newark, take the plane to Canton and then have a Herz
drive-it-yourself-car waiting for me. You may remember that I had suggested
this as a possibility for the two of us if we ever went out again. I
shall have to go on the 8th however and find some motel.

Rita whirls. It was not long back when she was retiring from
the travel agency to devote herself to washing machines. My own hunch is
she fears the war (sensibly enough) and wants to clear out of a business
which under those circumstances would fall on its face. I do hope she
gives up these fast sports cars eventually. They are so bad in accidents
that it is difficult to get insurance on them on this side. They give
absolutely no protection.

My real pain comes from the letter to you from Mlle Samyn. I
was quite insistent that she should not get in touch with you, and that
what she must confine her self to was a study of Bob's writing not his
biography. She agreed and it seems to me she is being a little sly.
This is too bad for she was an attractive girl and seemed a serious type.
What did you write to her, if at all?

It is hard to know what to think about Berlin. It looks as though
the Americans would do a little, but there is not much I see that can be
done to make East Berlin open its doors if it chooses not to. I was
disappointed in the British announcement that it didn't matter. No one
country can do anything alone any more, and the British and Americans must
be on the same side. My only hope in the Berlin situation is that it is
really linked to the German elections. But China presses.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 August 1961

Dearest Hilda,

Sorry about the mention of the Catholic home; I spoke of it only because it had been so well recommended by Protestants who had had relatives in it. Perhaps there will be other suggestions, and I have no doubt that in the end it will prove to be the only solution if I simply have her in New Haven. This may mean that I do not take the year's leave of absence I had planned, but I fear I could never do that anyhow so it hardly matters. In any event I shall keep trying to find something that both you and she will like.

I was glad to hear that you had gone to Zurich without seeing Hilda. This is a step in the right direction, and I think that once in two months is certainly enough, so long as she still has to be on your side. I heed what you say about not making arrangements with Heydt in order to relieve you, and still hope you will agree if you feel it necessary to go over even without seeing her.

Dorothy Richardson sounds as though she had the stuff of mountains deeply imbedded in her. I admire her courage and perseverance enormously. I am glad to learn he will be staying on at Harvard, for they pay very well in terms of academic standards. I am only surprised that, travelling as much as he does, he does not have an international aircard like the one Yale gives me. It does seem a little rough to leave Dorothy without funds. Couldn't he have wired the situation to Harvard so that they could have cabled authorization for the ticket he needed for himself, or at least enough to take care of his wife.

It is interesting that the Heydts have changed their mind about Hilda's coming over. I wrote him last week but am afraid my letter will not have reached him or her before they leave, mail being so slow from this end. It would look, if you are correct about Berlin, that we can only fight for time by prayer that Hilda will have recovered within a few months. It is very hard to judge from this end.

I trust you will not send the phallic mambino to Edith. I should invent an excuse of her health and send it to George to put in the fire. This is rough for Alice Toklas if Alan Stein's children have actually seized the pictures. Unless of course they too fee the Berling situation, in which case they may be acting prudently. She was to have the right to sell anything if she needed the money. On the other hand if she left them in her Paris flat, unguarded, I am not sure this was altogether wise. There have been too many art robberies in France lately.

We did a good deed if we discouraged John from adding to their New York house. It would not make much sense if they ever wished to sell it, I am sure.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

I am not sure what you mean about the New York picture and its
being well authenticated. You wrote this in longhand rather mysteriously
at the top of the letter.

Huge masses of bundles came in this morning's post, and all
are not as yet unwrapped, since the wastebaskets were filled by the few
I did. They were from London. Hilda's things you might just as well
send over, since she will be coming eventually anyhow. I can always
return if necessary. As to the Redouté, she spoke when she was in New
York of wanting sometime to give it to Susan, but I'm not sure that
ought to be done at the moment except provisionally if you want it that
way. I any event one can store it.

It is ghastly about Marya. When I see them I will try to arrange
for some little holiday for her. I think she must have it.

Tell Mlle Cpigny that I will write to the curator of prints at
the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, who may know what she is describing.
He will be most sympathetic, I am sure. I know him well enough to feel
free in asking him.

I have inquired about the Gallatin matter, as you requested. But
am not sure which allatin you really wanted to know about. You speak of
James Gallatin and describe his father Albert Gallatin who was the Swiss
who ran away to the States, became an ambassador etc and died at the age
of 88. James Gallatin was his son. Of the father, Henry Adams edited his
writings, and wrote his life n 1879. Recent biographies have been one
by Frederick Merk, ALBERT GALLATIN AND THE OREGON PROBLEM (Cambridge, 1950);
Raymond Walters, ALBERT GALLATIN: JEFFERSONIAN FINANCIER (N.Y.,1957); and
Frank E. Ewing, AMERICA'S FORGOTTEN STATESMAN: ALBERT GALLATIN (N.Y.,1959).
I would recommend Ewing, which I can order for you, or let you look at when
you come over in October.

The special account has been boosted by a check for $2,844.47, which
arrived this morning from Pantheon for royalties from November 1, 1960 to April
30, 1961. Beowulf has sold 107 copies; October, 212 copies; Gandharan Art,
22 copies; Gate to the Sea, 214 copies; Player's Boy, 128 copies; Roman Wall,
280 copies; Ruan, 5000 copies; and Tribute to Freud, 18 copies. This means
that Ruan has done far better here than any other of your novels during the
same initial period of sales. I think it was perhaps because Pantheon stepped
up the advertising over what the Wolves customarily did. I wonder however if
you could discreetly check with Billy Collins about the British royalties from
the books he has published. As you know, by the contract these are split
fifty-fifty between Pantheon and ourselves. Yet I can never believe that so
few copies are sold in England. In inquiring you would have to specify what
payments they made to Pantheon during the period on which I received the report.
Beowulf of course they refused to publish, so that does not come in question.
Our 50% of royalties for October amounts to $9.64. The Gandharan book, Kurt
never found a foreign publisher for so it too does not come in question. 50%
of British royalties for Gate amounts to $7.17; for Player's Boy to $4.54;
for Roman Wall, $3.71; for Ruan, $126.00 advance royalties. All I can say is
that if this is all Billy paid in advance for Ruan he certainly got a bargain.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 H G S

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

I almost wonder if we could not make a better arrangement with some other British publisher, especially after his fiasco with the promotion in the Scillies and in Cornwall. He's awfully nice, I know, but there is no reason why one should make him gifts.

I must make up the list for copies of *Helen* as to be sent from Hilda. If you have additions will you note them for me?

Schaffners

Bryher

Heydts

Doris

George Plank

Gerald Henderson

Aldington

Harold

Fra cis Wolle

Marianne Moore

Robert Duncan

Denise Levertov

Sheri Martinelli

Ezra

Mary de R

American Academy Library

Bryn Mawr Library

Edith

Gustavavidson

de Nagy

Dr Meili

Horace and Marya

Elsie

Ethel

Melitta

S Jean Perse

Mark Van Doren

Dr Prutting

other brother and Nova Scotian relatives et al.

Are there any you want sent to as from yourself? I have an extra list of my own. Copies should be in any time now.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 22nd was in this morning's post. I hope all goes well with your visit to Zürich, at least as well as one can hope for. I am only sorry for this continued strain on you. The feeling about Berlin must be very intense indeed. One does not really quite know what to expect, or when.

Mrs Dingle has been back for three days and now leaves again until September 10th. I must say I envy her her five weeks vacation. But the office is quiet again and just possibly I can get a little of my own work done. I did manage to keep her busy during the intermission she was back, and pretty well covered the routine correspondence that had accumulated. My chief difficulty now is the number of people travelling through New Haven who want to stop to see me, as well as people about jobs, dissertations and the like. My today was spent reading 175 typed pages of a dissertation on Wilder by a man who is coming to discuss it with me on Tuesday. Tonight I shall have to begin another dissertation on Hawthorne. One more to go after that. It is not surprising I get little of my own work done. We are in somewhat the same boat, though not so much is at stake in my case.

Several yellowbacks have come in. I was interested in Dean's comments on the desirable size of a herd of cattle. Here the basic unit is fifty head, and one either stays there or moves to a hundred, and so on. I should not think it would be worthwhile for them to put in the larger barn and equipment she mentions unless they really convert to dairy farming. What a good review of your book, or at least enthusiastic comment, by Susan Hill. O. B. sent it. I have just written him thanking him aus dem herz for the Mary Butts ms. I was delighted that Stephen Lewis enjoyed the dressing gown. I wish there were other things I could send so nice a person. I was interested that Leslie was having colored postcards made of his miniature. I am still nervous about the impression that will be given. I won't know what to say when he tells me. I don't manufacture enthusiasm easily.

The enclosed letter was given me for Hilda by Richard Eberhart, who sent it when he sent me a letter for Hodgson. I am by the way, in the clear about the birth day, I should judge. Hodgson's closest colleague in Japan, at Sendai University, sent me a letter for him and wrote me at some length advising me to contact Aurelia before trying to see Hodgson etc. But he went on, quite without my having said anything apropos, to say how many contradictory biographical statements were made about Hodgson, using the March 12, 1972 birth day as example. He said he had asked Aurelia about this and she had said nonsense. That Saul must have found the birth certificate for another Ralph Hodgson, the name being common in that part of the country. Professor Doi said that Hodgson had told him on several occasions that he had been born at Hutton, Yorkshire, rather than Bradford as the certificate stated. A very nice letter indeed has just come from Eliot, which was

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

kind of him. Masefield has not actually sent his letter yet, but I presume will. I have enough anyhow to "send him completely out of his mind" as Horace would say.

Heydt came up from New York for dinner last night, and then took a late train back to New York. Dori, if she comes at all, will arrive next Tuesday; and they will go to East Hampton and remain there until they return to Switzerland. Their friend from San Francisco will fly east to spend over Labor Day with them. They cannot get in to the hotel the Schaffners like until after Labor Day, and meanwhile will stay at Perdita's guest house. He of course did not have much to add to what you had already told me either about Hilda's condition or Europe's condition. He did not speak of coming over at this time to settle here, but was worried. He was not clear about the advisability of moving Hilda just now, except that he was firmly against New York and a city (altho he did not feel as strongly against a Catholic home as you did), and against an Francisco (as you are). Actually he agreed with me that the only possible solution for the rest of Hilda's life was to have her come to New Haven where I could visit her more or less every other day and send people in to see her and make piece with the nurses. he had thought of the Riggs Santtarium in Stockbridge, Mass.; as being more "intellectual", but agreed that the 125-150 miles each way, without railroad, would be difficult in winter as well as taking a full day of my time on each visit. He was at first not so enthusiastic about a possibility which had occurred to both Susan and myself a few days ago, but came around to it somewhat before the evening was over. This is an ex-sanitarium in Wallingford, fifteen miles away, which is now run by a friend of mine, and having been famous in t.b. days now has gone over to heart cases and terminal illnesses. Fortunately it is in the country and Hilda could be out of doors, whenever she wished to, or take little walks. I talked over the phone with the director (who is the son of a professor here, and married to a girl Perdita knew in O.S.S. days) and he seemed interested, and said that they made rather a specialty of speech therapy, and had a number of such cases. I made an appointment to go out there for a conference at eleven on Monday and stay for luncheon. Heydt will come up from New York to see it, and can confer with the medical staff. I had not at all thought of this, nor had Susan, until we read in the papers of the death of an older friend of ours there. This may have been all along the very thing we are looking for, right under our noses all the time. I do not think you would object to this place, but I have not been out for some time. Eugene O'Neill was a patient there as a young man with t.b.

I will let you know how it looks, and then Heydt can talk it over with you to see if you agree.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

26 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

I have been sitting all day in my office, naked to
the waist and sweating as though I were in a Turkish bath. Almost
all week the weather has been intolerable. We are having two
instructors and their wives for dinner tonight, and alas will
have to stay inside, for every few hours it rains enough to
keep everything damp and unpleasant.

I spoke with Heydt this morning by phone, and confirmed his coming up on Monday. The appointment at Gaylord is for eleven in the morning, after which we will lunch there so that Heydt can report on as much as possible to you when he returns. I forget whether or not, in writing to you about the sanitarium yesterday, that the doctor spoke of their having a speech therapist. I do hope it will work out, for if she likes it there will always be the possibility of my taking her for little drives in the car as she improves and perhaps even visits to our Hamden home and to the shore. I shall only talk to Gaylord in terms of treating her until her position becomes more established in health. We can plan the future as we know what her physical assets become. But, as I said, I have always realised that unless she were really well (in the sense of her condition when she was in New York) she must be immediately under my eye (faute de mieux).

Don't forget to tell me whether you wrote to Mlle Sameyn about McAlmon. I hope you didn't bother with such a request.

Little Susan and Jim and the children come to the
shore tomorrow for the day and then leave early in the week for
New York where they will spend the last days on this side with
his mother. I believe they sail in about ten days.

Love,

28 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your two letters of the 24th and 25th in. I sometimes think
you must date them for the day after they arrive, so quickly do they get
to this side. Heydt is taking the eight o'clock out of New York and will
be here shortly, so there is not much point in settling down to work at
anything. I shall dangle him until it is time to go to Gaylord, and will
add a postscript to this letter after he has gone. But if I am lucky
and he does not linger, I may settle down to my chores then.

I do hope the visit to Gaylord will prove successful. It may
well be just what we have been looking for. Do not worry about my being
saddled with Hilda. Someone must be, and it is my turn. I do not honestly
believe that less often than three times a week will be possible, but it
will only take an afternoon each time which is much less exhausting than
your own present chore of having to make the trip from Kenwin. And if she
improves I can take her for a drive sometimes, which will be especially
nice if she doesn't regain her ability to talk. Let us not really think
about Perdita, for her life has other responsibilities. I am sure in
any event that she will come up several times a year, and if you make
an annual visit to the States you will be able to combine seeing us and
seeing her. I did not ask over the phone what the cost would be at
Gaylord, but for the moment that is not the hauptsache. Yet in saying
this I sound like Heydt, who startled Susan and myself by saying that
a cost of twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year 'doesn't matter;
Bryher will pay, and beides Hilda has lots of money.'' He obviously
thinks too that all Americans are rich. I wonder what he would say if
he knew what my income was, for example. I doubt that he would believe
me. He has a not unusual European naivete. Anyhow I said it did matter,
but on the other hand when Hilda does come I really think she should
begin to pay out of the money that Harold has put aside. However we
can discuss her financial arrangements when this is more relevant.

I was interested to learn of the offer for Kenwin, and things
being what you say they are on the continent I really think you ought
seriously to consider selling it and getting a flat as pied-a-terre. If
borders are closed then Kenwin becomes in any event impossible. You have
often said, anyhow, that Elsie is not really able to cope with Kenwin
any longer.

I do remember Rinette's embroideries in Adrienne's flat.
You certainly ought to keep the one you have for whenever she visits.
It could only be put away as of this side.

I actually sent O.B. one hundred rather than two hundred
dollars, but the manuscript will go to Yale as his gift. I also spoke
of his picking up other correspondences of Mary Butts, and can buy those
as they come in. I wrote him a most genuinely enthusiastic letter, which

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I hope will please him. A gesture like the Butts is really made for you, and I don't want altogether to take the gesture away from him.

There does indeed seem to be a growing British and even German feeling of letting Berlin go. I was not very pleased with Macmillan's remark from the golf course in Scotland that "No one wants to fight over Berlin." No *wants* to have to, I am sure; but this is different from the impression Macmillan gives.

I ought to have saved you the energy of making up the extra list for Hilda's book. After writing you I dug out the list for *Bid Me to Live*, and included all the names you mentioned (plus some others) as coming from her. I added Urzidell of course. I will now send on your own list, some of whom I had put as from her. Should I send to Herf?

No hurry about Collins, but I think when Billy is back from his lion cubs you might ask him directly what the actual figures were in pounds or dollars paid over to Grove for the period I mentioned.

Saturday I worked over a new group of poems to represent Hilda in the revised Oxford Anthology. I have cut out her Note on Poetry, as being now outdates and referring to the earlier selections; also Sea Gods, The Pool, Ledes "I know not what to do, and Where is the Nightingale. I like them but wanted (a) to be somewhat different from the Selected Poems, and (b) bring her later poems more into attention. The list now reads (for the moment):

Heat
Orchard
Oread
The Islands

Not Honey
Lethe
Lais
Helen

Never more will the wind
From The Walls do not Fall

1. An incident here and there

28. O heart, small urn

29. Grant us strength to endure
From The Flowering of the Rod
3. In resurrection there is confusion

4. Blue-geese, white-geese

5. Satisfied, unsatisfied

6. So I would down, remembering

17. Yet resurrection is a sense of

11. He was the first that flew
Sagesse
Epitaph

This is a pretty long selection, and will make some women poets mad for not being equally represented. But I am trying to stick to quality, within the limits of space allowed me.

The registered envelope of letters came today. By the way who is the Joan that Cole writes about
making something she wasn't and leaving her with the baby? Also the two arctic books for which
many thanks.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 August 1961

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you now in several days, and I only
hope that your visits with Hilda will not have been too depress-
ing. At least if all goes as planned they will not have to con-
tinue too much longer. Then you can be at least a little freer.

The collection of letters for Hodgson is probably
about as complete as possible by now, and I have made a little
anthology of a sample poem by each of the poets who has wished
him a happy birthday. Each typed out by my fair hand, which
took a certain amount of time. Frost has never replied, and I
have not had the promised letters from Masefield, MacLeish or
the Poetry Society. But there are enough to make an interesting
group. I still have a hunch that a last-minute letter from
Aurelia will say that it is wiser not to come out. She has not
replied to a letter from me last week asking at what hour I should
appear at Owlacres.

I saw the Cleanth Brooks last night at a dinner for
the Professor of English at the University of Manchester. They
reported that Leslie and Mary had arrived back safely on Saturday
or Sunday, had had dinner with them, and set out happily on Monday
for Sorrento. They both apparently looked very well.

Have had a taste of the north in reading a book by
Paul Fenimore Cooper, the great grandson of the novelist, on the
history of King William's Island, really the story of the Franklin
expedition and the efforts to find traces of it afterwards. Not very
sprightly in its writing but interesting to us. But don't buy; you
can skim the pages when you come over this fall. I also have a glorious
prospectus of a trip down the Mackenzie River which I think is just our
cup of tea. Even Susan's interest is aroused. This trip at any rate
has been successfully made this year and will be repeated. The leader
promises to write me more in detail when he returns. This came from
the mouth of the river, my letter having followed him from site to
site.

You ask when to come over in October. It really doesn't
matter very much. I have an appointment on the 22nd, but otherwise
should be over the rush. Anywhere along about then should be fine,
especially if you want to stay over to be with the Wolves.

Have been pondering ads in magazines: "Priceless Treasure--
now $12.95"; "Michaelangelo possessed as not the least of his talents
the art of sculpture."

I wrote to Pup today to put her in the running with Gaylord.
Did I tell you that the wife of the director not only worked with Pup
in London, but her father was Marianne's first cousin?

or he himself as a visiting spot. This was very nice of him, and I have written them in New York where they are spending a week with Jim's mother before sailing next Wednesday. They asked if they might stop to see you at Kenwin if they drove thru Switzerland on their way to Italy. Possibly Elsie could greet them if you are away.

1 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

Two letters in today's post from you so I am content again to learn that you are at least well. It is most distressing to know of Hilda's newest illness, but I find some comfort in her resistance to any effect upon the heart or brain. Heydt phoned me an hour or so ago, and I read the relevant portions to him. He too was glad that her heart was not affected. He apparently had realised that Meili could not take care of Hilda at the Volksklinik, but could serve on a consultant basis. However with the possibility of her being moved to the States, I asked him again to discuss with the Roten Kreuz the chance of her staying on for perhaps another month in the hospital and then coming here. Gaylord will need about a fortnight's warning, and one may have to juggle the date a bit if I fly over to bring her back. I do not think it would be advisable to force the change to the Volksklinik on her and then put the shift to the States on top of that.

Dori flew over the day before yesterday and did not want at all to go to San Francisco or anywhere except back to Rome where she had had several good days. I cannot blame her for not wanting to be on this side just now: the heat and humidity are unbearable. I sit in my office again naked to the waist, and think this hardly becoming in public to one of my advanced years and white hair. She and Heydt are flying back to Rome tomorrow where they will spend a fortnight. Anyhow she has managed to set things right with the renewal of her entry permit, so presumably the brief trip was worth it.

I told Heydt I had written Perdita about Gaylord so that she would not feel things completely sprung on her. (But I think the decisions must actually be made by myself and you). He said he had talked to her on the phone and told her about our visit to Wallingford. I asked what her reactions were, and he said she was more or less nonemittal; but he thought that she was perhaps relieved that Hilda would not be in New York. He stressed the political necessities, and probably you had better do the same. I have a feeling that both she and John are and will continue to be annoyed at me, for which I am sorry. Secretly they no doubt would like to feel that it was actually I who was responsible for your annoyance earlier this spring.

It would be pleasant to have Kenneth and Islay in New York for the winter.

I am deeply troubled about Doris, and cannot help feeling the worst. Don't you think you should see her *before* you come over in October. You could jet as from London to New York.

Nice letters in from Aurelia and Aldington. I am to see Aurelia at one-thirty at the farm. I hadn't really meant to make quite such a visit of it. She has recommended a good motel near Minerva where I can spend the two nights. I only wish you were going to be with me. It would be so much pleasanter. Do send him a letter or a birthday cable.

Aldington offered to have Catha help the children to find a place,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

This is the long Labor Day weekend, but I am in the office as usual. These last few days before the students come are too precious, and I told Susan that I would prefer to stay away for a day after Tuesday when students might come in, than be at the shore now. In any event it is humid and sunless, so there is not much attraction. I shall even come in for a while tomorrow, although I will actually spend a part of both afternoons in Branford.

I work away reading offprints to thank you for, and books to thank you for. Write long overdue letters, as to Islay, try to clean out desk drawers. It is really a pleasure when done. I even put my first half year of receipted bills into some sort of shape and tucked them away against income tax time.

I thought you might be interested in the enclosed clipping from this morning's Sunday Times. I know you get the book section eventually, but the Wolves might be pleased if you mentioned it to them earlier than the three weeks or so it no doubt usually takes for the surface things to reach you. I was pleased that your name led all the rest. I'm sure they feel the same way as the writer of the note.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your two letters of the 31st were in this morning's mail. Your summary of the reasons for K's announcement of a resumption of test bombing seem as essentially correct as we are likely to know for the moment. At least they agree with the general opinion on this side.

There was a letter also in today's post from the son of Wilfred Gibson to whom I had written about Hodgson's birthday. The father is completely dotty and understands nothing of what is said to him. But the son kindly sent a letter as if at his papa's direction. It was nice of him, I thought. Poor Masefield has apparently forgotten his promise to me to write. Although I may find he has written directly. I went down town after luncheon this afternoon and picked up my air passage and the reservation for an automobile at the Canton airport. Also deposited the check from Grove to the special account. There is now a total, after taking out the money for Aurelia and my trip, of 12,206.67. Quite enough for some time ahead.

As to Hilda's expenses at Gaylord, you mention the sum of twelve dollars a day. If I gave that sum to you it was in error. The cost will be 28 dollars a day, which with other expenses I reckoned as coming to about twelve thousand a year. This would not include private nurses or outside consultation with specialists. But I think we had better postpone any discussion of this until you come over. At that time perhaps, the plans having been made with Heydt and Meili, we might suggest to Harold that he come up so that financial arrangements can be cleared. You ought to have found out from Benay precisely what her income in Switzerland is, so that that can be combined with Harold's figure to determine the total possibility. I very much hope that you can be relieved of this financial burden as well as the other responsibilities.

There will really be no friends at Gaylord for Hilda, nor can there be anyone other place until she regains her speech. And as you have always said there is nothing more awful than to be alone and friendless when one is old and ill. She is so used to daily visits from the Heydts that even cutting her down to three visits a week will be a blow. But do not worry about this. I will manage it somehow, and be pleased to help.

I can only repeat, do by all means unload Kenwin if the offer is a firm one. Otherwise Elsie will become as much of a burden to you as Hilda has been. It would not take much encouragement, and Hilda's leaving will only give Elsie the sense of no longer having a rival.

What a saga of your outside wall!

Many thanks for the Gotch biography of Lady Collcott which arrived in today's mail.

Come whenever you can, or it suits you, in October.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

7 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

Today when I was finishing a little anthology of poems
to accompany the birthday letters to Hodgson I looked up the biography
I once wrote of you, and discovered to my horror that the date I
should have cab led you on was the 2nd and not the 8th as I had
planned to do, written you letters for, and all the like. For how
many years have I given you a queen's holiday at a king's choice
by setting my own day? Presumably it is because I have usually
sent your present to Brunner's for the join fest with Hilda. At
any rate it was firmly in my mind that only a day lay between the
two of you, and that this 9th was now taken by the Bard of Minerva.
Do forgive me for leaving you thus isolated in fact, though you can
be sure that even on the 2nd I was wishing you felicitations and
am always very much aware of the fact that you were born and happy
because of it.

I spent the morning finishing the last touches on the
birthday box to take with me. Your letter was beautifully appropriate
and goes on top of the pile of real letters. I did think that he might
have a curiosity about some of the poets who were included and so took
one poem from everyone and typed it out with my fair hands, Mrs Dingle
still being on her holiday. I enclose a census so that you will know
what resulted. I did have copies made of each letter too so that you
can read these when you come to me. Hodgson will be delighted at your
own poem, and don't scold me for including it. I thought again how
lovely it is.

A yellow back came in yesterday and another today. I was
rather moved by Sachie's account of not having been asked to Renishaw
for sixteen years, and never yet to Montegafoni. This is extraordinary.
Life has not been easy for him as a youngest child. Marya's letter was
sad to read. Sad in part because she feels the necessity of defending
Horace, and I fear it is a topic of conversation as much with them as
with the Hotsons. Sad too because life must be very difficult for her.
I am glad she has brought in the helpers for Horace, but am wondering
if I may not propose to him that he spend a fortnight or three weeks at
Gaylord where he can have excellent therapy and leave Marya completely
free to go away, perhaps to her daughter's as she could not do if Joanna
had to take over at home. If this seems indicated when I see them on
Sunday I shall speak of it and hope that you will approve my doing so
without having time to consult you. I was much interested in Catha's
letter. She seems to have changed her tone and become a much older
person. I am eager to learn if you think this is true when you see
her. Vebaek sent a nice card. I do hope you can do London some time
via Copenhagen, especially this winter when Ingholt will be there. Does
Melitta mean by her note that she has definitely decided on London? I
had one of Hilda's books sent to her in New York. Perhaps they will
forward it, or I can send another wherever you direct me to. She seemed
distraut.

Give my love to Hilda and remember me to Aldington and Catha.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

the contract with Random House on an inclusive severance. She did say that Harcourt would not be interested in taking over the Gandharan book or Hilda's book on Freud. I still do not know what the Harcourt president wants to do about yours, except that Helen "feels sure they will want to." I did not know that Viking said they would do the memoirs "at once." The only letter I saw to you said that they would be interested in seeing the manuscript. But I have known Helen and Kurt even before they came to the States, and you will remember that it was I who gave them their financial guarantee or sponsorship. Naturally, quite apart from your own personal friendship with them, I do not want to break with them. Helen knows this.

One has to be businesslike however even with the Wolves and that is why Helen should tell their president to write me for a conference (I want them to do the asking) if she has changed her mind about waiting until she herself is here to take part. Depending on when the book of memoirs is finished to your satisfaction (which is the main concern for an artist and the long life of a book), our plan was for it to be a late spring, summer, or early fall book. You are an artist and the only thing that can withstand the running out of sands is a work of art. Your reputation is continuously increasing, and your writing is ever more admired. You are on their first list because you are a jewel that the Wolves bring to Harcourt. That is what counts.

I say all this only because I want you to understand that the matter of your going over to Harcourt has been very much in my mind and has been repeatedly confirmed to Helen and agreed to by her. What was also agreed to was a delay until she came over so that all matters could be officially settled in conference. If I have to buy the release I am prepared to do so. But I am anxious not to negotiate first on one matter and then on another and then on a third. But why not ask Helen to tell me what it is she really wants; or, why not send this letter to her so that she will know how distressed I am that she feels I have changed my mind. Since she is the editor in charge, I will gladly go ahead on any overall basis that she is willing to commit Harcourt to. I can assure you anyhow that nothing will delay the publication of the memoirs once they are finished to Helen's and your satisfaction.

Oh, how I wish Hilda were already on this side so that you could feel free and easier of mind. I do so hate the anguish you have been forced to go through, especially when it is unwitting as in this case.

All love,
Norman

11 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

I got back last night about nine in the evening, after stopping to see the Gregories. It was a pleasant trip, but I must say I feel a little tired at the moment, especially since this has been the first day when students begin to call in order to plan their schedules, while at the same time the passers-through-town call in to pay their respects.

Your letter of the 5th came just as I was to drive to Newark, so I had the old and pleasant sense of being together with you in a plane while I read your letter. I am glad you liked the hope that Hilda could keep on at the Roten Kreuz until she comes to the States. I have had to leave the decision of when she should come to Heydt and Meili, but on the whole I think the sooner she comes the better. It would be especially important if she could have the feeling of New England air before the snow comes to shut her in. The only problem of course is the interference with your own visit, but we could work this out I feel sure. I do not know how Heydt feels about bringing Hilda out, and in fact it is possible that the planes will not want to take it. Hilda is not mental, to be sure, but she can certainly be tempera-mental and any scenes would be difficult. An advantageous if he made the trip would be that he could prescribe pills etc for her. Don't worry in any event about doing me out of a European hop, for it would hardly be a pleasure trip for me. I said I would only because Heydt thought I was the one person who could control her and give her confidence that she was not being shagghaed. In the three letters which came today you were perturbed lest I think that your pressing for Hilda to leave was "merely because of my responsibility." I don't think that at all, but it was you who said you could not take the responsibility any longer, and a very real reason indeed for my having her here is to take on the responsibility in order to relieve you of it. The war is something which adds to the responsibility as we all know; that is why it is better to bring her here now. And do not worry about how many or how few times one needs to see Hilda. That will work out on this side as it works out. There is no point either in magnifying or diminishing the description of what has to be. One cannot predict, and I certainly have no intentions of martyrdom.

I am sorry about the misunderstanding that seems to have arisen about the clearance with Pantheon. Helen has quite gone out of her mind if she feels that I do not want her to have the memoirs. This was discussed between us when she was in New York, in innumerable letters, and again when we met in Zürich. She herself advised that there be a postponement for as long as possible after the publication of *Ruan* in order not to spoil its chances. For the more publicity that Pantheon gave to it, the more your name would be built up for her and Kurt's list. The clipping I sent you showed that she had continued the association of *Ruan* with hers. I said flatly that we would give her the next book, and my only desire was to be approached by Harcourt on the matter of your earlier titles, since you wanted these taken over too. For that reason the discussion was to be postponed until she and Kurt came to this side at the beginning of November. When Harcourt said specifically what they would do about the earlier books, Cane was to be given the task of breaking

the contract with Radek Hrbáček on an inclusive severance. She did say that Harcourt would not be interested in taking over the Gandharan book or Hilda's book on Freud. I still do not know what the Harcourt president wants to do about yours, except that Helen "feels sure they will want to." I did not know that Viking said they would do the memoirs "at once." The only letter I saw to you said that they would be interested in seeing the manuscript. But I have known Helen and Kurt even before they came to the States, and you will remember that it was I who gave them their financial guarantee or sponsorship. Naturally, quite apart from your own personal friendship with them, I do not want to break with them. Helen knows this.

I say all this only because I want you to understand that the matter of your godagioer to Harcourt has been very much in my mind and has been repeatedly confirmed to Helen and agreed to by her. What was also agreed to was a delay until she came over so that all matters could be officially settled in conference. If I have to buy the release I am prepared to do so. But I am anxious not to negotiate first on one matter and then on another and then on a third. But why not ask Helen to tell me what it is she really wants; or, why not send this letter to her so that she will know how distressed I am that she feels I have changed my mind. Since she is the editor in charge, I will gladly go ahead on any overall basis that she is willing to commit Harcourt to. I can assure you anyhow that nothing will delay the publication of the memoirs once they are finished to Helen's and your satisfaction.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 9th was an anguish to read. My only hope
is that the gastric flu having once run its course will not have debilitated
her too much. Naturally she feels weak and bedridden until it is all gone.
Then perhaps .... The difficulty is that for such an attack as for most
afflictions from now on she will have lessened resistance. Perhaps the one
consolation is that her heart seems to have stood up under the strain. This
pleased Heydt, I know. I am anxious however for both Heydt and Meili to
return, for I still think the best thing is to get her on this side if at
all possible. We need, they say, only two weeks notice to be sure of a
good room. It might be less, or a little longer in time; that depends
on circumstances. Do query Hydt as to whether it might not be better to
move her while she is still a little weak and would not put up the resistance
to a change such as she might do if more fully recovered. One might have to
take two seats for her and keep her in bed for the entire flight, but I rather
think this is better anyhow. We could have the ambulance meet her at Idlewild
and take her directly from the bunk on a stretcher into the car.

I shall be eager for more news.

I had a good visit with Horace and Marya and Patrick. Horace
was sitting in a large office swivel chair at the table. He looked well
but was pityfully helpless, hardly being able to shift in the chair. Nor
he could handle his cup well. My own opinion is that he has slipped a
little, but he says that the welfare nurse who comes in once a week for a
little physical therapy thinks he is making a recovery. His spirits are
good, however. Marya looked plump as ever, but was a little quieter than
usual. Pat, whom I had not seen since he was at the University of Virginia,
made a very good impression indeed. He is obviously full of his sense of
responsibility but accepts it in an unassuming way. He is there every weekend
and one or two nights a week. This must be a great drain on him, and I am
unhappy to think that any young man must live so much within a family orbit.
I described Gaylord to them in terms of Hilda, but had not even gotten to the
point of suggesting that Horace might like to go so that Marya could take a rest
than first he and quickly the other two talked excitedly about its possibilities
for him. He wants the therapy they can give and talked of what a month might
do for his benefit. He needs the water therapy as well as exercising, for he
cannot either dress himself or raise himself to a sitting position in bed. The
colored man, who comes from the next town, is there in the morning to get him
up and dress him, then returns in the afternoon to give him his nap, and comes
back at eight in the evening to put him to bed. Poor Horace cannot sleep very
well, and life is altogether a torture I should think. It does seem to me that
there is nothing better you can do for him than to experiment with what a month
can do, and Gaylord is the place. His own doctor, he says, simply has no interest
in therapy and he is isolated. He spoke of waiting to go after Hilda's arrival,
but I said that I thought his plans should be suited to his own needs and con-
venience. I did not say, but think, that it is possible Hilda's pride might
wish that he not see her in her greatest weakness, and that too many visits
from him might tire her. Yet whether when she is there or not I do feel sure

2

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HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

that Horace needs a period at Gaylord for his own sake and Marya's. Pat was tremendously enthusiastic about the idea. Your name was obviously that of the angel of the house, and all three are deeply grateful both for the support and for your thoughtfulness.

In this respect the Gregory and the Hodgson households were identical. Hodgson called you, in just those words, "the angel of our house." He is a great admirer of your writing of course, but it is your unselfish character that he gave the greatest praise and to what you have made possible for them. "We could not have existed without her," he kept saying. So along with being an artist you are also a heroine.

The flight out was not very eventful or even interesting, for the clouds were so low and the mist so heavy that I could see very little of the earth beneath me. I arrived at the Akron-Canton Airport about a quarter to seven in the evening, picked up my Hertz drive-it-yourself and went in to Canton to a Holiday Motel where I made a reservation for Saturday night (my plane leaving at 8:20 a.m. Sunday morning, I did not want to drive twice the distance from Minerva), had a dinner of fried chicken and then drove on in the dark to Minerva where Aurelia had made reservations for me at an excellent motel with huge rooms and twin double beds in each apparently for the emergencies of a Minervan orgy. She had already paid for the room, alas, but I was glad not to be sponging on them for two consecutive nights. It was eleven by this time. I read for an hour, took a sleeping pill because of the highways directly in front and directly behind the room, and slept until morning when I drove in to Minerva for breakfast at a lunchroom where my fellow guest was the coach of the local high school football team. I walked the very dreary streets of the shopping center for a half hour and then went back to the motel where I worked until lunchtime.

Did you ever play the Bible game, by which you open at random and put your finger on a text. There was a Gideon Bible in the room and when my finger rested and I read, the letters gave me a start: "Thou hast put gladness in my heart more than the corn increaseth" it read. Perhaps we did, for both Hodgson and his wife were smiling with honest pleasure when I arrived promptly at 1:30 and their first words were inquiry for you. Hodgson was sitting in an easy chair when I arrived, his feet on a footstool under the large round table which you will remember. He looked very smart, it seemed to me, with his light beard, and his green trousers and light gray linen coat made him seem almost dapper. His eyes were full of light and his smile was poised. I gave him at once the meerschaum pipe all wrapped by Susan's deft hand. He was like my grandson in his pleasure at a new toy. He patted it and beamed. Held it up and grinned. His old briar he took from his mouth and held at a distance. "Goodbye old friend," he said, "we won't be seeing much of each other from now on." Then he filled his pipe and kept smoking it all afternoon, saying over and over that it was the perfect gift. You would have been happy to have seen his happiness. I gave him the box full of letters and although he said very little, when I mentioned some of the names he would murmur a comment. Of Eliot, that he had written out Eliot's name only that morning. Of Gibson, ah I wondered what had become of him. Alas, he has not been able to read for the last few months. His vision is good at a distance but not close to. He made something of this, but in a most dignified way, and when I suggested having an optician come out he was not interested. I read him Eliot's good letter, but left the rest for Aurelia to read him later, for I saw he wanted to talk. The three Sitwells had sent him a cable on August 9th,

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

and Masefield had written directly to him after all. Both he and Aurelia seemed excited and pleased that his birthday morning's mail had contained a letter of congratulation and appreciation from President Kennedy. The President has greater confidence in his mails than I do, but it could not have arrived more appropriately. In the mail that came just at the very moment I began my drive to the Newark airport had been a letter to me from my contact saying that Kennedy was sending one, and I also was sent separately a carbon of the President's message.

Hodgson had a birthday present for me too. I had hardly settled myself after the presentation of the pipe, before he said in a confidential tone, "I have never told anyone of the finest line of poetry I have ever written. It will never be forgotten, others will wish they could have written it. It is a whole poem really: "motherless Eve." Now I have told you this which I never told anyone before. It is something for you to remember."

He had another of the mysteries on which his mind likes to turn. This time it was Jonson's line "I would not change for thine." What does it mean, he asked; for he would change. Why the negative. Perhaps it is the "for."

And there was much talk about Marlowe, and how Marlowe and Shakespeare came from the working classes (like Hodgson himself?)

And of the Gulf of Bothnia and the changes of climate in the 15th century which sent people back to the sea. Small men went to sea; large men stayed on shore.

At about three I saw that he was tiring and asked if he would not like to rest while I took a walk. "Yes" he said simply and affirmatively, so I walked on up the steep hill behind his home, all pasture and corn, remarkably beautiful in its view of all the ravines and hillsides that make it quite understandable why he wanted to be at Owlacres. He was still resting when I came back, but I talked with Aurelia and a neighbor and small child who came with a huge birthday cake baked especially for him with "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR HODGSON" lattered on the icing. The room was neater than when we were there, probably because she is now at home. There is an electric stove and icebox, papers were stacked neatly, behind the couch is a great screen of cardboard to keep the wind from him, and on the Franklin stove was a small pile of unopened British newspapers to which he referred sadly from time to time. He eats only baby foods now, and so I am sending a Waring blender which will let her puree much tastier dishes from local fresh vegetables and meats. If she has it, she will use it. The cost is about fifty dollars. She says however that they are all right at the moment for money, thanks to your thoughtfulness, and she was even hoping to buy him a transistor or f.m. radio if it would eliminate the static. The radio is his life now. She has had a bad back and hip and is afraid she may not be able to lift him much longer. What is hardest is that he is unhappy if she leaves the house even to market. I said if she could get someone to come in occasionally that would be a wise move, and that you still counted on her telling me if sudden hospitalization expenses came.

Hodgson came out from the other room at a bout a quarter-to-four and I could see how slowly he moved, how loosely the pants were held up about him, and that he wore some great cushion to protest his kidneys. We had a tea and the birthday cake and some of the many black walnut cookies that Aurelia had baked for

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 H G S

the festivities. I left at five. Hodgson's last words at the door were greetings and thanks to you, and the hope that you would come to see him some time when you were here. And Aurelia's were the same, though she walked with me to my car to utter them.

The evening was a quiet one. I drove back to the motel in Canton, had dinner, and then read for a while. The evening being a little boring I finally decided to go to a burlesque show which I had seen advertised, this form of strip dancing being pretty much a thing of the past in most parts of the country. I stayed for an hour and a half, saw the several pairs of breasts that were uncovered with somewhat unnecessary ostentation, and then went back to my reading at the motel.

Sunday I rose at six, and after breakfast drove through one of the thickest fogs I have ever seen. So thick was it in fact that I missed the sign on the highway directing me to the left to the airport and so went an extra twelve miles to Akron before I discovered my mistake. Whereupon I was directed by an early riser as to the proper route, only to find a bridge down. I finally raced through the remnants of the fog and fortunately arrived at the airport to turn in the car ten minutes before the scheduled departure. No one hurried with me however, for as they calmly said: because of the fog the plane will be forty minutes late. I simply collapsed and bought some copies of the Canton paper with photographs of Rafe and Aurelia and a pleasant account of them which is far fuller than anything I could write to you. I enclose one for you to keep.

12 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 9th was an anguish to read. My only hope
is that the gastric flu having once run its course will not have debilitated
her too much. Naturally she feels weak and bedridden until it is all gone.
Then perhaps .... The difficulty is that for such an attack as for most
afflictions from now on she will have lessened resistance. Perhaps the one
consolation is that her heart seems to have stood up under the strain. This
pleased Heydt, I know. I am anxious however for both Heydt and Meili to
return, for I still think the best thing is to get her on this side if at
all possible. We need, they say, only two weeks notice to be sure of a
good room. It might be less, or a little longer in time; that depends
on circumstances. Do query Heydt as to whether it might not be better to
move her while she is still a little weak and would not put up the resistance
to a change such as she might do if more fully recovered. One might have to
take two seats for her and keep her in bed for the entire flight, but I rather
think this is better anyhow. We could have the ambulance meet her at Idlewild
and take her directly from the bunk on a stretcher into the car.

The flight out was not very eventful or even interesting, for the clouds were so low and the mist so heavy that I could see very little of the earth beneath me. I arrived at the Akron-Canton Airport about a quarter to seven in the evening, picked up my Hertz drive-it-yourself and went in to Canton to a Holiday Motel where I made a reservation for Saturday night (my plane leaving at 8:20 a.m. Sunday morning, I did not want to drive twice the distance from Minerva), had a dinner of fried chicken and then drove on in the dark to Minerva where Aurelia had made reservations for me at an excellent motel with huge rooms and twin double beds in each apparently for the emergencies of a Minervan orgy. She had already paid for the room, alas, but I was glad not to be sponging on them for two consecutive nights. It was eleven by this time. I read for an hour, took a sleeping pill because of the highways directly in front and directly behind the moonlight through the room until morning when I drove in to Minerva for breakfast at a lunchroom where my fellow guest was the coach of the local high school football team. I walked the very dreary streets of the shopping center for a half hour and then went back to the motel where I worked until lunchtime.

3

He had another of the mysteries on which his mind likes to turn. This time it was Jonson's line "I would not change for thine." What does it mean, he asked; for he would change. Why the negative. 'erhaps it is the "for.'"

At about three I saw that he was tiring and asked if he would not like to rest while I took a walk. "Yes" he said simply and affirmatively, so I walked on up the steep hill behind his home, all pasture and corn, remarkably beautiful in its view of all the ravines and hillsides that make it quite understandable why he wanted to be at Owlcres. He was still resting when I came back, but I talked with Aurelia and a neighbor and small child who came with a huge birthday cake baked especially for him with "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR HODGSON" lattered on the icing. The room was neater than when we were there, probably because she is now at home. There is an electric stove and icebox, papers were stacked neatly, behind the couch is a great screen of cardboard to keep the wind from him, and on the Franklin stove was a small pile of unopened British newspapers to which he referred sadly from time to time. He eats only baby foods now, and so I am sending a Waring blender which will let her puree much tastier dishes from local fresh vegetables and meats. If she has it, she will use it. The cost is about fifty dollars. She bays however that they are all right at the moment for money, thanks to your thoughtfulness, and she was even hoping to buy him a transistor or f.m. radio if it would eliminate the static. The radio is his life now. She has had a bad back and hip and is afraid she may not be able to lift him much longer. What is hardest is that he is unhappy if she leaves the house even to market. I said if she could get someone to come in occasionally that would be a wise move, and that you still counted on her telling me if sudden hospitalization expenses came.

The evening was a quiet one. I drove back to the motel in Canton, had
dinner, and then read for a while. The evening being a little boring I finally
decided to go to a Burlesque show which I had seen advertised, this form of
strip dancing being pretty much a thing of the past in most parts of the country.
I stayed for an hour and a half, saw the several pairs of breasts that were
uncovered with somewhat unnecessary ostentation, and then went back to my
reading at the motel.

Sunday I rose at six, and after breakfast drove through one of the thickest
fogs I have ever seen. So thick was it in fact that I missed the sign on the
highway directing me to the left to the airport and so went an extra twelve
miles to Akron bef re I discovered my mistake. Whereupon I was directed by an
early riser as to the proper route, only to find a bridge down. I finally
raced through the remnants of the fog and fortunately arrived at the airport to
turn in the car ten minutes before the scheduled departure. No one hurried with
me however, for as they calmly said: because of the fog the plane will be forty
minutes late. I simply collapsed and bought some copies of the Canton paper
with photographs of Rafe and Aurelia and a pleasant account of them which is
far fuller than anything I could write to you. I enclose one for you to keep.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am just back from (a) having a gold crown returned to my tooth from which it had been lost, and (b) my fall checkup with the doctor who could not find anything wrong with me, although he was not enthusiastic about my having begun to smoke again. He orders an x-ray of the lungs, which I shall do as soon as the students are out of the way. Meanwhile the latter begun to storm at the gates.

I am glad that Hilda seems a little better. Any gastric attack of this sort is bound to leave the patient exceptionally fatigued and limp. Her diet will have to be a soft one for some time to come, but I repeat that it is a good sign that her heart was not affected by the strain. The matter of the teeth is always a problem. The reason for urging her to is in order to preserve the shape of her gums. Can't you have a hairdresser come to the hospital to help her. I should think the taxi ride might prove a great strain, although they may look at it properly enough as a useful change of scene and step in recuperation. At Gaylord they have their own hairdresser for the patients.

I am pleased that you have seen Mr A and Catha, and much interested that you found the latter more mature. I agree with you that if she likes her Jacques it is much better that she should take him or marry him. I do not see her as either scholar or business woman, but rather as a somewhat sportif, or horsey, young matron. And why not! It would be rather nice for Richard to see Greece at least once in his life. It is, for example, one of the places where I am anxious to take Susan before she is too old to enjoy it. Greece is after all a ventricle of the heart.

Another little group of children's historical novels came in from Brimmell for the collection. Two young people's books, *Mister Fox* and *The Butterfly's Balls*, I ordered to help fill the Ballantyne list. For Fenn, I bought *Crown & Sceptre*, *Marcus the Young Centurion* and *Steve Young* (a 1st edition; we already had a later one. Also Routledge's *Every Boy's Annual* for 1866. So the collection goes, of slowly.

Have a vast number of letters to write and chores to do, but will go instead to Princeton tomorrow to see my mother. Students would come anyway to my office, so I would not accomplish much here.

Not a peep out of Perdita about the possibility of bringing Hilda to Gaylord.

All love, as always

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

By the time I write this, Heydt will be back and I hope
things will be back in some sort of order again. I had a card from
him and Dori, in Rome, and he expected to be in Zürich on Sunday. I
hope he and Meili can come to some sort of ultimate decision, and then
you must whip over for your breather. The sooner the better, of course.
If only I really can rescue you from the situation! I cannot actually
guess about Meili's reaction, since Heydt seemed to have always known
that Meili would be only on a consultant's basis after she went to the
state clinic. But I doubt now that she should make the change, and I
feel sure that the Red Cross will be willing to keep her until she
comes to this side.

The weather has suddenly turned cooler, and from a temp-
erature of the 90's it has now been down to 46 this morning. I can
work at last, or would be able to if it were not for the inrush of
students who want their schedules fixed, to be greeted if from abroad
usw. It is all frustrating, and I can occasionally pop a tranquilizer
in my mouth. But my doctor found me in good shape when I went for
my regular six-month checkup last week.

You will have had my letter about the Hodgsons. I did not
write about the visit until later in order to get at it with time enough
for some detail. This noon I bought the blender and had it shipped out.
It will or should make a great difference in his diet and their economy,
for baby foods are rather expensive.

My mother too is on baby foods now, or rather what has been
in a blender. I drove up on Saturday, a rather tiring event as always,
when the five or six hours are over. She looked very well I thought,
but was chiefly obsessed by the idea that President Kennedy had been
there for dinner, though she had not personally met him, and that her
nephew (or grandson--it changed on each telling) had overheard the staff
planning to kill her. How full of sadness the world is. It must be very
hard on my brother and sister.

I did know that the Wolves could accept the memoirs, and had
done so. That is why we went over the manuscript together. The problem is
in regard to how many of the earlier books Harcourt will take over so that
if possible you can have only one American publisher rather than two. This
was the reason for postponing conferences with the lawyer and Harcourt until
Helen and Kurt were on this side. Then I can go to Pantheon with all cards
on the table. So hand over the manuscript as you can to the Wolves, and
we will go on from there.

Of course I will watch out for Catha. Do assure her when you
write her next. If she asks, I should suggest she wait before marrying until
after she has her dpplome in '63. The matter should be clearer to her then
(though don't put it that way, but just delay as a good insurance policy in

this day and age. ) If she still wants to marry her peasant horseman then, she will at least know
what she is doing. Being in France, she will probably by then have had a little sexual experience
and perhaps satisfied certain curiosities.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

19 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

Thank you for calling Helen about the Harcourt matters.

At least I presume you must have, and that she wrote airmail or cabled Janovitch. For this morning I had a telephone call from him, suggesting that we confer before he left for Europe on October 12th, when he would be seeing the Wolves in Switzerland. I spoke of the matter of the back volumes, and he said he would be delighted to take them over but was not sure whether "random House" would be willing to release them. I said I would send the various contracts to Mr Cane, who could join us on the morning of October 5th when I have an appointment with Janovitch at his New York office.

So before too long we will know more certainly where we stand. He completely understood that I ought not to go to Pantheon about a release for the memoirs until all cards could be put on the table at the same time. All cards, that is, except for the Gandharan book and Hilda's Freud, which presumably will fall more or less by the wayside.

Two yellow backs were in yesterday's mail, and I was deeply touched by Hilda's two cards to you. I could read only a very few words, but felt such a tremendous comeback in them that they have raised my hopes for the future considerably. What a completely perfect birthday present her card to you was.

I was puzzled at Jean Starr Untermeyer's remark to you that I had not yet written her about making a recording of her poetry to Yale. Did I know anything about this? There is a series of poetry recordings which has been made here, but I have nothing to do with it. They had enough money from a foundation to do twenty releases, but are not yet sure whether the returns from these will justify any further. But enlighten me as to my part so far as Jean is concerned.

Many thanks for the Eden memoirs which arrived in today's post. I agree, one should know them even if one doesn't agree with them. I hate to think of the turmoil at the U.N. when they try to elect a successor to Dag H. His death was mysterious. Perhaps the African gods helped fulfill a death wish on his part. One doesn't know.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

23 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

All of the graduate student schedules have now been made out, and I have just finished going through a manuscript of a book on Fenollosa which was submitted for our American Studies Series. I still have my preparations to make for my first classes which begin next week, but at least I have a moment now in which to write you.

Thursday was an incredible day, being as we were on the fringes of Hurricane Esther. It began to blow Wednesday night, and although we were not told to evacuate the shore, by morning the wind was whipping at some sixty to eighty miles an hour. We had no electricity but fortunately the tenants had left the house we own next door, and Susan trudged over in her slicker to make coffee and boil an egg on the gas stove which is there. High tide came at nine in the morning, with tides forecast as four to six feet higher than usual. I left at 8:15, and managed to get out although the water was already over the road in three places. Susan had promised to judge a show in Fairfield, so afraid that she could not get out at all if she waited three quarters of an hour later I phoned her from a Howard Johnson Restaurant to leave at once. She grabbed her things and was just barely able to reach high ground so rapidly had the water risen in fifteen minutes. We were fortunate and lost no trees at Johnson's point, although one just across from my office window went down and there was a good deal of damage hereabout. But we were not really in the hurricane itself and ten Thursday night when I drove home after a fellows' meeting at the college, the roads were clear again.

Last night we had to entertain the Professor of English and whilom Rektor of the University of Frankfurt, who had once been a student of mine; and we have meanwhile been making preparations to move back into town on Sunday. So we have been busy.

My copy of Hilda's book came on Thursday, but so did your letters about Hilda's discouraging condition, so that I felt no very great elation. I asked them to airmail a copy to Hilda --yours comes to you surface --and perhaps you will have seen it there. They did a good job of it, and even the paper is excellent. You spoke of Hilda's reading. Can she actually read? I hope so. I was interested in the two new cards she had written you. I found them less easy to read, but am happy she is making the effort. Naturally I am eager to hear from Heydt as to what the prognosis is. I am glad she took a turn for the better, but am fearful if she has become so dependent upon Heydt. I don't know, I just don't know. But on the whole I still think it would be better for her if she were here and I could keep a close watch on her, and relieve you from the inevitable strain. It would probably be worth whatever amount of capital withdrawal it took to fly her over, even with a couple of escorts. If she did have two I rather wonder, however, if it would not be simply throwing money away

a second-hand one would serve the purpose exactly as well as a new one. One would have to see what a proper apparatus would cost.
No letter from you today, but there was a yellowback. Pup's birthday letter to you sounded amiable about Hilda's coming.

to add the expense of my passage. I would do this only if Heydt thought she would be happier to have me with her.

All of this rather crowds all else out. I shall write Horace and again urge one month. Gaylord would certainly not do for a permanent location, but this might encourage him, and if it looked as though double the time would help we can think about the matter then. I see that I will really have to keep a much closer eye on him than I have. If only he did not live so remotely!

This is exciting news about the Henty Library. When you next go to England do run out to the Battersea Library and report to me.

Eventually I feel sure that we will, as you say, have to look out for Aldington. There is an undercurrent of insecurity in his letters. He is too sensible to become dependent on Catha, but at the same time his life has depended upon her dependence on him. Why don't you, in writing him, say how much I enjoyed hearing from him and then suggest that for my sake he write me an occasional letter. It might make him feel a little less like a charity case if anything happened to you and I should have to take over. I am afraid he really has little to look forward to.

I'm sorry I did not mention your poem written during the cruise. Too many things must have interfered, for I did like it very much indeed. It will be well worth your working on.

I am always pleased to hear that Stephen Lewis likes my dressing gown. It was clever of you to think of taking it to him. Is there anything else that you think he might like. Neckties for example. Now that I am exclusively griedered I have a vast batch of them in good condition but unused by me.

The news of Doris continues to disturb me. I am rather fearful.

I have had a post-birthday letter from Aurelia, of which I enclose a thermofax for you to read and then throw away. She did seem pleased. As I told you, I have sent out a Waring blender, and suggested that even if Ralph wouldn't use an electric blanket perhaps she would like one for the sake of her hip and back. Her second story bedroom must be bitter cold in winter. Did I write you that as I was leaving for my car, Aurelia told me that last year when Ralph made his will he had left all books, manuscripts and correspondence to Yale if I thought Yale would like them. I protested, saying that I had hoped that we could sell them for her benefit. But she was very firm saying that he wanted it this way, and so did she. I am glad I had not known this before the birthday

Little echoes of the Arctic begin to recur, although not in the weather. I had a letter from Stefansson's assistant at Dartmouth inviting Susan and me, on his behalf, to a reception this coming Friday in Hanover for Paul'enimore Cooper in honor of his new book (Cooper's, that is). Alas we are inextricably engaged. A letter also came from Brother Volant, now that the tourist season is over. He says that he would have to pay the duty on any camera shipped in. I must ask again, although you could inquire in Zurich about second hand cameras for taking pictures of small objects in the museum. I should think

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

26 September 1961

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 23rd came today, and I hasten to
answer in the few minutes remaining after an afternoon seminar and
a meeting of the English Department faculty. Several packages of books
have also arrived, including the Chagall, the Bourjailly, Ziller,
Iris Murdoch and Clifford Odets. For which my thanks. Also another
letter from Jovanovich, so that all seems to be in order for my trip
to New York next week.

The Italian publisher to take over the Gandhara does
not sound very practical to me, in terms of continued listing and
import duties on the books sold from Italy. But I shall talk over
this with Harcourt and especially with Melville Cane. The Freud I
hope eventually to have Grpve take over, and have long since begun
suggesting that Grove should do a paperback of it. It is hard however
to get any information out of Rosset. I imagine he will wait for the
public reaction to Helen.

Incidentally I was delighted at the meeting this afternoon
to hear from one of the professors who is a chancellor of the Academy of
American Poets that three chancellors (including himself) have nominated
Horace for the Academy's annual five thousand dollar prize. In addition
to Fred Pottle the other two are Marianne and Richard Wilbur. Since I
was responsible for the independent nominations by Pottle and Wilbur I
feel I may at last have been able to help Horace. Naturally I did not
tell Pottle I had put Wilbur up to it, nor told Wilbur of Pottle. I
imagine they prefer to think of themselves as independent. Pottle thinks
there is a very good chance, and certainly no one deserves it more than
Horace does. We will see.

You will already have heard from me that I did like the
Falmouth poem. I have the feeling you will want to work at it from
time to time, to tighten it a little. But the main form and material
are there, and the tone is excellent. We might think eventually of a
little private pamphlet of your best poems.

I will have Pantheon send me some additional copies of
Hilda's *Freud*, and send one directly to Catha as from you, and another
six to Kenwin. I'd like as many as possible in circulation. Eventually
it will be known as a little classic.

I am glad Hilda continues to improve, and especially that
Heydt is making inquiries about her flight over. One must not set a
date of course until we know there will be a free bed in a good room at
Gaylord. The Director thought about two weeks notice would be necessary.

All love as always. Muggle the boxer for me.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

1 October 1961

Dearest Fido,

Not an hour has gone by since Thursday morning when your cable
came, without my thinking of you. Given an ideal world I should like to have
been with you if only we might have crouched together like sled dogs at the
end of a pull. The calendar Hilda gave me is in front of me as I write you,
and when I pulled off September to begin the new month I could not help but
feel the beginning of a new month without Hilda to care for and plan for to-
gether. But at least I hope you felt my love to strengthen you and the
knowledge of my help for all that this will entail for you in the immediate
future. I cannot help enough I know. Perhaps I can with affairs, but no one
can take her place itself. I only wish she might actually have been on this
side so that I could have spared you these last few days as I hoped to spare
you something of the future. Now I can only wait until you come to me so
that we can look at the calendar for the pictures of the months to come.

If you feel that you cannot quite face Bethlehem, there is no
reason why you should --you who have given so much to her, and, as I wrote
you at the Glockenhof, made so much possible of Hilda's expression of her
genius. Let me take Bethlehem over, and then some day we can go there to-
gether.

I called John and Pup shortly after your wire came, only to find
that Perdita was still on Long Island and that John had not yet received the
cable with its sad news. I let him call Pup to tell her, and then tried
later in the morning. But she had taken the children to the beach, which was
a sensible way of keeping herself together, and when I spoke to John at noon
and again when I spoke to her at night I agreed that it was wisest, really,
for her not to go to Switzerland. Perdita seemed quite composed and I think
had been prepared for just such an event. Fortunately she did not object to
the idea of Bethlehem, for I had already called Harold on the phone and we
had settled that Hilda's ashes should be by her father and her mother. Harold
agreed to tell Melvin and the other relatives, with the exception of Francis
Wolle to whom I wrote. After you and I spoke on the phone at noon (here) I
called him again to find the name of the cemetary and have him inform them
more or less immediately. He and I will plan whatever ceremony seems appro-
priate to him for the interment. Do you think Hilda would like a brief service
at the Moravian church of her ancestors, or shall we confine all to the cemetary
itself. I called Horace of course, as you asked, and told him what Heydt had
cabled me about the arrival of Helen, for which I try always to give him all
credit since it pleases him to feel that he is responsible for it and Hilda's
poetic revival in general. He spoke a good deal about himself, and I judge he
is not even as well as when I saw him a fortnight ago. They are giving him
physical therapy for above his legs and he depends on that helping. But does
not, I should assume, feel quite up to Gaylord just now. What courage he has,
and how much courage it demands of him! After calling him I phoned the Grove
Press and asked them to prepare a press release for the papers, which they
did gladly, and I spent some time on the phone with them giving them the
various data to include about relatives and the like. The New York Times
however must have had their own obituary already prepared, as they do for well
known persons, for their account ran on its own lines except for the part

about the relations. I enclose the clipping from the Times and the Tribune.
The New Haven paper carried a brief notice as from a Zurich dateline.

Already I have had several letters about her death, which I have al-
ready acknowledged and put aside for you to see when you come. Urzidil wrote
a most moving note, which I thought was exceptionally thoughtful of him to
do. So did Gustav Davidson of the Poetry Society of which Hilda was an
honorary member. Two people at Grove wrote, and so did Denise Levertov the
young poet whom Hilda liked when she met her in New York. And I imagine
others may come. You of course will be flooded.

Probably the best thing to do will be for you simply to bundle up
all of Hilda's papers and send them over. The matter of books we can discuss
or you can simply send those too, so long as this does not conflict with her
will. Harold by the way told me that he was writing you about a document
Hilda had signed a few years ago setting up a trust fund with her American
money, but I am not sure how this will jibe with her will, especially since
Harold never did file his paper. If you can have a copy of her will made
for me to put with her papers I think this would be a wise move.

My heart is too full of Hilda and of you to have been able to set
itself elsewhere. But of course the office has had to run, and I have
corrected the French and German exams of the graduate students and otherwise
tried to be tidy. A nice letter came from Aurelia in which she gratefully
accepted the offer of the electric blanket for herself and so I will take
care of that. She did seem pleased with the blendor and had already used
it successfully for him. "A little more experimenting," she wrote, "and
I hope to have the texture exactly to Ralph's taste. With this he can enjoy
the variety I do, and not be limited to broths and split peas. Tonight he
enjoyed his dinner so much, and saved half a cupful for an hour or two later.
If meals can become a pleasure and not tedium, we have accomplished a lot!"
I have sent her a cookbook with recipes for a blendor. That should help too,
in addition to Susan's advice which I relayed.

I had a charming letter too from Masefield which I will show you, thanking
me for sending the clippings about the birthday. "I am so glad," he said, "to
think that so many lively minds turned with gladness and gratitude to this
wonderful old man away in the wild wood." By the way, I gather from Aurelia's
letter that the Prime Minister also sent Hodgson birthday greetings, but of
course this was none of my doing. Didn't Macmillan publish this new edition of
his collected poems?

I was grateful for Aldington's letter to you about the children and
grandchildren. At the same time we had a letter from them saying how grateful
they were to him for his advice and the luncheon they had with him. Poor things,
they have had such difficulty in finding anything that Sue is very gloomy about
it and even talks of coming back to the States. I hope they won't, but will
move on to Germany or some place where they can find a spot. Susan had planned
to fly over for a fortnight in early November to visit them and perhaps take the
grandchildren under her wing for a week so that the two could go off somewhere on
their own. I wrote them about this, and it may tempt them and thus break the
tension. What a pity it is! They say the south of France is crowded with refugee

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

white Algerians who have taken every possible corner. One can't blame them
of course.

I was much interested in the Henty clipping. I had thought the lady
at Maggs had dug this out by her own research, but it doesn't matter. There
is obviously some mystery. Yes, do put Gladys on it. It is a wonderful lead.
I was glad to have White's birthday salute to Hilda. It was very kind of him
to print up.

I was sorry to learn about Melvin's financial situation, but think we
should actually check with Harold before doing anything about it. Yet there
can be no question but that living in the States will be more expensive than
South America. This prospect may rather overhwlem them at the moment.

Your last letter, in Saturday's mail, still looked forward to the
conference with Meili and Heydt about Hilda's coming over. How far back in
time all this now seems. I shall be eager for your other letters of a
later date.

Bless you, my dear, and cuddle my love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

2 October 1961

My dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 29th came this morning, and
was immensely welcome.

I am glad you gave in about the funeral. I felt
the same way, as he will have told you. It was for Heydt, really,
and he deserved being spared a sense of what seemed to him incom-
pleteness. You were absolutely brilliant to suggest that he should
speak. It was so much better than if I had; I can talk if that
seems appropriate at Bethlehem. If I had come it would have been
for you. If there was a particular reason why perhaps I should not
have come it would have been, paradoxically, for Perdita. I might
have seemed to leap where she could not. And I suspect that I
ought to keep as friendly a relationship with her as is possible,
against the possibility of some later upheaval where she might need
a kind of support.

I liked your nine roses; so would Hilda. I asked
Heydt to arrange for a spray of orchids as from Susan and myself.
They were my gardenias to say the gods have arrived.

Heydt sent me a copy of the memorial notice which I
thought very well composed, and liked the fragment of her poetry
which he selected. I was deeply touched to have our names linked
in this way. He spoke also of a death mask having been taken. It
is a kind of 19th-century flourish, but a not unpleasing one. If
a copy is made for me for the record, perhaps you could bring it with
you. And would it not be an insurance of good relations to have one
made for Perdita also. But I know little about how such casts are
done. Do be sure that Heydt has one; I shall send him several of
Hilda's books which he does not himself have.

The Durand clippins ought to be saved, I think. It
is curious how prophetic ally she felt his standing in the doorway
as though welcoming her to death. Like yourself, she had a special
prophetic strain. One doesn't have to come from Cornwall to be so
endowed.

# 2 (2nd October 1961)

Dearest Fido,

I had already finished your letter but not even folded
it before yours of the 30th arrived. I hasten, at the end of the
day, to comment on it, although there is no rush for any decision
and we can comment back and forth for some time.

As to the will, of course, I had written you that Harold
would write you about the trust fund she established for Perdita. I
did not understand the circumstances very clearly, and certainly not
the details, but these can eventually be clarified.

My own personal feelings are pretty much the same as when
you and I spoke of the matter of her will in Zurich. At that time you
thought that she had divided the money between Perdita and yourself,
and you seemed to like my practical suggestion that you sign a waver
to your rights so that Pup could have the whole. This was especially
in terms of your own plans to alter your will to Pup's disadvantage.
I do not know, nor is it any of my business, what you did about the
latter; but I should think my advice would be the same even for the
will as we now know it. This especially holds for what Harold has
managed to do with the money left Hilda by her father. Hilda's
gesture of gratitude and confidence to you remains a beautiful one no
matter what you do, and my practical sense says that it is economically
unsound to pay the extra taxes that would be necessary for any by-passing
to Pup. Harold is older than Hilda and has enough money for himself to
live on. I feel sure he would want Perdita to have her mother's resources.
It would be impossibly difficult for us to judge what Melvin would need,
and I really doubt that he will need it more than Perdita and John will
as the boys and Elizabeth grow older. As to Timothy I think it would
be an agony and a cause of for eternal friction if he were to receive
something beyond what the other grandchildren did; but then I may be
too American in this and think that a youngest child should not have
advantages over the oldest or over a girl just because she is a girl.
Nothing I ever did for Hilda was done with the idea of a financial reward,
and I should prefer that Perdita had whatever would have come to me
except for the disposition we make of the manuscripts and the literary rights.
Perhaps we could manage some transfer of literary rights to me, unless you
want to keep the rights to unpublished material as your share.

These are only first thoughts. But do not be too hard on Pup.
Hilda would not have expected you to be. I had by the way a fine letter
from Perdita in today's mail. I will send it after showing it to Susan
tonight.

3 October 1961

Dearest Fido,

I must spend the morning preparing to teach Bradford's *History of Plymouth Plantation* this afternoon to a class of undergraduate juniors, and will not post this until this afternoon on the chance that there will be another letter in one of the posts. But if today is like yesterday there are likely to be so many people come in for questions of one kind or another that the end of the day will be crowded.

I thought of you constantly yesterday, and was glad that Ethel and Joan and Elsie could be with you. I do agree that our Hilda would have liked just such a ceremony as Heydt planned. I was of course prepared, for he and I had discussed the matter in June, and he had precisely the plans he carried out. The announcement arrived in yesterday's mail, and with it a long and fine account of Hilda's last days. I am increasingly happy that she had a little upsurge at the end and that she could enjoy *Helen*. How fortunate it was that the book went by air instead of by surface to her.

I enclose Pup's letter to me, which both Susan and I both liked the tone of. I think we must not be too hard on her, and live in the present rather than the past.

It will take a long time to straighten out things in terms of the will, so that fortunately no decisions need be taken for some time yet and perhaps not until after you have come to the States. Long ago Hilda signed contracts of sale of all her rights in all her published works in the same manner as your bills of sale to me. I have as you know never taken any of the income from royalties or permissions for myself but kept them in a separate savings account and spent in little ways as she directed. I can make over the account to you as "proceeds", and can resell all rights to you if you think that to be wisest. I will try to get everything in order at any rate so that it will be ready for you on your arrival. I mention this now only in terms of the estate so that this item need not be included for tax purposes. Neither need there be any return of her papers or manuscripts already in New Haven if we continue to say, as we said we would, that she had already given to me what I have here. Actually I think that this would simplify matters with the estate, and what you and I do with them is a private matter between us. But again all this is purely tentative.

Just to show you that life continues I enclose a card about the Mackenzie River trip. It looks interesting. Perhaps this would tempt Susan and the three of us might try it.

Three additions to the boy's collection have come. A
Gordon Stables: *Leaves from the Log of a Sailor* which will be here panting
for you; and volumes 4 and 6 of *The Boy's Journal*. Deaf poet's love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

4 October 1961

Dearest Fido,

I was so exhausted after my seminar yesterday that instead of working at my desk as I should have done I went to the gymnasium and had a massage. Instead of going to the symphony last night we gave our tickets to a new Indian couple (middle-aged) who are studying with us and prepared today's seminar in time for a sleeping pill and a good night's rest. (How you must feel, I sudden to think!) So I left the letter I wrote yesterday morning un-enveloped and un-mailed -- there having understandably been no letter from you later in the day -- and since there is none today either I simply add an note to bring you up to date.

Harold wrote on the 2nd: "I received a reply from Miskey (no, Niskey; Miskey was the name of the famous burlesque theatre in New York. What will my analyst or biographer make of that?) Hill Cemetery in regards my inquiry, from Andrew Maurer, Jr., Supt. 254 E Church Street, Phone UN 6-5742. He sent me a plot showing my Father's burial ground. There is available space for Hilda's cremated remains. Actually 3 such spaces and one full interment space. I shall notify Mr Maurer to use the space next to our Mother and also alongside our brother. I will fill out a form he sent however will leave open of course Time & Funeral. I just notice this is not to be sent in until final arrangements have been made. So will hold on to it. I wrote Bryher last week. Also Perdita Melvin and Francis [Wolle]. I shall await hearing from Bryher pending the filing of Hilda's Deed of Trust with Mellen National Bank & Trust Company here. Am aware that there could possibly be some contradiction with some other will or something. Probably not."

There looks like a complication here, but I really don't know the date of Harold's document. I am afraid Hilda was always a little slap-dash about such things, and due to fortunate circumstances didn't really care or have to care about money. But it will all work out, and you will be able to decide what you feel is wisest to do. Let me know what is expected of me as an executor if the Baylis document prevails.

An interesting document came in from the Martinelli today (Heydt probably told you what pleasure Hilda took in the birthday issue for her on Martinelli's magazine), enclosing a letter in copy she had written and sent on the Wednesday of Hilda's death. It was full of clouded mirrors, strange lights on the wall and premonitions which she could not identify and which frightened her enough to write an entire letter about them and their mystery. Martinelli is of course psychic as Hilda was. It may be, it may be.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN

8 October 1961

Dearest Fido,

This has been one of those aggravating days when I have worked against a newly accumulated pile on my desk without making much headway. I accomplished a good deal more this afternoon when I helped Susan weed the back garden at Goodrich Street of its accumulated jungle during the summer. This I am glad to say completes at least that job.

A number of letters have come in about Hilda which I answered this morning. One from Laughlin the publisher of New Directions, which asked also, "Please extend my deep sympathy to Bryher." Mme Schnack wrote pleasantly, so did C. Cristophe de Nagy from Toronto. Lüdeke wrote from Basel, saying how grieved he was not to have known where her Swiss ceremony would be held so that he might have sent flowers. I will see that there is something from him at Bethlehem. Mrs Hugh Bullock, the President of the Academy of American Poets, and Babette Deutsch also wrote, thanking at the same time for copies of Helen which I had personally sent them from myself, thinking it could do no harm in getting the book known. The weirdest letter of condolence however came from the vice-consul at Zurich when Hilda got back her American citizenship, saying what a great honor it had been to be of help at that time, and praising her vitality etc. I felt like spitting! Omar Pound also wrote from Boston.

A letter from Harold came. "I received a reply," he said, "from AnKERLEY HILL CEMETARY in regards to my inquiry, from Andrew Maurer, Jr., Supt. 254 E Church Street, Phone UN 6-5742. He sent me a plot showing my Father's burial ground. There is available space for Hilda's cremated remains. Actually 3 such spaces and one full interment space. I shall notify Mr Maurer to use the space next to our Mother and also alongside our brother. I will fill out a form he sent however will leave open of course the time of funeral. I just notice this is not to be sent in until final arrangements have been made. So will hold on to it. I wrote Bryher last week. Also Perdita Melvin and Francis. I shall await hearing from Bryher pending the filing of Hilda's Deed of Trust with Helen National Bank and Loan Company here. Am aware that there could possibly be some contradiction with some other will or something. Probably not."

I imagine that it might be wise for you to write Harold asking for a thermofex copy of the paper he has to be sent to Philip, and one to you Beney and myself as executors. Then Philip can have seen this, which he must do before filing any will in London or elsewhere. I am certain that we could not fail to be in for trouble of one sort or another if the two are not compared.

I was naturally interested that Philip, quite independently had arrived at the same initial opinion I had had about signing a release for the money in Perdita's favor. Actually however I had thought that you and I were agreed on this when we spoke together about the matter in Zurich. It seemed to me that Hilda would have expected that you would have more than amply taken care of Perdita eventually because of the legal adoption, and that what she did was as a wonderful tribute to all that you had done for her. (But still expecting Perdita would get this money and much more later. Especially now if you should wish to cut down on what goes to Perdita, this gesture re Hilda's will takes something of the sting out of it. Were you to relinquish her mother's money, people would applaud your generosity; on the other hand it might not be understood even by those who received portions from Hilda without greater explanations than I think you would want to make. I am not a great one for caring about public opinion, but I do mind the misunderstanding by my friends. The days immediately ahead will be difficult ones for

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Perdita in terms of the costs of educating and bringing up the children as Hilda's grandchildren ought to be brought up, so the gesture is really towards Hilda rather than towards Perdita as an individual. With the children a little better provided for, it might not be so necessary for you to give extras each year and thus your own net income would be increased to enable you to help the Georges and the Horaces of the world. I repeat that I think Hilda took no special interest in Melvin, and that Harold would be made deeply unhappy to be given something at Perdita's expense.

Fortunately it will take time to clarify even the technicalities of the will, so you do not have to make up your mind immediately. My own hunch is that you ought to go to London to confer with Philip, after Harold's document has been received, so that everything is straight before you come to the States. If necessary I could fly over to London for a couple of days so that we could confer together, but I doubt that this is indicated.

I am glad, deeply glad, that the funeral ceremony went so well and that there were, after all, so many to be present. Heydt was right; there should have been such a one; and you were right in thinking what our Hilda would have liked the German elegance of it all. She and Edith shared a sense of flare.

It probably would be most sensible to bring the death mask back by hand, either yours this time, or if it seems too tricky because you stop over in London, then it can wait until later. I don't know much about such things, and whether it is possible to have copies made of the original. If it is, then I should think one for Heydt, one for Pup, one for Bryn Mawr (even if she hated the place) and one for the archives. Or perhaps it would be better to have an excellent photograph made. It is too bad Islay can't do it. Or perhaps he'll bring his camera when he comes this time and could photograph it here. Then George and a number of other people might like it. I think both you and I would, although I would prefer to look at her real photograph than that of a mask.

It is still too early perhaps to talk about details of Hilda's other property than her funds. But one can think a little about them. As to the big bookcases at Lowndes I really doubt that it would be worth the expense of shipping them to this side. When we broke up the Gardner house I could not take three cases which were similar, even to put in the cellar at Goodrich Street, for lack of room. And if I build a new bookcase at Goodrich Street in the west bedroom I will have it made specially in order to get the maximum length and ceiling to floor storage space. One could offer them to Perdita, but this would be awkward if there is feuding over the will, and in any case there would be nowhere but their rented house at Southampton which could accommodate them. Wouldn't Beney like them, or one of Elsie's family? My Yankee sense of thrift makes me hate not to take them, but my sense of practicality denies this. In London, I would say the same for the bookcases there. The only thing there--unless some furniture still exists--which I should not give away would be the William Morris lectern. You will know best about the books. As you know I have some of the Moravian volumes already on this side, and I should simply not include any estimate of them in her estate. Say they had been given to me, and thus save taxes. We can put these eventually with whatever other Moravian volumes she has and perhaps give them to the Moravian Academy of which her grandfather was president. When you come over, if as it now looks it will be after the burial here, we might take a trip to the cemetery together and see what is best as a place for her collection. I am most anxious to have at least a list of all the Egyptian books she owned so that later students can have the chance to look up other copies to help in seeing where she got her information.

3

I hope you will find something suitable for Elsie to have as a keepsake, even though she was hardly one of Hilda's favorites. The personal items are always the most difficult to dispose of. But if there are rings or pieces of jewelry don't forget Perdita and Elizabeth Bryher. With my mother's things we did everything we could to see that there were no ill feelings. Your string of pearls which Hilda enjoyed I presume you will recall as your own.

Both Susan and I were deeply touched at your special letter about the orchids. I suppose it was rather lavish, but Hilda did like that sort of thing, and I had no garden from which to take simpler tributes.

I simply cannot even now quite get used to the idea that she is no longer with us.

I did not mind the obituary in the London Times as much as you did. I think Read did admire her work; only you and I of course know it much more intimately and deeply. But we could never have compromised between one sentence of praise and a book on her.

Is there anyone else I should write to about Hilda's death in order to save you a little. Mrs Pratt? I had had a copy of Helen sent her as from Hilda. I will write George and Aldington when I can catch my breath.

Why not plan to come over in November so that you can have things more or less in hand before you arrive. I will have had a chance to go over your memoirs before you come, and you can hole in in New Haven with a typewriter and finish the work of revision here where both Helen and I will be. We can talk about illustrations also, although I don't think any are really required. Susan may have gone to France for a fortnight to visit the children. We have had no news except for the one letter written in distress, so I am reasonably certain that they have found nothing satisfactory so far. The boy's mother is now in France, and she may be able to help a little. I suggested that they try Germany, Austria or Italy if the south of France doesn't work out. It would be such a pity for their little adventure to fail. If November it would be too late for Maine, but why don't we go to Washington where you have never been. We could see the regular sights and see the eskimo collection at the Smithsonian where my friend is curator. And we might stop off in Baltimore to see what is said to be a superb collection of eskimo things there.

My visit with Jovanovich was very pleasant indeed, and I could not have gotten on more agreeably with him. Melville Cane the lawyer was also there and we put our heads together to work out the best possible scheme. In the end it seemed simplest for me to go straight to Schabert and put the matter to him directly. It made a black day for him but he conducted himself with great dignity, did not speak a word against either Helen or Kurt, and said in the end that although he was deeply disappointed he would not insist on his rights of refusal for the manuscript if you wanted to go with Helen. He was leaving the next day for several weeks in Europe and we could not do much more than open the subject of the other volumes. But this is highly complicated and perhaps we had better wait to discuss it a trois (Helen, you and I) when you are here together. In an event Schabert will not be back before then. Anyhow the main objective has been reached, and you will be on Harcourt's spring list.

All love,
Norron

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 October 1961

Dearest Bryher,

I think I wrote you yesterday that when the obscene
letter of condolence came from the ex vice-consul at Zurich (he is
no longer in the consular service) he mentioned the editorial in
last Thursday's *Times* which apparently for the first time let him
know who Hilda really was. I say this especially, since he said he
had also read the obituaries which apparently occasioned no response
in him. Fortunately, because I missed the editorial when I read the
paper in the dining car of the railroad on my way to Jovanovich, our
own copy at home had not been destroyed. So I have had some copies
made of it and immediately send you one. It is a true honor to her,
and I think she would have liked its sincerity even if she demurred
at being called remote from her own times (as she was not).

I enclose also a copy of my letter to Jovanovich. The
matter of the earlier titles is by no means concluded, but it did seem
best to me under the circumstances not to pursue it. In any event
Jovanovich said it would be impossible physically to replace any title
pages in time to announce an overall change when he announced the
memoirs.

Your letter of the 6th arrived in this afternoon's mail/
I hasten to write chiefly to get the editorial to you. As to the differing
amounts for various children I do see that I spoke as an American, this
having been one of the first points established even in the colonies when
the right of primogeniture was abolished. And of course I was thinking in
this case --not your own -- of Hilda's being an American and probably
thinking along those lines.

I wonder if money wouldn't actually be saved for Perdita if
she were to get what came to her directly from Hilda instead of from your
estate; yours being larger and subject to British law, the hunk taken by
the government would be also larger. Hilda's estate is smaller. Beney's
advice on this would be important, also Philip's: by "this" of course I
mean the matter of taxes.

In the matter of the death mask I really imagine that photo-
graphs would be easier for friends to handle than copies of the mask itself.
And the mask may seem a little ghoulish.

Many thanks for the corrections. I am immensely eager to see
and read the entire manuscript.

Oh do come with me to Bethlehem, as I wrote you yesterday. Then
I could see that all is in order at the cemetery, inquire about the right spot
for the books, and we could together and singly pay our farewells as I certainly
cannot in the midst of her siblings and descendants.

Hilda

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

14 October 1961

Dearest Fido,

I was sorry to have cabled rather than written, but the week has been so hellish that I did not have time to sit down to write when Harold's letter came. It probably does not matter much one way or the other, except that I think of you first and above all in relation to Hilda.

Heydt's transcript of his remarks has arrived, and I thought them very good indeed. Actually it was much better, for his sake, that he should have spoken rather than myself. I am grateful to you for thinking of it. In this morning's mail, by air, arrived the record which had been pressed from the funeral tape. The whole affair was certainly documented with all the air of a historian.

I wrote to a friend who is vice-president of the New York Times and asked him to thank the writer of the memorial editorial. He has repined with the man's name, and I shall send him a copy of *Helen*. The Book Review Section of the Times also wrote to ask permission for quoting some of her poems in a memorial article to appear in a fortnight. It was written by Horace, and should be good. I suspect that most of the reviews of *Helen* will be filled chiefly with retrospect rather than the book itself. I sent a copy to a woman in Louisiana who says she is reviewing it there.

Horace wrote recently to say that he would like to go to Gaylord about the 25th of this month. I spoke with the director on the phone and he will be glad to have Horace there. He is also likes the idea of his being a poet. This will mean I can drive you out to see him while you are with us in New Haven. I have had to write Horace, however, and ask him to ask his doctor to send a history of his case to Gaylord first.

A package or two of Hilda's books has come in, and I shall put them aside to be discussed in general when you come. We have started the man on the new bookcase for the bedroom so that there will be room to store things meanwhile and afterwards as you decide. The rose book has also just arrived safely. I was beginning to worry a little about it. I have not taken it home, pending your decision. Shall we give it to Susan as from Hilda, or do you know someone to whom it should go? You remember that she had once actually spoken of wanting Susan to have it eventually.

I am grateful for the corrections to the manuscript of the memoirs, and will see that they are inserted and available. I am excited at the good progress you are making with it, and have no worries at all about getting it in to Harcourt's in time for the June publication. Are you absolutely sure that Collins could in fact get the book out in March. You had better check on this for it will make a difference in the way I make the contract. You will remember that we handled this in exactly the way we had done with the others, and several years ago you sold it to me. I am perfectly happy of course, if you prefer it otherwise, simply to

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

destroy the bill of sale, or resell it back to you, so that the contracts
can be signed by you yourself. Let me know about this, and how you feel.
One thing I ought to warn you and that is that Viking could not possibly
bring it out sooner than Harcourt could; for it has been announced by
Harcourt, as you wanted it to be. I am afraid this would cause much
embarrassment to both firms. In Jean Starr's letters, which are all you
have sent me about Viking --if you were actually in direct correspondence
with them, I haven't seen the letters. In what she said there was only
the statement that Viking would like to see the manuscript and were
interested in it. I am afraid that when Covici approached Hilda for a
similar manuscript that he wanted for Viking much more of an expose
than she was willing to do.

Both Dorothy Pound and Mary wrote me very lovely letters about
Hilda's death; and day before yesterday I had a very touching note from
Ezra himself—the first letter he has written anyone for many months.
I will of course save it to show you. This morning's mail had a better
from Slyvia Beach, which I thought was very nice of her to write. Robert
Duncan writes that he keeps at his book on Hilda, but God only knows what
that will turn out to be.

The Addiss family have at last found something about five miles
from Avignon, with two bedrooms and warm water when the cold comes. The
letter from young Susan sounded very chearful indeed.

Susan and I intend a Yale football game this afternoon. It is
on the verge of drizzle, but we will at least be able to brief you before
you see a game this fall here.

The deepest love, as always

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 October 1961

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday morning, when I went into the town to have
my eye-glasses fixed, I picked up a pin and was sure I would have
good luck. I didn't of course, for after mailing my letter to you
I went home for lunch before going in the rain to the football
game, and found your cable saying it was "doubtful" if come America."
The loss of the football was therefore cushioned by my already
disappointment.

I still hope you may want to come, for I had looked
forward to going over the manuscript of the memoirs with you if
you wished to do so, and I had and have a sheaf of papers to show
you, and a baker's dozen of plans for things that we could do to-
gether.

But, without trying to read crystal bowls, I can imagine
many reasons that might deter you. There is of course the memoirs
to finish and work over, and there are the guests you like to have
come to Kenwin and who I suppose have rather come to count on a
visit. And there is Doris is England with whom, particularly now,
you will want to make more than usual length of visit. And as for
this side, leaving myself out of the picture, I can imagine a kind
of reluctance in having to see and talk too much with Pup and her
family, a fear of being trapped. It is not simply a matter of being
expected to hold hands, of course, but rather a matter of all the
associations of the past and the present, especially the recent events.
I doubt that Perdita expects hand-holding, but poor John would be
dumb without his clichés to fall back on. He is the consummate bourgeois
in all of his norms. Sometimes I think he is a burlesque. I saw in
yesterday's New Haven paper an account of Shane O'Neill, the dramatist's
son who is a bum and narcotics addict.

Child neglect charges against Shane O'Neill, son of
the late playwright Eugene O'Neill, were dismissed
Friday.

Ocean County Judge John J. Ewart said O'Neill's conduct
at times may not have been orthodox, but did not nec-
cessarily constitute neglect.

Point Pleasant Police Chief William Beecroft testified
that he had seen O'Neill dressed in woman's clothes or
nude at home. The chief said he asked O'Neill why he
wore a woman's clothes and O'Neill replied that he was
going to bake a cake for the children.

, Perhaps John would like Point Pleasant.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Hardly an hour passes without something to remind me of how
difficult this time must be for you, and without wishing that I
could do something to alleviate the circumstances. It is rough on
the unc., not to have the daily letter to Hilda and the phone calls
and the visits exhausting as they were. It will take a long, long
time.

I don't imagine there is anything that I can do to help about the
matter of the will, although if it would in any way helpful for me to
hop over to London for a week or a day after your conferences with
Philip I should be glad to. Or if it is necessary for me as an executor
to sign papers in the presence of you and Benay as co-executors I
could go to Zurich. I am sure the students would be glad enough for
me to cut a class and make it up later, and the officials would not
object for such a reason. Yale does drag down one's sense of freedom,
but I do have to earn a living. And I am sure it is good for me to
do so.

Most of your queries in the last two letters had to do with
post office addresses and the like, on the basis you were coming. So
I shall not bother you with that. And I will not get the tickets for
Bergner's opening in New Haven with a new play that I thought just
possibly you might have liked to see whether or not you saw her. (I
wonder if she will write you or Perdita about Hilda's death.)

It was most exciting to think that Henty's granddaughter is
still around. You simply must look her up when you are in England!

All a dearest love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 October 1961

My very dear Bryher,

I have just read your letter of the 12th.
I had saved it for last of the early morning delivery. Perhaps
I had thought of frosting; it has been bitter to taste the
flavor of ashes. But is only flavor; it is not ashes. There
are always many roads, but I hope we are still on the same
road even if it seems foggy.

Perhaps I ought to re-explain myself.
I knew I should have come to Zurich for the funeral, but
I should have come for you, not the Mozart and the roses
and the black-lined announcement. But there would have been
all the others, and I should not have seen the real you, the
"as -you-say" person-in-the-Blitz and on-the-Disko -- for
we were both at both places, and many others.

The conventional world does not concern
me, either, and like you I think rather of people and what
they do. But perhaps I use my own language and my own gestures.
It has seemed to me that just because the conventional world
does not concern me that I can let it live conventionally and
not be crushed by it. Because I do not fear it I can help it
to be self-sufficient and therefore at a little remove. When
I was seven years old, when I was fourteen, when I was twenty-
one, and when I was twenty-eight I knew in the hospitals that
I might easily die on the operating tables. I knew it from
the eyes of people about me, I knew it sometimes from what they
said to each other or to me. And I was definitively told that
each time I became sick in the future it would be more difficult
to recover. Life became very precious to me, and increasingly
I became aware of how difficult it was for others. I wanted to
make life happier for these others, but on their terms rather
than my own, so that by their becoming free I could be all the
freer.

If the conventional world had concerned me
primarily, and if I had wished to find my way successfully in it
I should certainly not have led the life I have led. I should
not for example have taken as many years to get my doctorate as
I did take, and I should not have been the only man in Yale history
to have simultaneously refused an offer from both the history
and the English departments because I felt I did not have the
richness of knowledge and experience which I should need in order
not to become a slave to the system. Just as I might have done,
had I wanted money: gone into my father's or some other business,
I should have joined the faculty and played their game. I should
not, either, have gone into the war after being told that I was
disloyal to Yale if I did. I should have gotten on the ladder and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

been a full professor, had my honorary degrees, published innumerable
stupid books as tokens on the academic exchange for which I would
have been handed out little prize-packages on the house. I should
not have tried to help other people make their successes on their
terms, so that they could be free. I should not, for example, even
have tried to help Hilda gain the rightful place in poetry that
she deserved and that I think she so richly enjoyed at the end of
her life with the prizes she got and the acclaim she had. I have
been told often enough, god knows, that if I would spend a fifth
of the time on myself that I spent for others I would have all
the dirty dignity that the speakers themselves so much enjoyed.
Over and over again I have been told, "only get the Hawthorne
journals out and we will ...." But I hate the condescension
which makes a mirror of themselves the norm of behavior.

Without thinking, perhaps, I must often have overreached
from my ego rather than my conformity. And for my gaucheries I
weep. If I spoke too much about the will it was really because
I thought we had discussed it together and agreed when I was in
Zurich. Perhaps because we had always commented to each other
over so many years I thought you wanted my comment. Perhaps
because I had tried to help over so long I have tried too much.
No, not "perhaps", I see, but "in fact." When I was a little
boy, first in the hospital, my mother used to come to visit me
after her father's death, and she would weep because of the
quarrels between her brother and her sister over what had been
left. The scars never vanished. When we had to distribute my
mother's own things I was determined that only peace on all sides
would leave me free. I wanted peace after Hilda, because I
thought it would make you free; and because --over the long
run -- I had become so intimately involved, for her sake, and
yours. I need not explain further. I have only to apologize.

It was not for reasons of a conventional world of my own
that I wanted to make the initial arrangements for Bethlehem,
nor because there was anything I wanted to fit into or was held
by that I sent you the cable about the services here. It had
been intended to save you, and because I thought we agreed in
Zurich that Switzerland was not the place for her ashes. I
have not yet called Harold this morning; I shall do so with a
leaden heart. It was only precisely because "nobody has a
greater right than [you]" to be there that I wanted you to
exercise that right, and still do. (Yesterday (foolishly
or otherwise) I wrote you reasons why you might not want to
come just now; I blush to think of their sincerity and their
naivete as I expressed them. Alas, I don't think it was even
felt as a premonition of your letter which must already have
been in the New "aven postoffice, that I remember writing
something like "leaving myself aside" among the attempts to
show that I would understand and sympathize.

"Is there any point in my coming to America?" Perhaps more
than ever now. Or that we should meet somewhere, sometime, at
your convenience.

16 October 1961

My very dear Bryher,

The conventional world does not concern
me, either, and like you i think rather of people and what
they do.But perhaps I use my own language and my own gestures.
It has seemed to me that just because the conventional world
does not concern me that I can let it live conventionally and
not be crushed by it. Because I do not fear it I can help it
to be self-sufficient and therefore at a little remove. When
I was seven years old, when I was fourteen, when I was twenty-
one, and when I was twenty-eight I knew in the hospitals that
I might easily die on the operating tables. I knew it from
the eyes of people about me, I knew it sometimes from what they
said to each other or to me. And I was definitively told that
each time I became sick in the future it would be more difficult
to recover. Life became very precious to me, and increasingly
I became aware of how difficult it was for others. I wanted to
make life happier for these others, but on their terms rather
than my own, so that by their becoming free I could be all the
freer.

If the conventional world had concerned me
primarily, and if I had wished to find my way successfully in it
I should certainly not have led the life I have led. I should
not for example have taken as many years to get my doctorate as
I did take, and I should not have been the only man in Yale history
to have simulatenously refused an offer from both the history
and the English departments because I felt I did not have the
richness of knowledge and experience which I should need in order
not to become a slave to the system. Just as I might have done,
had I wanted money: gone into my father's or some other business,
I should have joined the faculty and played their game. I should
not, either, have gone into the war after being told that I was
disloyal to Yale if I did. I should have gotten on the ladder and

["been a full professor, had my honorary degrees, published innumerable\nstupid books as tokens on the academic exchange for which I would\nhave been handed out little prize-packages on the house. I should\nnot have tried to help other people make their successes on their\nterms, so that they could be free. I should not, for example, even\nhave tried to help Hilda gain the rightful place in poetry that\nshe deserved and that I think she so richly enjoyed at the end of\nher life with the prizes she got and the acclaim she had. I have\nbeen told often enough, god knows, that if I would spend a fifth\nof the time on myself that I spent for others I would have all\nthe dirty dignity that the speakers themselves so much enjoyed.\nOver and over again I have been told, \"only get the Hawthorne\njournals out and we will ....\" But I hate the condescension\nwhich makes a mirror of themselves the norm of behavior.", "Without thinking, perhaps, I must often have overreached\nfrom my ego rather than my conformity. And for my gaucheries I\nweep. If I spoke too much about the will it was really because\nI thought we had discussed it together and agreed when I was in\nZurich. Perhaps because we had always commented to each other\nover so many years I thought you wanted my comment. Perhaps\nbecause I had tried to help over so long I have tried too much.\nNo, not \"perhaps\", I see, but \"in fact.\" When I was a little\nboy, first in the hospital, my mother used to come to visit me\nafter her father's death, and she would weep because of the\nquarrels between her brother and her sister over what had been\nleft. The scars never vanished. When we had to distribute my\nmother's own things I was determined that only peace on all sides\nwould leave me free. I wanted peace after Hilda, because I\nthought it would make you free; and because --over the long\nrun -- I had become so intimately involved, for her sake, and\nyours. I need not explain further. I have only to apologize.", "It was not for reasons of a conventional world of my own\nthat I wanted to make the initial arrangements for Bethlehem,\nnor because there was anything I wanted to fit into or was held\nby that I sent you the cable about the services here. It had\nbeen intended to save you, and because I thought we agreed in\nZurich that Switzerland was not the place for her ashes. I\nhave not yet called Harold this morning; I shall do so with a\nleaden heart. It was only precisely because \"nobody has a\ngreater right than [you]\" to be there that I wanted you to\nexercise that right, and still do. (Yesterday (foolishly\nor otherwise) I wrote you reasons why you might not want to\ncome just now; I blush to think of their sincerity and their\nnaïveté as I expressed them. Alas, I don't think it was even\nfelt as a premonition of your letter which must already have\nbeen in the New "aven postoffice, that I remember writing\nsomething like \"leaving myself aside\" among the attempts to\nshow that I would understand and sympathize.", "\"Is there any point in my coming to America?\" Perhaps more\nthan ever now. Or that we should meet somewhere, sometime, at\nyour convenience."]

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 October 1961

Dear Fido,

I cannot tell you how happy I am that you are coming to the States, for it is obvious to me that far too much of the difficulty lies in our misunderstanding of both the tone and words with which we seem to be addressing each other. At least this must be so in terms of the shadows which fall across my intentions. For that reason it isn't very sensible for me to try to explain myself further until we are together, and only if you wish to then. But one thing I should like to say flatly now, and intended flatly always, is that I had no idea of wanting you to reconcile with Perdita. I did understand your feelings in that direction, and do still. I was talking about a quite different and isolated matter.

As I cabled you, either the 3rd or the 4th will be fine. And so will an earlier or a later date, depending on the demands made on you in London and the possibilities of a seat on the plane. I imagine however that you won't have much difficulty at this time of the year, or at least not so much as if you were coming in September. I can meet you at the plane easily, or I can arrange for you to take the airport limousine directly to New Haven from Idlewild if you prefer. The only day I can't come is on the 3rd, especially if you arrive in the early morning; for that is the day when Susan leaves at 7 at night for Paris and then on to Avignon to see her daughter. Naturally she hopes that you will be in at the early morning plane so you can be in New Haven before she has to leave. But she will be writing you about all this. And don't cry 'conventional' about staying at the house with me despite her long-planned visit! She wants you to, and I want you to, and there isn't a reason why we can't Disko it.

There are all sorts of possibilities for trips, and altho it might be too far to drive from here to Virginia by car, we could even fly down and hire a drive-it-yourself on the spot as I did when I went out to see Hodgson. There is also the opening of the new Elisabeth Bergner play in New Haven for which I already have tickets but can give them away if you don't want to take a sneak look, with or without seeing her. I also have an errand or two I could do in Boston if you would like to see Dorothy Richards while I look at the ms of *The Waste Land* in the Harvard Library. I must do that before I teach it next month. And then there is always Washington, and although it grows a little colder we could still get in a bit of Maine without having to visit the Hotsons, who will be back by then.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

27 October 1961

Dearest Fido,

This can be little more than a note, since we are about

to start out this morning for Bethlehem. If only we had known that
you would be here a week from tomorrow, which was why I cabled! I
take a few gardenias this time, and Susan has picked the last rose
from the garden, put the stem in a tube of water, to be there from
you.

I have called the Connecticut Limousine Service about
transportation from Idlewild to New Haven. A bus leaves from Idlewild
at 3:00 p.m. I will reserve a seat on it for you, unless you cable
me otherwise. After getting through customs simply wait with your bags
in the PanAmerican waiting room, and they will page you through the
loudspeaker. The bus will be at the main entrance. If something goes
wrong call the Brown Limousine Service (anyone at the desks will tell
you how). They are the agents for the Connecticut limousines. It
will be able to take all your bags and anything you have. It arrives
at the Hotel Taft about five and I will meet you there. Susan will
probably pass you on the road, en route to Idlewild in another of
their buses. I will have paid for your ticket.

I spoke to Perdita on the phone Monday. She said nothing
about Florence Codman or Jimmie Daniels going to Bethlehem, and I had
not had your letter. Since I reserved rooms for the Schaffners, I think
she would have asked me to get rooms for them also. So perhaps the
matter has been dropped. I hope so. I suspect John wants to drum up
trade. I would have thought Daniels was out of Hilda's picture long
since, and isn't it true that Hilda didn't give a damn for Mrs Codman?
John is really an ass to have thought of it even as an idea.

I have arranged for the minister at the Moravian Church to
give the Moravian commital service at the grave, and I will read a
couple of Hilda's poems afterwards. Two sections from the Flowering of
the Rod, with Helen at home. The bit from Regents of the Night. And
her own epitaph.

I see the local newspaper tomorrow morning for an interview
about Hilda, so that Bethlehem can know what a great poet is buried
there. But I gave strict orders that there were to be no photographers
at the cemetary. They wanted to, but I thought it barbaric.

I do long to see you.

27 November 1961

Dearest Fido,

I had expected to begin the day by writing to you, but I end it that way instead. What an ordeal. It has been as though people celebrated the Thanksgiving weekend by thinking up things to confer with me about.

I was sorry about your delayed flight, but was at least grateful that it hadn't added hours to the seven a half you would have had to spend at Idlewild if we had not done the football game. I still shiver a little at the cold in the Bowl, but am equally still glad we went. All of the outcry we heard as we left was due to the fact that after the touchdown we saw at the end, suddenly a Yale man started fighting with Harvard with his fists, and all of the Yale bench jumped to their feet and went out to battle. Harvard's benched men were held back by the coach. Altogether it was regarded as disgraceful on Yale's part, but I imagine it was chiefly the physical outlet for all the frustration and self-anger that the Yale men felt.

Susan did not return until seven. At Orly, everyone was settled in the plane and the doors were locked, when the doors were opened and everyone was ordered out with all luggage. Two elderly French, a couple, had not been vaccinated; so the plane was delayed an hour while the needle was given them. Fortunately the pilot made up an hour because of the tailwind, but customs was slow. She was delighted with your gifts and will write you about them. Apparently the grandchildren were reasonably well adjusted and now are taking things in their strides. Justus likes to stop each morning on his way to school to stand in the door of a repair shop and watch them work on engines and the like. The old man asked him in French if he was American. "No", Justus replied in English; "we did live in America but now we live in France, so I'm French." This sounds a little like Bergner's son in the play we saw.

I had a wonderfully sweet letter from George about the room at the Stanhope, saying also that he wanted to send Hilda's letters over at once. "I have had a long year of pain and misery," he wrote, "and hope that Dr Prutting will be able to help me. And it will be a good thing to get away from the three worst months of English winter. I am ashamed to say that for the first time in my life I feel OLD!" I wonder, I wonder.

I do miss you.

29 November 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am back at the office tonight, I hope briefly, but
so that I can write you, then plan a little what I am to say in
introducing Our Tom tomorrow night, and finally to do four recommendations
that are long since due and presently penalizing the ones they about.
It is now below freezing outside, so at least it was warmer than this
when we went to the Harvard game last Saturday.

Not much has happened except the dullest of routines,
amongst which I include my seminars. But perhaps I can make more
headway on my desk this weekend and then can face the world more
bravely. The annual packet has just come in from the Guggenheim
Foundation. Some fifteen applicants have given my name as a recommender.
I should be pade by the piece, certainly not by the peace for I shall
destroy that in many hearts.

This afternoon, just after my graduate seminar and just
before I had to traipse a couple of blocks to hear a graduate student
of mine who is a Phillipine Jesuit talk on Phillipine literature,
a Japanese graduate student handed me a copy of the enclosed translation
of an item in some Japanese magazine. I thought it might amuse you.
Naturally I am only trying to build up in your mind the confidence
that I too could introduce you to the Japanese if Islay cannot take
you to their country.

Eliot is mostly in mind mind at the moment, and we tidy the
house as though we were about to be inspected by the mother superior.
He arrives, already in dinner jacket, a little before four by car from
New York, lies down in dinner jacket for a rest, and then comes down
for cocktails for a dozen guests who have all promised to leave by six-
fifteen. The hall it appears will be sold out, all 2500 tickets, so
that the International Student 'enter may make as much as three thousand
dollars from it. If Our Tom hears that he will probably put up his fee
again, but since I have been rather selling this as a pre-death mask
appearance, I doubt that we could swing it again until he comes in on
a wheelchair.

Helen called, on the eve of going out to be with Anne
Lindberg, and wanted a photograph for your jacket sent down by special
delivery. She does make one jump! I sent the others by Islay which I
had, but said of course he would have to be paid. She was somewhat
breathless and a little vague about what she had been doing, but said
she would write you.

I think of you with all your guests. Give my love to Kenneth
if he is there when this arrives. And to yourself all love as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

It is getting late at night, but Susan has been lecturing at the Connecticut Experimental Station to the Men's Garden Club of New Haven about flower show practise (they had their first public show in September when she was a judge, and they want to know how to do better), and so I came back to the office to take another swipe at my desk. My weekend in fact was so busy with gnawing at the pile of undone correspondence (how I have pitied you in terms of what must have been waiting) that I did not write you as I had hoped to do. Still tonight I have done eight letters of recommendation, and feel increasingly angelic. My correspondents, however, will call me a heel for having delayed so long.

But it was worth it. And what a wonderful three weeks it was to have you near me and with me. It is a period I shall always cherish. Simply having you here gave me so much, and the fact that the memoirs marched with such obvious success will make everyone your debtor. It really is a beautiful book you have written, and it both captures time and speaks with the wisdom of experience.

Last week's be-all and almost end-all was of course the appearance of Our Tom. The lecture, as a lecture, was a colossal success, and the International Student Center made a net profit, I gather, of slightly over four thousand dollars. All 2700 seats in the hall were sold, and there was an overflow of 150 more in the dining hall where they could hear only his voice transmitted by wire. Crowds milled about the entrance, and tickets were being scalped for as much as ten dollars apiece to those who came without the proper cards of admission. To have the hall filled to full put electricity in the air, and there was even immense applause when I went forward to introduce him. When he left and went to his car to drive back to New York the students gathered around and applauded as the car moved off. I hope it pleased him. His talk was just right, jumping from memory to memory of his past critical writing, interspersed with highly professional but apparently natural asides of good humored self-denigration. Sitting behind him on the stage, as I had to in all my dinner-jacketed beauty, I could hear only a little of what he said; but I watched the audience and was startled by their serious attention and quick response. He has become far better as a public performer, and earned his two thousand dollars to the last nickel.

But he is old. And not at all well. He can manage stairs only with great difficulty, and took pills more frequently than anyone I have ever seen outside a hospital bed. At 73 he is far older than Hilda was before her stroke. His mind however is alert, and he could not have been pleasanter as a house guest. He and Mrs Eliot arrived with their two companions at the house a little after four, and he went upstairs to rest until after five. Alas, his asthma seems to be so bad that he could only sit up and not lie down, but rest he did and create a problem he did. For he wore the Grieder dressing gown you gave me, and now what shall I do? Pack it away and bequeath it to the British Museum or to Harvard. Or shall I wear it myself and dream that

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

the good fairies bring me two thousand dollar fees some day? We had only
a dozen guests in for cocktails, but these included the President of Yale
and his wife, and the Secretary of the University and his, so that the
requirements of dignity were well met. I pushed all the guests out at
six-fifteen with no guests for dinner, and we ate pleasantly and leisurely
and spoke much about many things. He was particularly concerned about
Hodgson of course, and wanted to know about the birthday and what was to
happen eventually to Aurelia. It seems their friendship was confined to
a single year when Ralph was on leave from Sendai, but was very close during that
time.

Aurelia has written since you left, and sent another interview with him for me to see, but it is not interesting enough to send on to you. "You are wondering, "she writes, how he is now. The worst effects of the spasm wore off slowly, but he is observably weaker than before -- stumbles easily, wants things brought to him, is very sensitive to sunlight. Still he does get out of bed and his chair by himself. But on Sunday afternoon, while someone was here, he had to lie down and rest." The radio had just arrived on the 28th-- unbelievably slow in delivery--and she was about to set it up. Poor Rafe, I have a feeling I will go out again soon on a sadder errand than for a birthday.

Mary called on Saturday to say how much she had liked the lecture,
thankung you again for the tickets. Leslie did not go, fearing he would
caugh; but she says he is much better now and would love to go to the
Elizabethan Club banquet next Saturday night. Fortunately I was able to
get an extra ticket and so will take him. I did not however speak with him
directly, but with her. And, and, and.... just after I had helped Eliot into
his sweater and jacket after the lecture, and opened the door to the public
and his wife outside, what hurled us all back but the flying figure of a
woman crying out "TOM, TOM, HOW SIMPLY WONDERFUL TO SEE YOU MY DEAR HOW ARE
YOU LESLIE WAS SO SORRY YOU WERE SIMPLY WONDERFUL." Eliot seemed blank for
a moment, and then said to Mary that he hadn't expected to see her there and
he was sorry Leslie couldn't go; and then the figure withdrew in an equal
hurry without a glamce on either side. So I had witnessed the meeting, and
how I wish you could have been with me.

A letter from a rather fatuous biographer of Sara X Teasdale writes me
that Hilda's Tom Swann had written a book on her that was to be published
by the University of Nebraska Press. I think it was his dissertation at
the University of Miami. Now he is to take a year off and write a book on
H.D., Sara Teasdale, Edna Millay, and Elinor Wylie. I'm glad he doesn't
want biographical data.

We watched a prizefight Saturday night, heavyweights this time but not
nearly so good a fight as you and I saw on telly. Another night we watched the
second of the series on space. The reception was much better than when we
watched during your visit, but it was a little overdramatized. With a final
peroration and glace to the future, the announcer acclaimed the moment we
are in when "man can now scatter his seed among the stars." As John would
say, it is a spectacle to consider! They will have to name the next space
ship after Onan.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

How I wish I might have listened in on your visit with the Goughs.
By the way, the young man I told you about, who was doing an article for
him is named Stephen Starr. If you write Gough he might be interested.

Incidentally I had a charming letter from I.A. Richards today, with
a very kind invitation to visit them when I next went to Cambridge. It
could not have been pleasanter.

Yes, try the Restif; I have liked what I read, but that is not much.
He gives a very firm full picture of life.

I am glad all has gone reasonably well with Doris. I shall be eager
for more news.

I will get at the reservation for George at once. But there is time
enough for you to tell me firmly whether I should also get one for his
sister. It seems to me I should; we can cancel if necessary.

It is now really late, and I must get home to read Walden in preparation
for tomorrow's class.

All, all love. I miss you.

Norman

39 Goodrich Street
Hamden 14, Connecticut

December 4, 1961.

Dear Bryher,

We were certainly all crossed up in trying to get a glimpse of each other. I really had every hope that I would get to New Haven before you had to take the limousine, and should have done it if we had taken off from Orly on time. We were loaded on time, and about ready to pull off from the Terminal when they asked everybody to take their handluggage and go back to the waiting room. One passenger had to answer a question for the Customs, and two had to be vaccinated before they could leave France! So we were just one hour late taking off after all that, and though we made up half-an-hour with a tail wind, it was 3:30 when we landed, and by the time I got through Customs it was after four, and we drove in the heavy outbound city traffic, very slowly, till after we crossed the Whitestone Bridge. It's really maddening to think that if things had gone as they should at Orly, I could easily have been home by five and had a glimpse of you.

We must have passed on the road. I was interested in your remark about the burning car, as we saw it too, though the fire was out. It was all blackened, and the fire engine was still there, the laddies poking about in the car, I suppose to find out what went wrong, and a State Policeman talking to a man in his shirtsleeves who seemed to be producing papers. And what seemed hundreds of cars pulled off huddled-piggledy in the center strip, their occupants inspecting the car and trying to hear what was going on between the cop and the driver. It made such an obvious road block for a long way away that we slowed down and had a good view as we passed. Anyway, I would say that no one was hurt, as there was no report in any of the papers, and I combed them carefully for a day or two out of curiosity.

Thank you ever so much for the handsome scarf. It is truly beautiful, and a color I shall wear often. And also for the little engagement book, which goes everywhere

I go, and keeps me on time as to hour and date. There are
none so thin here, and it is nice to have less bulk in
ones bag. As for the dish towel, I think it's too good
to use, and I shall hang it in the kitchen at the shore
for a spot of color, and the fun of seeing it every day.
It is just the right color to add to the curtains that
are already there.

Norman has been saying every day he must write you,
and so far has been so interrupted by students, and so
busy with recommendations that he hasn't yet written any
personal letters. He and I were both completely worn out
by the time "Our Tom" had given his lecture that it took us
two days to recover. But it is pleasant to think that
everything seemed to go well for his visit, and I think he
enjoyed being with us for dinner. He and wife arrived
with his publisher and friend about four, and Tom and wife
retired to the guest room to rest for an hour. When he
reappeared he seemed relaxed, and was full of talk, and did
make it easy for the cocktail guests to chat with him.
As you probably know, we only gave them three quarters of
an hour, and then shooed them out so we could dine leisurely
which we did, and had time to take coffee in the living room
and not rush off to Woolsey Hall. The lecture was very good,
I thought, full of personal reminiscence, and with little
wry jokes at himself to keep things interesting, an when
he stopped the applause was truly deafening. I think the
audience would have listened to it all over again if he
had been willing. As far as International Students' Center
went, it was a real coup. They had banked over $6000 by
the last day, and it looks as if they would keep close to
$4000 for their expenses. There wasn't an empty seat in the
whole hall, and the lecture was piped into the dining hall
where for $.50 each students could listen. There were a great
many there we're told.

I did like Mr. Eliot very much. He seemed to have a good
time, and was so easy to get on with. So was his wife, and it's
obvious that they enjoy being together. She helps him a lot;
up and down stairs, and reminding him to take a pill, and
I'm sure she has had a mellowing effect on him. It was fun
to see a late marriage that has so much affection and fun

between the partners.

As for France, it really was fun, most of it, and I felt that things were not so bad as Sue made them out to be at first. I am sure that it takes a bit of adjustment for any American girl with two children, when there is no real stove, no icebox, and little hot water in which to do by hand the daily washing, which she has never had to do before. But I thought Sue had found a way of life with and around the lacks, and that from now on her biggest problem will be the loneliness when he is away. There just isn't any one in Sorgues, or in Avignon for that matter for her to make friends with. There is none with her amount of education or her interests, and most of the women work in the factories or elsewhere. Still, she does have her heavy laundry done at a blanchisserie just down the street, and now she has a car, which should make life easier. I told her she should keep the cleaning woman she found for me, have her come at least twice a week, and told her that if she thought it would be too expensive, I'd be glad to pay for it. Since Mme. Roca gets 1 fr 25 an hour, and can do all that needs to be done in two hours, I can't think it would break either Sue or me.

It was good to know that Norman wasn't all alone while I was away, though I was sorry not to be here too to be company for you when Norm was at work. But you must come again, as soon as you can, or whenever you wish. We are, as you know, pretty much always here, and always glad to have you make us your second home.

Love,

Jussieu

5 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am truly saddened to learn of Gladys' death, although you had warned me somewhat. I liked her very much. She had a real strength and a sense of independence: a good bulldog type. Over the years and especially after her visit to New Haven we have exchanged a good many letters. She had not been well for a long time, although she pledged me to secrecy about this. "Bryher must not know," she wrote, "she has too many burdens and worries as it is." You are right; Gladys would not have enjoyed invalidism, and it would have been hard for her to accept alleviating help. I will miss her, as you will. I only wish that somehow we might have managed her book, but, alas, it would not have been well received, I fear, and that would for her have been worse than no publication at all. I doubt that there is any worth in trying to fix it up so that it can appear as a memorial; but I leave this to your judgment.

The leaves fall. I have just seen a Sotheby catalogue in which (next week I think) Edith is putting up for auction all her notebooks, journals and manuscripts of her poems. I suppose this is partly for the sake of the money, and certainly this is a boom time to sell. Texas will be in at the sale with all their oil. It is a remarkable collection: over thirty-five notebooks, the manuscripts of her books of prose and the like. There is no point in trying to intercede, only to pray that they will fetch huge prices and please her. What saddens me about the sale is that it marks her recognition of finis.

I enclose a copy of Marianne's tribute to Hilda in the *Bryn Mawr Quarterly*. I am sorry the photograph reproduced so poorly in the xerox. The original made a handsome page. How like Marianne to have the eye for a fresh quotation from Hilda's poems.

The other clipping is from the *New Haven Register*, written by the man you met when we went paperbacking.

I knew about Kenneth's novel from the *Roman David*, and wonder if he will show it to me. I do hope so. Naturally I will be in touch with them when they arrive.

But deaths, deaths, deaths. I remember Mrs Williams of course, and Herf has a category of her own.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

10 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

I wanted to wait until today to write, not simply because I spent yesterday at my desk correcting undergraduate papers and finishing (more or less) one batch of recommendations, but because last night was the Elizabethan Club 50th Anniversary Dinner to which I was taking Leslie. I did, and he seemed in fine fettle, hardly coughing but explaining to everyone that he had been suffering from "bronchitis" all fall. I do suppose whooping cough sounds a little infantile, but why he should disguise it to me I can't guess. I think he had a good time, and knew a good many people there, being in fact, he said, the longest-term honorary member of the Club still alive. Phelps had made him an honorary member in the mid-twenties. We met there, and hardly had I shaken his hand but that he said that he had made the biggest discovery of his life, the most colossal thing that modern scholarship had known, that he could not talk about it there but was anxious to have a long conference about it, because I was the "one person in the world ..." I thought the sentence would end with the flattery that I alone would test and appreciate the result, but instead he mean that I was the one person whom he could trust to help him launch it properly, though he never did say what it was. But "it probably should be sold to Life Magazine", and that would be just a beginning." Fortunately others came up at the moment so that I was spared the chance of revealing that I already knew, and did not have to commit myself. A publisher should help him with that, I think. I asked him how the trees we planted were growing around his house, and he was effusive in thanks for their presence but said they would probably have to move, "but we won't move unless we make a lot of money from selling the land." On those terms I think he'll stay for a while yet.

The dinner was pleasant, and ordered on an Edwardian menu in order to coincide with 1911. Much wine was served, and Leslie kept up with it although not of course to any degree of effect. He and I sat with Thornton Wilder and with Thornton's brother Amos, who is a distinguished theologian. I knew I should have gone as I did, because Thornton could tell me the dirt on Bergner. He had been to Philadelphia to see her open there, and said when he saw her afterwards she was weeping because she had been tossed out. It was not, after all, her withdrawal. "And I have come so far, and they are not fair." Thornton felt they were not fair either, although he did agree that she had not turned up for rehearsals, was slow in learning the new scenes written to bolster the play, and so there were contractual grounds to use as an excuse. The director wanted her to act it in a harder fashion; she did not see it that way. No one seemed to like the idea of her successor, whose name slips my mind at the moment for it has not yet opened in New York. Noel Coward went down with Thornton to see it and was furious at Bergner's release. They saw Stevens, the producer afterwards and howled at him. "But I am only the producer," Stevens said. "Then don't produce," Coward shot back at him.
Now you must praise me for still being in "the game."

I enclose a clipping of a little review which is appearing in next week's Saturday review. It is trivial, but I thought you might be amused. Also a clipping about the UN.N. African chieftain, Ofori Atta, because of what seemed to me infallible and inevitable grounds for a permanently happy marriage!

installments

I was delighted to have the first two-sections of the newest part of the memoirs, and when the whole of that book is in will have them typed up and a copy sent to you. Or else I will bring it with me, depending on the time element.

You were certainly right to stall off Melitta. This is something that really couldn't intervene at this time of Kenneth and Philip. The Goughs are something quite different.

I do watch the *Mercures* carefully, not only for your own things in them but also for anything by Adrienne or Sylvia. I want their collections as complete as possible.

I cannot for the life of me understand why Collins gets so few of *Ruan* sold. I will try to discuss with Jovanovitch or with Helen if we see her and Kurt when I come over. Helen did not phone after all, before leaving. I don't quite know what it is, but something rather odd is happening there. Does she become more involved with Ann Lindberg do you think? There seems to be a special tone in her voice when she speaks of the latter. Don't laugh, it is not entirely improbable on either side.

I have continued to work desperately on my desk, and now must begin to get at the Science Fiction paper for Chicago. And there are Christmas cards and messages to be sent! Alas, before I could get time to go for my flu and common cold shots I came down with a mild cold myself. And so must wait until that is finished before they will give me any. It is a nuisance to have to go so often for the innoculations, but it probably is a good idea.

It is now three in the afternoon and I must get back to the house for lunch.

All love, as always,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

I had planned to have a letter for you at the Sesame, and then couldn't remember whether you were to stay at Doris's hotel (as I think indeed that you were), and now perhaps even this hurried note will hardly be waiting for you at the Scillies as it ought to be. But these last days of term have meant last minute shopping, last minute interviews with students in the College and Graduate School, and a secretary who is more concerned with office parties than with office chores. But today was the last day of classes, and by tomorrow the students will mostly have gone. I will really write you a letter then with more in it than love and welcome to your home.

I do hope Gladys had continued to prosper, although I realize it will still be some time before one can be confident of the result. Be sure to give her our love.

We had a little flurry earlier in the week when Susan's mother was suddenly ordered to the hospital because of an embolism in her leg which started the leg to swell and grow violently well. By quick treatment they seem to have caught it in time, and she should be home before Christmas. That is she should be if nothing else is discovered. Yesterday she was to be x-rayed for a "loose Bowell" and my Susan is of course sure that this is cancer when the truth is known. Susan has been faithful in seeing her mother, and I have tried to go as I could.

It was sad two days ago to open a letter from London and find a Christmas card from Gladys, careful as always that everything should reach its destination in good time. I shall miss such notes from her.

Death or the scent of death seems everywhere. I was called to the telephone to be told I was talking to the "social secretary" of Western Union. "Is this Professor Pearson?" "It is." "Last year at this time you sent a Christmas cable to a, a Miss... a Miss Hilda Aldington. Don't you want to send one again this year?" "Alas, Mrs Aldington is dead." Moments of silence, then a note of affirmation. "Aren't you glad, then, that you did send one last year." I hung up.

Your letters and the fragments of the section keep coming in, the last of them arrived today, with a little more of D.R. still to come. I am sorry that you have to keep at this while in Scilly. But what has come is good and what is coming will continue to be good. Bless you for your dilgence.

I leave other aspects until the morrow.

All love,

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

16 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am exhausted after a day at Christmas cards. This means some of course with not much more than my name on it, but a great many with letters and thank-you's for books and offprints that have been sent me. Letters to Heydt for example, and to my English housekeeper and the like. I managed 115 of them, but there are as many still to go. And tomorrow unless it snows we drive to Princeton to take my mother her presents, and then on to Gardner with those for my brother's and sister's families. We go tomorrow because on Tuesday I have to go to New York, and on Wednesday they say they will deliver my car. It is already here but has to be tested and the emergency brake put in. Once I have it I will want to drive it slowly to break it in, and that would make the Princeton trip endless.

Back to your letters now which I didn't really answer when I wrote you yesterday except to thank you for the sheets for the memoirs. Thank God you could at least take Prutting's cure while Melitta was there. I am naturally glad you actually did take it like a good girl, and doubly glad you could combine it. I am only anxious lest you let Melitta adopt you. I am sure you have a calming influence for I know that myself. So do many others. But save it and yourself with it.

Am glad to hear of your conversation with Benay. I am completely sure you are right to keep for the moment or moments with the bank, at least while Benay is there. He is able and loyal. But once he has retired and you are out and away from Switzerland this is another matter. Poor Philip, who knows what he is thinking.

Yes, I agree that Edith is wise. I have heard no reports on the sale and won't until the following TLS comes some weeks from now with an account of it. I hope for her sake and her pride that they did well

To return to Philip, I gather that your final plans for the will have not yet been clarified. As I said, you would know best after talking with him. "It is good on the legal aspects and sharp on playing the angles. If, as you say, Baylis will not renounce the exactorship then I agree with you that certainly I ought not to. Perhaps anyhow it is safer to have it as Hilda wished. I am curious however whether Baylis changed his mind or actually had not gone as far as Philip thought towards agreeing with Philip's plans. I must say it would probably simplify the day-by-day handling of Hilda's copyrights for presently unpublished things if these were made over to one person. I think it would be wise if you do for me to leave them to you in my will, so that the hands can be firm for as long as possible. After that all belongs to the gods! In any event the two of us remain in spirit the co-literary executors; I would not dream of doing anything except chores without our consulting together.

Mrs Dingle is still working on the mss you left, because of the office day-by-day, but will have it all done by the end of this week, so that the additions can be typed up and all in by the 15th of next month. I rather

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

think I do have a third copy for Philip to have, and will send it to him once
everything is in shape. I should prefer getting him something sooner than
the galley proofs, although that would certainly be possible. There are at
the most only a few paragraphs that could disturb him as for the English side,
and you could then decide whether both texts should be identical. Sometimes
they are not, and as you know American libel laws are much looser than British
ones. It is better to have an opinion made prior to publication to fall back
on if any disputes begin to arise.

I have George's reservation at the Stanhope from the 2nd through the 6th. If Prutting tells him to go on to Carlyle we can cancel. I said I would guarantee the bill. You had not said whether I was to get one also for Ady, so I took only one. But will telephone her next week in order to see whether she goes up to meet him. If she doesn't, I rather think I had better go down myself to help him after he leaves customs. I will write him, but also cable so as to be sure he knows all is in order.

A batch of extra memorial notices from Heydt has arrived, but no note with it. Probably this was so as to ship as printed matter. Also separately a bill for 120 SF for the photographs of the death mask. I think I will hold this and mail to Kenwin for you to pay from the estate or directly. The bill was only for four prints, and whether there were others for Perdita or for Heydt himself I don't know.

Did I tell you that Robert's letters from Hilda arrived. They are good ones, and I was glad for his covering glossing memo.

I never did hear from Helen Katibah about the copy of Helen I sent her, but perhaps she will write as for Christmas. She probably didn't know what to say about the poem anyhow. It is not easy for the average reader to get.

This will be a quiet Christmas for us without the grandchildren and we have decided to have almost no decorations and certainly no tree. Susan always kills herself fixing up the house, and there will be other years. Lizzie only has a day and a half and would prefer the money. She could not raise a loan for her second hand car so we will have to guarantee that. Actually she cannot keep her job without it. But she has written a detailed budget of what comes in and out, and it seems sensible. I suspect we will end by paying her monthly rent. Since she was living free with her aunt that seems fair. Anything is cheaper than the hospital expenses, but one has to be careful so she will learn to live within a fixed sum.

Do give our love to Elsie and to Doris. You have it already.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

17 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

When we woke this morning several inches of snow had fallen, and since the weatherman said more snow and freezing rain I decided not to drive to Princeton today but to go up on Tuesday instead of going to New York. I do not have snowtires on, meaning to turn in the ones I have at the tireshop rather than donate them gratis to the new owner of my car. At noon, however, it had stopped snowing and we were plowed out. So I have come to the office to work again at my desk.

I just telephoned Ady as to whether she intended to come to New York to meet George, so I can write him when I have finished your letter. She said he didn't want her to, and I don't think she herself wanted very much to come. I asked her also if she thought he would like me to come to the dock or prefer to make his own way to the hotel and collapse. She said she thought he would prefer this, so I shall write him that I come down for dinner or tea with him on the 3rd. She said she had had a letter from a friend (female) of George's who said he was really better and not in such pain, so if he can stand the voyage all should be well.

Have been busy with more Christams cards, drat them. I had one from Norton, saying little more than that he had "got only to Penobscot Bay [in Maine] this summer due to family complications." Another was from Kurt who wrote after speaking with you on the phone. Urzidil sent an offprint of his pleasant essay on the Schiller piece, with a pleasant dedication on the cover.

Another yellowback from you. I was rather interested in Sylvaa Dobson's account of Hilda, which I shall put with the notes for the biography. I may sometime sound her out for more in the way of impression. One needs the whole picture despite such intimacy as both you and I each in our own way had. Am glad you felt you could continue Jocelyn Brook's allowance for a while at least; this mother of his does hang on. I think he may have a moment of cracking up after she finally goes. It is hard luck with his books, but he perhaps is not, quite naturally, able to get his mind really on them. Was much interested in O.B.'s Eskimo card. They really have become a vogue. I had greetings from Brother Volant who is back in the kitchen as cook again while the true cook is hospitalized in Montreal. The snow is deep there, and even praying for my soul may not be enough to keep him busy. He says he is sending along a little Christmas present to me. I presume I shall have to send along another ten dollars some time for more holy water. Mr A seems a little down. I am sure Hilda's death hit him hard, and Catha's growing independence must be sad in its own way too. I should never have thought that they over-heated at a place like Aix, except in American flats. It was nice of Mrs Ash to remember me. Joan's letters are very good indeed, and I like the tone with which she writes you. Eventually I think there will be a victory. Heydt is to be congratulated.

We had a special Sunday delivery of mail today despite the snowstorm, and Susan was delighted with your letter and has visions of sugar plum blossoms.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

This is simply the end-of-a-day note, since I did not after all go to Hartford for the Mark Twain meeting, but instead sloshed my way through the streets now that winter truly is icemen in. What a day!! Rain that almost but not quite freezes before it hits the ground, so that the foot firmly down may suddenly strike a shady spot where there is nothing to do but skid. I only hope tomorrow is better, for I must get my presents to my mother. (I so hate to take them up in July to be on the safe side.)

More Christmas cards done last night at home, with a few today including notes to the Hansens of this academic world. My desk looks better, but I have not yet touched the science fiction paper, and there are fifteen Guggenheim applications to be commented on this week before I go to Chicago. The head of the Guggenheim Foundation stopped in at my office on Saturday to see me, and said I had won the medal for having my name used by more people than anyone else in the country. A doubtful honor!

I thought you might be amused by the enclosed clipping from yesterday's *Herald-Tribune*. Poor Marianne, no wonder she is exhausted. Another of her baseball poems was in a recent *New Yorker*, but they are not my cup of T-shirt.

Your letter of the 14th was in this morning's mail, and I sigh for you because of Melitta. Shouldn't one really suggest (but not pay for) a little psycho-therapy for her? I am quite serious, and surely there are professional rates, or she could take on some analysts' problem child on a kind of barter.

The world certainly is in a mess and getting messier. The Katanga situation is unspeakably complicated; and now the smooth-tongued Nehru has proved with Goa that India is like everyone else when they want something. I see no reason now why the Chinese should hold back on the Tibetan frontier; and obviously this is a first step for India to take over the Pakistaners etc. Western Pakistan will go Russian, I think, before they give in. No, I do not like it at all.

This is bad news about Benay, especially that he may not get back to the bank. It puts your affairs at sixes and sevens. Should my trip be postponed? But obviously you cannot tell until you get back to Switzerland. It's all right. They tell me tickets are not hard to get now, and I can wait until you have felt the situation out.

Tonight we have to go out in the storm for Susan's election as the first woman trustee of the New Haven Colony Historic Society. She just called me to say they had asked her to pour after the meeting. I told her I thought, considering the weather, this to be completely appropriate.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN.

24 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

I am miserably unhappy at having let so many days go by without writing you, but it has been a completely impossible week, capped by a fearful cold of such dimensions that the doctor who came to the house yesterday to see me forbade my going to the office, and would even now be furious with me if he knew that I had slipped away to come to the office so that you could at least have a pre-Christmas note to you. He is dosing me with power-slugs of such dimensions that merely to look at them drugs me. Yesterday I spent most of the day sleeping, and probably fatigue has as much to do with my invalidism as anything else. But he thinks I ought still to be able to fly out to Chicago early Tuesday morning for the convention. Alas, my talk is not yet written, but perhaps I will speak just as well for having to do it off the cuff.

I am too stupid to recall just when I did write you, but not I think after last Tuesday when I drove to Gardner and Princeton with Christmas presents for my brother and sister and for my mother. It was a long and fatiguing drive, for no sooner did I head noth across the hills from the highway than I ran into a severe ice storm of such intensity that trees were down across the road and the driving very slippery indeed so that I could not drive more than 35 mph and pray as I did so. My mother was especially happy to see me however, and li kes her new room very much indeed. I think it has perked her up; she has her own furniture and rugs, had flowers around, and when I identified some of them she remarked that I was becoming very good at horticulture. She talked more rationally than usual, and was pleased with her presents, not even promising tb wait until Christmas to open them.

I made the trip of Tuesday because I didn't want to break in the new car with such an excursion; and Wednesday was spent mostly with taking possession of the new jewel, seeing that it was registered promptly and that new snow tyres etc were installed. It really is a jewel and drives with such ease that I cannot believe I am at the wheel. Susan is mad about it too, and we are both so deeply grateful to you that I blubber a little in trying to express how much I enjoy it. I even feel a little disloyal to the old car in liking its successor so much more, but God may forgive me for this. To have the new car, to have my lion, and to have had you here with me, makes the end of this year a very special time of happiness for me.

Thursday morning I took an early train to New York to buy Susan some sort of present for her birthday on the 29th, to pick up a clock being repaired at Tiffany's (I had given Susan a year ago, which turned into such a lemon that they made a replacement of the works), and buy a Christmas book for a student, which was not available in New Haven. It was the New York trip which undid me, I guess, for I felt rotten on the way back and grew rose the next day while I finished my fifteen Guggenheim applications and tried to use the last minutes of Mrs Dingle before she went on holiday. I wooked Thursday night too at the office on last minute Christmas letters, and in putting the London

25 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

It is now five in the afternoon and I have come back to the office for an hour to see if by some stroke of luck I can follow this note to you by sitting down and writing my talk to be given at Chicago. I am a little frightened, for I have never had to let anything go until so late; but my mind and nose and throat have been so thick that I really could not concentrate on anything. Fortunately today has been a little better, and I think the pills are beginning to take effect. I take the airport bus tomorrow morning at eight from the Taft, and will be back here by bus at five on the 29th, just in time to give a birthday dinner for Susan. I fly out of Chicago that morning, God willing. He would not have been willing last Sunday for all the airports were closed because of the snow and ice.

We had a pleasant morning and opened our presents and gave you our many thanks for many things. I patted the lion who growled in a friendly sort of way, and was nice to the Oldsmobile which purred as it went to fetch Mrs.ennett and Susan's aunt for lunch. We had a caterer do a casserole for our food, and Susan did a Christmas pudding. Mt. gifts were various, chiefly socks and handkerchiefs and a pair of pyjamas, except for a splendid projector for kodochrome slides which Susan gave me and which will be an absolute blessing whenever I show them. It operates by remote control, or automatically, and is even said to adjust the focus of itself. If it were not so heavy I would take it with us on our trips and let it actually take the snapshots.

I enclose the review of Hilda's book from yesterdays N.Y. Times. I am not exactly sure who Mr. Warner is, although his name is familiar enough. And I am not sure that he was exactly sure of anything except that he was impressed by the poem. But that is a lot, and the review ought to help the book. Naturally I have no idea how many copies have been sold. Not enough certainly for Grove rapturously to have informed me.

I will try to drop you a note from Chicago to the Scillies, but after that will write direct to Kenwin. Because of the Christmas mails I have not heard from you since you arrived at St. Mary's, but hope your stay has been a happy one and that Doris continues to improve. Be sure to let me know at once after you have checked on Doris's condition as to whether you still want me to come over. Maybe it would be worth a cable, but I won't have any trouble getting passage at this time of the year I'm sure.

Give my warmest greetings to Doris and Elsie, and all love to yourself. And thank you again for everything.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

done, and be a little in the way of a senior senator. My cold gave me
a certain appropriate gravity, but fortunately I did not lose my voice
until Friday morning when I was to return. One difficulty was the Chicago
temperature, which hovered at zero or a little less and did nip one's
nostrils.

I found the science fiction meeting interesting, and realize that I
am quite out of it. I wrote my paper on myth pretty much out of the line
I have always followed, and did it on such general terms that there could
be no great objection to what I said. But I do realize that extrabation
of what I would call the usual scientific situations (bombs, germs, the
scientist etc) are no longer as fashionable as the fictionalizing of what
I would more properly call the social sciences (social conformities,
business, etc.) and they even tell me that business men have become the
heros of science fiction. These seem to me little more than the future
projections of the man in the gray-flannel suit, and not really so
interesting. The best thing on the program was the talk by a man who
writes under the name of William Tenn, who spoke on dystopias (the obverse
of utopias, in which the horror rather than the promise of future social
organizations is sketched. I think you would like him; he lives in New
York, and since he pleased me by saying it was a great honor for him to
appear on the same program with me, I'll take you to see him when you're
next in the States. He is one of the very intelligent younger New York
Jewish type.

I got home to Susan's birthday by the skin of my teeth. For the jet
out of Chicago was an hour late in starting and rolled into idlewild
precisely at three, the precise moment the bus was to have left for New York.
I was no sooner inside the hangar than I phoned however, and they waited the
bus twenty minutes so I could get my bags. Otherwise I should not have been
in New Haven until seven, with Susan's two sisters and husbands invited for
six-thirty. I had ordered a very special Chinese dinner prepared at a local
restaurant, which turned out to be a great success and pleased everyone
including Susan. My gift to her was a little pre-Columbian gold turtle from
Vera Cruz (14th century) which she can wear as a pin. It was a bargain for
me and a great success for her.

Now if only my nose will stop running so that I can clear away some more
of the mess on my desk before the students come back I shall be pleased. But
I shall take a good deal of reading home and take it a little easy for the
next two days.

Forgive me for not writing from Chicago. It was simply impossible. I
had a letter from George who had heard from me, and I shall go down to see
him this week. But it will have to be a running call, and somehow he seems to
have expected that Susan would go down too. I don't see how she can, and I
only hope he won't be disappointed.

Hope you had some luck with the last pages of the memoirs.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 December 1961

Dearest Fido,

This is not much more than to salute you with love at the end of the year. And what a year it has been for both of us, but especially for you. I pray as the last hours roll away that next year will be easier. There is Carthage to be done, and hopefully the Mackenzie to be visited, but somehow if the world will let us alone it seems as though one could adjust to a new and somewhat less strained life. Yet there is a kind of emptiness at the year's end without Hilda. Yesterday morning I watched a half-hour t.v show of a visit to Lawrence's house and grave in New Mexico, with interviews by John Ciardi with Harry Moore and the Brett. I could only think of rushing from the t.v. to write to her about it, or how she might even have enjoyed it herself at Gaylord had she been there by her own machine.

My cold, thank God, is a little better today. I had a long
long sleep last night, and some of the illness is due to sheer fatigue I
think. We will go next door to our neighbors tonight, but not for a party
and I hope I will be asleep again soon after the baby year gives its first
squakk.

This morning and last night I read four more manuscripts of
books of poetry submitted to the Wesleyan Press. One was rather interesting
by some unknown Jewish girl in New York. Fortunately, however, it did not
versify the Old Testament as so many of them do. The other three were only
so-so.

I was rather touched to receive a Christmas greeting from Omar
Pound (Dorothy's) in which he enclosed a check for $130.00 to repay a gift
from Hilda and myself to enable him to bring his books and pictures down
from Canada where they were in storage. Among these were some five Augustus
Johns drawings, and since they decided they wanted to see EP and show Dorothy
their children next summer they sold the drawings and wanted to remove what
he felt was an obligation. I'd rather not take it back, but I respect his
self-respect and don't want to offend him. One can watch and perhaps do
something later.

Did Aurelia send you a copy of John Masefield's poem written in
reply to Rafe's mother-goose place names? If she didn't I will bring it with
me when I come (if you find that Benay is up to it). It is the best thing
Masefield has written for years. Some day the two (Hodgson's and his) must
be printed together.

All love and best for the minutes after the chimes have rung their
last of twelve strokes.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

1 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

Surely I could not write my first letter of the year
to anyone but yourself, and so here it is with my love and best
wishes.

We saw the old year out with little fanfare, except
for going a little after ten to the next-door neighbors where we
played some bridge, watched the celebration in a snowstorm at
Times Square on t.v., and were glad we were not there. It was
sleeting slightly when we went home about one-thirty and we were
prepared to be shut in all day. But perhaps as a good omen the
storm went off to sea without leaving us with any souvenir at
all. I worked at home this morning on two more poetry manuscripts
which I unfortunately uncovered after writing you yesterday, and
then watched a football game (or rather the first half of it)
before coming down for another lick of work at my desk.

I enclose a few typed pages from the memoirs in order
to be sure of your approval of my insertion of the paragraphs
about your parents. As you gave it to me it was the beginning
of the chapter *Between March and April*, but your copy was of an
earlier version and you had so rewritten it that one could not
precisely insert it as you had done. I think however that this
comes about as you had wished it to. If not, it will be easy for
me to alter the position before I have to send in the material
on the 15th.

This will be in the air at the same time you will be,
on your way back to Kenwin. I read in the paper of the snow in
London, and only hope it did upset your schedule of flying from
St Mary's.

All love, as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

George is in New York and safely at the Stanhope, as I learned this morning. But last night he threw rather a scare into me when I called the hotel at 8:30 to find that he had not yet come in. They had checked and found the boat had arrived, and said there had been several phone calls for him. I left a message for him if he came, and told them to hold the room overnight anyhow. Then called the dock to find that the Elizabeth had berthed at 4:30 and that everyone had long since left. This morning when I called the Stanhope, ready to believe I would have to search hospitals etc, there he was; though he thought I was someone named Dick and wanted to know what had happened to me and that he had to be off in a few minutes to the doctors. When at last he knew how I was, he said he had had an awful time getting off the boat and had not gotten to the Stanhope until 9:30! And then, being so tired, had gone straight to bed. I wonder what did happen. To be truthful, Susan and I were quite worried. And how glad I was that I did not go down, as he had expected, to have tea with him at the Stanhope. I should have been frantic. But I am going down this afternoon and will meet him at 4, after a session with the president of the American Council of Learned Societies about the America Institute at Munich.

I called the boys this morning, and will go to the Buckingham at 6, and then take them to the Yale Club for dinner, so that I can take the nine o'clock train back. They seemed well, but exhausted from the holidays.

I still worry about your departure from St Mary's and wonder what the bad weather in England will do to your schedule. You sound very brave about the temperatures on the islands but I cannot imagine that you found it delightful.

Your letter of Christmas Day and of the 29th arrived of course with much of interest in them. You must not repeat not let Melitta come after Christmas. This can be very dangerous for you indeed, and you cannot afford to try to satisfy her emotional hunger. I am sorry for her but think her only hope lies in solving her own future. As she would say of others, be tough.

A notice in this week's Publishers' Weekly, saying that as of January 1st all correspondence regarding orders should be addressed to Pantheon Books, 33 West 60th Street. In case you ever want to order anything. I also enclose a clipping about the new Lindbergh. Helen at least makes a brave beginning.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

I drove out to Gaylord this morning to see Horace. Probably my last trip, since he is determined to go back on Saturday to Palisades and will try to get one of their friends to drive him because I shall be taking Susan away for the weekend to Princeton. She wants a change, and I can't blame her. Weekends get broken into by trips to Wallingford and work at my desk, so she has hardly had any time all fall. But Horace did not mind, being so pleased with the idea of freedom. I saw some of his practise handwriting, and its is almost again like that of several years ago in its flow. His typewriting also goes more easily, and he showed me the vast amount he has already done on what seems to be an almost complete revision of his Ovid translation. I liked what I saw. Marya has been overworking, he thinks, and some pus came from her operation. But Dr Anderson called her own physician, who is a cancer expert, smoothed the path for her return, and he has told Marya not to worry, that this is expected. So Marya and Horace both feel much better, and I am glad because Horace can return to him also. Horace's bedroom and the room outside it are being repainted. He was also full of plans for caking the upstairs hall against cold as well as the downstairs rooms. These are probably needed both for their comofrt and to cut down heating bills. They seemed vague about how expensive it would be. But all this gave me the chance to go over very carefully their income with him. I simply took along the copy of your letter and we revised its estimates to accord with present interest rates for savings account etc. This is the way it turned out, with some- what modest estimates for royalties and earned income from reviewing and manuscript reading by both of them.

| | |
| :--- | :--- |
| $1,200 | income from savings account. |
| 2,200 | income from business owned jointly with brother (this may be larger, but varies. The brother thinks it will up.) |
| 2,628 | joint income from Sarah Lawrence pension and social security |
| 300 | annual income from trust fund or annuity left him by his mother. |
| 600 | royalties from books. |
| 1,000 | joint income from reading mss for publishers, and reviewing |
| $7,900 | taxable income. |
| 3,000 | annual gift from you. Non-taxable. |

Because he will need the colored man in at least once a day, and feels he needs a physical therapist twice weekly, and has the expenses for the house, I suggested that I give him $2,000 in July for this year anyhow. Later we can re-discuss the matter and see whether more or less is needed for the future. He offered to return anything not used of the 2,000 at the end of the year, but I said no, he could count on this for this year. I hope you agree that this is the wise way to go at it, rather than to seem to have the well appear bottomless. If he needs less, we can arrange between us so that you pay less actually. The $5,000 non-taxable *interest* income

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

13 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

I intended to write you Wednesday night, but alas
my new lovely Olds played me false, and after I had taken Susan
to the Lawn Club for dinner and was driving back to the office,
suddenly it stalled and then stopped completely. I left it at
the curb, walked back to the office from whence Susan took me home
later, took a taxi to the station the next morning, while she
phoned the agency to pick it up and repair it. The distributor
had gone and the spark plugs were burned out, but it was repaired
by night with no charge from them. They should have paid me damages
for not being able to write you.

I was at the office, but spent the time separately
numbering the pages of each chapter that is finished for the second part
of the memoirs so that I could have them with me when I spoke to
Harcourt on Thursday morning. As you know, we will have broken the
contract with Harcourt by not having delivered the final manuscript
on January 15th as I agreed to do on the contract I signed; and of
course Harcourt could call the whole thing off. I was sure they
wouldn't want to, since they had announced it, but large publishing
houses with strict production schedules are entirely a different
kettle of fish from more intimate operations like Pantheon's. But
to cut short the discussions I had with them, they were most under-
standing of the difficulties you had had (I did not tell them about
the trip to Lugano, since that was more voluntary, but laid it on
the circumstance that you had had to rush to Doris because of her
operation, and then had found no typewriters at St. Mary's). I assured
them that you would finish the manuscript before my return from
Switzerland, and that we would go over it there for me to bring
back with me and get to them by the 8th. Meanwhile they would be
at work on what I had already brought them of the second part.
Actually this will work out very well for both of us, and I honestly
don't think will put them impossibly far behind. I had become
awfully nervous since it is extremely difficult in terms of advance
orders for a publisher to renig on the publication of an announced
book, and I knew that you would not like to miss another publishing
season any more than Helen would. So please don't mail anything to
New Haven before my arrival at Kenwin; otherwise it will simply have
to wait my return to the office before it can be touched. You can
work during the day while I go over Hilda's manuscripts and books,
and we can huddle together evenings as we did in New Haven. Naturally
if you get anything done before I come to that it is already ready,
so much the better, but with all the demands made on you by reopening
the house, and by any preliminary conversations you may want to have
with Benay or the others, I doubt that you will actually be permitted
to squeeze much free time for yourself. Don't however bother to
arrange the manuscripts before I come, for I can transfer them quickly
to a suitable work area in no time.

3

of Mary Butts' books I had ordered wasn't available, and in passing
offered me a copy of Hilda's *Avon: a presentation copy to Jocelyn.
She didn't give many with her signature in it, bandušemaý buy it! just
to be sure that Rota lets me know if other H.D. items turn up now
that she is dead. It is £3, or $8.40. Probably Jocelyn lost it
or it was stolen, as so many books are these days.

In New York I was given the Commonweal review of *Ruan*, which
I hadn't seen and so enclose.

I was more deeply moved than you might easily imagine by the
envelope of photographs of Hilda. Somehow I think I need these to
complete my sense of her beauty. For she is beautiful in them, and
Greek. Everything in her was in confirmation. How could anyone have
left her without trembling!

I have re-read just now the various letters that have come in
en route, including your first from Lugano. Your visit with the
Hesses sounds like the highspot of your Christmas ausflug. But
there is not much that needs discussion or that cannot be better
discussed when we are together. I see that you are not likely to
be back in Montreux until Monday the 15th, so will postone the cable
until tomorrow so that you will be there to receive it. I have
waited until the last minute to make my resevrations, because so
many demands have been made on your time that I was afraid still
another interruption might force you to call of my visit. Indeed
it still may, and all you need to do up to Sunday night at 6, when
I take your bus from the Hotel Taft is to send me a cable. I can
plan to come for a shorter visit, then, after Perdita and Kenneth
have left.

How I look forward to seeing you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

Again it is at the end of a day, but I feel a day of accomplishment of a sort. For I have written well over thirty letters, a task I should never have been able to do were it not for this wonderful electric typewriter. Some day I shall be able to persuade you to emerge from the middle ages to use one yourself.

Mostly I have been trying to clear my desk before going out to Kent on Wednesday night and before leaving New Haven on the 21st to come to you. God knows the important things will not be done, but the unimportant ones may be less awesomely incomplete. I did write Perdita to thank her for her Christmas greetings (I haven't heard anything about the presents we sent them, but she must be busy) and to tell her I was going over to go over manuscripts, be with you while you finished the memoirs, and then to Munich. The last needn't be but makes a good excuse. Also wrote George. Two letters to Grove Press about Hilda's affairs. One to the Thomas Swan whose book on Hilda is coming out in Nebraska. etc.

I forgot to thank you for sending me Hesse's new poem, which I thought excellent. The tone is so easily and surely established; and it works within its self-recognized limits.

I forgot too to say that earlier in the week John S sent up Mary Herr's letters from you and Hilda, which had been sent to Perdita for Perdita to censor if she wished before passing on to me. I doubt that she even read them through, but John may have. Both correspondences are fine, and Hilda's letters are full and gentle and witty in a quite different way from any I have seen before. They are full of Bryn Mawr, and I wonder more than ever if it wouldn't eventually be a good idea to have them micro-filmed for my collection and then give the originals to Bryn Mawr to go with the collection there and establish publicly Mary's good terms with you both.

Hope you got safely back from Lugano and that Kenwin is quiet and warm.

I do look forward to seeing you both.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 11th was in this morning's mail, and the two earlier letters with their portions of the manuscript arrived this afternoon. Presumably it was the slower mails from Lugano, or perhaps the storms over the Atlantic.

I hope that these two chapters can be typed before I leave so that I can at least bring one set along with the copy for Philip to read. If not I will let Mrs Dingle type them, proof-read them and send them along to Mr Holsaert; although as you will have known by my earlier letters, I had spoken to Harcourt in New York when I knew we could not hand in the completed manuscript on time. I do hope you will go on with the second New York chapter of visits on this side, not only to balance the impression otherwise of only one earlier visit but also to make the picking up of threads easier in volume two when you get to it.

No word from George, but I intend to call Prutting tomorrow or Wednesday morning, before I go to Kent, so that I can bring you a little more professional knowledge of George's condition that George himself is likely to give us. or even to get.

The Greenland article from the Times will probably not arrive for me to read before my return. But we shall have our arctic talks, for this morning's mail brought more information about the Mackenzie. I have not yet had time to study it.

I look forward to a glance or two, while with you, at the newest British fiction. I suspect from my Chicago experience that I have not been sending you the right sort from this side, since what goes on now is social-science fiction as on your side.

This is heartbreaking about Benay for his own sake. As you say, Egli can get the matter started and in order and one can go on from there.

Susan had to go to a dinner before the meeting of the N.H. Historical Society tonight (of which she is a new director), and I have to go to an undergraduate class at 8 p.m., where a student writing his senior thesis under me (on Floyd Dell) will present a section. Since I have not read a page of the manuscript so far, it will be a revelation to me.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

11 February 1962

Dearest Fido,

You have hardly been out of my thoughts, even though I have not written you since I came back. I really do miss Kenwin, and the chance of being with you there. And now that Susan has gone to Florida, as of Thursday night, I constantly look back on our three weeks in November when we were together. If only you had been here now, for the last three days we have been chieflyypurs, or rather the memoirs', since I have gone blind and out of my mind trying to solve the six single-spaced marginless typed sheets which Holsaert had sent up, plus another page on the three chapters sent him after my return (my first day was spent being sure the copies were corrected), which he sent by special delivery yesterday. Then Kurt and Helen sent at least fifteen pages with queries on each. I have done the best I could, and like yourself never want to see the damned manuscript again. Harcourt's are in a tizzy because of the three weeks late delivery and were on the phone a half-dozen times since my return. Now they claim that all galleys must be read and returned ten days after printing, but I have begged them to send you a set notwithstanding. I have tried to adjust in the spirit with which we worked together, but naturally wish I had your specific sanctions. There are still some queries which I could not answer, and which I have typed out to send you. We can make these changes in the galleys if necessary; it will be expensive, but the only way. I won't send these along for a couple of days, or I should explode. Any anyhow I won't have my first letters to you filled any more with the book. How right you were in wishing that Helen had not wanted the second part this time, so that you could not work on it in your usual fashion. I do understand that it gives the names that help with an American audience, but still .... Maybe the thing to do is to rework it if an English publication is indicated.

One of the first things I did after returning was to arrange finally for Horace to come to Gaylord, and he arrived yesterday. If you want to write him, and I think he will particularly like letters, address him at Gaylord Hospital, Wallingford, Connecticut. I drove out to see him this afternoon, and had a two hour visit with him. He did not look at all well when I came in, and he had obviously had a delayed reaction to the strain of the drive up. He said he had had a serious setback this morning, and did not think he would be able to type before Wednesday at the earliest. He kept dropping his cigarette and then could not pick it up again. Yet by the time I left he did seem much better, and I think his mind had been taken off himself. I had phoned him yesterday, and took him a number of books he wanted, and he was full of his plans. There is not a streak of defeat in him. In fact I think he enjoyed the talk, which was chiefly literary and chiefly about himself. He was not interested in the trip except for Hilda's manuscripts, and we did talk a good deal about her work. He would like to read some of the unpublished novels and poems, and I think this would divert him. We have hardly had such a good talk since the days before I was married, and he liked to slip away from Marya and come to my apartment for several days at a time. Marya, Pat: these were his sources of information and too much the center of his attention. It will be a good change for him as well as for Marya, who is staying in New York at theational Arts Club, whatever that is. But oh dear, how innocent. They had brought the check for 500 which I had given him, so that he could pay his bills. But why not deposit it so that he could pay by check. And they had left him without even a single dollar in cash in his pocketbook. So I gave him $21 from my pocketbook, on the basis that

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

the number 21 is a lucky one. He had been lying all day without a newspaper because both he and they had forgotten to order one for him. So I arranged that, before I left. This will be a busy week, but I shall try to get out a couple of times if I can, and anyhow will be telephoning him. I have talked with the doctors, and the head has promised (quite unethically) to go over the case and his charts with me once the examinations have been finished.

Your postcard from the Scillies was waiting for me on my return, as well as several envelopes of letters which you sent from there. Or, rather, these have just arrived on Friday. Which is slow to say the least.

Many thanks for the two letters. One of course was from Susan; the other was to explain that it was now too late for the introduction I had promised, and they galleys of which I had so diligently lugged around with me and finally finished on the plane coming back. Well, the book will stand on its own insofar as it will stand at all. And I really had nothing to say on American humor.

I thought of you and your Tibetans at Merano, where one of the guests was a Russian(?) who had lived for ten years in East Tibet. More of him later when I tell you about the days after I left you. But what astonished me most was the amount of horseradish he consumed on everything including fish. Tibetans do, he said, and laughed about the "no women" rule, telling wild stories of wild parties in the monasteries where he had been a priest.

No, no, I did immensely enjoy "Last Year in Marienbad" and was impressed by the contrapuntal effects between dialogue and film. It made for an immense tension, and was quite fresh at least in my cinematic experience.

I rather think I packed Aldington's anthology with the rest, and will certainly send it to him if I did. It will be too bad not to have it with the others of his books he gave Hilda, but Atha should have it, and (although you must never breathe this to him, I have the copy he presented to Pound.

I don't know X, but hardly think this is your function just now. Maybe what they really want is what you clipped from the Times: "occasional help and advice from Christian lady perhaps in comparable situation."

You have no idea how able I am, now, to look the whale in his spout and laugh. Bless you.

All love,

Isomar

It is past seven o'clock and I must go home. This morning when I got up at 7:30 the thermometer read -10°F. And on Friday it snowed. But you would find it warm outside.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 February 1962

Dearest Fido,

I ought also to have explained to you in yesterday's letter
that in addition to the memoirs finished, I prided myself in having written
over 70 notes or letters during the weekend, on the basis, really, that
if answered immediately on returning to New Haven I needn't then seek any
other excuse for brevity.

This morning I sent off an envelope with an article by me
in it, the V-2 paperback I had intended to bring with me to you in Kenwin,
and a clipping or two, notably one on Greenland in which I rather think
(but have not checked) that the Danish geologist was the young man who
came back on the boat with us. Perhaps you will remember.

In between times I have been reading the various packets of
letters from the Scillies etc., but with not much to comment on in them
except perhaps both the pathos and the cheer of seeing Osbert's handwriting.
The one query was in relation to the letter from Greenland (the boy's
name escapes me) which spoke of including a duplicate set of cards from
Godbaab, one of which was to be sent to me, and for which I in turn presumably
should send my thanks. Could you give me Chris's (I have it now) address,
and do you still have the cards? Hayes' Land of Desolation has also come, as
well as Martin Lindsay's Those Greenland Days, for both of which I send my
thanks.

Now for just a brief report on Berlin, first, since you asked
for it in that primacy. The Munich airport was, as I wrote you, as cold and
bleak with snow as anything in the Arctic. We flew low enough for a while
over Bavaria for me to see endless stretches of white, and I discovered that
winter tends to make the landscape monotonous unless one is paramount to
mountains. Pretty soon I was above nothing but clouds, and so it remained
during the time we flew over Russian territory in the East Zone, much to my
disappointment. I landed more or less in the mist into Tempelhof and went
directly to the Mempinski. It was exciting to ride through all of the new
construction, but the fact that where nothing had been built, only weeds and
bare dirt remained gave the city somewhat the air of a newly developed suburb.
My idea had been, at first, to spend the afternoon on foot to get the feel
of the city again, but a half-hour of this let me know that I really remembered
nothing that could give me the old image I had had in my mind. So, really,
without lunch, I took an afternoon's bus trip of three-and-a-half hours through
the city and the west sector divisions. There was a good guide, and once we
had reached Lichtfelde and I asked him where the Kadenstalt was, his
ears pricked up and from then on I got special attention in preference to the
24 American service personnel who were on a tour from Wiesbaden. It was difficult
for me at the end to know just what my impressions were, except of a large
new city, of not very originally designed buildings, and streets that were filled
with shoppers. I was restless from not knowing myself or the definition of

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

West Berlin. But I stopped for coffee and a cake at a famous cafe I used to go to when it was on Unter den Linden, and that was a little better.

Being Saturday afternoon it was crammed and I sat with two old dames with whom I struck up a conversation based on an infant two tables away. I had dinner at the Kempinski, after spending a half-hour with a former student of mine at Yale about whom I had written Susan so that she could call his neighboring-town parents to cable him I was there. He was for the moment still in the "game" and we had an interesting talk about the division between the sectors and its effect. He had been all for plowing in the tanks to stop the wall, and I am sure that locally it would have been effective. But of course, internationally, other factors came into consideration. He was off to the opera before leaving the next day for the Bavarian Alps to ski, and I was off to Marienbad, only to find it sold out. Instead I wandered the streets and then went back to nap until the second show began, but did meanwhile visit a few bookshops, buy myself a Carl May, and find that Gunter Glass had written a number of novels before, as well as several volumes of poetry and a record of his poetry, that he sold fairly well and was quite well known, and is 29. In a literary cafe after the film I asked more about Glass, and found that he was regarded as moderately avant garde but not especially so. They all seemed to know him. (I told you that he did not reply to my letter so I never did see him.) If I wanted to read a truly avant garde younger German, they recommended someone named Uwe Johnson who is published by S. Fischer. Something called Mutmassungen, Über Jakob, and something described as Das III Buch Über Achim. This, if you care to follow him up. Like most younger people in any city they regarded Berlin as artistically dead, shrugged their shoulders about East Berlin and preferred to talk about art rather than politics, and to drink what I offered them, not insisting that I drink too. Kad Friderichs was another author they recommended, but I was not very clear about what he has written.

In fact by this time I was clear only that I should go to bed early if indeed I was to go to East Berlin at 10 a.m. the next morning. My American student rather inclined towards my view that I should not go, he himself in three years never having been allowed across the line. But when I found that the American service personnel were going to make a trip it seemed to me that my passport would be singularly anonymous amongst so many, so I leached on and reported at ten in the morning. I wanted. It took a half-hour to cross the wall. First we had to make out currency control reports: how many travellers cheques, how many dollars, how many marks, etc. Then passport control, all precisely like the war and like crossing a recognized frontier. Naturally the Americans had been forbidden to show their identify cards; naturally, too, they wanted to get their money's worth and so showed them. I took three-quarters of an hour on the return trip to inch our way by bus across the wall, so many questions were asked, so much infantile examinations of credentials took place. All this was of course a blatant insult, an evidence that the communists had for all intents and purposes simply taken over West Berlin, precisely as India took over Goa. Of the two-and-a-half hours in East Berlin I can only write to you that it must have been exactly as when you saw it. Except that the Stalin-allee is now the Karl Marxallee. (Stalin died twice, the bus driver told me when I twitted him.) Nothing had been rebuilt except on this street and where a few factories stood in the remoter districts. It was a dead city, given over not to the gods but to the rats in the ruins. In all the time I spent there, I saw (and I mean this

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN.

quite literally) not fifty persons walking the street. No sooner was I
back in West Berlin than there were promenaders by the thousands. I got
put of the bus for the quarter-hour allowed me as it must have been allowed
you, and went behind the buildings to find the space empty except for two
or three children with whom I spoke. They were poor, ill-fed, not unhappy,
but unwitting. I watched the shopping blocks as we passed. I did not see
a single flower shop. In West Berlin as all over Germany there is no block
without one. Later I was told that at Christmas, when East Berlin could not
sell its flowers to West Berlin they were offered in the public markets and
that flowers were the only Christmas present between East Berliners. ("In
remembrance!") The frontier guards in East Berlin were all young boys of
seventeen, young enough to have been reared only under the communist regime,
but not from East Berlin itself--that would have been unsafe. They came from
the Eastern Zone and were brought to East Berlin so that they would have no
relatives in West Berlin and no friends or relatives in East Berlin with whom
they could fraternize. In East Berlin there was some apology for no-one on the
streets--we live quietly and with dedication to the cause." We are rebuilding
this or that shortly. "We work very hard in belief," but all this spoken in
tones of disbelief.

I went back through the frontier controls, and my only protest was
when, in loud German, (after all the service Americans I announced that I had
so-and-so-manydollars, checks and West German marks, and 25 pennigs. "It is
not necessary to be so precise," I was told. The Americans applauded me.

Back in the West Sector we drove along the wall. Wherever anyone jumped
out and was killed there is a cross and there are flowers. When we passed by a
walled-out cemetery, the wreaths were placed on the stones. Everywhere was
chalked "KZ" for concentration camp. In the walled windows of the seized houses
were loopholes for guns. On the top of one West-zone house were two women
waving scarves. No one could be seen from outside to watch them. Behind blinds
people watching knew from the flourishes that their relatives were alive.

What did it mean? A definition of both sides of the wall. I knew the tone. I knew again even that there was a kind of ideological difference expressed the presence or absence of flower shops and promenading people. I have been reading the newspapers since with the knowledge of what I am reading.

We were much delayed in our return by the frontier difficulties, and so
my afternoon before tea with the Kalckreuths did not amount to very much. I
et seriously at the Kempinski in the restaurant-bar, which I discovered in the
old Berlin. And listened to the conversation between a matinee idol and two
American movie magnates. The conversation was in German, but so carried on that
at regular intervals they each looked to me to see if I approved. I had a steak
tartare with a dressing mixed in the grand manner at a ridiculously low price,
so that I could tip the waiter as though I were an evening star and was bowed
out of the restaurant with all the color of a sunset.

My coffee with the Kalckreuths is only one of the obligations to the n-th
degree) which I owe to you. I have seldom met so attractive a man or a household.
I know the type. It is very rare. He comes from an excellent family, and has

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

poise enough to adjust himself excellently. I met the two boys, and only wished I might have been so good a parent. They had as guest a baronness from Bavaria, so our talk could skirt the whole of Germany. I should like to see them again, and was only sorry that my hope of a late ticket to the opera took me from them when I might so much more profitably have stayed.

Now how does one sum it up, not putting to any particular source the
basis for one's conclusions. I had been told by some in Bavaria that the
true German did not give a hang whether Berlin was or was not German. This
of course is echt Bayerisch in a sense, but I discovered that it was not
true even there, and in fact is an opinion to be found to a degree everywhere
In Germany, without in any sense being a majority opinion. Germany suffers
very much, I discovered not just from the Kalckreuths) from its new wealth,
especially its numbers of nouveau riche. These do not want to be disturbed
by any threats, and would forfeit more than their birthright to safety.
But for the majority, Berlin is a symbol, and as such has been rebuilt not only
by American funds but also by huge sums from West Germany. These people
realize there is no containment of East Germany within the[illegible] Zone. They
themselves would fight. But, and this is the disturbing element to me, and
again a matter I did not discuss directly with the Kalckreuths or infer
from what they said. It came to me only as a revenant, remembering the Berlin
of 1933 when the flag at the university was hung at half mast for the Versailles
Treaty. I might have been hearing the same record: "The railroads belong
to East Germany. That is the result of the Potsdam Conference. I do not say
this in a spirit of criticism of the Allies. I only wish to present you with
the objective facts. You will see how we were devastated by the bombings.

We have worked very hard to build Berlin again as a protection against Russia. It is a protection for you also, and we are happy to do this for you. We do not blame you for what you did because that is not so important as today's responsibility which lies on our shoulders. We are glad that we are able to carry this burden for you." Not one word of recognition that it is allied money which made the rebuilding possible; not a particle of a sense of history of why the bombings took place initially; only a reprise of the statements I once heard, with the substitution of the Potsdamer Conference for the Versailles Treaty. To listen without the knowledge of history was to react as many of the Americans did to the bravery of these poor defenseless people. Poor they no longer are. Defenseless in the long run they may be. But easily as I seem to fit into their confidence I would not trust a German, from either side of the wall "How come," they say, "you speak such good German?" "Because I speak it with pleasure," I reply. But in order to know, to know, to know. And I thank you aus dem herz, for this chance to have begun to know again.

All love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

17 February 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have neglected you sadly this week, but not for want of having thought constantly of you. How could I help but do so, being alone in this house and, when the snow came and I was tucked in and eating bread and butter and cold luncheon meat I had bought for Mrs Hayda, I thought of the gay luncheons we had together and the good talk in the evening after a hard day's work. I have had the hard day's work but not the good talk to alleviate it.

I ought, when I wrote you last, to have said that in addition to whatever else I did over last weekend I wrote over seventy notes and letters in order to make an indentation on my desk. (One would not think I had, from the looks of it now).

The chief distraction of the week was the snow. Tuesday night I had dinner with Katherine Anne Porter, whose *Ship of Fools* is now finished and appearing this spring (thank at least in part to the help you once gave her), and since she has had it adopted by the Book of the Month Club why of course she is sitting pretty and her aches and pains have disappeared. She was full of stories and talked a good deal about McAlmon since I had once sent her copies of her letters to him. She adores him, at least in memory; but then I find that his ghost has lots of girls-in-attendance: Miss Porter, Kay Boyle, Josephine Herbst, Djuna Barnes, all of whom seem to think she rated first in one category or another. All this is relevant only because on Wednesday night I was supposed to spend the evening listening to her give a lecture and conversazione at one of the colleges. Only I was visited by a former instructor in American Studies who wanted to take a train back to New York and when I took him to the station I realized it was by then snowing so hard, with the warnings out for a storm, that I had better go home and stay there. Which I did to bread and butter and warmed-up coffee and thoughts of you snugly being fed by Elsie. The temperature had been zero over the weekend and continued so and the snow piled to eight inches or more, so blocking my driveway the next morning that I had to call Hartford and postpone my appearance at court on the *Tropic of Cancer* case. But it didn't relieve my of having to put on my heavy boots and trudge through the snow a few blocks to the bus so that I could be down in time to give a ten o'clock to some 300 boys, taking the class on Tuesday and Thursday for a colleague who had gone to Virginia. Both lectures were on Faulkner's *Light in August*. Fortunately this didn't take much preparation, not even as much as I had had to make for my graduate seminar the day before. But I spent Wednesday evening re-reading the *Tropic* and in getting ready for my lecture Thursday night at the Graduates Club on our Greenland trip. The chief difficulty was on Thursday in getting home and then, thanks to the driveway having been plowed, to getting my camera and screen and slides down to the Club in time, and also go to a party before dinner for the anadaan Ambassador to the U.S. But I did, and the lecture went well, and except for having to shovel a little in front of the garage doors when I got home, to remove what had slid from the roof, I got through the day with a minimum of frustration. The snow has been a nuisance. When I went home this evening before supper the street plows had piled it so high in front of my driveway that I couldn't get in, had to park the car and then shovel and shovel and shovel until I was ready to drop.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

The roads were slippery when I drove to Hartford yesterday morning, but thanks to my gift horse and its snow tires I managed it safely and even found parking by the courthouse. They were trying dope cases when I arrived a little after eleven, as requested, so our case did not come on until twelve. I spent the hour until one in giving testimony, then the court was adjourned for an hour for lunch, and I was given a half to three-quarters of an hour of cross-examination before they went on the next witness. I enclose a clipping, but this particular reporter was only there for the afternoon session and so missed a good deal of fruit off my tree. Thanks to having finished the novel and read the Whitmanesque peroration that Miller gives near the end I was able to describe the book as a seriously constructed novel with a beginning, middle and end, and to build up an elaborate theory of why all the four-letter words were necessary to his description of the emasculated world in which we all lived. Having thus, by iteration, demolished the material world he was ready for the ecstasy to be found in the triumph of the "soul" etc. Everyone said it was "most eloquent." I was asked to identify the literary figures who blurbed the book on its jacket (Horace was one, Sir Herbert another, etc) and could with some triumph say that I knew each personally and describe him. The witnesses for the prosecution had been unable to identify any of them. I went into an elaborate theory in which I compared *Tropic* with *Walden*, an act of critical bravado which I am sure no one ever did before and never will again. I explained at great length why fiction differed from autobiography, so that it was not necessary to assume that Miller had himself done all that was narrated; and this became the subject of considerable discussion with the judge in the afternoon, since he rather cleverly pointed out that at one point in the book the telephone rings and a voice is heard saying, "Is this Henry Miller?" The protagonist answers, "Yes." But I held to my point that even this did not make it autobiography, in fact I am not sure that it matters one way or the other, except that the judge thought so, and one does not argue with a judge about relevance. The judge was also much concerned with whether the average man would understand the same sophisticated conclusion at which I had arrived, and my contention was that he could if he read all of the book, and that one couldn't judge a book except as a whole. The assistant prosecuting attorney who cross-examined me wanted to know if I thought that when a book like this had some redeeming features it saved the whole, and I successfully objected to the word "redeeming" because it implied there was something necessary to redeem. So he reworded it to my taste. We had a little fun when he tried to imply that my associations were cloistered, and I reminded him that I was a retailer too in order to afford to be a teacher. The courtroom laughed, and there were angry smacks of the gavel and orders of silence. But altogether it was a friendly affair. The assistant prosecutor was a former fellow member of the Andover Board with me, one of his assistants was a former student, the brother of the bookdealer was a college classmate of mine, and the judge and I had one important friend in common. Secretly I am told that the assistant prosecutor hopes the state will lose the case and has said so. I imagine it's true. The one thing I am glad of is that I was not asked if I had any connection with Grove. Because of Hilda's books this might have been embarrassing. Eventually I shall probably have a copy of the entire transcript, or at least of my part of it, which I can show you when you come over. I liked the wit and good sense of the librarian who was on the stand after me. I could not stay because I had to hurry back to New Haven to give an oral examination for the doctorate, at 4 o'clock.

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

This afternoon I went out to Gaylord to see Horace again. I had been out on Sunday, I think after I wrote you, and again (briefly) on Tuesday afternoon. On Sunday he was in bed, looking very wan and tired after his trip, and he looked like a very old man indeed. But on Tuesday he was sitting up in his wheelchair and beginning to look better. Today he looked really quite well and was in excellent spirits. He seems immensely pleased with the medical care he is being given, and says that it is the most thorough physical examination he has ever had, either at Johns Hopkins or at Columbia. The neurologist he found very impressive, as well as the orthopedists etc who have been xraying him and studying and testing his various muscles. Again, he says that he has never been so thoroughly x-rayed, and that they are trying to see whether his present situation is simply a continuance of his prenatal condition or some new excursion. He thinks it is a repetition of what has happened several times before, and I had not really remembered that in 1936 he had had a paralysis of his right arm which he had overcome with great difficulty. Friday was his first day in physical therapy, and most of this was spent in explaining to him his own muscular system so that he could work on the development of what was good. The doctor in charge told him he thought Horace still had enough good muscle left so that he could make improvement, and this has encouraged him particularly. The last x-rays were made this morning, so I have not yet spoken with the doctors, and think I will not until he has been there three weeks. I had noticed that Horace had almost no teeth left in his lower jaw so that his mouth looked like a bombed-out cellar hole. I asked him if he did not want to take the opportunity of having a plate made while he was at Gaylord, since they have an excellent dentist and he would not need to go out as he would have to do at Palisades. He told me that he had already a plate but had not brought it because it did not fit well and he could not get to the dentist. So he is going to have that mailed up to him and it can be fitted here, to make both his talking and his eating easier. He was able to hold his cigarette better and had even begun to do a little typing. But I soon discovered that he had to send off the copy for his Ovid without retaining a carbon because he cannot manage a carbon paper. He eagerly accepted the offer to have his Ovid introduction and the remainder of the ms typed out for him by Mrs Dingle or someone else, and this may well prove to be a necessary arrangement for the future. The best thing about his being there is that I can really learn what his situation is, in a way I could never have done if he were with Marya and had his pride operating. It took a little pulling to get his inability with carbon paper out. The *Nation* had sent him the Collected Poems of MacDiarmid to review and he was busy working on that. He keeps me busy getting him books from the Library or my own shelves. Today he wanted Macdiarmid's *Lucky Peet*, and fortunately you had once given me this. He has read Hilda's book on Pound and liked it, although he made some excellent suggestions as to what would have to be included in any introduction and felt it might be better to wait until at least one more volume of poems appears. He know has the the Elisabeth Siddel manuscript. He is anxious to read these, and I am delighted to have his opinions on them.

There was a note in yesterday's mail saying that the ten packing cases of Hilda's things were expected in New York today. I shall have to have arrangements made for shipping them to New Haven and getting through the customs. I should call this quite wonderfully rapid delivery. I am writing Pup by this same mail (altho it is now 10:15 p.m.) and enclosing a copy of the form she

must fill out if she is bringing anything back with her or if the things are to be shipped. They could not have been nicer than when I came through the customs at Idlewild and did not ask me to open a thing of Hilda's, or in fact of mine. Apparently the situation arises so seldom that the government forgot to include the case in their printed forms, and so have had to make up these mimeographed sheets. I will try to write again tomorrow but want to take this to the postoffice tonight, with all my love and gratitude.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

18 February 1962

Dearest Fido,

Ten o'clock now, on Sunday night, and again I have not accomplished quite so much as I had hoped to today. But I spent a good part of the morning with housekeeping so that everything would be tidy both in the kitchen and the greenhouse for Susan's return tomorrow night. (Alas, I cannot meet her at the bus, or take her to supper, for I must entertain a visiting professor from the University of Pennsylvania who is speaking to the American Studies Club tomorrow night). But I did think of you as again I munched my luncheon meet and ate the special roll I bought yesterday in memory of the ones I bought for you. It was a kind of communion.

This afternoon I went again to see Horace, and to take him scrap paper and a few of the additional books he wanted. He has discovered not yet begun to type, and it is discouraging to see how helplessly he cannot reach even for the telephone, but his spirits are excellent and he looks better all the time. He had telephoned Marya and Pat at Palisades, and they had been delighted at the prospect of having his teeth fitted. He confessed that not having them made him shy in meeting people, but that the agony and expense of going to the dentist (by taxi, and having to have three men lift him from the car into the dentist's office) had forced him to give up even though his plate did not fit. With this in mind I counselled him to have his teeth x-rayed and all possible work done on them at Gaylord before he went home. It is obviously important to send him back in as sound a condition as possible. The more one studies the case, the more one realizes how difficult life must have been and still is for him. As I told you, I shall not have a real meeting with the doctors until all their examinations are finished and he has had a week of whatever therapy they can devise.

Because of Horace's comments I re-read the Pound piece of Hilda's this morning, and found most of Horace's criticisms the result of rather hasty reading. But it was helpful to get his opinion, and eventually we can devise a little introduction which can prepare the reader and do a little glossing without footnotes. Yet I really think that it might be better to postpone the book until after Pound's death since it is at the moment rather one-sidedly personal. By the way, do you know what happened that the American painter gave Hilda while Pound was still at St Elizabeth's? He called it "The Poet in the Iron Cage." My impression was that he wanted it back, and she gave it to him.

Have written the letter to M Egli acknowledging the communication from the Clerk of Courts, so that is in order.

Of course the Harcourt people could contact me, tell Helen, and did. They were only on pins and needles because of the watertight schedule which was already leaking. I heard from Holsaert yesterday, and he promises to airmail galleys to you, but with the proviso that only

to the watercolor

Penny Opera, with the deduction scene (if it can be called that) done in what looked like a Berlin dive. That the Feldmarchelin would have gone there seemed highly unlikely, even as an act of mercy, but the audience didn't care. Nor did I, for I wanted to get to my white sausage.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

corrections or protests received before the end of ten days from when it was sent you can be considered. I guess you will have to sit up all night in anguish, although of course I hope it won't be anguish.

I wrote George last night after writing you, and tonight have dropped a note to Aurelia to ask how things are there. I expect each day to have a phone call or wire calling me out to the funeral.

Did R.A. ever acknowledge the receipt of the book for Catha to you? Mrs Dingle sent it airmail before my return, to him, since Catha actually never had written me. I do hope it arrived safely, since the airmail postage was over three dollars.

There is still enough snow on the ground to remind me of Munich and my day there. It was really only that, for on my own I never stepped outside the hotel except to taxi to the station or the airport. As I wrote you, I arrived at the hotel about eleven, unpacked, got the maid to sew three buttons on my overcoat which had fallen off, and sent a few last pieces of laundry to be washed. Then I called professor Friedmann who suggested that we talk while he drove me into the mountains around Tegernsee and then, if I could get tickets to the new staging of the Rosenkavaller that night he and his wife and I could all go together. (I ought to explain that he paid for tickets, but that if obtainable at all the hotel could get them better. He finally arrived a little after 12, and we set out. It had snowed the day before and since there was no wind, all of the fir trees were tufted with white blossoms, so that even the mountainsides had a subdued elegance in the shade and sparkling brilliance in the sun which set all the crystals dancing. We passed through my old countryside, and along back roads around the Tegernsee, and into Austria twice. I can't say we talked, but he did constantly and so thoroughly enjoyed himself while I watched the scenery. But I did make my peace, found that they had a man for next year, relieved my conscience and made it a little clearer that I could not devote my life to the relief of Munich. We had not been on the road long before he announced that it was silly to waste time by eating, wasn't it, and so we would skip luncheon until we got back to Munich. My café incomplet of the morning in Zürich began to recede into the far corners of my stomach, and I was hungrier and hungrier. We were back in Munich at 4:30; I had to wire Mary de R I was coming the next day, pick up the tickets for the opera, and then discovered he wanted me to see his new offices. It was after five when we reached his apartment, time for one cup of coffee and one piece of cake before we had to set out again, so that I did not eat until a quarter past eleven that night when we went to the ratskeller at the city hall. But at least I did not fall asleep at the opera from overeating before hand, and enjoyed every minute of it. The singing was not supreme, but the sets and direction of course were very fresh and the enthusiasm of the audience was contagious. No, I did not eat until 11:30, for I joined in the applause for ten minutes of curtain calls, but the audience itself, I was told next day on the train by an English who attended, kept up its cries until a quarter to twelve. My only real surprise in the play was the third act, which as I told you shifted suddenly from roccoco to pure Brecht in the manner of the Three

May 24 1960

Palisades
Rockland County
New York

Dear Norman:

Marya and I saw Hilda at the Stanhope yesterday. I think she's doing famously. Everything looks well. "Recognition," or whatever one calls it, is doing her good. And the time is ripe for it: sneers at "imagism" have faded away.

Now as to our phone conversation. Let me tell you a little bit about my affairs and plans for the future. I'm signing up with Macmillan for my new book of poems; the book is finished; my first book of entirely new poems since Chorus for Survival; its title is Medusa in Gramercy Park. Some people have told me it's my best book--Lord knows it's taken me a long time to write it--and to rewrite poems I nearly threw away. Probable publication: Spring 1961. With Grove I'm publishing my new book of essays; probable publication: Spring 1961--this is a selection of the best pieces I've done, not a big book--and I've taken great care with the selection gathered from various magazines, and retouched so as to make a book.

You can imagine--what with my work at the College--how my time has been taken up these last 12 months. No rest for the wicked--and the burden of household duties has fallen on Marya's shoulders. Without her help, nothing could have been done. During this period, her own writing has been held up.

I'm much attracted toward doing a Dorothy Richardson; because I've discovered the form (through Amy and Whistler) or writing such a book, I can move toward it with confidence, and if Yale would help me--and you--with Richardson's papers, the prospect looks marvelously good. We'd have a very good short book. Years ago I wrote a short piece on D.R. for L&L Today. I can say I'm the man for that job.

Certain practical considerations enter here. One is the problem of SLC--dear old Sarah! I shall have to take part of the year 1961-1962 off to write the D.R. book; I shall have to let the College know my intentions by January 1961. As far as I'm concerned the College is a distraction from things I really want to do; I'm hanging on there for the sake of Teachers' Insurance I've paid in all these years and have to pay until I'm 65. A week ago (and this because Harold Taylor has been kicked out) I was given a decent rise in pay starting next Fall. This will add to the Teachers' Insurance pension at 65. This brings my annual (on paper without deductions for taxes, hospitalization, and $750.00 into Teachers' Insurance) pay up to $7000. To balance taking a six months' leave from the College, I shall need a grant of some sort. The other side of the problem is: have you a publisher in mind for the D.R. book? Macmillan may do it; but my relationship with them is too new for me to say. An advance may be added to the grant. But the advance on a book on D.R. would not be large. These are the practical details involved. Think them over; I hate to think of money matters because I always do so awkwardly.

There you have a rough outline of what I've been thinking since our talk over the phone. As you know I'm bad at doing things commercially--and I'm really asking for your help in reasoning through the writing of a book on D.R.

As ever--love to Susan and yourself--

(s) Horace

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 February 1962

Dearest Fido,

Again I seem to have had to let several days pass without any letter to you. But I snatch this time just before dinner and going home so that I may at least wave from the rooftop across the wall that seems to shut me off from you.

The week has actually seemed to be one of those frustrating times when far too little gets accomplished although one keeps busy all the time. Monday was fiendish, in that the snow was thick again in the morning and kept on thickening its layer on the ground so that traffic was difficult and I kept wondering whether Susan would actually be able to land at Idlewild. I tried to taxi down to keep my car out of the drifts but having a full morning of appointments I could not wait the necessary hour they predicted for the taxi to come, and did go down. Again in the afternoon there were appointments and then the Chairman of American Studies at Pennsylvania arrived, so the rest of the day was gone. I took him dinner at Mory's; we had the meeting afterwards, and it was nearly eleven before he left the office after the meeting to go to his friends. Meanwhile Susan had arrived at the house at 7, so it was after midnight the outlines of her visit were related. Apparently it was successful, although quiet. She thought Lizzie was looking very well indeed and seemed happy, and best of all she liked Lizzie's friends whom she met. Mrs Bennett is a good deal less active, but of course this is her 85th year. All of Tuesday was given over to a daylong meeting of the Committee for the Mabel Brady Garvan Collections of American Art and a report to it which as a subcommittee member I had helped to draft. That night we went to the Boston Symphony after dinner at the lawclub. Wednesday, being our wedding anniversary we went to the Shubert to see a musical about Vila, after dinner at the restaurant across the street from the theatre. Today there have been conferences with the various deans, a meeting of the Library Committee, and then this afternoon an oral examination for the doctorate.

I was most grateful for the letters, four now, since I last wrote you. Monday morning there were three in the mail, which did help to relieve the burden of the storm. I take them quickly in order, and write more at length tomorrow and on the weekend. Delighted that Beney is better and at the Chalet. I have not yet been able to contact Willimantic and cannot until after this weekend, but have not forgotten. It is nonsense for Helen to say that Harcourt couldn't get me. They were on the phone constantly. Hope you manage to book the Quest as planned. It would be a pity not to, and is probably indicated so long as Doris enjoys having it there. No word to me as yet from George, but I had a package enclosing a copy of the Mary Butts memoirs which he had expressed interest in, and a marvelous copy of Vachel Lindsay's first book with two letters from Lindsay to George in it, enclosing also Lindsay's first two pamphlets (Poems in Exchange for Bread) which he sent George. It was a self-introduction because he so much admired George's covers for the New York *Vogue* and I rather guess he hoped George could get things of his in *Vogue*. It was wonderfully generous of him; I am deeply grateful. I did like Angus Wilson's letter, although I agree that his last book is a falling off. I am glad you wrote about my brother's rooms, since he has been enquiring and hopes for a confirmation. Why not the Stafford if it is more convenient for their walks around. I think it would be. Will you write and engage, or see that someone in London does? I should be most grateful. How I envy you your projected May visit to the 'enty girls. I

23 February 1962

Dearest Fido,

We seem to be moving rapidly with the *Memoirs* so I am taking

this occasion not to write you a personal letter but to send over the
various queries which you must answer immediately so that I can have them
in my hand before the galleys arrive. Holsaert has arranged for a set of
galleys to be sent over to you by air. The schedule now is that galleys will
be in the New York office by March 2, and must be returned to the printers
on March 14. I think that will give you a chance to howl if you will sit
up all night with the galleys and send me your answers immediately. The
publication date is set for June 13.

A report has come in from Melville Cane on the William Carlos
Williams paragraph. He suggests that the last sentence be revised to read,
"I can forgive many things but not the person who turns on the people etc."
I hope this will be all right to change. The corrections will be incorporated
which came from Philip.

Kurt had queried your reference to *Frau am Mond* on XVIII-p.11.
In trying to check I stupidly thought that Pabst was its director instead
of Lang, as of course you did say. The correct title is *Frau im Mond*, and
so that others would not be misled by the reference to Pabst's set I added
"Its director" after Lang.

The other three sheets of queries will drive you wild with a
sense of frustration and the imbecility of others. But I did not feel I
could answer them myself. I have kept a carbon copy myself of these three
sheets, so in making your answers to me you need not return the sheets but
key in according to the numbers attached to the queries.

Please don't wait to answer these until the galleys come, unless
you absolutely cannot until then. For if I already have the answers to these
queries I know enclose, I can immediately enter them in the galleys.

And when the galleys come don't bother about proofreading except
for the spellings of personal names or such things as you think I might not
catch on my own.

I have told them to put in an index to the book but with references
only to citations of personal names. My strong feeling is that future use
of the book will be infinitely increased if one can turn to it and know whether
there are references within to this person or that. Holsaert has gotten the
Columbia Press to take care of the index, since I cannot take the time. Its
cost will be charged against royalties, but I don't think that matters very
much so long as the book appears at its best. I am always frustrated when I
turn back to a book for reference and find there is no index to assist me.

I have sent off the Jersey Prison ship book to you as a bone to
a good Fido.

25 February 1962

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday and today have been exhausting, while I went over the fifty-odd applications for fellowships and admission to new students wanting to study in American Studies in the Graduate School, as well as the 30 applications for fellowship aid from those already here. I have sorted into piles, made inept suggestions, and will now have to dragoon others on the staff into reading them and confirming or denying my leads. Last night I played bridge with friends, so that Susan could have at least a little social life. In a half hour we have to go to a cocktail party to meet Sir Q and Lady X-Y the names of whom I have forgotten except for the hyphen. Then more or less without supper I must make my annual appearance at the "secret" senior society of undergraduates which, in a misguided moment, I several years ago permitted to make me an honorary member

Your letters of the 18th and 21st have come since, I think, I wrote you last. Glorious Mes McPherson and her toast to polygamy. Tell her that most men do, but in varying terms of Platonism when the flesh is no longer curious. Do give her my greetings. I became one of her great admirers.

Many thanks for sending along Osbert's book, which I shall look forward to reading. He is "our man of situations," which is perhaps why his stories start so nicely and then trail off, until he thinks of a new situation which of course means a new story. He is at his best in the autobiography because he needs nothing more than the calendar of years to provide a framework for his anecdotes. He is the gentleman entertainer who makes one feel in reading his best books that one is a guest at his dinner table.

Unless you think that the Egyptian book that Maggs has, of Hilda's, is important to the understanding of her poems -- that is, that she read and used it--perhaps it would be simplest to have them sell it. That size book is almost impossible to store on a bookshelf. Susan and I tried this afternoon by the way to go to the Peabody Museum to see the gold from Tut's tomb that has been sent here for a show from Gairo. But it was so mobbed that we left and will each separately try to see during the few remaining days before it goes to Washington.

Yesterday afternoon, after a week's absence, I went to Gaylord to see Horace, deciding that his expected visit from Marya, Pat, and the three other friends would take place on Sunday. But when I arrived a little before four there they all were. But the rain was freezing on the road, so they left a little after the hour and I stayed on. Marya looked well, much more rested, and was about to go to Joanna's for a week or two. Everyone was happy because Horace had had his first public diagnosis. His friend Shedlovsky, from the Rockefeller Institute, had talked with Dr Anderson, whom he had known at the Institute, and conformed privately what Horace had told me. After intensive x-raying, such as had never before been done, they now think the diagnosis by Johns Hopkins and Columbia was incorrect, and that Horace had perhaps never had cerebral palsy at all. There was however prenatal damage to the cerebrum which affected the last disk of his vertebrae causing partial paralysis which was temporarily aleviated at the time of puberty but has reasserted itself at various times as it has recently. They say that by making him a specially designed aluminum collar they feel sure they can arrest further developments of this, and meanwhile can rebuild sufficient muscular strength, by therapy, so that he can regain a reasonable degree of mobility. Actually the therapy so far seems to have had certain benefits as I could readily observe by the greater freedom with which he could

2

move his hands, and he proudly showed me how he could raise his right foot a little in the chair. The cigarettes he also handles with more skill, as a sign of his greater control. The doctors told Shedlovsky that they thought that after a month's further treatment he could go home. Horace is a little disappointed as he had counted on a month from the time he arrived. But of course that figure was simply the round approximation that we had thought of. The final conclusions now await his x-rays from Johns Hopkins, which have been requested, but I doubt that the decision will be altered. Horace bursts with praise for all of the medical staff at Gaylord, and once he can begin to use his typewriter again he will be much happier in staying. He is also pleased at the prospect of having his dental work put in shape. This and the collar will cost extra, but I told him not to worry. This morning I did a few extra errands for him, buying him a nail clip etc., and he phoned me at the office this afternoon, having read my essay on Longfellow, which I gave him, and being pleasantly excited about it and wanting me to gather all of the essays into a book. Who knows, the atmosphere of Churchill (if we should ever go back) may be just right.

A letter came from George yesterday in answer to mine, which crossed the arrival of the books, saying that he hoped I had found the letter he had thriftily slipped inside the Mary Butts I had sent him. Of course I hadn't, so I read the two together. He is in a very brown mood, feels it was a mistake to have left Marvells and been a burden to people, is barely over the flu, and cannot possibly come to New Haven to see us on his way back. I fear we shall never persuade him to return to the States, and I fear the results of next winter in England. But if we cannot do anything, we simply cannot.

3 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

My Saturday afternoons no longer really exist so far as
writing you is concerned, or getting work done at my desk. For I
feel compelled to drive to Gaylord to keep Horace company after his
week alone. I simply could not get out then, for this has been the
period of correcting papers (today I more or less rewrote one which one
of the Japanese wants to publish in English in Japan) and especially
going through the fifty or sixty applications for admission and fellowships
next week, and adjusting the recommendations for awards to the present
graduate students.

It has been a busy week otherwise as well. Monday night,
until very late, was spent at a meeting of the governing board of the
International Student Center. Wednesday with Robert Lowell, the poet.
Thursday at a party given by the German consul from Boston. Last night
we went to dinner at the home of one of the American Studies staff.
Tonight we have guests for dinner. Our guests and complications begin
to rival your own.

As usual there are several letters from you not yet answered,
as well as a most friendly and cheerful one written by Pup while she was
still with you. She does seem to have enjoyed her visit with you, and
elsewhere. Perhaps the objection to planes is the wish to savor slowly
every mile of being away from home. It might really be that, at least in
part. I am glad that she did her chores chez toi, and hope that you can
now make a final cleaning with Elsie's help. I am only sorry that you will
still have to make some disposition of the furniture in London, but it was
not likely she would want all. Do you think the Morris desk (table) ought
to be shipped over now, so that the U.S. Customs will more or less deal
with the last of Hilda's things at the same time. If you want to, ship
the china over at the same time, and we can call it a part of her belongings.
I mean to New Haven, of course, not with the things to go to Pup.

I enclose a copy (to be thrown away) of a letter from Aurelia
to me. How sad that it cannot be gotten over with quickly. These long
and drawn out passages are much too sad. I quite expect a summons to go
there any day.

I must hurry to Gaylord to give him a little time before his
supper is served. Pat phoned and is coming up tomorrow. I will drive him
out and then ftech him in the evening. There is no other way for him to
arrive there, and I suspect he is lonely because his Mamma is with his sister.
I should have thought he would have welcomed the chance to be on the town.
But I don't mind, it is only a half hour's drive each way, and it will give
me a little more time to work, and to write you tomorrow.

4 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

Sunday and I am reading the manuscript of a dissertation being
done under my direction on the plays of Thornton Wilder. Having done the
first two chapters I'll relieve my boredom by beginning today's letter to you.
But first of all, my apologies for having forgotten to enclose Aurelia's letter
yesterday.

Pat is being driven up today by friends in New York so I will not
have to fetch and carry him. He will be pleased when he sees his father. I
certainly was, yesterday. So would you have been. He looked 15 years younger
with his teeth in and his smile on. "See my teeth," he said, "let me tell you
what is happening to me." A lot is. The dentist was able to fix Horace's
plate almost immediately, and now for the first time it is comfortable. There
was only one cavity to be filled in his other teeth, and this will be done this
week. His insides are being fixed up, as he put it; and I discovered that
Horace quite naturally because of lacks of exercise and lots of laxitives had
been suffering for the past few years from acute constipation. They have given
him an aluminum left-leg brace from above his knee to his shoe which at last
permits him to stand and to use the walker at increasing distances each day
as his fatigue decreases. He showed me the brace with pride. He now has his
iron collar which he wears for an hour or more each day to straighten up his
neck, and says it is working wonders by relieving the pressures. His fingers
are beginning to regain strength through the exercises and he waggled them for
me. He is able to use the typewriter again and is composing his introduction
to Marya's anthology of poems for children. He can zip up his trousers by
himself now, and he is nearly at the point where he button his shirt. He still
cannot move his wheelchair, but is taking exercises to strength his arms. And
when they brought his dinner I noticed but did not remark on the fact that his
meat had not been cut up. I went out to do a little research in a book he had,
and when I came back he said with pride that he was always able now to cut up
his own food. If you really ever wanted to see a happy man you should have
seen Horace, and over and over again he thanked you for making it possible for
him to be there. The difference between now and as he looked the day after he
arrived is not to be believed.

I was perhaps a little unfair about Pat when I wrote yesterday. He
has to go out to Palisades each weekend to check on the furnace, the lights etc.
Next Saturday is his birthday, and other friends are driving him up then so that
he can have his party with his father, a fact which makes Horace beam. Horace
is devoted to him, and to Joanna's son Gregory whose mind at 13 Horace thinks is
superb. Apparently his bent is history. Joanna wants him to do his university
at Edinburgh; Gregory now wants to get his undergraduate degree at Oxford. Both
Joanna and Gregory want him to be an Englishman, his heart is there and there is
where he wants to settle and live. Perhaps he will. I gather he will be happy
anywhere a book is, and there are a lot of books in England.

At this point there has been a long interlude, for it seemed to me
better to get through the 200-odd pages of the dissertation first, so that its
reading could be my chief accomplishment for the day. And I have now read it,
so that it can go back for the last revisions. Part of my boredom came from
having read a good deal of it before in earlier versions. On the whole it is
not bad, and will be passable I am sure.

Viking points en route (including the hot baths, and of course the ease with which from the airport one could see the homestead of Erik the Red. In fact I'd like to take both this trip and the one up the west coast, but think of the East Greenland one first and before too many subsequent trips take away the freshness of the places visited. This would be the real north, for which our other two trips have been preparations. Do you think you could stand it for two weeks such as they describe? Susan was again at first tempted, but now doesn't want to. In her case I think she is wise, but this would be the final touch for you and be pure meat (bear and whale) for Part Two of your memoirs. Why don't we go this summer. Susan could fly over to meet us in Copenhagen again for a week and we could then hop over to Norway and see the Viking vessels. Perhaps on our way to Copenhagen before we leave you and I might do Hitzacker.

Yellow backs have been coming in, but chiefly those containing letters I saw when I was at Kenwin. Some however were not. I am pleased that Gertrud Urzidil's operation has proved so successful. She is fortunate. I am sorry that Rosemary doesn't feel she can take the trip this summer, but I suspect she may fear it a little except as a dream. Doris fortunately also seems much better, and I always love her for her courage. Is there any more news of Gerald?

I had a nice note from Kenneth after his return. I had written to check on the spelling of the movie camera he had. It was ie instead of ee. I hear your snorts!)

Oh well, now for another week!!

5 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

After yesterday's long haul in reading the Wilder dissertation I have been spending the morning answering brief notes and trying to put my desk in order before beginning on the next major chore. And of course I want to be as free as possible for the time when the galleys arrive. I phoned Holsaert this morning to inquire, and discovered that only three sets arrived last week on schedule, and that he retained one, sent one to you, and the third to Helen. That puts me a little behind the 8-ball, and although I am not altogether sure that Helen needed one, I am certainly glad that he did send one on to you and thus save the 4 days or more before mine comes. You will probably already have your set by the time I write. It will be a tight squeeze for me, but I will do my damndest and could not in any event get through hearing from you yet. I'm sorry about having the index prepared. Perhaps it is because I myself so often turn back to a book like this to find some otherwise-lost reference.

Your letter of the 28th was in the morning's post. I like your quip about maroons, and agree that one might even slip it into a nice porno paragraph. Words mysteriously carry such weight. One nice woman told me she had read the *Tropic of Cancer* a decade ago and although she already knew most of the four-letter words, the longer Latinate ones intrigued her. And when she saw a reference to some woman's fecundity, it was not until she went to the dictionary that she realized it was not scandalous. Auden once told me that every author once in his lifetime tried his hand at least at private porno. How will yours go? ("But I do want it so," she murmured, her voice husky with desire. "Now, now!"--and she let her hand rest lightly on the other's maroon.) But, alas, that sounds like a macaroon. Well, we will work it out, so that not even Kurt will quibble.

I'm glad you spoke of the reservation at the Normandie, because my poor brother frets for a confirmation. If Doris could use her good offices I'd be most grateful. They will want a good double room with bath for the nights of May 18, 19, and 20; but the Normandie will have to know that their plane arrives at London only at 8:30 p.m. on the night of the 18th (from Milan) so that the room will have to be held for them until they arrive as soon after 8:30 as they can get into town. Could Doris ask that a confirmation of the reservation be sent to him? (Mr Alfred K. Pearson, Goodnow & Pearson Co., Main Street, Gardner, Mass.) And it would be best if they could also acknowledge that there will be a late arrival and that the room will be held. I hate putting you and Doris to all this bother, but this will be their first trip to London together, and he has worked very hard for my mother and deserves the holiday. I will try to work out some program for them while they are there. Would the Normandie be able to get them theatre tickets ahead?

Congratulations on getting the Quest for the period you wanted. This will please Doris and your fellow Scillonians. How I envy you your visits to Masefield and the Henty girls.

I do not have the Stables' *Harry Milvaine*, so it will be an excellent addition to the collection. The *Ballantyne mss*, by the way, has arrived, and makes a jewel in the crown. I may also buy the ms of his first novel, also on the Hudson Bay area, but that will be enough of him. If only the girls would let us get at least one Henty ms on the basis of the permanent collection at Yale. It would be a wonderful exhibition piece and call attention to the whole.

7 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

Well, the judge wasn't impressed by Walden as you can see from the enclosed. It is hot off the press in the late afternoon editions and I hasten as always to keep you informed. Apparently nothing happened in the way of testimony to alter the judge from the opinions which he first carried into the courtroom. I must say I more than a little distrust the ultimate judgment of the "average person" "applying contemporary community standards." If we bowed to this always we would never move, for the same sort of criticism was applied to The Scarlet Letter by those who said it was brining the day of the French novel to America. It was interesting that last night at dinner before the symphony, when I talked to Judge Macdonald about Covello's ideas, Macdonald agreed that he could not see the legal relevance of whether or not the book was autobiographical, and that to appeal to the wisdom of the average person was as unwise as to appeal to what the lowest denominator might think of it, or how he would be affected by it.

The galleys came this afternoon, so that I shall be busy, busy, busy, as you may have been. I only hope your cries of anguish will arrive in time.

A wonderfully nice note arrived from George in today's mail, with a letter to Susan enclosed in the hope that he can lunch or have tea with her in New York before he leaves. He said that Ady was urging him to return next year; perhaps he will relent.

An equally nice note came from Petrie saying she was sorry we would not be over until next spring, but at the same time expressing (I thought) a little relief that they would be able to concentrate on the grandchild.

And the last two volumes of the four Dorothy Richardsons came in today, so that there is a set of the English edition to go with her other things at Yale. For them my thanks and Yale's.

Yesterday we lived in fear and trembling of the weather man, who reported the worst snowstorm of the year rapidly approaching us from the south and scheduled to leave up to two feet. But mirabile dictu it never came at all, and instead went out to sea with naught but gale winds and drizzle to bother us. Perhaps that will be the end of winter. I hope so.

We will work at the science fiction list when it comes. I had meant to remind you of it.

Saul Bellow? He is generally thought to be a leading writer, in his early forties, and therefore the winner of many prizes. His best known is The Adventures of Augie March (1953), and the most recent, Henderson, the Rain King (1959). I have never quite gone for him, and the praise of the latter sounded as though it was so pretentious that it must be good. But he is certainly an intelligent writer and a serious one.

Oh, damn those galleys! Think of me as I pore over them.

8 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 5th came in this afternoon's mail. Have not had a chance to check against the galleys but will leave that anyhow to Holsaert. However I do need the carbon in reference to the page proofs when they come. You will be all right in reference to a later British edition, for I have the third copy without any of the shifts to Americanisms of local understanding which he inserted. Or at least only a few of them which I may have noted from him, and which can easily be crossed out. So you can hand to whatever publisher wishes it.

Your plans for *Sikelia* sound very sur -realiste and your five readers will love it so long as you are consistent and mix in all the ages and the East as well as the West, China along with Cornwall. The problem will be if you should confine it to just a few things like wristwatches which will then be interpreted not as freedom from fact but as defense for laxity. Where are the snows of *l'année dernière* . Only Robbe Grillet didn't work so much with the postmigration in time (watches running backwards) as with the conscience working every which way in the present.

I enclose the review of the film from the New York Times to keep you up to date on its life here. He seemed confused although admiring. The best, I think, was the clipping I sent from last Sunday's. Susan is now keen to see the film, and I am anxious to see it again.

Today's staggerer in the mails was a request from the U.S. Commissioner of Education, in Washington, to come to a conference there on March 26-28 on The Ideals of American Freedom and the International Dimensions of Education. This would probably delight you, but I would be supposed to serve on the Committee of Curriculum Content. Its description:

"This committee will concern itself with how to achieve a balance in the structure and content of the curriculum from kindergarten through adult education. Teacher education, preservice and inservice, plays an important part in helping to achieve such a balance. Among the ramifications to be considered are: the sequence of subject matter at the various levels from kindergarten through adult education, the purposes to be achieved by each course at each level, the interrelationships among courses, and the emphasis to be placed on each of the social sciences and the humanities. The relative amount of time that should be devoted to teaching each subject as well as the ratio of time to be spent in teaching about the United States and about the rest of the world, should also be reviewed."

This is big enough for a mountain. But what is "preservice and inservice"?

I enclose a copy of a poem to Hilda which came yesterday from a nun who is well known as a critic and had not known of Hilda's death, living in Winona, Wisconsin, until a student brought her a clipping. "If God wills, we shall meet again," she writes at the end of her letter. It sounds ominous.

The *Spy Ring* and Lethbridge's latest came today from Bumpus, for which my grunts of pleasure and gratitude.

12 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

Just a five-minute note at the end of the day before
I hurry home after a public reading by Auden. He spends the night
with us, but is cocktailing and dining with undergraduate "poets".
This is fine by me. One cannot talk at cocktails, but over a highball
one can.

A most frustrating day, the sort I hate most of all because
nothing gets done. Auden arrived at eleven, and this took until twelve-
thirty when I delivered him over for lunch. Then he was back at 3:30
and I took him for coffee and to the lecture hall. Meanwhile at noon
a trucking firm called to say they had Hilda's ten cases in a nearby
town. I owed $64.88, could I pay this in cash in twenty minutes, no
checks, they would deliver to the sidewalk only, no they would not
carry the cases in even if I paid extra. And it was pouring, torrents
of water.

So fortunately I could go next door to the Yale Coop and
cash a check-- when I gave the man the money he could not give me the
change back from $65.00. And then arranged with the customs men after
lunch--trudging through the slop--to have the cases delivered to a
local warehouse where I will go with them next week and clear. Tomorrow
I have to go to the National Book Award in New York, and they have three
ships in the harbor.

I am slowly recovering from the galleys. Thursday night after
I put Susan on the night train for Washington, where she was judging the
National Flower Show on Friday--I worked until one-thirty. But I can only
go so many galleys at a time without going blind and dizzy. I wonder what
I missed.

Yours of the 9th was in today's mail, which is better going
than usual of late.

I answer only briefly and will do better on Wednesday I hope.
The Jung reference in Aurelia's letter is a rather exaggerated reply to my
saying you and I had gone over Miss Foote's things in Zurich, she being once
upon a time Jung's amanuensis. I will try to check on Wakefield's copy
of the Gandharan book. But I did order before I flew over to you.

Gaylord called me this afternoon and I drive out Friday morning
to consult with them about the operation, at least I presume so. They said
only that decisions should be made. All this will come out of my funds,
that is what they are to be used for. And if it can help him it will be
a privilege.

A letter from London said they were holding the Ballantyne ms
pending hearing from me. But when I went through your memoirs this last
time I knew we had to have it. For it is the manuscript of 'The Young Fur
Traders' which you say was your great love as a child. I shall deposit it
with trembling hands into your grasp.

14 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

My only sorrow for the Goughs being with you is of course
that there has been no time for you to write. But then because of
Auden's visit and my having to be in New York yesterday for the National
Book Award I didn't write either, so that lacunae will be balancing.

Auden's visit was pleasant, the first chance for any extended
conversation we have had in several years. He has become slightly portly
in figure but still has the kind of boyish manner which lets him put on
carpet slippers immediately to ease his corns, and rejoice in the fact
that he has been made an honorary member of Christ Church College, at
Oxford. He is dedicating his collection of essays to Neville Coghill,
a tutor there, and has just written a long poem in praise of Tolkien,
which is to appear in a festschrift being published in the latter's
honor, 70th birthday, or some such suitable excuse. Best of all his
qualities is the ability to laugh. We did a lot of laughing together.

The trip to New York was exhausting, as one might have expected.
I had forgotten that both bus lines were on strike and headed for Madison
Avenue to take a bus uptown to return some eskimo ivories that had been
sent to me on approval, but which I did not approve. I did buy one small
shaft straightener, the least expensive of the lot. The other four pieces
added nothing to what I have. But I am glad enough to see whatever appears,
since it gives me a better idea of what exists and at what prices. But
there was no bus to help me, and finally I had to walk to the front entrance
of St Patrick's cathedral, not because I was going in for prayer but because
I thought others might. Fortunately they did. On my way back to New
Haven that night I managed by running away from the dinner, to catch the
9 o'clock, but it was so crowded that I had to stand until the train
reached Stamford. After standing for hours at the various parties for
the Award, I sank into a deep sleep when I finally did get a cushion
beneath me.

John was at the award and had hoped that I would go home with
him for dinner, as I did last year. But having insisted that the Award
itself arrange a dutch treat dinner at the Park Lane, for the reviewers
and publishers I felt I had to go. Unless I get my own idea of how these
things work out there is no basis on which I can comment at later Advisory
Committee meetings. Almost none of the reviewers had read the novel which
won the prize, so its author's interview by them was not sparkling. Few
had themselves head Mumford's book on the city-- hundreds of pages long;
so only vacuities were spoken in its connection at the press conference.
And of course no one reads poetry, so that was a little dull. I shall
have to work on trying to brighten up that section of the day. But every-
thing else went well enough, and the consensus was that the occasion was
a success.

The sun actually came out today. We are all exhilerated.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

I celebrate having my own letterhead back from the printers. But how too bad that it has no "et cetera" like Dame Edith's! (What a display. Surely ....!)

I had expected to go to Gaylord yesterday morning to talk with Horace's doctor, but he called just as I was leaving a little after eight to say that he (the doctor) had too rotten a cold to see me. I went instead this morning in what was almost a springtime sun. The story seems to be this. The various examinations indicate that Horace has never had any damage above the neck, and the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis has always been incorrect. Instead he has a situation about a third down the bacbone by which a curvature (perhaps induced by tuberculosis) has pressured the spinal nerve, which at moments of added pressure has brought about a paralysis of the left side, leg and arm. He has not had any thrombosis. What is in question now is whether or not surgery might relieve this condition and likelihood of recurrence, either by a fusion or by cutting away enough so that the pressure is done away with. Dr. German, a famous neuro surgeon at Yale, would like to have Horace in the New Haven hospital for a few days to check on the diagnosis (he concurs preliminarily after studying the x-rays) and then decide whether or not surgery would be useful. X-rays also indicate a distinct touch of tuberculosis on the lung, but since this has not increased in the past eighteen months, simple treatment may take care of this. It is also possible that because of Horace's heavy smoking it may be a cancerous growth. But because Horace breathes now only with difficulty no lung surgery is possible, and of course may not at all be necessary since it may be the leftover of the likely childhood tb which resulted in the glandular condition of his neck and may have asserted itself in Horace's bone structure. In terms of Horace's general muscular situation there has been enough improvement to indicate that much can and already has been salvaged.

The situation is to be discussed this afternoon with Horace and Marya and Pat, but they wanted to talk to me first. I assured him that the cost ought not to figure in the Gregorys' decision, and that I hoped Horace would at least go into the hospital for Dr German's final diagnosis. Also that if he went Horace had better have a private room, to which Dr Anderson enthusiastically agreed. It is amusing that no real study of the x-rays seems to have been made either at Johns Hopkins or at Presbyterian Hospital in New York (Columbia University's medical center). In fact the New York doctor at Presbyterian said that the x-rays at Johns Hopkins had shown no such traces, which is the reason these were sent for. They did show just this in relation both to the back and to the lungs. It is really scandalous, or at least most careless as a diagnosis.

Horace was in bed when I went on to see him, and although I did not mention the discussion of the lungs and left the decisions naturally up to him and Marya, I did make the financial matter clear, and mildly

NORMAN
HOLMES
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231 H G

repeat while

repeat what I had said last Sunday, that if it was to be done this was the time to do it when he could come back to Gaylord for recuperation. And I said I thought it might be good in any case to have the final checkup done by German. Horace was in good spirits and has continued to make progress. His latest achievement is to be begin to get himself out of his wheelchair and into his walker, on his own power. He is also delighted because they have taught him how to turn over by himself in bed, by explaining how he can use his shoulder muscles and how to use his one good leg. His physical therapist (female) is married to a graduate student in classics at Yale, and her husband brought three other graduate students out yesterday to ask questions about poetry etc., and Horace could give the husband tips on what he ought to read in the way of books on the classics. This gave him a lift. So all goes well. I shall of course not know the decision in all probability until I come back from Alabama on Wednesday.

Two yellowbacks have come, and been read with interest. Many thanks for returning the science fiction which I shall now get to work on. I am amazed at how intelligently you have built your collection up, and almost think I ought to see to it that you have from mine anything you may lack which I cannot easily buy for you. Aldington's trip to Russia should be good for him, and I gather Catha is to go also. Is there a change of tone in Catha's letters, less lightness of touch? She seems to try to write more with an adult's seriousness; one misses the happy girl for whom there is only the present. Osbert's good spirits seem to have returned, and I liked his story of the old American dame in Florence who has found her synthetic fountain of youth. I wish I could be sorry about David, but I do hope this won't saddle Osbert too desperately. Sachie must be a little in a state of suspension with all the sadness and anxiety about him. And Edith writes with a sense of desperation if I am not mistaken. What was perhaps merriest was Islay's account of the ten-year-old Gilles and his thwarted selfpresentation in the nude. As Kenneth says, Gilles will go far, but it looks as though others would be en route to meet him.

Am grateful for the list of recipients of the memoirs. As Susan says, there will have to be a second printing before publication. I should say yes to Heydt, to Gerald, Rita, and Margaret Pratt even before the English edition. I can have an American copy sent to Quirk, or wait for the English edition as you think best.

I am scandalized about Coigny's dismissal. It is brutal and uncalled for in terms of decorum, and certainly unwise in terms of policy. What upsets me most is the way they have gone about doing this. I should think the colony would be united on her side rather than split apart. Damn them all!

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

18 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

Another one of these brief late-in-the-afternoon
notes, especially since I doubt that I can send more than a
postcard, if that, until Thursday when I return from Alabama.
I take the six o'clock bus tomorrow morning from the Hotel
Taft, and no doubt will be sleepy all day. My lecture comes
Tuesday night, following a cocktail party and dinner given me
by the president of the university; the dean has a similar
arrangement for me tomorrow night.

I did not get out to see Horace today, but phoned
him to see how his talks went yesterday. He seemed pleased
with Dr Anderson's showing him the x-rays, and said that what
now remained was to arrange for Dr German to see him, probably
in New Haven at the hospital. He would go in by ambulance I
gather -- expensive, but it would be too upsetting for him
otherwise. Then Dr German can decide whether it would be ad-
visable to have surgery. But Horace is happy because whether
or not they do this he feels that the past 36 hours have shown
a marked improvement which the people at Gaylord have noticed.
At least he says so; they may be cheering him up. The best is
it a new definition of an "inner reality."

My sister and brother-in-law and their son and daughter
were with us last night and this morning, to give the boy a first
glimpse of Yale. They left early today, since he had to play with
his high school band in a parade in Holyoke, to celebrate St Patrick's
Day. At least it has given me a full afternoon at my desk, which I
must say looks much improved. Last night for dinner I took them to
Mory's, and afterwards to the Eastern swimming championships, since
they boy also goes out for swimming as his sprort at school.

Holsaert sent me the enclosed, presumably for me quietly
to pass on, as I do. I gather he thinks that the commas are a mannerism
rather than a style. Wait until he reads about the wristwatch on
Hannibal's ankle.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

Life has been an abomination ever since I got back Wednesday
night from Alabama. I have had to do too many things at once. The one
thing I have not been able to do is to write you. I was exhausted of
course from the trip, and even in three days my desk was piled high again.
Then on Thursday I found that Horace was coming in to the New Haven
hospital that afternoon, and so I have been to see him each day. He is
of course lonely and mongs to be back at Gaylord again. Thursday there
was also a visiting doctoral candidate from Bryn Mawr who wanted to see
my collection of Williams' books for the bibliography she was doing. The
only opportunity she had was to come to the house Thursday night after
dinner. I fetched her at 8:30 but the wretch did not finish her task
until a quarter past one. Susan had long since gone to bed, but I had to
drive her back to the YWCA and then put away the books which had been spread
on the table in the kitchen. It was two o'clock before I got to bed myself,
and so was exhausted all day yesterday. Even a visit from some evidently
psychopathic ex-teacher, whose sole message seemed to be saying to me, "I
wanted to tell you I venerate you," did not really cheer me. Last night
I read the manuscript of a book on Louis Sullivan for a New York publisher.
And today I have begun to struggle with my income tax, always a confused
task even though an accountant really makes it out in the end. But I can
repeat all these details in another letter.

Horace's hospitalization is for the final checkup that I wrote
you of. The neurosurgeon saw him last night and again today. He has had a
few more checks, but the main one, an x-ray after an infusion of the spinal
fluid, will come on Monday. Then the surgeon can make up his mind. He tells
Horace his case is a complex one, not unlinked to arthritis, and his life
shows a series of ups and downs which may mean some improvement anyway. He
will not operate unless he can more or less promise some reasonably marked
gain from it. Horace has a single room, but rather a dreary one, and his
insides are kicking up again, presumably from the tension and being bed-
ridden. He counts so much on my coming that I now have to consider this
my main daily duty. I took him Osbert's newest book on Thursday and he
had read it with delight, more or less at one sitting. Today I took him a
number of other books you have earlier sent me, chiefly light British novels.
They are a godsend to him. Yesterday I served as secretary and took down at
his dictation a letter to the New York Times replying to a letter written in
protest at his review of Muir. I typed it up and sent it off with a note
this morning. So you see I am developing new talents.

Quickly. Do you mean that Ingholt never sent you the same
pamphlet about Greenland that he sent me, with descriptions of the tours and
their dates and costs? If he didn't, thinking it was to have been sent to
me, I will airmail mine over. I am becoming eager for us both to take one
of the two trips to East Greenland, especially before it becomes too common.
I should prefer the first of the two in order to avoid getting the dregs of
the first excursion. I still search for my Mackenzie pamphlet which I cannot

find. It may all be pa and mean I think that the Greenland one would really give us the touch of glaciers we didn't quite have, and tuck away the needed experience for anything, including the memoirs, that one might want to make of it. Let me know at once, and I will send mine over.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

I start the morning by playing hookey from work, my secretary being home with migraine and so not here to act as my conscience. At least I did manage to get together my income tax material so that I can now hand it over to the accountant to work on. It is always a frightful mess of bills and checks to go over. My income is small enough, and from comparatively few sources that that part isn't difficult. But being Yankee I insist on deducting sales taxes, as one is allowed to do from bills, computing business expenses, and listing whatever charitable gifts are allowable. I always think it is better economy to spend two days of hell with my accounts rather than piddle a year. Actually, paying everything by check, as I do, is really as effective as a ledger.

I visited Horace again yesterday afternoon, and had my usual good visit. Like yourself he was curious about the Hemingway manuscripts and thinks -- I am sure he is right -- that there is some story behind it all. My own reasonable guess is that all was not peaceful and quiet with "Miss Mary" at the end, and that some things were hidden from her. Now of course, like Mme O'Neill, she will be the overwhelmingly loyal and loving and protecting relict. We also had a profitable, for me, talk on Cummings, and Horace went over the revised selections from Cummings for the anthology, making three suggestions which really did the trick and changed the thesis doxy of what I had chosen into something much firmer and more meaningful. He had sat in his wheelchair for a little, but complained that even two days in bed, no three, weakened him so that he could sit only for a very little while. I realized once more how very thin a surface his recovery skated on. But he was in reasonably good spirits, had been absorbed in the Sybil Bedford account of Dr Adams' trial, which I took him, and thought that all the student nurses looked like Sarah Lawrence girls. They like him, address him as "Dr. Gregory," and hover. He has a gay Irish way with them. He had expected Pat and Marya to drive up yesterday, but they didn't, and he was delighted at my offer to call her when I got back to the office last night. She was pleased to hear, and said that someone was driving her up to the hospital today to see him. Actually this is rather too bad, since I expect he will have had his spinal puncture and be miserable. But perhaps he will feel all the better for seeing her. I can't go today anyhow, since I must attend a meeting of the Mark Twain Memorial trustess in Hartford, my first meeting in many months. Now that I have long since managed to get them going on their own, it is better a little to withdraw from it except when much needed.

Your two letters of the 21st and 22nd were in this morning's mail, for which my thanks. I am sorry about the difficulties with Holsaert and Wolff. They are really not so much difficulties with them, I fancy, as with the American reading public especially the particular audience which has become devoted to your work. They follow the same instinct that Adrienne had that you would find your most effective writing in the classical style, and that your gift was to reinvigorate that manner by a poet's instinct for

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

the color and power of the word, -- what first drew you to Mallarme and to Hilda. It was interesting to me that you should remember what Adrienne said, for she was always deeply perceptive; and I suspect she would have called you an avant gard classicist rather than a beatnik.

Yes, I do know some beatniks, in addition to yourself. Denise Levertov is generally regarded as one of the leaders; so is Robert Duncan. Another who exercises a certain power in that field is of course Sheri Martinelli. Others are Ginzberg and Kerouac. But oddly enough none of these are really experimental in matters of punctuation. You will be a leader in that.

We can worry about Harcourt and the Wolves when the time comes. It won't be time for another book actually to be published until 1964, and you will have had time to firm up *Sikelia* and the second part of the memoirs, without being pushed as you have been with this last volume. Meanwhile, as I suggested, if you get the first draft of *Sikelia* out of the way, and are really dissatisfied with parts of *Artemis* there is no reason why you shouldn't rewrite sections of it before a British publication. It often happens that even the texts of British and American publications of the same book differ, and whichever you prefer can ultimately become the definitive text.

You are quite right about Coigny. She must be firm on her terms of willingness to remain, and must have it in black and white if she stays at all. Bureaucracies are the same the world over; they act by rote and defend by laws or customs conjured up to meet the exigencies of the situation. It is no good to talk about what might happen in a year or two; the heads will have changed their posts and the agreements will have been forgotten. Alas, I suppose what really counts for Coigny is that at heart she enjoys the daily contacts which the consulate affords her.

I am sorry about Óonnagh's miscarriage, and only wish she were in the States where they are a number of doctors, especially at the Yale Medical Center who make a specialty of such conditions. One of my colleagues has a wife who had several miscarriages, but now after coming here she is within a month of giving birth with all the nonchalance of a peasant. I am even sorrier about Doris; the prognosis seems much gloomier. And how sad to think of Beryl as no longer the "peril." I remember so well our visit to her, when Waley made his regal appearance. I saw her many times at Edith's, and liked her immensely. Her work on the Eastern dance did make a real impact. She was an unusual and a gifted woman.

The Gregories will be grateful for your gift to them, and I imagine will immediately feel that this should be put away against his return to Palisades; since I have told them that I would carry all expenses at Maylord and at the hospital here, they will not think it a part of that problem. But Marya will need extra money for her trips to New Haven, and I believe they are saving to take a trip abroad if Horace recovers sufficiently. When one really knows, as in truth one cannot yet really know, what the degree of recovery will be, I thought I would get down to brass tacks about their financial needs at Palisades, for daily living rather than trips however. My understanding was that you wanted me to take over their future support.

I am really upset that you have not known details about Greenland, and since you now say that you have written the Travel Agency I will wait for them

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

to send you the folder rather than send my copy. Ingholt must have thought
you wanted it sent to me. I am completely bewildered as to what I could have
done with the Mackenzie folder I sent you. I simply cannot find it after
my return from Switzerland, and so have not been able to contact the family
in Willimantic to inquire. But perhaps this is the gods' doing. The two
arctic geologists here think the trip would be rather a dreary one if
extended to four weeks in a six-passenger open boat. They speak of rain
and mosquitoes, and the miles and miles of monotonous flatlands on either
side of a river too broad for anyone to see much. When given the opportunity
of seeing East Greenland for a two weeks jaunt in a Quest-like boat, I
become more and more pulled in that direction, especially since as they go
on with these Greenland tours a little of the bloom will wear off. This
one to south and east of Greenland is to be given twice, with departures from
Copenhagen on July 25 and August 8. I suggest the first of the two dates
chiefly because I'd rather be on the first boat in than on the second; one
is better received on the first break from their winter monotony, and if
souvenirs and food are in question we get first pick at polar bear steak.
One goes back through Prinz Christiansund, sees the weather station at
Tingmiarmiut from which the boat came to meet ours for mail, and then on
to Skjoldungen. Also we add the hot springs settlement of the Vikings,
can see Eric the Red's home (which we missed) etc. This would give us a
firm sense both of the Viking area, and of the really glacial country. I
might some day take the boat trip up the west coast to Sarqaq, but it isn't
so important as to get the wilder feel of the island. Susan doesn't want
to take the Greenland trip, but possibly she could meet us again in Denmark
and the three of us jump up to Oslo to see the boats and museum there. You
and I might do Hitzacker en route to Copenhagen.

A letter in this morning's mail confirmed the order of the manuscript of *The Young Fur Traders*. I knew we had to have it when I realized from *Artemis* that this had really been your start. It is a great piece of sentimental luck.

Another letter announced the publication of a play by Marianne. *The Absentee*, a comedy in four acts, based on Maria Edgeworth's novel. I shall order one for myself, but wait to see if she doesn't send you one before ordering for you. Only 300 copies to be printed.

You did send Lady Vyyvyan's memoirs, but I have not had a chance to
get to it yet. I told you, I think, that the Nesbit arrived, to my shame,
and the Stef child's book on the arctic. Also Hilda's four copies of Dorothy
Richardson. For all of which my salaams.

Why not use the Greenland trip as an excuse for not doing Kashmir.
At least this year. I am glad you enjoyed Kenneth's visit. It is a pity
he feels the weight of age so much. It is greenlandic fear, I think; though
it is a male rather than a female situation. Men seem to depend upon the
body so much more, and have a tendency always to move towards a younger
companion and fear being rejected by him for a younger one of his own. The

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

sin of a greenlandic male is vanity of the flesh, or at least fear of it. But deeper than that is the terror of loneliness. I am sure it is no joke for Kenneth, and this is the reason why he relents and is willing to make this trip to content Islay. If you were along, you could go with Islay on the rougher trips and permit Kenneth to save himself.

I suspect you are right about Kenneth's book, and that it is really for the English market first rather than the American. I'd like to see the manuscript, but then I would be apt to make suggestions and that wouldn't do.

Separately I sent you some typescripts of Yale radio talks on fiction which I thought you might like. Did you want me to send you some paperbacks of Saul Bellow? Very easy to do.

I did send you a clipping of my comments on Judge Cavello's decision that the Henry Miller was indeed pornographic. You asked in this morning's letter what had happened to the case, but I imagine have been too busy with your influx of guests.

By now I suppose George is bank at Marvels. Susan had a pleasant tea with him last Monday and liked him as much as we all do. He gallantly saw her to the train.

I was interested in Aurelia's letter to you. Daily I expect to get a wire announcing the funeral. I try not to write her too often, lest she feel the extra burden of correspondence. What a dreary life it must be for her.

My own morning mail was filled with things connected. The Ballantyne, the Moore, and also an invitation from the Austrian consul-general to attend a reception in honor of Urzidil's honorary professorship on April 11th. Alas, I don't see how I can go. On the night of the 12th I have to be in Philadelphia to give a doctoral examination in American literature for the University of Pennsylvania; the 13th is my birthday; and on the 14th I have to give my lecture on *The Great Gatsby* to a convention of several hundred here.

Greenland would be a blessing.

All love,
Norman

getting into a Russian novel with crowds of characters.
I'm sorry I forgot to say that the check did arrive and was duly acknowledged. Give my
greetings to Benay when you see him.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

27 March 1962 (a.m.)

Dearest Fido,

Last night, after I had returned from Hartford, Dr Anderson at Gaylord phoned to tell me the result of the spinal x-ray taken with the injection of a dye in the spinal fluid. Dr German discovered what he called the worst spinal block he had ever seen, and the operation is taking place now as I write to you. I did not try to go to see Horace, as it was late and I knew that the orderlies would be prepping him for surgery and in all likelihood he would already have been given a sedative. I am only glad that they did not make Horace wait around for the operation. Of course all this sounds dreadful, and it is dreadful. But all this is in terms of the condition that has been allowed to continue during so much of his life. Dr Anderson is jubilant, and Dr German is most optimistic that since the trouble lies so much near the root of the blockage, an operation might well give really spectacular relief. One hopes that one may be witnessing a semi-miracle. Having forgotten to do so last night, I called Dr Anderson this morning and asked him to get private nurses for as long as they thought necessary. Poor Horace cannot use his hands and would be helpless particularly at first. This is all a completely Churchillian gesture on my part, as it were, but naturally I hope you approve. Dr Anderson is going in this afternoon to the hospital and will let me know. I shall not try to go before tomorrow.

Have also just finished seeing a young woman from the library who will catalogue the various Moravian documents that you had collected for Hilda. She is German so this will be easy, we will know precisely what there is, and can later decide exactly what should be done with them. This summer I shall put someone exclusively at work to put her papers as a whole into order. Otherwise I shall be swamped and never really get it done. This will relieve me so that I can get at more important work before we go to Greenland, if you agree to that.

Your letters of the 23rd and 24th were in this morning's mail. Your battle goes on gloriously, and Dame Edith has no edge on you in putting on the air of **grande dame**. Dame Bryher O[ld] B[eatnik] E[mulator]. What delights me most is to see you adopt precisely the opposite position of the beatnik in asserting the decorous impecability of your manner. With such an air of the "establishment" you must be avant garding backwards. Actually you were a little rough on him, since you used to feel that both Pantheon and Collins didn't "push" your things hard enough, which of course means wanting a larger rather than a smaller audience. I think this is what confuses Helen. Oh well, it will be fun finding the right new publisher for the next book. We can't count on Viking, for they don't dig **avant gard** punctuation. (I'm sorry! I should say, "proper" (the equivalent of what is not "vu Igar.")

I do congratulate you on having had a good nose for Percy's *The Moviegoer*. I missed it completely, and although I have bought it, I haven't yet read it. Susan meanwhile is reading an advance copy of Katherine Anne Porter's *Ship of Fools*. It is apparently long, and involved, rather like

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

28 March 1962 (10.00 a.m.)

Dearest Fido,

Dr Anderson has just called to say that he talked with Dr German's assistant and that everything seemed to be fine. They had decompressed the whole cervical cord, and as they worked upward from the base it was said that the response even in his inert body was marked. The surgeon is naturally guarded, but there is every reason to believe that the surgery will be effective in arresting further and perhaps even fatal consequences of the blockage, and there may well be a definitely marked improvement.

The only rather unhappy circumstance was that although Horace was apparently taken up to surgery in the morning, he did not actually go on to the table until late afternoon or early evening and did not go into the recovery room until 7:30 p.m. Meanwhile Marya had arrived in the early afternoon and had to sit around worrying because Horace was, as they properly but frighteningly expressed it, "still in surgery." She interpreted this to mean that he was still in the operating room rather than that section of the hospital. She called me at three and wanted me to take her to the Hotel Taft and then back to the hospital. She could of course, though I did not tell her, have taken a taxi for the few blocks; but I got her a room and suggested that she rest there until the hospital called her. She was prepared to stay several days, but I discovered had brought only thirty dollars with her and no cheque book, so I gave her fifty dollars in cash which I happened to have on me. She wept and said she didn't count, and never had, it was only Horace who was helped, etc. etc, but I kidded her out of that and left her smiling again. She was naturally very tense. We had a Japanese couple for dinner at the house (the wife speaks very few words of English), and the dinner hour and afterwards was of course filled with many calls about Horace none of which could be answered until I had phoned the hospital as "Dr. Pearson" and found that he was well out of ether but spending the night in the recovery room since they could not get a private nurse for him. I called Marya about 9:15 and suggested that she come out to the house for the rest of the evening so as not to be alone, and then drove down to get her. We were showing the Takuwas my photographs of Charleston, and Marya listened and watched politely; but then rather took over the floor with literary gossip, references to French publishing practises, and the like which did rather cut the poor Takuwas out. Susan was rather irritated by what she later called Marya's "pontificating," but I got her to autograph a volume of her poems from my shelf for the Takuwas, so at least they have a nice souvenir. And Marya was certainly glad not to be left alone, so we did our duties in several directions. I presume she will spend most of the day at the hospital, and Dr Anderson said that Horace was comfortable and fine by now, and they hoped to be able to have special nurses for him. I will try to run down this afternoon to see him and will report to you then.

Altogether it was rather a Bryher-Pearson day, as I had to be at Customs at 11:30 after lunch to go through Hilda's ten packing cases.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Fortunately they only opened two of them and raised no fuss at all. The
inspector could not have been politer, was interested in H.D., but had
never heard of her, and I was in my most deferent and helpless way. One
of the two cases was splendid --the first one opened. It contained a
typescript of "Helen" made originally by me, some photographs of *Borderline*,
and some miscellaneous postcards. But the second was the one case I hoped
they wouldn't open, for it was full of multiple copies of Hilda's privately
printed books, Kenneth's ditto, etc., and looked like the stock for a small
bookshop. I talked about Hilda's interest in publishing, and oh no I
wouldn't dream of every selling any of them, for my if I did so wouldn't
I be criticised. So I shall have to be careful about puttings ads in the
local newspapers. I am simply leaving the cases in storage until summer,
when the term's work at the office is finished, and I can pile the things
up for examination without giving the public appearance of a Hall of Graduate
Studies warehouse. I had really no sooner gotten back from Customs before
Marya called. So my day's progress on the oration on *The Great Gatlett* was
nil. Characteristically.

In the T.L.S. which just came was a report of the sale of Edith's
manuscripts, and actually I realized that her own papers did not really
fetch what I should have called an extraordinary price for the records of
a lifetime. Especially in comparison, for example, to the Ronald Firbank
items (an amusing writer and a gifted one, but of no real importance).
Edith had 57 notebooks containing more than 9,000 pages of drafts
and working notes. Altogether they brought £6,260. Fourteen autograph
letters and 51 typed letters from Eliot to Middleton Murray, about 90 pages
in all, fetched £1,400. Well, Edith's manuscripts have gone to Texas,
anyhow, and so are safe from every danger except the handling of pedants.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Afternoon.

I didn't go down to see Horace after all. Marya called after lunch to say that Horace was feeling better, but of course there was not much change and it seemed to me she was company enough for him. I needed to keep at my reading for the lecture. She wanted too to know what to do with the cheque you sent, which has arrived. I said to deposit it in Horace's name and they could either pay part of the Gaylord bill afterwards or keep it for the extra expenses when he went home. Yesterday she talked again about their need of money after they were together again, but I said it would be better to wait until we knew more definitely what the prognosis would be. I suspect it really will be better for me to make whatever regular allowance is to be made, dividing the money between them to save the tax I would have to pay. Or we shall have to plan any division between use carefully so as not to overlap. Dr Anderson called today, and said the hospital was planning to keep Horace there until after the stitches are taken out, which will be at least a week from now. Then Gaylord will take him back, though they have given his bed to a new patient and he may have to wait a day or two extra in New Haven at the proper time to be sure to find space. It is idle now to speculate on how long he should stay at Gaylord after that.

I called the local very-rare-book-dealer about Doris's purse, and he was not surprised that Maggs was not interested in it. He said he certainly would not be and doubted that it would be easy for any dealer to sell it except to a devoted Charlotte Bronte collector. Perhaps I can find one, but he had no idea of what the value was. He thought not much. But he did make a sensible suggestion and this was that someone should take the purse to Sotheby's and get their opinion of what it might sell at auction, if they wanted it at all. This would give it a certain publicity in the catalogue if they took it, and there might well be some one. It is all a little like Elinor Wylie's brassiere which Bill Benet kept as a kind of fetich until his death (she was his second wife), and his fourth wife who somehow didn't fancy keeping it herself, as a widow, offered it to me. I am a great one for memorabilia, as you know, But I don't cross-dress in Elinor's image and so thought I would have no use for it. However, to return to the purse, I could buy it, as I said earlier, and give it to Yale where it might very occasionally be shown along with an exhibition of Miss Bronte's mss and first editions. Or I can try to dig out the Bronte collectors and offer it, if Sotheby's can give some estimate of what it might fetch. This same sort of thing in connection with Mark Twain is what is useful for his house, and a nuisance to libraries.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 March 1962 (5:30 p.m.)

Dearest Fido,

It looks as though we may have made a mild miracle possible. I am just back from seeing Horace for a few minutes. He lifted his right hand to brush his forehead with a confidence and ease I have never seen in him before. Marya says he can wriggle the toes of his left foot, and that he feels prickles and little pains where he felt nothing before. He says he has a liberation he has not known for many years, and felt this as soon as he was off the surgical table. The doctors are apparently jubilant, according to his own report and Marya's. And Marya says they found so deplorable a condition that in two months it would have been too late; he would have been totally paralyzed. One can never tell about such statements, but Marya is jubilant and full of your praise as a servant of God (to use her own words). Actually Horace had just had a needle and was very groggy. He has a certain amount of pain in his neck, and will have for some time. He is of course very weak, but he shows the same wonderful spirit he always has shown. He had a nice day nurse who was alert to help him at any moment, even when he wanted to cough and couldn't quite raise the sputum without her help. Marya had been there all day, and he was alert and did a good deal of talking. Thanks to the little extra we gave her yesterday she will stay on at the Taft until Saturday, which will be nice for Horace. I will stop in each day but let her be his company.

Everything really does look fine at this point, and naturally I am much relieved. I felt an immense responsibility for having half-cajoled him into surgery, and all yesterday while we waited I couldn't help but wish that a better world would have let me go on the table so that he could have the benefits if any. One must still of course wait a long while to see what the actual profit will be, but meanwhile the fact that the pressure is no longer there, and that he can wriggle, gives one a great sense of joy. He has apparently had many more of these partial paralyses than we have known. Marya said that when he first went to teach at Sarah Lawrence he was in the midst of one but did not dare tell lest he lose his job, nor go to a sanitarium lest they lock him up as an invalid forever. He managed by using a typewriter, keeping his stricken hand in his pocket, and making the students use the blackboard for whatever had to be written there.

Your letter of the 25th was rapidly in today's mail. Mrs Macpherson delights me as ever. This is a real privilege you are having, a peep into the mind and spirit of the past. Make her talk; make her talk. Your Montreux novel begins to shape.

I was interested in the Spitzbergen card, and to learn that the right name was Longyear City. I will change in the page proof if I can, but we had actually left it the other way as you had said to. It doesn't figure in any atlases.

I doubt that the Hotsons are annoyed, only self-absorbed. I forgot to write that a few days ago I met Leslie on the street near the library. He was rushing for books, but stopped to "welcome me back to America." I said we

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

lunch soon, but he was too deep in his plans for books to respond. Mary called me night before last to ask about the character of a young instructor in American Studies to whom they were thinking of giving their house for the summer while they were at Sorrento. She was much relieved when I said he had once been married. She licked her chops with satisfaction. "I don't think much of those homosexuals," she confided, but didn't say whether they would ruin the haycrop in the front yard. When I told you had finished the memoirs, she exclaimed, "Oh, if only Leslie could! He's only halfway through." This must be the eighteenth rewriting, if the earlier reports were true. Perhaps he has found some new evidence.

Did you send the copy of Keton-Cramer's *Forty Norfolk Essays* which came without a card from a Tunbridge Wells dealer? I thought it just possible that George might have done so.

Now that Horace is on the mend, I can get back to my lecture on "Reading a Novel--The Great Gatsby." I'd better; this is the last week of vacation, and comprehensive examinations for seniors begin on Monday.

myself, or when Helen did. Although perhaps she had a hand in this.

We go to Mrs Wohlenberg's (now Mrs Robley's) for dinner tonight, so I must get back to Gatsby to see if I can get another page out of the way.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

31 March 1962

Dearest Fido,

I'm sorry there was no letter yesterday, but I was tired and when I finally began to write my lecture on *Gatsby* I thought I'd better keep at it. Actually I only finished two typed pages, but the beginnings of a talk are always the most difficult for me. I did not go down to see Horace. Marya was there with him, and I knew that I could not get an edgewise word in and that she would keep him busy. I have been this afternoon however, and am just back. Pat and some girl, who had driven him up so that they could drive Marya back, were there. Pat has a good deal of poise, and is wonderfully kind both to his father and to his mother. Actually I now believe the present responsibilities are maturing him.

It was wonderful to see Horace continue to improve. Although he cannot yet feed himself or read, he moves both hands with greater ease than I have ever seen him do. And as he lay there he lifted both hands and folded them on his chest as though this had always been a habitual action on his part. He is eager to be back at Gaylord, and Pat was wondering when he could go home to Palisades again, but in these matters I can only say we must wait to see, and try to dampen any hopes of miraculously swift regaining of the use of his muscles. I'll take miracles one at a time. They do listen to me, and I think are a little comforted by my outward confidence. Horace is amused that his case continues to arouse immense interest on the part of the staff, and groups of doctors come each day to note down the precise extent of his recovery. On Monday he is to be allowed to sit up for 3¼ of an hour, for the first time. I still reckon at least a week more in the hospital before Gaylord. He still has his three private nurses, and Dr German says he must continue during this helpless period. He can still really do nothing for himself, and his legs need some sort of special attention. The bill for the three is sixty dollars a day for the whole batch of them, but under the circumstances worth it.

Marya has deposited your cheque and hopes to save it for, she says, a two weeks trip to Bermuda or some such place. "My dream." Well it may be foolish, but perhaps if he really recovers sufficiently they deserve a little spree.

The page proofs arrived Thursday night, but fortunately do not have to go back to the printers until the 6th, so when the *Gatsby* paper is finished tomorrow (I hope; I have now done nearly 8 pages of it) I can enter the changes you wanted and make a quick check of the rest. I spoke with Holsaert on the phone and he said he had sent you the proof as you had requested, but of course they will have to have any changes before the 6th. They still hope, by crowding, to make the scheduled publication date. He also sent up the jacket material which arrived yesterday afternoon with a request that I phone back my approval. I did, although I thought the copy rather pedestrian. I really think I did a much better job when I did them

over 6 1/2 hours under an anaesthetic, and 5 3/4 hours on the operating table. Anderson had
expected a period of greater paralysis immediately following the operation, rather than this
great release.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

This is absolutely a note, since I must rush off
for a long-promised appointment to meet Kathleen Raine, the
British poet, for cocktails. She is to speak her tomorrow,
and presumably I am asked to this party to guarantee my going
tomorrow. Marya says she is both a bad poet and bad on Blake,
and people only feel sorry for her because her husband ran off
with Stephen Spender's wife. But this is too complicated for
me. I am not sent to sing by reading her poems, but they have
their quality.

The main thing is that I have just put the stamps
and a special delivery fee on the letter containing the page-proofs
on which there were corrections to be made, so they should be in
Holsaert's hands tomorrow. I am fearfully sorry about the fear
that Philip's corrections had been omitted. When your cable came
I took it for granted they must have been, but when I got to that
page I took out Philip's letter and found it had been set exactly
as he suggested. That is, with the exception I cabled you about.
Somehow the crucial "almost" in "almost all" had been left out,
and both Philip and I and you yourself would have taken a dim
view of that. So I am glad you feared, and at the same time am
glad things were no worse.

I was able to include most of Kenneth's suggestions,
all, really, except for the additional spring flowers in Capri,
which had too many letters in the addition to be able to work them
in on the page. And the same was true with Yearlong City, and
since, as you say, it was a quibble for Holsaert to question North
City, I let it go. Who cares, except a historian.

Re-reading the page proofs was really a pleasure, for
I think the book stands up very well indeed. And now we, or rather
you, can go on to the next. By all means keep at *Sikelia* if you
have your energy up. This stimulus may be just what you have needed
for it. A novel has to find its own moment, as we saw with *Ruan*.

I saw Horace for a minute last night, after dinner, before get-
ing back to the proof. Dr Anderson, of Gaylord, also stopped in while
I was there, and I had a chance to speak to him in the hallway after-
ward. He was both delighted and surprised at the ease which has re-
turned to Horace's hand, and immediately noticed that the tremor had
left them. Horace is happy that the left side of his body is warm
again and that he can put his knees together without a strange fuzzy
feeling coming over him. He speaks of the operation now as his "third
birth," -- the first having been his natural one, the second when he
recovered from peritonitis at the age of 9, and this time when he was

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

You get nothing but a series of breathless notes from me. But of course I am breathless, and so why not so with my letters. I am just out from listening to a public lecture on T.E.Lawrence, given by an Irving Howe who is a professor of American Studies at Stanford. Not that T.E.L. has anything to do with American Studies. But I know Howe, and have to have cocktails with him shortly, and so of course I had to go. It was as well I did for there were not more than 20 there. T.E.L. was never a hero of mine, and I could never feel any strong sense of sharing in the torment he kept talking about. But I never dropped bombs on Hiroshima or felt that I had betrayed Arabs.

Yesterday afternoon I spent my time similarly at a lecture and reading of her bombs by Miss Raine. It was all very sweet, and very very high in tone, and the lines of her poems had a nice sweep to them, but nothing seemed to happen. She should have had at least a summer school course under an H.D.

After dinner last night I went to the hospital to see Horace, and found him chatting gayly with a student nurse and feeling, he said, delightfully better. The pain has almost gone from his neck, and he had both been able to sit up for 45 minutes and also to have an equal time of therapy, quite as tho he were already back at Gaylord. I am very much pleased at the therapy. It gives him a sense of accomplishment, and today when I talked to his nurse on the phone she said he was repating it today and al- ready showed marked improvement. They hope to have him try his walker in a couple of days. Meanwhile of course his surgeon can keep a close watch on the effect of his increased motion, and this is an excellent insurance.

Marya wrote after returning to Palisades, and I enclose the letter which I thought might both interest you and give you a sense of how she is reacting. I spoke to her on the phone, assured her that Pat's alarm about my reactions to what she said about Stevens were groundless (it was her usual adverse gossip which I do not warm to but with which I am by now accustomed), and told her about Horace's therapy. At the moment she is seized with fears again about Horace and about the future. I have really become my brother's keeper. They were both so casual about Horace's hospital insurance that if I had not called to inquire, and then to find he had forgotten to notify the hospital but had the card in the hospital safe in his pocketbook, I am sure either she or I would have paid the first hospital bill of some $628.00 without taking advantage of the policy. As it is the hospital will now check with the Blue Cross before making

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

out the new bill to me. At the moment he has only two nurses a
day, and seems to be doing fine on that, so the nursing bills
are reduced somewhat. I realize now what a burden my illnesses
must have been to my parents when I was young, and how very
fortunate it is that Horace can be helped now.

With our letters about Greenland having crossed, I
realize that my desires for East Greenland and yours for the
Disko trip were not the same. I do not want to go without
you; Greenland is your country, and if it were not for you
I should never have seen it. But I actually doubt that the
east will be rougher than the trip north in the same small
boat (a coastwise boat, not our *Disko*), and if you will risk
it then I promise that I will hold your head and your hand
when we see the east. As for the glacier-walking, that is
out. But might we not persuade the plane, the one we go out
on or one at the port to take us on a quick flip over the
ice while the others walk on it? And we could go off to see
Erik the Red's house ruins which we missed before. If you
will promise to do the east with me, do get two firm reservations
for the first July trip. I will write of all this later. Now
I must hasten home, pick up Susan and go into the country to
see Mr Howe again.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have been spending a rugged two days at the office at my desk, paying bills, writing letters of recommendation, thanking people for this and for that, and I hope when I tidy before I go home shortly that there will be visible signs of improvement to greet Mrs Dingle when she comes Monday morning. But then, I am always here before she is, so disorder will have set in again.

I am just back from seeing Horace. I went yesterday for only a minute because I discovered that Joanna and her husband and three children, plus Pat and Marya were there. I was delighted to see Joanna again after what must nearly twenty years. She makes a nice impression as does her husband and as do her children. This afternoon of course I had a longer visit on my own--I really stayed yesterday only five minutes. Horace was tired and finds it hard to sleep; he dreams of his operation and of pains, but my own view is that when he can begin to write again he will be able to shift his imaginative focus a little from himself. In fact he continues to improve and on Monday Gaylord is to phone to tell when he can have a bed to come back. He hopes on Tuesday, it may well take a little longer. He is eating poorly, but I think Gaylord will help there too. He cannot feed himself yet, and so I think I shall send at least the day nurse back. He tires after 3/4 of an hour in the chair, partly because he has to sit in a new position. The doctors think he will regain full use of his arms and more or less the same of his legs, atrophy not being that much set in. He is really resigned to a longer period at Gaylord, and I doubt he will leave before a couple of months. This runs the bills up, but having taken the plunge we might as well swim the length of the pool. Tomorrow morning I have to phone Sarah Lawrence to find his hospitalization unit number, but he was able to sign the application himself this afternoon, which I thought a step forward. If only Marya could do a few of these things herself it would help, but this isn't really her métier, and by doing them myself I at least know they get done.

A letter from my brother and another from his wife thanked for the confirmation from the Normandie, and I in turn thank them. The Normandie has gotten them theater tickets and will arrange for the Sunday drive in the country. I really am most grateful both to you and to Doris.

All of the last minute details with the proof seem to have been taken care of as best they could be. I have had several phone conversations with Holsaert, and the material has now gone back to the printers. "Red and" could not be added to amber, because of the several places you referred to it as only amber. Liras were changed to lire; Nepenthe had already been caught; wells became cisterns; the inn hostess was rechristened Carmelita. I could not add "and the first campanula fragilis" because of the setting.

A letter came from Herr Egli that the Swiss funds had now been turned over to you, and I gather that the Swiss end of the affair is now settled. Presumably there will be other papers from Philip as well as from

Pittsburgh before the final liquidation of the estate. On this side one
has to sign final papers as an executor, but this may not follow in Hilda's
case. You can let me know as seems necessary.

Many thanks for arranging for the Ashe book to come over. I shall be
eager to see it. When I spoke to the astern Cruising Club, at Essex, Connecticut,
on Friday night about Greenland, there was an immense interest in all this
sort of thing. As wealthy mariners they had all lapped up the literature on
the Vikings. By the way, could you ask your Tunbridge Wells dealer if he
could get me a copy of Poul Norlund's book, *The Vikings in Greenland*, published
by the Cambridge University Press in 1936. For some inexplicable reason the
Yale Library doesn't have it. If you do agree to go with me to east Greenland
this summer, I shall arrange to have thermofex copies made of the various house
plans of what we are going to see in the Viking path, so we will not be uninformed.
The books themselves are much too heavy to carry. We will have enough with gear.
Susan has not yet decided whether she wants to go over at the end of the Greenland
jaunt, and whether she does and when she does might make some difference in
when I planned to see Benay. Of course he may feel there is no reason at all.
And when you want to go to Hitzacker if you do. You may feel it a little
crowded this time to visit in en route or en retour.

All of the Sikelia manuscript is not yet here. I have had only two
yellowbacks with it. But it will be done so that you can have had it back
by your return from Scilly. If you need it before then, let me know.

I am delighted that Kenneth will let me read the manuscript. Perhaps I
ought to plan it so as to meet him somewhere and go over anything I have to say.

Naturally, you understand that Greenland is not Greenland without you.
It would be no team. We do not hike across glaciers, but it might be fun to
hire a small plane (there must be one there now) and fly from the airport out
over the glacier some morning or afternoon. I want the sight of it underneath
me, not the feel of it. You can put down the deposits and then I can send
check either to them or to you.

We want you on this side any time you will come. It would be fun to
have Hilda Quick too. What about October as being less crowded and much safer
to count on in terms of weather than a New England spring can be?

This is dreadful news about the Wolves and their Locarno Hotel. I have
never heard its equal.

It was stupid of me to err about *Norfolk Essays*. Of course I remember it
all now. It is simply that too much has happened. I have read the custard
essay with delight. It is an attractive book.

I decided to leave the filled packing cases in the warehouse until after
school, so that they would not clutter the office or house too much. Then I
intend to have some help in putting things in order. Meanwhile I have a trained
German-speaking cataloguer going over the Moravian things of Hilda so we can know
what we have and then what to do with them.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

You were of course absolutely right in not getting into Edith's manuscripts. Much better not to be in dispute about the correct price. An auction room is the best solution of this. You are helping her in just the correct way.

Your yellowbacks have been arriving, but somehow not so much exciting as usual in them. Aldington seems a little distrait. I think he already feels Catha slipping away on her own feet, is good about it, but can't help being lonely. I hope his Russian trip works out. What a nice letter from Annie Reich. What courage she has. I was somehow amused by Stephen Lewis going for Pearl Buck. You obviously had a knack in knowing where these books of Hilda should go. I was glad to read your note from George after his return to Marvels. I do hope all goes well with him and that he doesn't overdo with the spring care of his garden. And that he gets some sort of decent food during the summer. Perhaps you will see him next month when you go over.

Must close now and go home to supper. These visits to Horace are pleasant but time-consuming.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

I am just back from the hospital where it took some time to
arrange about bills and Horace's leaving tomorrow to go back to Gaylord.
I suddenly remembered how awkward it can be when they demand payment before
allowing any one's discharge. One foresaw the sherif with a subpoena
standing by the ambulance. But the authorities were completely understanding,
and all bills will go later so that I can arrange for their payment by the
Gregories in order to let them have a tax exemption.

Horace was still a little tired but feeling, I thought, perhaps
a little better than yesterday. It will be long and drawn out before it is
finished. I was unsuccessful in persuading the nurse to go with him, but
Horace took all this in stride. Actually the nurse things he will make more
effort if she is not there to depend on. I arranged with Gaylord this morning
for him to go back by ambulance, to have the phone reinstalled, etc. He will
have a room on the first floor which will make it easier for him to get out.
Today he actually sat on the balcony of his hospital room, his first fresh
air for three years. Tomorrow is his birthday, so his return to Gaylord will
be a sort of celebration. We had not realised that ours came so close to-
gether. Mine is on Friday, but since I have to be in Philadelphia the night
before most of the day will be spent on the train returning.

As far as the vacation money is concerned, probably it is a good
thing for them to have the sense of a holiday ahead. So far as they are
concerned all of the money necessary for Gaylord and New Haven was made possible
by you. I explained it that way, saying that it was left from a sum you had
once made available to me with which to help people. And Horace was very
proud today that what was saved by his hospital insurances would be saved for
you. It is the truth of course, and I am sure they are more than merely
grateful for the time I have spent in arranging things. At any rate I feel
more than amply repaid for the chance that you indeed did make possible. It
is a rare privilege I have.

I was interested in Philip's feelings about the state of the U.K.
I do not like the smell of things either, and was a little shaken by the tenor
of the report to Parliament on the security of the British civil services. I
have never heard British officialdom doubt their own security before. Quite the
contrary, as I discovered during the war. Ay any rate during the war it was no
doubt good for me to believe in their own self-assessed impecability.

Canada of course is behaving like a bad child feeling its own oats
to be no concern of the world's. They will find differently. You are right,
there is a kind of gangsterism going on there, coupled with a naive sense of
complete security guaranteed by precisely those whom they think they are
outwitting.

I will be interested in the Rowse but perhaps can read when I next
come to Kenwin. I am likely to be in over my head until after Greenland.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

This is rather late at night at the office, where I should not have hoped to be. But I discovered this afternoon that the oral examination in Philadelphia was to be given tomorrow afternoon at 2:30, so I shall have to take the eight o'clock tomorrow morning to New York and make my way from there in order to be in time. I have another meeting in Philadelphia at 5:30 but can still get a train after dinner so that I can be home in New Haven tomorrow night. Necessary, for this is the time for signing up next year's majors.

Having to write a note to an autograph dealer in New York I asked if they had any letters by Henty et al, and was sent one by G. Manville Fenn. So at least, at a cost of five dollars we have an example of his writing. I was startled to see him listed as the author of "Mother Carey's Chickens", a book I have never read but which I never associated with "A Crimson Crime." Yet, of course I should have, for we have "Chickens" in the collection too. You see how much I have to learn.

More exciting was the arrival of "The Young Fur Traders" manuscript, and I only wish you were here now so that I could hand it over to you with proper presentation ceremonies. It looks very interesting indeed.

Rita is a curious case. I must say I should be leary on Radclyffe terms. But of course this may be her usefulness. My own hunch is that she is a frustrated power, not so much sexually as in ambition. Often this is much worse.

What a day this has been. At noon I had to lunch with the Mabel Todd Bingham who has done so much with the Emily Dickinson papers; she was the daughter of Emily's brother's "mistress." Then my seminar; then a lecture (paid for by Mrs B on "The Care and Nature of Creativity" by some well-known psychologist, which proved nothing. Then an interview with a nephew to explain why he wasn't admitted to the Yale Graduate School; then a cocktail party for Helen Gardner, a don from Oxford; then dinner, and now here.

I have a flower in a vase on my desk, an anemone, but it
its bent double and is fading. So am I.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

At this moment I was so confused that I had to look up
at the calendar to see what day it was. Yet I have the clipping to
enclose: "It's here again! Friday the 13th with its Omens." We'll
see as the year goes on. I was 13 on Friday the 13th, and on the
whole I think I've been fortunate.

Yesterday's trip to Philadelphia was hectic and I arrived
home at midnight somewhat exhausted. I took the 8 o'clock out of
New Haven yesterday morning, shuttled across New York and arrived in
Philadelphia in time for lunch with the chairman of the American
Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and with the
vice-Provost of the University whom I knew from before. Afterwards
I was plunged immediately into the oral examination which was rather
a farce. The girl seemed to me to know almost nothing, but I did not
vote first and when the local professors enthusiastically spoke of
how well she did I knew enough to join in the hallelujas. I was given
fifteen minutes to question her on Hawthorne and Melville, which seemed
a rather expensive gesture for them. They had paid one hundred dollars
plus thirty dollars expenses for me to come and do little more than
find she had read the two of them although though not understanding
them well. Later that afternoon they had a reception to which the
American Studies there came and asked me questions about how we did
things at Yale. I answered as best I could, took the seven o'clock
train back to New York, shuttled back across the city, and sank
exhausted into the railway coach.

So here I am at 53, and eager to be off to Greenland with
you this summer. I do thank you for this polar bear of a present as
well as for what will come from the check you sent to Susan. I think
the most appropriate, and deeply appreciated, use for that will be to
buy the air mattress that they recommend for the coastal boat.

I phoned Gaylord today, and gather that Horace has been
doing well enough without the private nurses. But he is able to be
out of bed only 45 minutes twice a day, and I imagine the speed of
recovery has slowed down. This is natural enough, but will disappoint
him and Marya. I go out again tomorrow afternoon and will bring him
two crime books to cheer him up.

I am heartbroken about the news of Ethel. I am so very sorry.
For her of course, and for Doris. And for you, if it means the end of
your Quest. It may well be that you will want to go to Kashmir. You
certainly deserve a jaunt now that the memoirs are finished and Hilda's
affairs are more or less, for the moment, in order.

I do thank you, but not just on birthdays.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have spent today reading and checking on the senior comprehensive examinations with grades of failure or distinction. Plus a few where the examiners had unreasonable and unresolvable discrepancies in their mathematical judgments. Appropriately it has been drizzling outside.

I got through my lecture to the assembled 400 high school teachers yesterday, and a copy of it will go in the mail to you tomorrow. I do not boast of the lecture; it was an assigned novel to discuss and I tried to combine an explanation of it with some hints as to how a teacher could teach a novel. The audience at least seemed to like it, and were generous in their applause. It was an exhausting day, but it started off happily when Western Union called to give me your birthday cable. Naturally I was pleased, although I hardly needed reminding of all the other generosities that have made this a particularly happy birthday for me.

Oh yes, one other thing. The Yale Corporation also yesterday voted my promotion to a full professorship. I can't really say it thrills me, at this stage of the game, and I still prefer not to be stuffed.

I went out to see Horace in the afternoon, being too tired from the lecture to correct the examinations, and found him quite well. Unfortunately he does not yet really know the burses on this new floor where his room is, and this makes it for the moment somewhat less gemütlich than he had hoped for. But it no longer gives him any pain to sit up, and he has just again begun his therapy, so his days will be broken by that and the time will pass more quickly. It was wonderful to see him reach for a glass of water and drink from it without absolutely any tremor, in situation which he has never had before during his entire life. One other comment of his touched me deeply, and this was when he volunteered that up to the time of his operation he had been obsessed at every moment and in his dreams with the fear of death. Now that fear has gone completely, he says. What an agony he has been through in his life. I picked up the latest bill from Gaylord, and have sent a check to cover it to Marya so that she herself can pay it. Before I had given him checks for five hundred dollars each time, but the bills did not come to that much, and I see no real point in building up a surplus each time. They are about 448.00 instead, excluding extra costs. I have had his phone put in again since this gives him a chance to talk with both Marya and with Pat. When he talks with Marya the bills are astronomical, but it does comfort him.

I will take a look at the Boland book and then send to you. It might indeed be interesting. One always picks up an odd bit of information or reference amongst much that is pure speculation about the voyages.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Am much interested in what you say about the Butor Mobides. Do let me know what you think of them, or it.

Most of all I am eager to know what you hear of Ethel's operation. This is really dreadful for you, and, as I said, for you as well. Either Kashmir or Israel might be fun, but I rather doubt that Elsie would fit very well into the Boys' entourage, even with Kenneth's enthusiasm.

One is a little disturbed at the news that the West German government has leaked news of the American and British proposals for Berlin. I'm not quite sure whether they would in fact have been carried out as proposed, but any basis for discussion is ruined if the press has commented on it before. I really fear that we may all have some trouble with West Germany before we are finished. When one is given as much as they have been given, one begins to feel one rules the roost. And, as you know, Germany has forgotten about the War already.

You have not commented on the Algerian resistance for some time. What is your opinion?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

I am off a little later this morning to see my mother,
but there have been so many days without a letter to you, and
tomorrow's Easter will involve me at a Bennett clan picnic (which
I would willingly forggo, but for decorum), that must at least a
little catch up.

Your letter of the 17th (undated, but posted then) was
in this morning's mail. I am deeply grateful for being booked on
the East Greenland trip, but now kneel daily in prayer that you will
come too. Otherwise I shall have the greatest sense of guilt about
depriving you this year of the Disko Bay excursion, my thought having
been that the east coast should precede the other on the grounds that
the east will lose its virginity while the west coast long since lost
it even though it remains handsome. I fear it is the pioneer instinct
in me, and I know you share it too. And this finished up the Vikings
who were what helped to draw us north in the first place. I might
add parenthetically that you do not yet belong to the class of "elderly
people." I think Mrs Macpherson will agree with me that you should
take your adventure while you can, and then settle for beauty later.

I skip the explanation of the oral examination for the
doctorate in this letter, since I musn't be too late in arriving to
see my mother. I am ashamed that I haven't been up since Christmas,
but the roads have been bad, and I have been both pressed for time
and tired. I will take the pin I bought her in Zurich and the handker-
chief. She appears from my brother's letters to be about the same. She
had her 89th birthday last week.

If you prefer Hitzacker on the way back from Greenland then
I think I should Benay on the return. We could (naturally only if you
come with me to our bergs and green lands and still waters) go to Hamburg
from Copenhagen and then Zurich and Kenwin. And if Elsie is at her cure
we could visit her, and I would make you your breakfasts and lunch as
in New Haven (at Kenwin) and we could go out for dinner. I would need
about four days in Copenhagen before we leave, since I would have to see
Hansen about his dissertation, also Ingholt for politeness sake, and I
want to restudy the things at the museum.

It is much more inconvenient to see Horace while classes are
in session, but I went out Wednesday night after dinner. He is now
sitting up for an hour and a half twice a day, had been given a shower
bath while he sat in a chair (he found it refreshing), but complains that
he has dreams of pain at night. I think he is both a little bored and a
little discouraged at being on a plateau of recovery. For the moment he
has also become a little of an invalid in spirit since he says the doctor
wants him to go faster in his therapy etc than Horace himself feels he can.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Marya keeps writing to ask if I really think he will walk again, but
this is natural.

I tried my elaborate way of sending Marya a check to cover the
Gaylord bill, asking her to pay it directly. What I received by return
mail was a letter thanking me for the check and enclosing a check made
out to me for the same amount! She has no business or practical sense
and it is obviously impossible to continue this way, so I wrote out one
of Horace's blank checks for the right amount, had him sign it on
Wednesday and I gave it as from him to Gaylord. I will simply send
Marya the check to deposit in the future and have Horace pay. I must
say I was a little aghast in receiving the final telephone bill for
the period Horace was at Gaylord before the hospital, to find the toll
charges over $99.00 for less than a month. I think I must gently let
him know what the amount was, for on some days there were not only as
many as three separate telephone calls to Pat in New York, with charges
per call of five dollars to Marya; but many to Baltimore, and I find that
Joanna has been calling him every other day from there with the charges
reversed. It is odd how impractical people of small means can be. It
would never occur to me to use up money in this way, however, so I may
not be properly sympathetic. And of course it is a great consolation
to Horace to have contact with his family when he is so far away, alone,
and a little miserable.

I was much interested in B's pessimism about economic affairs,
and startled to find that the British had again raised death duties on
citizens resident abroad. I suspect things will not improve in that
area and it is good to see straws when they are in the wind.

Just possibly, if you liked, we might hop to Rome to see Kenneth's
ms after Greenland (if you go), and I could return to the States from
there.

I must admit that I was horrified to see the Harcourt add for the
memoirs in Newsweek. It is obscene on the one hand, and bad business on
the other, since it is grossly misleading as to the true character and
quality of what on its own terms is an immensely fine book. We were so
rushed with this publication that I did not make the same supervisory
insistences that I had with Pantheon. If we continue with Harcourt it
cannot be this same way again.

I suspect that everything you have sent of Sikelia is now with
me, and it had been my idea that it would be waiting for you at Kenwin
on your return from the Quest. I will send you more specific details
of what I have in my next. Also an addition or two as suggestions for
the list of those who will receive the memoirs in your name.

I must run now or I shall never get to Princeton at all.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 April (Easter Sunday)

Dearest Fido,

I had a good drive to Princeton yesterday to see my mother. Much less tiring than ever before, thanks to the new car which I drove there for the first time. It does both ride and steer with such sublime ease that I wonder I was ever able to endure the antiquity of the other one. I do continue to bless you for it.

And I thank you too for the air mattress from Abercombrie and Fitch, which came yesterday morning as your birthday present via Susan's good agency. I have not unpacked it but am almost tempted to sleep one night on the floor on it as a way of breaking in. Now there is nothing except your company that I need to try the Pole.

My mother seemed pitifully weak when I went in to see her, and it is obvious that she eats very little now, and what she does eat she eats slowly. But she recognized me immediately and was delighted that I had come, and in many ways she is happier than I have seen her be since her illness. She was full of praise for the nurses in the "hotel," and in the 3/4 of an hour I was there she must have made me look at least ten times at the birthday cake they had baked for her and left under a tin for her to enjoy the thought of. I think her contentment really comes from having her own furniture, pictures and rugs as familiar decoration around her. She no longer speaks of going "home," but does not talk with resignation about being where she is]-it is simply home to her now. It certainly was important to put her the Manor rather than to try an establishment at the house in Gardner.

We had a guest last night but she left a little after ten this morning so I have been able to put in a couple of hours at the office, paying bills and working at my desk.

I stopped in to see Horace on my way back, in order to save having to go out today. He says it has been such a week of pain that he wants to wipe it out of his memory. But he did sit up for 2 1/2 hours yesterday, and that seems to me to be an advance. Just now he is really an invalid, but I think it is only temporary and was bound to happen sooner or later that he should stay for a bit on a plateau. I offhandedly spoke of the sum for the toll cars and asked him if it was correct, and I think he got the idea. Certainly I don't want him to stop using it, for he calls Marya every day and that is as important to her as to him. He also said they always called Baltimore once a week to speak with Joanna. But in fact the calls were oftener, and as I wrote you, when she calls the charges are reversed. I still have the New Haven Hospital bill to pay, but they are delaying it until they know how much Blue Cross insurance will pay towards the whole. The surgeon's bill will come much later, and is a private bill to him. I have no idea what it will be. I have only paid out about $2500 so far, and this is well covered by the 4000 that was

become a sort of union card, and has just as much and just as little validity as the certificate of
apprenticeship as an electrician.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

sent me from Montreux. And I can dip into the savings account before
the next quarter if that should be necessary. Presumably that will
be in late June or July. So there is no need to worry.

I have now checked over the pages of Sikelia that have arrived,
two more fragments coming in this morning's yellowbacks. From Part One
I now have pages 1-40, to the end of Chap VI. From Part Two, I have
chapters 9,10,12. I hope that is all. My idea was that you would wish
to keep plugging away at the revision until you left for England, and
that everything would be waiting at Kenwin on your return. I shall
have an original and three carbons made, sending you two so that you
can give one to Helen in progress. Otherwise, if you have corrections
for the revision, it can be made on the second copy and returned to me.

On the list of copies of the memoirs to go out with your own
compliments, I take the list as you sent it. But add Gerald, since he
may be too ill to wait for an English edition. (Will you try to see him
when you are over?) Also Rita, for old time's sake. Eric White can wait.
And also Gavin de Beer. But yes for Margaret Pratt, and Quirk. Heydt, too,
and I was glad to have his letter to you with the new address.

Would you like copies to go to Mrs G.P. Baker and to Dr Prutting?
And really shouldn't you send one to Melitta? And what about Natalie
Barney's friend, whose name I have for the moment forgotten. (What did
finally happen with the ms of her own memoirs?)

I am so sorry about having mixed up Styron and Goyen. I'll have
to check on Goyen. You can toss the copies of Styron in the waste basket
if you want, or pass on to someone.

It is pitiful to read Jean Untermeyer's letter. I can't help
but wonder if aylord might not help her. But better to wait until Horace
is out of the way. I think one is enough to cope with for the moment,
unless you think time is too important to waste.

What a sweet letter from Lady Vyyvyan. By the way should I myself
write her to thank for the book which came "compliments of the author" in
her hand but without my name. Or was this simply from you. Please advise.

Charles Prouty came in a few days ago, heavy with enthusiasm for a
book on Richard II, which he admired so much he asked The Yale Review for
the chance to review it. A non-academic biographer named Harold F. Hutchison.
The book is called _The Hollow Crown_. Prouty says excellent for the times,
and that he overthrows many academic cliches. I have no time for it, but
you might be interested. A British book.

You asked about oral examinations for the doctorate. In Scandinavian
countries the public are admitted, here it is only open to the examining
committee who test viva voce the candidate's knowledge of the area of his
particular interest and his ability to criticise or generalize on the spot.
Other abilities have been tested by the seminar papers and by the dissertation.
This simply indicates how well he can do orally and whether he can back up
challenged opinions. Obviously there are excellent teachers who don't have
this sort of ability or the necessary memory; but in the States it has

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have just finished reading a manuscript for the Louisiana University Press which I have head since January. So I celebrate by writing to you. At least I can jot down a few notes on this and that and throw away my aides de memoir.

William Goyen in a Southern young writer, the author of a novel called *The House of Breath* and some short stories. He had a reasonably good critical success here, but his book has created quite a stir in Europe. He is no in paperback but I can order the book if you want.

I forgot to ask if you wanted me to buy a copy of *Swiss Schools and Ours: Why Theirs are Better*, written by Admiral H.G.Rickover, the submarine enthusiast. He wants the lessons in democratic Switzerland applied to the American system of public education. I don't know why you should be interested except to see what an Admiral thinks about a system which I suspect you yourself know much better.

Yesterday's mail brought the sweater from Adie & Sons, which I am glad to say came in without any duty whatsoever. I feel like aisy, in *The Great Gatsby*, when she looked at Gatsby's silk shirts. "They're so beautiful, beautiful; I've never seen anything so beautiful." And indeed it is. An eskimo might give me his wife, but a greenlander would give me anything for it. I do thank you, and bow from the waist.

I should have reported the arrival of the three little volumes by Hesse, as of Hilda's things; the Jocelyn Brooke *Image of a Drawn Sword* to you; and the very moving *Book of Elizabethan Verse*, with all its pressed flowers and souvenirs, which Hilda had. This is something to treasure.

I lunched with William Styron and Robert Penn Warren this noon. Styron was pleasant, but more like an excited undergraduate than a man in his early thirties. He spent much time in telling the other two guests what beer to drink in France and Germany, and altogether he was like the secretary who could only say "Oui" because she had just been in Europe. We did have rather an interesting discussion on why there had been no novels about the Korean War, but somehow didn't get very deep into any reasons. Perhaps there aren't any. Butor introduced Styron's book to France, and wrote an introduction.

News of your gales was distressing, and I hope it has long since blown down enough for everything to have been put back in its place except the missing tree. We had high winds yesterday that tossed one around uncomfortably.

I did not send my recognition of your arrangements for Elizabeth Bryher, but do want to say they sound sensible, lest you think I sniff.

I will wait until I hear from the Danish agency before booking passage over. Or shall I wait until you decide the order of the days. That is, whether Hitzacker at all, or before or after, etc. If you go and we meet

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

in Copenhagen do you recommend SAS or Pan Am direct to there. I should
like four or five days in Copenhagen beforehand if possible, during which
I can read whatever Hansen has done with his dissertation and take another
look at the National Museum. I imagine all the archaeologists will be in
the field, but of course Ingholt will be there. Since Susan is not going
across either before or after this trip it really doesn't matter where I
stay, and all depends on whether you go. I shack where you do, and the
old place will be all right if you prefer it. I found the Palace not as
expensive as reputed and very convenient. It is just possible that since
we have to be at the flight office at six in the morning, a large hotel
might be able to cope better. I leave to your judgment. Tell me whether
and when you wish me to arrange, and how long you will be there.

Glad you liked the Henry Adams.

I had not known, or had forgotten, that the Brigadier was not
at home for Ethel's operation, but it may have been a very good chance for
Joan to be helpful. I am puzzled by Ethel's secrecy, to you. Something is
odd.

This is fine about the Hentys. I shall be excited to hear all,
and in detail. The saga is being nicely rounded out, both in life and by
the collection. I told you, I think, that your Ballantyne has come. Alas,
I suppose we shall never have a Henty manuscript. It is incredible that
even letters are so scarce.

The Burgess MacLean affair completely mystifies me, and whatever
the cause the British authorities with their warrant now seem foolish. WHY
did they have to say they had one, yell it from the rooftops.

Mrs Dingle now begins to type what we have of the ms of Sikelia.
We will do the later pages separately, and then paginate when the gaps have
been filled in. Unless I hear to the contrary I shall send you two copies
of the fresh typescript.

Pat Greggory called on the phone and wanted to come to dinner Sunday
night. Alas, Susan and I are going to Rowayton to lunch with Kay Boyle and
her husband, a two o'clock lunch and we will never be back in time. Horace
relates that Pat had a ten thousand a year offer from Macmillan to go over to
them and edit their science books. But he wisely refused, since science is not
his cup of tea and he might never get out of the niche. Instead he wants to
be liaison for French literature and do his own writing. He hopes to go to
France this summer to keep his contacts warm, and Knopf will pay half the fare,
and has already given him a little raise. I shall drive to Wallingford tonight
after dinner. It is too difficult to take a whole afternoon away from the
office. I fear it is a little lonely for him, but he does understand and is
very nice about it.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Two letters were in today's mail from you, one torn as though some
cat had gotten at the edges, and stapled through the envelope to hold it
together.

I really am sorry about your Susie. You did help her immensely.
I know just how you feel, and am so glad the old foundation was dissolved.
One needs to do the unconventional and unexpected, and helping her was
precisely that.

I too worry about Rosemary post papa. It is most serious.

Gaylord might help Dorothy Richards, but I suggest waiting until
fall when I am back from the trip with you and will be in a position to
keep an eye on the situation if she wants to go. One would need to
approach her casually on the subject, and could make a point of it if we
drove up to visit her in the autumn when you come over. I doubt that she
would want to give up her summer and trip with I.A. But you are the one
who really knows. I had thought of her too, also of Jean Starr.

Tell Elsie that American professors come a dime a dozen, but I
place my hood at her feet.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 April 1962

Mrs Winifred Bryher
Villa Kenwin
Burier la Tour
Vaux, Switzerland.

Dear Bryher,

I am glad to say that the ten cases of Hilda Aldington's literary papers have now safely arrived and have cleared the customs here. For the moment, because of the multitude of papers, I am leaving them at the warehouse, but will have them brought to the office at the beginning of the summer when I shall employ some researcher to put them into as businesslike a shape as possible. What worries me chiefly of course is the fact that there will be many documents which I may not be able to date correctly, and many letters signed only with first names which I may not be able to identify.

I suppose in the case of most estates these matters would not be very significant. But since H.D. was so distinguished an American poet, and because scholars and historians of American literature are certain to need to consult her papers during the next generations, it is really our duty to see that everything possible is done to put them in working order.

Although we are both of us her literary executors, your friendship with her extended over so many more years than mine did that I don't see how the task can be done without your coming over to work on them with me after the preliminary sorting and cataloguing is done. Because the latter work will make our task somewhat easier perhaps we ought not to try to attempt our share until summer, or even in the fall. But I do write in the hope that you will be able to plan such a visit to New Haven to advise me. We want you of course to stay with us when you come. I hope you can.

My impression is that he begins to gain again. He was joyful at having stood up in the shower, holding on to the rail of course but feeling perfect balance, he said, for the first time in his whole life. "Imagine living 64 years before one ever felt like that," he exclaimed. And he had been practising sitting up without leaning against the back of a chair, in order to strengthen his back muscles. This too is a new experience for him. Such moments as these two provided cheer him.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

I thought you might be amused by the enclosed clipping from this morning's *New York Times*. Obviously Cummings is preparing himself to be the grand old man of American poetry after Frost and Sandburg die. I had heard about this because of Mayor Wagner who by proving himself to be a patron of the arts is modeling himself after Kennedy.

I saw in this afternoon's paper that the American rocket had hit the moon. But what a pity that all the equipment had fizzled out so that we have no new pictures of the far side of paradise.

The *Ashe Land to the West* arrived yesterday, and I look forward to armchair adventures with St. Brendan. Horace was reading it the other day when I visited him, and says he is a great admirer of *Ashe*, even of his Arthurian conjectures which I gather you value less highly.

I have just finished reading the new life of Scott Fitzgerald, which I found amusing and illuminating, even though it made Fitzgerald appear personally as a rather pathetic fool except as a writer. But I was interested at last to find precisely which sanitarium his wife had been in in Switzerland, and which he used for the Swiss scenes in *Tender is the Night*. She went first to the Valmont Clinic where she was treated for schizophrenia by Dr Oscar Forel who then admitted her to his own clinic at Prangins, near Geneva. You may know these. I do not, of course.

Your description of the visit with Maugham was a delight, and I only wish I might have been there to share it. I only met him once when he came to Yale to talk to a small group of mine, just before the war, or just after it (I forget which). But I found him charming. Perhaps I should read *Courage*.

I really am sorry about having sent the Styron book even if not by Goyen. But, as I said, toss it in the fire. You have more than enough to do as it is.

It is good to know that I may have a chance to read Kenneth's novel. I shall be patient. *Marienbad* comes here soon, and I shall take Susan to see it.

I must simply have been careless with the paperback anthology containing Hilda's underlinings, but am grateful to you for rescuing it.

I saw Horace for an hour and a half Tuesday night after dinner.

Will you be going over the last of Hilda's things in storage when you are in London. Let me know if
you are planning to send over the Morris table and the china so that I can be expecting them.
The temperature has been in the 90's for the last day or so. It is amazing and enviating.
Do have a good trip with Elsie.
All love, Zimm

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 April 1962

Dearest Fido,

I suspect this will the last letter I dare risk to Kenwin,
but will have a missive waiting for you at the Sesame.

NO, No, no! I did not cable Denmark to make your reservation,
but I howl with delight that they did so. I have neither written them nor
heard from them, but had I had the nerve to do so I should have said book
you. I have a feeling that this may be a red letter trip, a kind of climax
even though we later do decide to do the Disco Bay as well. This is rather
a hurried letter since I have to drive out to Wallingford to see Horace,
tomorrow being taken up by a visit to Kay Boyle's, in Rowayton, for lunch.
I will give all details of the trip as I see it in advance so that you can
know on your return. But in brief, it seems fine if you could meet me in
Copenhagen two or three days before we leave. I will try to be there about
a week beforehand so I can take care of Hansen and other business. Then I
agree absolutely in two days or so in Copenhagen afterwards, and then leave
to you whether we do Hamburg-Hitzacker, then Kenwin and Benay, and then Rome.
But if Rome, not without you. I can talk to the boys after you have gone to
your kennel, but it would be a glorious a quatre at all other hours.

This is all very silly about the memoirs being for women, but I
think you are wrong in the idea that it has to be ponno for men. Women are
the avid ones for that, and are always reaching out for maroons. Artemis
will not be everyone's cup of tea, but as you say you do not want to write
for any considerable public, but would prefer having a few very intelligent
readers. I know you will have them.

I will omit Rita from the English list. You have not answered
about the other names I suggested, and I wait before sending to New York
until I know.

I bought the Board book for you, which Ashe mentioned, and had
intended to read it first. But this is the time for reading graduate student
dissertations (I did one yesterday and today on Stevens) and so will send to
await your return to Kenwin.

The section of Section XI arrived this morning, for which many
thanks.

I spoke over the phone with Horace's doctor this morning, and he
thought Horace was making progress although slowly. He is now going through
the traumatic effect of the operation which was so delayed. But he did get
on his feet yesterday and took a few steps with one of the doctors, so that will
cheer him. I asked Dr Anderson how long he thought Horace would have to be at
Gaylord, and he rather refused to be cornered. But when I said four or five
months more, he said he should think so. Naturally this seems interminable,
and must not be mentioned to Horace. But having gone so far it is certainly
worth carrying through. His last bill for $448.00 arrived this morning, so
I do not think we will have the mixup with Marya again. I have simply sent
her a check for what amount and will have Horace make out his check this
afternoon.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

Three letters from you were in this afternoon's mail after silence. I am glad to have them, and hasten to write at least briefly since I want to hurry out to Wallingford to see Horace this latter part of the period. I have to come back to the school for an evening meeting of the American Studies Club. All morning and most of the afternoon taken by having to act as host for a Dr Vida Marcovic from Belgrade. These swarming faculties from behind the curtain really do take time.

Before she arrived I worked at some of the accumulated poetry manuscripts I am supposed to read for the Wesleyan Press. Samples:

many boys she had,
and I thought it her fad,
little did I know,
that she was sad.

Another

alone with her,
at night was a must,
like a mad, mad lust,
for our age was such.

As the author writes of his poetry, "it is in simple form."

We had a pleasant visit with Kay Boyle on Sunday, a picnic out of doors with a motley group of guests including Pat's immediate boos at Knopf, a Negro girl who paints and sings ballads, who was accompanied by a young bearded Jewish beatnik, an author of a book (name forgotten) on Italy, etc. But it was actually very pleasant, without too much drinking, and the sun was glorious. Now it is half raining and the temperature is in the 40's.

I had an unpleasant shock last night when I was phoned by the head of Gaylord to ask if I would accept the presentation to me of the Lyman Medal at their celebration in June. I asked what it was for, and he said it was given as a great honor to a person who had risen above t.b. into a position of accomplishment. It was a most curious feeling, for the truth is I am so naive that I have never thought of having anything to rise above or even that I had done such a thing. I feel as though all defenses were stripped from me, even though I didn't know I had had defenses. I can see giving medals to doctors who help in conquering disease, but I really see no point in rewarding ex-patients. And what shall I say in receiving such a medal? But as I wailed to Susan afterwards, how could I refuse? On what grounds except a sense of shame. They mean so well, and it seems to me so gauche. Well anyhow it is supposed to be a huge secret. Do you suppose they will have an exhibition of the x-rays of my hip to have its vernissage on the gala day. I write even in writing you about it.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

I saw Horace yesterday afternoon, after my Jugoslavian
had gone. He seemed particularly pleased with his May Day even tho
the weather was chill and damp. For he had made his first real steps
and crossed the Rubicon with them. That is, of course, he had been
making a step or two, but this time (using the railings) he had walked
the length of a gangplank twice as long as his bed. They had taught
him how to lift his feet and he said he had learned each lesson as it
was given him. This is the first walking (and it was without any brace)
since a year ago last November and his collapse on that Thanksgiving in
Baltimore. It is a sometimes a nuisance for me to have to go out, but
one feels amply repaid by the chance it gives him to share his triumphs.

To go back to your letters which I did little more than
acknowledge in my last to you, I shall plan for the moment to fly to
Copenhagen sometime around the 16th or 17th of July, and you might like
to come out the Saturday or Sunday before we leave. I think our minds
will be too much on Greenland to make the most out of Hitzacker beforehand,
and it would be fine if Elsie joined us in Hamburg after our two days of
reciperation in Denmark after our return. All this depending of course
upon whether the boys are likely to be north so that we could join them
wherever they were. I shall buy a round trip ticket of course, but with
an open end as I did before. And will probably do it first class in
order to have more mobility in getting tickets from one place to another.
You must tell me whether you want to stay at the Angleterre or the Palace
or as you say at some quaint spot. My only reservation about a quaint
spot if it is too quaint would be the problem of getting the right sort of
service to permit us to be at the airline office at six in the morning when
we leave for the icebergs.

Do pick up whatever you can about the Burgess-McLean deal.
Your story about the domicile abroad sounds fantastic under the circumstances;
it has all the gallantry of lawn tennis, only in this case one jumps over
the iron curtain to shake hands with someone who has cheated in the game.

Don't feel compelled to read the book Prouty recommended. It
certainly is not my era so don't buy for me. And thanks for the warning on
Stapleton.

As you will see by the enclosed clipping, Hemingway's ghost has
been entertained at the White House. But I am fearful of what he left behind
him if what was read is a sample. Imagine a man working on this sort of
adventure as the 'great book' of his life. Apparently he never wanted really
to think about anything, only to do things and then to narrate them. This
is an accomplishment of course, but does keep an author out of the first
rank.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

Long hours at my desk today trying to answer letters and put away papers that have been cluttering it for days. Thursday I had to go to New York for a meeting of the National Book Awards Advisory Committee, taking the noon train down and eating as I travelled. Then I paid a hurried visit to an art show of the paintings of a friend of ours, so I could write and say I had been (I could not go down for the vernissage), and being in the area of the Museum of Modern Art I went also to the Museum of Primitive Art nearby in the hope that they might have some eskimo pieces. But not a one displayed, and not a one in their stored collection. But this only made me all the more pleased to have what I do have. I hurried home on the five o'clock to pick up Susan's mother and bring her home to supper.

Friday was filled with appointments at the office and a desperate but successful effort to finish reading all the poetry manuscripts I was overdue for with the Wesleyan Press, and at the afternoon's end Susan and I went to the first showing of a map of the world c.1488, the first one ever to show Japan and the one on which the famous globe was based which sent Columbus out. This is painted on paper and is huge and the only copy known. Indeed it was not known before it was given Yale, and is said to be the most valuable single gift ever given to the Yale Library.

Yesterday I had to go to Wesleyan University for a meeting of the New England College English Association--an all day affair--but at least it gave me the chance to take the twenty odd poetry mss back with me rather than to have to ship them.

When I was in New York I checked to find there was no modern edition of Henry Adams' life of Gallatin. The Gallatin is the one you mean. I will get for you out of the Yale Library when you come over.

The check came and is put in the bank against Horace's expenses. We will have to talk about this when we are together. For in letting you know how the expenses stood for him I simply did not mean anything except to keep you in touch. I said that I would take care of him out of what I am now getting, and I meant to. As well as to take over the Hotsons if you wish and keep on with the Hodgsons. You have more than enough drains on your own income as it is. But perhaps you can let me pay this back when the next check comes in. Meanwhile of course I am grateful for there is I guess until July to wait.

I don't know whether to be relieved or distressed to know that Ethel's operation was what it was. It is a little unusual for a woman of her age, but I suppose can happen anytime. Susan had one during the war, as you may remember. I was in England at the time. The shock on the physical system is immense, and it takes a long time to get over. But they are so much better with drugs etc to help in the adjustment that they should be able to make it easier for Ethel than it was for poor Susan. The complications you speak of may be almost anything.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

And what a disappointment about the shoes. We will have to try
the women's department of Abercrombie & Fitch where they still stock rugged
walking shoes. And perhaps Dorothy Richards can tell you where to turn.

I was sorry about the difficulties Consie had been having with
Gladys' estate. Alas, as you know from my article and what I had told you,
letters of direction have no legal validity and are only precatory in nature.
And until a court gives instruction for the disbursement of money, naturally
not even an executrix can do this. A letter of direction is valuable only
if you completely trust the person and give him power to carry it out. Its
chief use is to keep a will itself short and not be so public about what is
going to whom in the way of small things. We can go over all this again
around the corner of an iceberg.

I had a letter from Philip about turning over Hilda's literary
rights and properties from you. He suggested I consult an American lawyer,
and the matter is now in the hands of Melville Cane who has done all of my
previous contracts and agreements for Hilda's things and yours.

A letter, or rather note, from Rose Odle giving me her new address.

Also a letter from Aero-Lloyd confirming the reservation for my
place, and enclosing a sheet about the sealer on which we take the trip
once we are off the plane. It is the same boat that goes north to Disco
and looks very sturdy. It says there are 8 double cabins, one 4-bed one,
and two single cabins. I wrote back at once and reserved a single cabin
for you, said if one were left I would like one too, and if not please to
put me in the double bunk cabin. You can of course cancel your later if you
do not go, but I feared that being in England you might not be able to write
in time. I said I would pay the extra amounts asked for anything above the one
four bunk cabin. I mentioned we had been out before and stressed the fact that
I lectured on Greenland and perhaps out of my audiences might come additional
passengers in later years. It doesn't do any harm to make them think of us as
a little special.

Oh yes, I forgot to write that I took Susan to see Marienbad on
Thursday night. It sees well on the second time too, but of course seems much
more straightforward. Susan was much intrigued and impressed.

Must close now and drive out to Wallingford. Alas I have to go to
an undergraduate club tonight. My one appearance of the year.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

I fear my letters have been scrappy lately, and this is likely
to prove the same. For having met Patrick at the station this morning at
eleven, driven him out to Wallingford, and then stopping for a sandwich
lunch at home, I am back at the office only until two o'clock when I shall
have to start back to Gaylord in order to get him to a 3:55 train so he
can make a dinner engagement in New York. It keeps one on the go. I shall
probably not finish this until after he has left (having only a half hour
or less now), but you can call this a meat-pie letter made up precisely of
scraps.

One of them is the arrival of the copy of Marianne's published
play which I ordered. It is a comedy in four acts, called *The Absentee*, and
is based on Maria Edgeworth's novel of the same name. Alas, unread by me as
a novel, and I am not absolutely sure I shall finish it as a play. Maria
Edgeworth is not my cup of fiction, and her England is too far back, or not
far enough back, really to interest me much. Marianne's dialogue goes like
this:

Mrs Doggett
I beg pardon, my lord. I'm afeered I'm late; a thousand pardons.
I was looking high and low for my lady's umbrella and --
[Kilcullen picks it up from the settee and rushes awa.]

## Curtain

All this is probably as much Maria's as Marianne's, and I daresay that when
the play is put on by the Museum of Modern Art or some similar sponsor (as I
feel sure it will be) a very smart production will make it move fast and
quaintly. And it is rather fun that Marianne tries her hand at the stage.
Of course it may have been something she did long ago; her introduction is
so allusive and elusive that I'm a little in air.

I was much amused by O'B!schemical painting, but can't be very
sure what it is. Do let me know if you go to see the exhibition.

Presume Helen will get in touch with me when she comes. At least
one can be pleased that they have a reprieve on their hotel rooms, though it
may be difficult in the future.

I see that the Uwe Johnson I told you about after my Berlin trip
has won the immense international prize and is to be published simultaneously
in fifteen languages, so I shall be able to read him. The TLS had a review
of him in German and seemed to regard him as experimentalist in terms of
punctuation, incomplete sentences, etc., but as I remember you did not like
him as much as the one who wrote short Hemingway sentences with many periods.

Your two Henty letters were in yesterday morning's mail and I was
greatly interested in all you had to say. Despite Henty's vogue with collectors,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I somehow gather that not even his family take him very seriously as an artist. Actually in this morning's New York Times, a reviewer of the last two volumes of Swinburne's letters rather pokes at the elderly and conservative Swinburne for giving away so many copies of Henty's "patriotic novels" to his friends. The picture is a little odd, I admit. At any rate both Henty manuscripts and autograph letters are rarissima, and the director of the Morgan Library in New York has never been able to get more than two letters, which is our score at the moment. There are three or four large Henty collections in this country; I shall have to see what they have in the way of autograph material.

What fun to discover Cousin Jack's new lead towards Bethlehem and Hilda. Would you like me to try to have some local genealogist try to run down the trail after the last scent you can give? It might be quite possible to find the missing link to the chain, or even the missing linx-cousin whom we could proudly call on after Hitzacker. Susan and I go to Bethlehem on Thursday night for the weekend and our first experience of the Bach Festival. The widow of Erik Knight has invited us to stay with her and has gotten the rather difficult tickets. This will give me a chance to look at Hilda's grave, and take the proper measurements etc for planning the gravestone. One could not really have done much about it before now, but I should like it in by the end of summer.

By good luck I had only typed out a draft of my letter to the Greenland agency about the private cabins, and so did not have to mail it as I had said I had done in my last Sunday's letter to you. So do not worry. I am rewriting trying to get a single if no other dame wants it, or a double at the least. You and I are in perfect agreement about not sharing, but I rather like the easy and thoughtful care of the agency is suggesting that we might want to. When I heard over the air about the wreck on Greeland of a chartered plane from the Canadians, I was fearful it would involve us. But this was only a Catalonan amphibian flying with medical supplies to Godthaab, and would have nothing to do with our situation at Blue West.

(Now back from fetching Pat at Gaylord and delivering at station.) Pat seemed pleased with his father's progress. Horace had tried the typewriter, found it impossible to use because of "set-back" with his right hand, had special therapy for it that afternoon, and so yesterday found no trouble with the typewriter. Admits that it may largely have been fright at getting back. He had been outdoors for the end of the morning and even had a little sunburn which made him look particularly well. I had a nice talk with Pat on the trip out and back. He has nice poise, is in no danger of staying a little boy, and seems to know what he is doing even if not precisely where he is going. He had read Lady V's book which he brought up to Horace, and had liked what she had to say about memory, and liked also her mystical moments when she looked at a flower.

Tonight there is a t.v. program at six on the ice tunnel exploration at Thule. I must watch and see if we should reserve rooms there for the summer of 1963.

What an astonishing account of the Parliamentary debate in which Burgess and Maclean were discussed. As Alice would say, "curiouser and curiouser!"

Give me greetings to Doris and Elsie.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

Helen phoned this afternoon so we passed a few words back and forth on the phone, but since I have to be in New York tomorrow it seemed easier to say I would drop in at Harcourt at three o'clock, after my meeting with the Coe Foundation about the Mark Twain Memorial and before a five o'clock appointment at the Century Club. I have nothing in particular to say, but of course I do want to see her. And especially I want to see *Artemis*, a copy of which she said she was holding and which had just come in. Precisely on schedule, which seems rather a miracle to me considering all the delays and headaches. The only wonder is that you are alive to read the tale, as the Ancient Mariner might say in this case.

There were three notes from you also, so the day is a banner one. The further Henty notes were most interesting, and I was particularly glad to get the names of the American Henty collectors. Perhaps I can sometime see the collector in Wilmington, if ever I go again to Washington. Santa Ana is, yes, California. Another big collection is, if I am not mistaken, in Indiana. Alas, we haven't got The Lost Their, or Those Other Animals, or Yarns on the Beach. A poor show, but we can try to do better. Your notes were excellent. Our collection can be good if we have patience.

I was delighted too with your news of Masefield, and quite by chance the copy of *The Ledbury Scene* inscribed to you was also in today's post, safely arrived you will be glad to know. I am pleased of course that your drive with Phyllis turned out so well. There is so very much of England that I have never seen, and as you know I have never even been in Cornwall though as a student at Oxford the Scillies were always an ambition. Why, I am not sure. Perhaps it was the idea of palm trees in the Channel.

I think I wrote you that I had had a letter from Philip about the transfer of copyrights etc of Hilda's, suggesting that I consult with my American literary lawyer about the proper form. Melville 'ane, the lawyer, has now sent the forms back to me, and I have relayed them to Philip out of courtesy and so that he can have the proper record. Your address is given as Switzerland with the witness needing to be there, so he may send on to 'enwin after he has approved, if he does. Or you can go over the matter with him when you see him in London on your way back.

I had a letter from Vibaek on Saturday. He is coming to the States at the beginning of June for a conference on the climate in the 11th and 16th centuries to be held in Colorado, and has a grant from the Werner-Gren Foundation to go around and look at important museums and sites of archaeological interest. He wants to come here on the 6th or 7th on his way to and from Newport where he wants to see the famous "old mill." This should be fun, but alas he'd like to give a lecture and Yale is out when and all the archaeologists will be en route to their digs. But perhaps I can dig up a ruined geologist or two from Greenland for him to meet. And I hope he'll show me his pictures anyhow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

Have just finished my last class for this year, and returned
from a celebrating cup of coffee before a committee meeting. I can only
say HURRAY! and wish we were en route to Nanortalik. Alas, the end of
classes doesn't mean the end of papers to be read and work to be done.

Tonight we have an Indian professor and his wife for dinner
after an endless sequence of postponements since Christmas time. But even
though he has been here as a student of American history, and I know my
duties, I can't always carry them out. They are vegetarians, so Susan
will be put to it to devise the right sort of dinner.

I saw Helen in New York yesterday, and she looked thriving
and enjoying every moment of her large office and private secretary.
Apparently advance copies of Ann Lindberg's "How to Look Back on Marriage"
are selling like valentines, true love of her kind being even more appealing
than lion cubs. But of course what "elen is chiefly enjoying is being
away from the stupid Locarno hotel and being in the thick of things. Not
a word of Kurt after the first exchange of greetings. She said she had at
once airmailed a copy of *Artemis* to you at Tremelethen, so I hope it reaches
you safely. I have had ten or so mailed to you at Kenwin, although God knows
when they will arrive. I did not have a decipherable address for Melitta,
so will you send her one as from your side? I thought it looked well, although
the top margin is far too narrow to please my highest taste. But the size of
the book--Helen wailed that it kept getting bigger thanks to my suggestion of
the second New York chapter etc that they must have had to crowd to get into
the same number of signatures. I did not see the material on the jacket but
it seems to have been all right, more or less.

I had had lunch with the Coe Foundation about a grant from them
to redecorate the billiard room at the Mark Twain Memorial, since the actual table
there was given by Coe's father-in-law, the grandfather of the present older
generation in the family. I brought away a check for five thousand, and they
will give at least an equal amount next year to complete the task.

I slept or dozed at the Yale Club after my visit with Helen until
five when I had to be at the Century Club, and after the Century Club went on to
the Harvard Club for a drink and dinner with Malcolm Cowley and his wife, and
the wife of Robert Coates whom you may remember from the old MacAlmon days.
Did I tell you that William Byrd wrote saying that he wanted to stop by early
in June? It should be a ghostly meeting. I have never actually met him before
but we have corresponded occasionally.

The nine o'clock train back from New York, exhausted.

I was delighted to have the *Quest* card and return salutations to all.
It is wonderful that Elsie caught on so quickly with sea legs. You may want to
bring a kayak back from Greenland, and if she joins us at Hitzacker then you and
she can kayak up the Rhine and will be in Switzerland to greet you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I forgot to tell you that last Saturday when we lunched with the Dillon Ripleys at their farm in Litchfield we had a chance to go over his bird sanctuary and breeding spot. He has a distinguished collection of ducks, geese, and swan (especially the former) from all over the world, many of which are only pairs on this continent. And four wallobies, one with an enchanting baby in its pouch which kept poking its head out to take a good look at us. The birds are in a paddling of ponds and confines with walks for a mile or so among them and many benches where one sits while Dillon explains the birds and their habits. Margery Hicks would be in a heaven, if not a seventh heaven, to see it, and if she ever comes over for the 300 mile hike you propose I shall have to take you both there. Did we ever send M.H. any of Dillon's ornithological books? He writes very well about them, with an air of real excitement.

It was good to hear that Ethel was so well recovered, and I gather that Joan must have gone back already to Zurich.

Susan was in the local flower show on Tuesday but her daffodils were really over and the show was chiefly tulips, which she has never gone in for. Her arrangement only won a second place, but the first place announcement led off with the statement that one judge dissented violently. This is unheard of in terms of decorum, but Susan agreed that the blue was certainly not deserved by its winner. Nice color but no balance or proportion.

Love to Elsie, Doris, and especially to yourself. I must off now to my Indians.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

It has been shocking of me to have had to let so many days go by without a letter to you, but the combination of our trip to Bethlehem for the Bach Festival and of the ending of the examination and grading period has simply been too much.

Both Susan and I have been heartbroken with the news of your bad weather. But at least you now know the hazards of owning a boat. My brother-in-law has on several summers laid careful plans for his holidays from the office only to have it rain and blow so hard that all upkeep during the other eleven months has gone for nothing more than an occasional Sunday sail. But I applaud you for setting out on your own for St. Mary's and leaving the Quest behind. Doris would have been heartbroken otherwise. I was grieved to hear of her continued difficulties with her eyes. It seems to me she has had more than her share of troubles. But at least I gather that Ethel is much better.

This is the day of the annual meeting of the Mark Twain Memorial. I was supposed to have gone up early this afternoon to talk to the officers about the money I got for them from the Coe Foundation for redecorating the billiard room on the top floor, but they called to say there wouldn't be time before the meeting so I shall stop off to see Horace instead.

I did go out to see him Monday afternoon, and was delighted to see that he was typing again and had done a few pages of the introduction to his new translations from Ovid. He was busily reading the galleys of a book which he said he would write a review of the next day. So in this respect he has made progress. He also sits better, but I gather the walking improves only slowly. He said, apologetically, that he was afraid it would be another six weeks before he could leave, and was thinking about the expense involved. I tried to assure him on this part, and hope I did. He is wonderfully grateful to you, and in the right kind of a way cannot really find the right words in which to express what he feels. Nor should be try.

Your letter of the 20th is just in with its news of still another gale. I fear however that you will be unable to break the charter. Of the general news perhaps better for me to wait until the weekend when I can write properly.

Have had a letter from Aero-Lloyd in which they assure me they have reserved, firmly, a single cabin for you. The other is already taken, but they have put me in a double cabin and say that in case all the double cabins are not sold out I can have it for myself. Much as on the Disko. We pay for the extra when I read Copenhagen. I do hope you will continue to want to go. I shall go anyhow, but if you do not feel you want to, then I shall go alone. There is no one else I would want, and the company of a companion is not needed; that is, simply for the sake of a companion. So it is with you, or by myself.

All love, Women

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

At last the chance to sit down and catch up with you. And first of all let me say how my heart bleeds at your absolutely rotten luck with the Quest. You must have hit precisely the same bad spell of weather that little Susan and Jim ran in to on what was to be their last excursion together before they settle in to come back to the States. Both ended up in sheer rain and absolute cold, spending part of the ausflug in hotel beds trying to recover their health. (Apparently the very thought of all this exhausts the typewriter so that even it hasn't the strength to type out the words. Does this mean that the letter will never be written to you except by hand? I hope not, for there is far too much to say. Now I have rewound the ribbon, and I hope all is better.

I know exactly how you feel at the moment about boats. They are as skittish as the weather. And I understand of course how you feel at this moment about the trip to Greenland, but hope you will wait until the last possible moment before cancelling your ticket. For with the sun on your ears, as I hope it will be again at Kenwin, the warmth may come back into your blood, and with it the itch for adventure. One consolation for me is that it would be the same boat and the same likelihood of a gamble between good and bad weather that we would have had if we had gone up the west coast of Greenland, and an even longer spell of it if it had turned out badly. My letter to you at the Sesame ought to have reached you before you left England. But if it did not, let me repeat here that I shall go anyhow, being more used to the sea, but if you do not go with me then I prefer to do it alone. With you I never have to be a reluctant host, but with anyone else it would be a burden to see they were happy and interested. The north is a very special taste, and I seem to share it only with you. I shall be desolated if you do not come, because I so much wanted to share this corner of Greenland with you for the sake of completing the experience for us both, of Vikings and icebergs. And I thought too of the second volume of the memoirs. But I wouldn't mind doing it again if you ever wanted to, either this trip or the other. So if you do not want to go yourself, turn in the ticket and we can meet afterwards either at Hitzacker or Kenwin, or at Copenhagen if you want to meet me there. I can spend up to two weeks after I come back from Greenland and then will have to come back here to clear my conscience and my desk. However you decide finally I shall understand. To repeat my Sesame letter, at the moment you have the singly available single cabin, although I may be allowed to have a double cabin to myself if not enough people sign up for them.

At least, despite all the rain, I was glad that you were able to see Hilda's Bosigran again. Some day you must take me there; but then someday you must take me all through Cornwall, for your sake and for Hilda's memory. I must have an absolute p.a. complex about mixing up Hilda Quick and Margery Hicks, for you have distinguished between them on innumerable occasions. And I do not stop to think about what I really know. But Hilda Quick, at any rate, will love the Ripley duck farm.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Really, all this trouble with weather when one owns a boat is as
burdensome and even more troubling than the expense connected with it, even
when one does not have to make the expense the primary consideration. The
third difficulty one never knows until he actually owns a boat with a crew.
That is the feeling of being trapped by the responsibility of using it for
the crew's sake, whether one really wants to go or not. It is like managing
another household and another Elsie to keep happy by keeping necessary.

I was pleased, at any event, by the fact that the Wakefields had
at last received the Gandharan book. I shall be eager to see the cast he
made of the Athene head. And fine that it should have come to you along
with the first copy of *Artemis*. I shall write Helen to see that the Wakefields
are sent a copy. I agree that the jacket design came out better than I had
thought. Knowing that Horace was panting to see the book and read it during
these langsam days at Gaylord, I took him my copy yesterday and left it with
him. I shall take back the one I ordered and send to him when it eventually
arrives. Horace thought the design for the jacket was excellent. I think
he could hardly wait for me to go home yesterday when I visited him, so that
he could begin reading it.

Did you take the neckties to Stephen Lewis? I hope I shall have a
chance to read Margery's autobiography some time. I should think Elsie
might really like to take up weaving; she has such a good eye for color and
design, as her painting shows.

Have not heard from Vebaek yet as to when he will come to New Haven to
visit us. I only hope my letter to him in Denmark reached him in time. There
should have been a long enough interval. I will sound him out, and if he needs
a little extra I will see that he has it. One does not know just how widely
the funds given him by the Werner-Gren Foundation will carry him about.

I was rather glad you had the chance to see the storm damage in Cornwall
and at the Scillies. One can never quite visualize the force of such a storm
without actually seeing the results.

Tolkien's letter was understandable, in view of his new book, but, as you
say, it would have been nicer had he been more explicit. But I gather he was
always rather an odd-ball and, to use the American phrase, a "loner."

Don't worry about the clock and Perdita. I imagine her hands are full
with the end of the year, getting Elisabeth into a new school ( a really fashionable
one, which will delight John, but almost necessarily so since there are few middle
range ones in New York.)

Kenneth's Christmas cards not yet here, but surface comes slowly these days,
slow-up or no slow-up. Do ask Cousin Jack for any missing links. When I was in
Bethlehem I inquired, and believe I have found the right place from which to have
the family tree carried out to the tips of its branches.

I see that you may have been held over in England for a family conference
about your family grave, but these things are important to attend to. Be sure to
brief me on this matter when we are together, if you think that John is not likely
to care. I am sure his widow and the waist-coated dandy could not care less eventually.

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I had not heard from Helen how many advance copies of *Artemis* had been sold, but 1800 seems to me pretty good. Just about the usual advance sale for one of your novels; and I imagine the same dealers are ordering the same number.

(Must take a few hours off now while I go home to dress before Sunday lunch with Mrs Bennett, our first since her return from Florida. She had asked us for the Sunday we went to Bethlehem.)

There have been a number of yellowbacks in, for which as always thanks.
# The overall Guggenheim list of awards is not yet distributed (they announce
them first only be regions) and I was pleased to learn that Hildegarde had won
one. She will make good use of it. # Perdita's little pamphlet, *The Eskimo Girl*,
was delightful. I particularly liked! "You cannot tell the girls from the boys
in this land, for they dress alike." # Poor Gerald does seem a little simply to
be hanging on. But one blesses the Knights of the Round Table for his sake. #
Rosemary's letter about herself and Gregory is a gem of self-understanding and
poise. She needs no more memoir than the text of this one moment of contemplation.
# It was good to know that Räber is at least settled in a place of her own, though
of course she misses the "life" and "deaths" of the Brunnerheim. # I was rather
impressed by the letter young John Phillips wrote you about his poetry, going up
to Cambridge etc. It is unusually mature. He may well turn out very well indeed.
# Will you see the Urzidels when he makes his lecture tour this fall? # I had not yet
written Harold P. Collins about the H.D. ms he spoke of, since the packing cases
are still in storage at the warehouse until summer. I notice he has not received
a copy of *Bid Me to Live*. Would you like me to send him one? I can easily. #
Melitta's situation would worry me if I felt any responsibility. Alas, I do not,
and suspect that whatever is to be must be worked out by herself. But I am sorry
for her unrest and unhappiness, when one would think she could find so much. # I
was astonished at the connection between Msgr Hemmick' brother and Natalie Barney's
mother, so that the Msgr is in fact Miss Barney's uncle. The spiritual aspect
seems somehow to have slipped. # I had heard no reports of Mary Hotson's Easter
play, for they keep completely out of touch except for the one time when Leslie
wanted income tax advice. As for his book, one would have thought he had long
since convinced himself that he had found all necessary proof for the identification.
# I did not arrange for a copy of the *Memoirs* to go to Bill Collins, but presume
Helen will have known what you intend on that score. # I was particularly happy to
have Melvin Doolittle's address, so I can now have a copy of *Artemis* sent to him.
# Dorothy Richards' copy went to Cambridge, or is to go there. Whether it will
arrive before they have left I don't know. You can tell her the arrangement. One
did not dare otherwise. # It almost seems a pity that Silvia Dobson has to go
back to England, she has loved California so much. But she will make a good
missionary. # Has Sylvia Beach ever found her autograph signed sentiment by Wilde.
One would not normally describe this as a manuscript, and it cannot be very
valuable which is all the stranger that one should have bothered to steal it. #
Does Mr A seem a little subdued to you? I think Catha is slipping away to be more
on her own, and he cannot help but be lonely. # Let me know news of Heydt is you
speak with him in Zurich on your way back. I would write, but alas have almost
nothing to say. # Christopher Tolkien's handwriting was most impressively Elizabethan
# I was interested to know that Doris had already been to Sotheby's about the
knitted bag. Its best resting place would really be to return it to Hawarth, where
it would have surroundings to enhance its interest.

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

The various clippings about Burgess et al continue to mystify and fascinate me. Burgess's glib references to his "many friends in high places" is a wonder, and one is aghast at the very possibility that they are allowed to receive any money from England, let alone from the government. Although I tire of all the government investigations in the American Congress, one almost wishes the British would occasionally (as in this instance) do the same. It is pure scandal. Now I wish I could live for another fifty years to know the truth. Or perhaps one has to wait for the Rowse of 2162. I should like such a premiation.

Philip writes me that he has sent the contracts on to you in Kenwin, and since I forgot to enclose the cheque in payment, I do so now. Both copies have to be returned to me, but if you want a copy for yourself perhaps the Union Bank could have one made for your records.

Quite unexpectedly in the post I received a copy of a novel, *The Idler* by a British author, Neville Braybrooke, inscribed to Hilda and sent to her in care of Horace Liveright, the publishers of her *Collected Poems*. The date of her inscription is 1961 and may even have been before her death. I suppose it has been laying around in the Liveright office until now. I must acknowledge it to the author, but know nothing about him. I presume Hilda didn't either, or he would never have sent it to this country. Is he familiar to you? I will send him a copy of the *Selected Poems*. Liveright no doubt sent to me because they have suddenly decided they want to reprint her *Collected Poems*. I have asked advice from Melville Cane but will almost certainly say no. Horace agrees that it would conflict with any new *Collected Poems* which probably should appear in five or six years, with one more miscellaneous volume of unpublished work intervening. Or the unpublished work might add a filip to a collected volume. In any event a reissue would be confusing.

Mrs Dingle has finished typing *Sikelia* and I shall spend part of tonight and thenceforth correcting it, to send at least one copy airmail to you. Probably two copies so that you can transfer your alterations if any and return. Meanwhile you may want to send it to Helen to read. Parts of course are still undone, but we can paginate later. I am excited to have the chance to read it.

Enough for now, and all love on your return. Count ten and then decide about Greenland.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

30 May 1962

Dearest Fido,

I fall farther behind rather than catching up, but things do get done, and today I have managed great headway with correcting the typescript of Sikelia, which I shall hope to finish tomorrow. God willing, of course, for the tide of departing students with their urgencies continues, and today has been Memorial Day with no secretaries at hand. Only more high school teachers, free from the classrooms, who have come for interviews about their part in the summer program in American Studies which begins at the end of June.

Your last two letters of the 24th and 25th were at least written in better weather, for which I gave thanks, and hope it continued for the last hours of this unfortunate holiday of yours.

Heen called yesterday on the phone about the possibility of a paperback of your novels. I had mentioned earlier to her, now that Pantheon seems to have done nothing about getting them into the Random House series. She says Harcourt is willing, but want to do *October* and *Roman Wall* together in a single volume. I do not know what to say. They say each is too slender in length to attract the market. Of course the hardbound copies have been selling more lately, but I had thought paperbacks might attract a new audience and perhaps prepare the way for *Sikelia*. #Isaid I could say nothing without consulting you. She is to be in Cambridge until after the 6th, presumably to see Christian (get his doctorate?), and then returns to Switzerland. You may prefer to wait and discuss the matter with her when you speak to her on the phone. There is obviously no hurry. She says about 2,000 advance copies of *Artemis* have been sold, which is good, I think, all things considered.

I saw Horace on Saturday and again on Monday night, since he wanted me to bring him a copy of Mencken's *Letters* for a review is writing of a book on Mencken and the *American Mercury*. It keeps one jumping. He seemed however in good spirits, and I discovered at long last the reason why the repaired leg brace was not returned to him. Poor Horace! Because he was not able to wear the neck brace made for him originally before the operation he did not think he should pay for it, and therefore had never given me the bill. They had also made him a second neckpiece which he had not paid for, as well as the leg brace. He felt all this was not fair to you, but I hope I persuaded him that it was much more unfair to the orthopedic appliance maker who had had to do it for nothing as well as invest irreclaimable material in it. At any rate I have now paid the bills and hope he will have the aid to his walking. He had been so vehement against their delay that I had never guessed the true reason. He had another telephone bill and was pleased with having held it down to about $25.00 a week. There had been much telephoning with his daughter who may return with her husband to England for another three-year tour of duty. All, including Horace are delighted; they because they adore England and want their children to be British, Horace because he plans to visit them in the Iggleston Manor (?) they plan to lease with a couple of servants, etc. The manor is a noble house of England and in guide books, improbably all on one floor, and early 18th century. She had an even bigger house when they were over before, but has always had her eye on this.

By Monday Horace had finished *Artemis* and was delighted with it. He intends to write you. I knew he would waste no time in reading it.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

The trip to Bethlehem was most interesting, a real American institution and particularly important to me because Hilda's uncle had founded it 55 years ago. But it was incredibly hot, 95° the first day, and Susan literally stuck to the varnish of the pews during the second half of the St. Matthew Passion. It was not much better on Saturday for the B-Minor Mass, but I listened to the second half from outside so that I could watch the crowds gathered there. Friday morning Susan and I went to the cemetary so that I could take notes of the inscription on the other tombstones surrounding Hilda, in order that hers would not seem to jar. I have worked out a design to fit, and will send a copy in my next letter to you. I will submit to Pup and to Harold, and then tell Harold to go ahead with its execution. I learned Friday afternoon that Gretchen Baker had come down for the Festival and was told that she would be at the Mass on Saturday. I looked for her but unfortunately found that she had actually been to the performances the week previous. We were so involved with the plans of our hostess that we could not get free to look her up in Bethlehem afterwards, which was a great pity. But one simply could not have stepped in and out, so there was no alternative but that of writing (as I shall do) to say how sorry I was to miss her.

We had a certain amount of excitement with the second orbital flight, and I am sending you separately the account of Carpenter's press conference which I thought might interest you. On the whole however there was not the same excited tension that the first orbit had occasioned. I had an interesting visit a few days ago from one of my earlier students who was on the boat which rescued all three previous astronauts, and he had been in on the first receptions and debriefing. He was deeply impressed with Glen Grissom apparently had really been scared, and of course this is no wonder. He told me that one of the chief points in choosing the astronauts originally had been their verbal articulateness. It was most important that they should clearly express what they had seen and felt, quite apart from the relationship later to the public in any celebrations.

You will probably already be home when this arrives, and it will be good to be hearing from you again at length and frequently.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

Your London letter of the 30th was in this morning's mail, and you seemed happy to be back in the warmth of the city again. I certainly don't blame you. What a trip you have had!

Like you, I am no cat lover; but somehow a honey-colored amber-eyed beauty becomes Edith, and I like to see her receiving in her had, seated in a wheel chair. She is quite right you know; her hats and her jewelry upheld her morale, and it is important to stick to them no matter how incongruous. The main thing is that she seems to be reasonably happy and busy. I see now how the newspaper snippets will work into her memorial picture gallery, and I rather doubt that she is up to the sustained work you put into the first volume of *Artemis*.

I was sorry about your not being able to sign the papers at Philip's. I think the American lawyer put the address as your Swiss one, as in the earlier contracts he had drawn up, so there could be no legal questioning about it.

Sorry for the new margin. I had to go out to a luncheon with the economic history committee, which went on until three--too late for me to go to the bank and straighten out my account. A damnable nuisance, and so I shall have to go early in the morning, since I must come back tonight to read a selection of poetry and write an introduction to it. An anthology which is to be printed and given away at Helsinki this summer at a youth conference. Now I must go out to see Horace, since I can't go tomorrow because of Bill Bird's arrival, nor Wednesday because of Vebaek. I still have to write my alumni seminar lecture for next week, and beads of sweat are on my brow. I am devoted to Horace, but know a little more about how you felt in regard to Hilda.

I saw Horace on Saturday when we went out for the medal. He had actually known about it but been told not to tell. (I don't think it interested him very much, for which I can hardly blame him. The medal is a really handsome one, but in order not to dwell on it, I re-presented it to my mother yesterday afternoon when we saw her on our way to my sister's 25th wedding anniversary. There was a long and laudatory speech of presentation which included a history of t.b. and so many references to literary victims of it that my chief impression was that Keats had died from it but I had not. However one of the chief surgeons at the New Haven Hospital made the presentation, it was exceptionally sincere, and in the end I felt very flattered and honored to receive it.

My mother seemed in excellent spirits although she was spending the day in bed. We arrived in Gardner for the afternoon reception from 3-5, and then stayed for the beginning of the evening one, for us 7-8:30, after which we drove back to New Haven and were glad to be here when we at last arrived.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

6 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

It was heaven to go to my mailbox this morning and find
your two fat envelopes from Kenwin and know that you are back at your
typewriter. I am always eager for your handwritten notes when you are
on tour, but it is never quite the same.

What a good letter from Sylvia. A completely genuine one,
as you would expect. I hope it lifts your heart about the book. Next
week is its publication date, but just when the reviews will be coming
one doesn't know. The Anne Lindberg volume was published today, but
did not get the N.Y. Times daily review. No doubt it will come later.
But this is a sort of Good Housekeeping book, and I noticed that the
quotes in the large ad were chiefly on the basis that women who liked
her earlier book will be eager for this.

Don't worry about the Neville Braybrooke. I will read it
add write him. I feel certain he did not know her or he would not have
sent it as he did.

I remember that in earlier contracts between us, and between
Hilda and myself, an American notary was required. So many thanks. The
check was for the $1.00 mentioned in the contract.; I have sent it to
you in a later letter. Please cash so that I can have the endorsed check
as a proof of carrying out the sale. I will need both signed contracts,
since Melville Cane says one original must be deposited with the Library
of Congress. Perhaps the Union Bank could make a x-roxed copy for you--
you should have it--or I can have it made here and return to you.

I look forward to reading Margery's completed portion of her
autobiography. I can, as you say, read it in Denmark or later when I
come to Kenwin.

Am rather shocked about the cemetary, especially about the
location of the crematorium. I am sure this could have been blocked.
There is probably no point, and would only create a feud with planned
neglect of your parents' graves. But the intention has been willfully
violated. If anything happens, I will of course keep an eye on it. We
can discuss this if you go to Greenland.

I really cannot understand Collins' remaindering of *Gate*, for
on this side it is coming to be regarded as your masterpiece. And it
continues to sell, slowly but steadily. Why don't we have Collins send
over 15-20 copies on this side, and some to you, so that we can give away.
Certainly much less expensive than always ordering from Pantheon.

This is hell about Dorothy Richards. She is obviously under a
great strain. I do not blame I.A., but I sometimes think he keeps her
unthinkingly on the go when her best chance would be to settle in for
a while and rest. He must have incredible energy, and of course she feels
she must keep up with him.

2^

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

It is possible that Gaylord might be good for her, but probably
very hard for I.A. to get to, to visit her.

I went out again to see Horace on Monday, since I knew the early
part of this week would be hopeless. He was at therapy so I read in
my car for a half hour until he ereturned. I noticed he had started a
letter to you, which you may have had by now, and he was painfully typing
at it when I returned from the car. Letter by letter, singly. But he
was proud at having stood for 9 1/2 minutes, and was walking a little
more. The brace had not yet been returned, but I did pay for it so it
should be on his leg soon. The bill from the Grace-New Haven Hoepital
had come, and that has now been paid too. The insurance covered over
$700 of the costs there, which of course was a great help. We had a
talk about his finances for the future, since his Sarah Lawrence pay
stops at the beginning of July. Joanna had been to see him on Saturday
and expects to be off to England again in a month, full of her plans
for a big house and staff and the chance to have Horace and Marya there
for several months. The English spirit is very strong in them all,
a combination of country squire and Swinburne and Rossetti in somewhat
ill-defined terms. Apparently Joanna's husband will retire from the
army at the age of 45 and their plan is to buy a country manor house,
complete with riding horses, and be the squire. Horace says the boy
gets on very well with the English, and this will be a perfect life.
With Horace visiting them frequently. But he feels himself an American
and would not want to move there permanently and lose his American ear
and vision. He is sensible, I think. Perhaps the others are too, in
their way. It would not be mine.

There is no hurry for your decision about the Greenland trip this
year. You have, as I remember, up to mid-June before you have to say
one way or another. Naturally I still hope you will, since I had looked
forward to this chiefly as a chance to talk in the manner of last November.
Actually we would be less interrupted than at Kenwin, where one has to
worry so much about leaving out Elsie from discussions. It would be
especially exciting now in view of your idea about doing a Butor for the
Scillies. It seems to me very good sense indeed, an excellent plan, and
a wonderful chance for you to go all out with your ideas of no punctuation
and lots of wristwatches. It would have a special effect and be consistent,
especially because conceived on this basis. Rather better than for Sikelia
which was deeply ingrained with an earlier approach. The great thing about
the boat trip is simply that one does have those hours of comparative
isolation in which to talk. Actually the trip to Turkey worked out in much
the same way. It is like a purge or a retreat, and so much has happened
after November (even) that this would come at the right time. Think of it
as much in terms of the chance to talk and lay plans as of the chance to
see icebergs and the eastcoastline of the Vikings that the travellers told
of. We could do the longer but more civilized westcoast trip another year;
it would be less adventurous but safer. Yesterday I went to the travel
agency and got my plane reservation, S.A.S. jet on the night of July 21st
arriving at Copenhagen the next morning, which would give me Sunday to rest
and the next three days for work, reading Hansen's dissertation and going
to the Museum. I am hoping to stay at the Palace, not the best hotel now
I am told but very convenient. My ticket is open-ended so we can plan

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

8 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

Another scholday ended, and now I shall have to put myself
to writing the talk I have to give next Friday to the alumni seminars.
But at least we had a meeting of the graduate school faculty for awarding degrees,
and I was pleased that an Indian student whose dissertation I had directed
will win the prize for the best dissertation of the year in the entire
graduate school. This will be nice for him and also nice for American
Studies. I am not usually impressed by Indians but this man is certainly one
of the very best students we have had.

The day was made still pleasanter by the arrival of another Henty
mss letter I had ordered. It says nothing but still is in his hand, and so
increases the census in the collection; and since it cost only $4.00 one
couldn't go wrong. What is still better was the letter which accompanied it
saying that the dealer would be back from Europe at the end of next week and "will
quote other Henty items that are available." Not a true manuscript I am sure,
but even letters are like hen's teeth, as you know.

I saw Horace yesterday afternoon and he seemed to be in excellent
spirits. He had written a letter for the Gaylord mimeographed monthly magazine
put out by the patients, and I bought a copy to send to you as one of the rarer
"Gregory" items. I bought one for myself also, so do not bother to return. He
is still having trouble with his brace, however, and when I spoke to him on the
phone this morning he said he had had some pain in his leg last night because
of the way the brace unnaturally forced him. So I called the doctors and they
say he will be taken care of at once. I feel like a mother hen. Pat's vacation
plans are now established and he will leave at the first of the month for a
month in Paris, two weeks with pay and two on his own. I don't know whether
you want to send him a small check or not. I said nothing about it, and you
had better be the one to send it if you do. I hate to seem to establish a
precedent for this sort of thing. Horace had had your letter from London and
was delighted with it. His own May letter to you was a nice one, I thought.

The photograph and the greeting cards by Kenneth have arrived, for
which my thanks. I had not really realised how much of a real artist Kenneth
himself was. The drawings were impressive, I thought, and full of wonderful
humor. In a way it is a pity that with so much talent he does not use it more.
But I suppose his greatest talent is a social one, and that he does use. Thanks
too for Eller's Prime Minister. Did your father ever speak much about her gifts
as an author?

I spent last night, after reading on and finishing the early draft
of the dissertation on women's rights, in packing away the books in the cases
to go to the bank. While Susan packed the silver. She is anxious to move to
the shore over the weekend. A nuisance because I would prefer not to go until

2

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

after next week when the seminars are ended. But she wants to have her plants
and herself out-of-doors, and I can certainly understand that.

The visit of Vebaek was a great success, and we enjoyed having him
immensely. I met him at the station but was a little startled to realise
how very young he looks when in civilian clothes. At Narrsaq, tanned, he
had seemed well on into middle-age. We had no guests for dinner, but after-
wards invited two Greenland geologists in, and there were many friends and
much scenery in common. Vebaek showed his slides and gave a little talk which
was pretty much a recapitulation of his article on the last ten years of
Viking archaeology. He gave me at copy when we were with him, and you read
it then. He had some excellent pictures especially from a scientific point
of view, but the ones we took of Hvalser were rather better artistically as
he himself said in asking if he could have copies of some of them. He was
most enthusiastically in favor of the east Greenland trip and said it was by
all means the best choice to make this year when it was being held for the
first time. He called it an unusual chance to see the newer ruins and to
finish up places like Igaliko that we missed before. Melgaard will be at
Bratalsfjord for a dig and will show us around. He himself will be at Narssaq
again and will be waiting for the boat to come in there. He was much disappointed
that you might not feel you wanted to come, but hopes you will change your
mind because of the unusual opportunity. He says the old Greenland is rapidly
disappearing and it will only be five or six years before most of it is gone.
The west coast trip he says can be taken anytime; the important thing is the
first east coast one. He gave me a new much enlarged map of all ruins in the
Juliannahaab area and the east coast, which will be most helpful to carry with
us. It is one prepared for the archaeologists. I am not exactly sure what
is meant by the announcement in the catalogue, but it states that the trip is
17 days round trip leaving July 25. I suppose one can reckon from that. If
you go and want to do Hamburg Hitzacker I think we would be safe to reckon on
reservations in Hamburg as of the night of the 14th or 15th and planning as
from there. That would give a little time to recover in Copenhagen. I see now
I have allowed myself only two full weekdays in Copenhagen before I leave, but
this should be enough. I will have to work on Hansen's dissertation on the
Sunday I arrive, that is the only difference.

Ad love,

9 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

Have just finished reading Sinclair Lewis's last novel, *World So Wide*, and so take a moment out for you and to recover myself. What an incredibly bad novel it is. There are sentences bere and there that are shrewd in the manner of the shrewdness of *Main Street* and *Babbitt*, but there is no ear for the spoken word (in his dialogue) and no depths of perception. His first book, *Our Mr Wren* has much the same subject of the American who goes abroad to find himself, and there is, alas, not much difference in quality between the alpha and omega.

I was sorry about having sent the typescripts of *Sikelia*, but not really so, for the cost of typing it was cheap and the expense of airman less than five dollars. The missing parts can be fitted in very easily indeed whenever you finish them.

Probably you will want to speak to Helen about the possibility of a paperback, and we can certainly discuss the matter if you go to Greenland, or, of course, afterwards. I should like a paperback, since this is a sort of honorary degree these days, and would stimulate the sale of later novels by you because of the wider audience. But essentially you are an artist and your novels are works of art. Personally I do not like the idea of *October* and *Roman Wall* side by side, but I may be wrong. Or, rather, I mean, I do not like the idea of them in a double bed. I look on what you have done as comprising two trilogies. One of them British: *October*, *Sands*, and *Ruan*. The other: *Roman Wall*, *Gate*, and *Sikelia*. The modern trilogy will I hope follow: *Beowulf*, *Robbe-Scilly*, and ------. *Roman Wall* and *Gate* of course would go well together, but whereas we still control *Roman Wall*, Pantheon controls the rights to *Gate*, and would never give them over (not Shhabert, but Random House now) to Helen's new company.

Congratulations on you and Beney on your new plan of the spring. I imagine shares will not go quite back to their earlier peak but suspect that good solid capital gains can be made from the present lows, at least in certain areas. I should myself have been sorely tempted to buy in a little even now, but with Horace sure to run through the summer at the least, plus a new garage door that had to be built and the shore (neither Susan nor the caretaker could lift the old one and I wasn't always there), termite extermination in town that had to be done, the new bookcase upstairs for Hilda's books, and painting the trim of Goodrich Street, I count them as my benefits.

It was nice of Hesse to send the little landscape and poem. How charmingly he does them! Will try to drop a note to Brig Leader in case he wants to run up to Connecticut. It might be a change for him. Am amused, not really surprised about Melitta's new turn of plans. But, as you say, will wait and see. Spender's C.B.E. I did see, and we can both wait until we must address him as Dame Stephen. I am sure it will come eventually.

One watches all the developments in terms of the Common Market with great interest and speculation. I myself am a little fearful of it on political grounds, and fear that because of this the countries will really weasel in any case. It is hard to see how the U.K. can hope to keep this up and the Commonwealth too. I suspect a general election will be inevitable, and if so then the Conservatives will be out. But I don't much relish the change either, so there I am.

I thought you might be interested in the enclosed letter from a Lehigh professor to whom I sent a copy of Hilda's poems after our visit to Bethlehem. He gives poetry readings at Lehigh, and it seemed to me that she should be known in her own time. I had mentioned to him using the stone, not the whole poem.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

11 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

"That night Frederick Temple dreamed that the sun smiled on him in a peculiarly sweet manner; he dreamed, still further, that it beckoned him to follow it to the far north, whereupon Fred was suddenly transformed into a gigantic locomotive engine; the sun all at once became a green dragon with pink eyes and a blue tail; and he set off in chase of it into the Arctic regions, with a noise like a long roar of the loudest thunder!"

So ends the first chapter of *Chasing the Sun*, the newest Ballantyne, which has just come in for your collection. And, since as the introductory note says, "the author has earnestly endeavoured to keep in view the glory of God and the good of man," I trust you will keep it in mind in these perilous moments when you decide about your trip or non-trip to Greenland with me. You will know best what to decide; all I can say is that I still hope you will come, and all I can re-quote is Vebaek's insistence that this is an unequalled chance to make the first trip thru Prinz Christiansund before Greenland turns into Margate Sands.

This has been an unbelievably muggy and hot day, and I sit dripping in sweat while I wait for Susan to come back into town so that we can go to a cocktail party at the former Mrs Eleanor Wohlenberg, who used to be my secretary. (It is not my machine which is sticky, but my hands; so forgive the errors in typing.) This was graduation day, and President Kennedy was here for an honorary degree, and New Haven was as filled with Secret Service men and members of the FBI as of graduates and their parents. Kennedy gave a twenty minute talk on the state of the economy which was both well written and beautifully delivered. I was forced into a seat at the side because of the 12000 who attended, but was glad of the fine view it gave me of him during the ceremony and as he spoke. He is more impressive in the flesh than in his pictures, where one sees a little dumpiness in his cheeks. But he has a fine smile and at the same time when his face is in his repose he gives the appearance of a high seriousness which is compelling. He increases, it seems to me, in stature, as time goes on, and gives the appearance of being someone who is not at all ordinary. Obviously one cannot agree with all of his decisions or opinions but he is by no means a shoddy person or a small politician. The graduating ceremonies were, as always, very impressive; and afterwards I went to the smaller occasion where the ones receiving doctorates were given their degrees individually by the Dean of the Graduate School. I was pleased of course by the fact that the man who won the prize for the best dissertation was an Indian who wrote his under my direction in American Studies. This makes twice that we have won it in recent years, which is of course good for the prestige of the Department.

A couple of yellowbacks from England were in the mail, and also the new Lethbridge, for which my thanks. I feel embarrassed about Littlefield and Marianne's letter about him, and whatever you decide to do I shall

we can discuss all this later.

On second thought, I don't see why I can't have a copy made of the contract here, and send the copy to the L.C. It was only that Melville Cane said I should send the original. Let me try, and

don't you bother.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

think is right. But I am afraid if the decision were up to me
I should not feel any strong attraction. Somehow it doesn't seem
to me to be quite enough, aetat 48, to be "ultra-initiate." This
is no doubt my Puritan streak. And if one of his parents feels
"that his literary interests are estrangingly unproductive" I have
a kind of sympathy for that point of view. He is not a bibliographer,
so why should one be enthusiastic about supporting him to do one of
Hilda, especially since you and I would really have to do the work.
In order words his chief passion seems simply to be "ultra-initiate"
but without any real basis for this besides the social. Kenneth for
example did work hard on his films, and Islay has made himself a fine
photographer. George had his art work for decades. Horace works like
a dog. Hodgson achieved his metier both with poetry and bulldogs.
You work like a trooper. I find quite revealing that Monroe Wheeler
does not seem to find anything for Little field to do. I like a return
on my investments; I cannot see what return Littlefield can give. I
think you asked me for my reactions, and so I have given them. I feel
much more like helping the two swans and the 100 Sheffield anglers.

Your two letters of the 6th and 7th were in, and I send you
my thanks for the corrections in the manuscript of *Sikelia*. I have
already paid Mrs Dingle and will tell her how pleased you are at the
work she did. Actually the bill was only about $35.00, and if one
adds the, roughly, five dollars, for airmailing, it still comes to not
very much. I of course don't know how this would compare with your
former costs, but at least this is a good job. I have taken the money
out of the royalties from Pantheon, so you are quite self-supporting.
(By the way, thank you for sending the copy of the contract between us.
When you get the certified copy made of the one you retained, will you
send that along too--the original, I mean--so I can send it to the
Library of Congress.

I am rather glad that I spoke of the various bepuzzlements I
had, for they seem to pinpoint what you had planned to put in the still-
unwritten sections of *Sikelia*. My point about the first mention of the
mother was simply that it seemed so startlingly abrupt without anything
of what an analyst might call a cue. Try Helen on this. In any event it
would not require more than a sentence or two to provide the "association"
which would have called up the mother image. The Orbius Karus relationship
sounds as though you would handle it well. And I think the latent
homosexual relationship need not be suppressed but can be made as symbolic
of the pull between their "types" as it is true. One doesn't have to go
into the comparative merits of pectorals as against breasts in the Karus
fantasy.

Helen has certainly given you the wrong impression of the paper-
back combination, as you will have known through my earlier letters to you.
I wanted a paperback. She said that any one of your novels was too short
to give a paperback audience their money's worth, or permit Harcourt to
charge a proper price. I would not agree to the combination without con-
sulting you, mostly because this particular combination did not appeal to
me. What it did was simply take the two items with the greatest sales,
and in a way this seems too bad to do, thus nullifying. But as you say

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

This is an after-eleven letter in the office while I stop for a moment from trying to read enough to begin writing my alumni seminar lecture tomorrow morning. I shall have to, for it is to be given at two in the afternoon. I intend to bring in a sandwich, send out for a glass of milk at noon, and work steadily with the help of prayer. It is absurd to have to work in this fashion, but so life has been. You will understand, for it has so often been precisely the same way for you.

Most of tonight, so far, was spent at the evening discussion group after the third of the lectures in American literature. I have had to introduce them all, and chair the evening meetings. Interesting but leaving no time for anything else, not even keeping up with the incoming mail while I tried to review the books I am talking about. However the outline of the subject is the same as one of the Munich lectures, this time on "The American novelist and the Uses of Europe", but of course it needs a different twist from what was appropriate to a German audience.

We have had to have dinner guests each night, from those attending, and Susan has come in from the shore and then gone back again. So she has my brief case with the three last letters and I cannot answer them in any detail. But I do agree that Hitzacker is probably adding too much, no matter whether you go to Greenland or I fly direct from Copenhagen to Switzerland to meet you after my return. We had spoken so often of it that I had not wanted to disappoint you. The time we would have, however, would be so short as to make the visit meaningless. Much better to postpone to another visit of my mine. I surely hope there will be many in the years to come.

I forgot to say that yesterday noon just as I was going out to lunch I had a phone call from Henri Peyre, of the French Department, asking if I was willing to have an interview with me taped for the French radio. It was on the ms of Eugene O'Neill at Yale. So with a tremendous flurry the French radio man came, interviewed me (I would not do it in my poor French), and now who knows when you may hear my voice floating over the continent.

I only wish the audience could listen to the tape tomorrow instead of having to listen to the clumsy and tired script I shall hope to be able to do tomorrow.

I wrote only to send word and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

It is two-thirty on Sunday afternoon and I must go back to the shore for lunch after having seen Horace at Gaylord this morning --alas, I had not been able to go all week --and picking up my desk top enough so that tomorrow I can: (a) have a string of morning appointments, delayed because of the seminars last week, and (b) take Leslie Hotson to lunch, and (3) have a meeting of the poetry board of the Wesleyan Press during the afternoon.

But I especially wanted to send you the review of *Artemis* from today's *Herald Tribune* which cannot help but delight everyone. It does seem to me to have caught just the right spirit. I showed it to Horace this morning and he was as pleased as I am. Winston did an excellent Charlemagne (now in paperback), is Swiss-German, and supposed to be the best translator of German now working in the States.

Horace had apparently had a difficult week with his insides, but this is now past and he was in excellent spirits. Fortunately he could keep up his physical therapy despite the discomfort, and feels he is making progress. Marya had called during the week to say how troubled she was, that she worried so, that she would commit suicide if anything happened to him, etc etc etc. And wouldn't I keep in regular touch with her by phone. So I called this afternoon and she was much relieved. She finds she can have a place at Gaylord in a house kept by one of the employees, for eight dollars a day. She cannot be alone, they say, while Patrick is in France, and so will go there during that period and, I have suggested, stay on through August, while I am away. (Thank God! that I shall be away.) It is $8.00 for room and board, which is cheap and this will keep them both happy. I will give her money enough for it. Pat is going for only the three weeks, two with pay and one on his own, and it will be a good change for him. I am however not giving him any money, for one cannot take the entire family over lock stock and barrel; and even the copy I had of *Artemis* which I had given Horace to be exchanged for the one sent him when it came was given to Joanna, so now they have had four copies altogether. He had forgotten and of course Joanna needed one, but why he and Marya needed two between them I don't know, since his is now in New York also. Joanna incidentally will not be going to England this year, the foreign post being put off for another year and the reward being, Horace says, that they can go back to Cheltenham and have the large manor there which they rented from Billy Collins' wife. (I hadn't realised that, before!)

It was so sad to have George's letter. I am really worried about him but cannot think of anything that can be done.

Many thanks for the delightful Masefield pamphlet, which I put with his letters to you.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

19 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

An absolutely sweltering and humid day in the mid 90's, and I sit here frazzled and sodden. At least the evenings at the shore are pleasanter. But I am always having to say good-bye to students, when I would so much more honestly say "Skat!", and tomorrow we have an 11:30 christening to attend, which seems to me immoral in mid-week. At might we go by necessity to a dinner given by the Indian history professor who has been here during the past year (not the one who took his doctorate here), and all this reluctantly for the sake of decorum. No wonder you are rebel.

Lunch yesterday with Leslie was pleasant. As I had predicted to myself the theme was how to make the most out of the picture and his book --since otherwise he has not looked in or phoned all year -- but he recounted his evidence with such contagious glee that one could not help but warm to it and to him. I had not realized that the picture was supposed to be that of Shakespeare himself rather than W.H., but I was not sure that light brown curls and uplifted clasped hands absolutely clinched the case. He showed me W.H.'s picture, without telling me his name, and again I suppose it well could be, but that the white tight pants were the symbol of purity seems less certain than that they displayed aspects of his anatomy. Leslie seemed happy with my response, and although the subject had never been mentioned by us he started out by saying that he assumed you had told him about using his savings to buy the miniature. "It would have been too bad for me to have raised its value and not have taken the profit myself." But I kept off all this, and stayed with the advice that he should get himself a literary agent who would take ten percent but really know what the illustrated magazines could offer, what television rights there might be, serial rights etc. He wanted me to be that agent, but of course I said no. I really know nothing about such matters, and could only strain my relationships to him if I sold everything to Good Housekeeping when Horticulture would have paid a higher price if only I had known. I might have suggested John, but said I thought he should have someone like Curtis Brown who are active on both sides of the Atlantic. Actually he might make something from this, and I suggested that in order to keep things in his own or his agent's hands it might be good to have Islay take a series of illustrative photographs of W.H.'s grave etc when Islay is in England next. It would be good for Leslie's book, and also be good for Islay I think. We can discuss when I see you in the summer, for Leslie feels it will take him still another year to finish the book.

I was sorry that Catha failed her exams, but the French of course are austere and want only one approach in academic matters of this kind. And she is not really the intellectual type, as some French girls are. Eventually she will be an excellent secretary, but she will have benefitted from her schooling and so be a superior person to what she otherwise would have been.

I am pleased that Petrie liked the memoirs. It proves her good taste. The Life and Letters part really belongs to your next volume. As to the sketchiness of certain parts you certainly could not help that under the circumstances. You may want to fill in and rewrite a little for the English edition.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I can quite understand why you didn't read the last Sinclair Lewis book. I had not read any of the several last. He really was a washed-out writer, and perhaps it wasn't even a pity.

I did send the Wakefields an *Artemis* but it may take forever for them to receive it. Apparently they sent out only a few days before the actual publication date.

A letter just in, at last, from Aurelia, who writes: "It is nearly 11, and Ralph is still sleeping (He does that frequently now.) He did speak to me briefly the first time I went down stairs, and I hear him breathing now. I fell a week ago--the first time this year. He just folds up, and does not injure himself. Between us, we got him on a chair. Must now he shouted for me. From now on I'll be busy: Where's the scissors? ... I'm thirst ... I need ... [Sometimes words fail him and I must not guess.] I read him a few pages from Bryher's book, but so soon, I'm tired now.¹ Thank you so much. Today I'll try reading him passages instead of pages. Recently he was surprisingly interested in Stanley Spencer and the Dalai Lama, as given in Sunday Times. But in brief doses again. What are your summer plans? Are you staying well? rony: last Monday I bought an exhaust fan from town for the upstairs: we've had a furnace fire ever since! Did you see that account of Fullbright in New Republic a month ago? That's the kind of man I admire! Some day will you tell me how you got on a list the Civil Liberties Union published several years ago. Same admiration! Now my poor husband must surely be ready for coffee and pills. By the way, the F.M. radio is serving is *very well* on noisy summer nights. We send our affection."

I haven't the foggiest notion what the list is, and whether I am being admired because the list was affirmative or because it was negative.

I shall send another, the usual midsummer, check for a thousand at the end of this month so there will be no chance of a problem while I am away. Trust you agree.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

22 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday, since I had to leave for
Hartford in mid-morning for a meeting at the Mark Twain Memorial.
In connection with the restoration of the billiard room and the
plans for proceeding properly. There was the usual confusion of
opinions, with each being firmly authoritative, but perhaps there
was some progress. I stopped to see Horace on the way back, only
to find Marya sitting outside with a couple who had brought her
in their car. Or rather I heard her from the inner corridor, even
with a hallway and glass between us. For her conversational voice
is not subdued. Horace was at his physical therapy, and Marya was
both amused and pleased that when she asked if he couldn't skip it
for once, he was deeply offended, even horrified by the idea. I
did not stay to see him and interfere with their visit afterwards,
but will try to stop tomorrow on my way to Princeton to see my
mother.

Have written Brigadier Leader and invited him up for
dinner or a day, and given him my phone number to call at office or
home. It would be pleasant to meet him.

Yours of the 19th was in this morning's mail, and I was
boulversé by your quotation from Littlefield. How could Marianne
find such a person attractive or worthy! This latest communication
wipes out even the impact of his letter about Venice which I read
with astonishment at its naïveté. For once I am sympathetic with
parental disapproval. The tactics were obvious, the function unbelievable
in his offer, and I was not even tempted by the chance to look out of
the windows at a Countess. Surely you would need to own more than a
bicycle to escape, even as a kind, rather austere, but very resourceful
person.

The Time review, which I did not send, may actually help by
being so obviously and bewilderingly personal. I cannot imagine the
background, and there must be one or otherwise there would have been no
point in reviewing the book at all. All I can think of is that several
years ago, Max Gissen, then the book editor, offered to do a feature
review of one of your novels if I would give him an interview on whom you
helped. I was indignant and said a review was a review not a piece of
journalism, and that such data could only embarrass you and those who were
named. If he liked the book, then review it. But he didn't. This may be
a revenge, although it sounds a little far-fetched.

I had thought of buying *A Spy in Rome* even without knowing
that it had an introduction by Downes. But didn't, and so of course send
it along for the collection.

I should think January was a little soon for a *British Artemis*
if you want to expand the second part. But if you should decide not to do
Greenland I suppose you could work on it until I joined you in Kenwin.

2 3 1 H G S

and we could go over it there. I myself thought, as I wrote you, however,
that L & L was rather more for the next volume and the war. Your
stopping point should be just where you made it. But you could put in
the Greek and Egyptian trip with Hilda, and I think the Dorothy Richardson
part might perhaps be filled out. And there might I suppose be some
expansion of the London literary scene in terms of Hilda. But so much of
this was really on the continent rather than in England. Petrie says
L&L of course, thinking of herself.

Two yellowbacks have been in. A nice letter from Edith, and
I am so pleased you made a hit with the cat. It would have hissed at
me. Poor George, I continue to worry about him; in fact I worry more than
ever, but suspect there is simply nothing one can do. Do you think I
should write him? I feel he would think the effort of answering more
than he could bear. These are the longest sequences of dolor I have
known in his entire correspondence.

Congratulations on your deep freeze and the strawberries.
I like the picture of Elsie and the key; one feels the aura of a chastity
belt.

A ister-in-law sent me the review of Artemis in the daily New York Tribune, on the day of publication. It arrived last night and I hasten to enclose. I think the tone is all right, and he obviously liked the book. Our names at least are firmly linked, as they should be.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

I find myself in possession of an extra day, and do not know whether to be pleased or not. I had planned to drive to Princeton today to see my mother, visiting Horace en route and going to my high school class 35th reunion in Westminster afterwards, driving back tonight. But when I woke up this morning I felt strangely dizzy as though I had the flu, kept dizzying around after breakfast, and the doctor says (by phone, that is) that I do have a prevalent bug which should not last longer than a day or two. But the drive would have been too great a strain and I should not want to be dizzy going around a corner. So I telephoned my regrets to the dinner, am taking dramomine at the doctor's orders, and (since I had to come to the office to pick up a window box of flowring plants that I was taking to my mother. I can work some more on my desk. And although there was no letter from you in this morning's mail, there is another yellowback to comment on.

I knew about Miss Doughty's porcelains, which must be very beautiful and are certainly very expensive in this country. But much admired by those who admire. I do but have no place for them. This was the yellowback with Littlefield's Venetian proposition in it. What a waste of life, say I as a Puritan! Am much enchanted at the thought that you can now eat char when you go to England. As you know, I always thought it delicious and very much hope to have some in Greenland.

I remember you spoke of giving Mrs Dingle something extra in addition to what I have already paid her. I think not, although a Christmas gift from you of something might be nice, or I could bring back a pin or something like that from Switzerland or enmark. But I gave her an extra fifty dollars to help her go this coming week to a Baptist convention in Wisconsin, and gave her the week off too when it was most inconvenient for me. She charged the going rate and says she would be glad to keep on so long as I thought it did not interfere. You see she does this on Yale time which she could not ordinarily do. I rather like the idea of her doing it and it is certainly better than the typing jobs you have been able to get done recently.

I forgot to say in my last letter that I was unable to get rooms at the Palace Hotel in Copenhagen, and am booked at the Royal Hotel, (the S.A.S. operated modern hotel). It was under construction when we were there, and looked like a modern horror. But they will be used to getting people up in time on the day of departure. I arrive on the morning of the 22nd.

Mrs Dingle sent out a bundle of oddments to you, but I forgot to include the Gaylord Hospital bulletin with Horace's letter in it. I will try to send this week, and with it a copy of the June Poetry (toss away) with a poem dedicated to Hilda in it by Levertov, an appreciation of Hilda by her, a stupid review of *Helen*, and an omnibus contribution by Marya.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

Am just back in my office after the opening tea for the summer program in American Studies, at which I had to be of course to meet the high school teachers who are attending. I am glad that is over; now the summer program can pretty well take care of itself, and when the concluding banquet comes, I shall be with you and away from it all.

I am actually feeling a good deal too groggy to make much interest in anything. My slight fever still exists, and I keep on having the dizzy feelings that have been with me since Friday. I am told to take dramamine every four hours, and that dopes me considerably. But I saw the doctor today, he insists that there is nothing that can be done for it except to grin and bear it. Naturally he would prefer that I stayed home, but that is impossible to my Puritan conscience, especially when Mrs Dingle is at her convention. My only lament is that so many former students and colleagues pass through town and want to pay their respects.

I enclose Orville Prescott's review of *Artemis* from this morning's daily *Times*. This should be most helpful, since many think the daily *Times* to be the most influential in sales. I should be quite happy if Harcourt were able to sell five thousand, and this is large enough to show their confidence in the book. I really can't say one way or another about what Harcourt would think of your rewriting a part of the second half of this volume, and suppose you will have to take Helen's word for it if they seem to object. As you know, my own opinion is that L&L much more properly belongs to the second volume, with perhaps a little flashback. To return to the *Time* review, Wms may have something to do with it, and it would be great fun to see the angry letters written to Harcourt about your mention of him. I hope Helen will instruct them to send the letters to me. Why don't you ask her to.

I am also enclosing a clipping from yesterday's *Sunday Times* about Gilbert, who skipped to South America. The story is a superb piece of interviewing and journalism and worth reading for that alone. But because Swiss bankers seemed to be so involved in the case it occurred to me that Peney might be interested in looking at it after you see it. I'll wager he knows something through the Union Bank.

Your letter from George distresses me still more to learn of his cataract. It is too depressing and awful for him!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

I stretch on tenterhooks to know your decision about
Greenland, but if the weather there should be as wretched as it
is here today I should not blame you if you decided to stay snugly
at Kenwin.

I feel a little better this afternoon, I think, but had
a sub-normal temperature this morning and a degree above normal at
noon. But the doctor says to go on with the dramomine and my prayers,
but to include vitamins also to give me a little oomph.

The office is quieter but not quiet enough, for visiting
scholars stop in to pay their respects and ask my advice, and I grumble
at them from behind the mask of my flu.

I still haven't dared to go to Wallingford to see Horace,
lest I should give a germ to him. I will phone him tonight however to
see how he is doing. I enclose a letter from Marya which I thought
might amuse you at her wrath. The poor Japanese man in question wrote
in the article which I have sent you that she was a little too plump.
Poor Marya, I thought she wanted to be that way. Anyhow she shouldn't
take it seriously.

I enclose also a clipping from a book and manuscript catalogue
which arrived from London this morning. I am astonished at the price for
a fair copy, and at the inflated rhetoric of praise as well. Really it
will not be enough simply to give Stephen a knighthood; we must think
up a wholly new rank in the British pantheon!

The Martinelli sent along a half dozen of her notebooks
written when she was part of the Pound. They have an historical interest
but are a little too difficult for me to decipher. I shall leave it to the
scholars of tomorrow.

Meanwhile I plow on through a new set of poetry manuscripts
from Wesleyan. Alas, there is nothing of any real interest there too.
But perhaps all this is due to the dramomine.

27 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 22nd was in this morning's mail. The
letters seem to be taking longer in transit at the moment than they
usually have. Perhaps everyone feels a sort of lethargy. I hate it
that you have this problem of Greenland or not, feeling myself so
largely responsible for the dilemma. In any event I shall certainly
understand whatever the decision you have already made by the time I
am now typing this to you.

Fortunately my flu now seems to have disappeared, and
not being dizzy this morning I have given up the dramomine, saving the
unused tablets for Cape Farewell. No doubt I shall need them.

To repeat my scattered notes of schedule, I fly from
New York on Saturday evening of July 21st, S.A.S., arriving rather
early on Sunday morning in Copenhagen. I believe it is 8:30 or so,
remembering the last flight. The plane leaves for Greenland on the
morning of the 25th. I shall be staying at the Royal Hotel, which is
the one built and operated by S.A.S. It is between the Palace and
that great bazaar of Danish goods for tourists, opposite to the
Tivoli near the main entrance. I have written to Hansen and asked
him to have what he has written on his dissertation waiting for me
at the hotel so that I can read it and confer with him. I have also
written Ingholt saying I hoped he and his wife could have dinner with
us, or me as the case may be, while I was there. I also had to write
to a young Dane named Iversen, who studied here, saying I would be glad
to see him if he was in Copenhagen. (Be would have been hurt and jealous
of Hansen if I had not done so.) I want to go to the Museum again of
course, and buy anything at the last moment I may need for the boat. I
shall take my Swiss sleeping bag with me. I still have not put in for
my new passport but will do so this afternoon or tomorrow morning. There
is still plenty of time.

Not much to report. We went out for dinner last night with
a sister of Susan and her husband, to give the wives a night off from the
kitchen. Afterwards I read.

Yesterday's New York Times announced that Omar Pound was to
be principal of the American School of Tangier. He used to work on Arabic
and will be a good man for it, quite apart from the fact that he should be
able to live much better than at his miserable salary from Roxbury Latin
School in Boston. He is a devoted teacher, and a very pleasant man. The
Tangier school goes from kindergarten through high school. I wonder if Bill
Bird was not responsible for his nomination, since Bird lives in Tangier.
However he asked no questions about Omar when he was here, as one might have tho
he would.

With the flu gone, I shall try to see Horace this afternoon.

It is more difficult now that we are at the shore, for Horace is not through his therapy until nearly five.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

A nice Yale guard came to my office this morning and solemnly handed me your cable as I was interviewing a student. I solemnly opened it after the student had left, and wept a few dry tears at your decision not to go to Greenland with me.

My chief sadness is somehow feeling the torment you may have been in before coming to your decision. And in the sense that somehow, without meaning anything except the opposite, I have robbed you of what might have been some other kind of holiday that would have turned out well as a replacement for the storms of the Scillies. Whenever anything happens of interest I shall turn to exchange glee with you, only not to find you there.

And how can I make it up. Will you fly to meet me in Copenhagen and then go with me for a couple of days to Norway to see the museums and boats there? Shall I fly straight to Switzerland and then go on with you to see the boys and let you show me Paestum? I shall certainly not go to Italy without you, Kenneth's manuscript or not, after having missed the time with you in Greenland.

I had a telephone from Leader this afternoon. He has just arrived today in Newark where the boat is docked. This weekend he is going to Long Island with John and Pup, but will come up on Monday for the day, while I show him around. How long his boat is to stay they will not tell him. What a bad joke it would be if he did not stay even long enough to come here? He sounded very jolly by voice, and I am sure I shall like him.

I do understand the many reasons for your not going, but as you know I cannot help but be disappointed. But there will be other years and other trips and fairer weather for you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 June 1962

Dearest Fido,

A pleasant handful of letters in today's mail: your letters of the 25th, 26th, and 27th, as well as the chapter from *Sikelia* to greet Mrs Dingle when she returns from her Baptist conference on Monday.

I certainly have made a mess of your summer, and don't quite know what to do about it. If you would like me to, I can certainly simply forfeit my ticket to Greenland and go with you to Lugano or wherever you want to be while Elsie is having her cure. The more I mumble suggestions, the more confused I seem to make things. If you should, by any chance, now having made up your mind about Greenland one way, decide to reverse your decision in the other, I suspect that even up to the very last minute there would still be room for you. My hunch is that they will give me your single room, which I should not otherwise have had; so that by returning it to you, we would both be as we were. That is one possibility, although an unlikely one I gather. (2) You could go to Rome to see the boys, who would be delighted to have you, and you could perhaps pick up a point or two for the book. In this case, and it is probably better anyhow since your ausflug would be over before my return, we could then stay quietly at Kenwin for the week before I came back to the States, you having met me in Denmark or not as you may prefer. Rome will be crowded in late August, and I should hardly have time to read Kenneth's book anyhow. I should much prefer to be simply with you where we could go over so much that ought carefully to be planned out for the winter. (3) You might possibly go to Lugano, where they know you and you could or might not want to fool with *Sikelia*, roughing out some of the still missing chapters in order to fill them in later when you get back to your books. Or you might, although I remember how difficult it was to get rooms, take the cure with Elsie. Oh dear, I'm afraid I had rather kept up my hope that you would want to Greenland. But I do understand, and know it might be a little rugged.

The modd is set by that superb photo of you which Elsie took. It is the epitome of douleur, and I moan in sympathy simply to look at it.

I suppose one mustn't try to read too much into the *Time* review. They have a naturally sadistic bent, and in this week's issue the review of Kim Novack's film is written with a knife. I daresay not everyone will like it, and it is rather chic to be sarcastic.

Wish I liked Chester Page better than you do. He is not Littlefield, I agree, but I see him as a non-entity.

If only George did like being in the States a little, but it is too late for that. Then Gaylord might really help him. But it is better for him to stick it out at Marvellis, I imagine. He is not up to Lugano, which otherwise might be fun for him and good for him too.

I'd love to have the World's Classic *Erik* if you want to send it to the Royal Hotel, but I suspect I can pick up a copy there at the English Bookshop.

Good that Maugham liked *Artemis*, but he has excellent taste and I

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

felt sure he would. All the American newsmen carry large ads with his
pictures and his statement "I am dying!" This is the pitch of his three
newest sections of autobiography which are now running serially. He is
canny even up to the end.

Was deeply interested in the news that you had heard from Frau Pabst. You did not say from where she wrote. Would you like me to have a copy of the Memoirs sent him, or will you send along one from your stack. I am still without the extra copies I ordered, for the wretches do not send even though I wrote to check. The result is, having given Horace, my only copy I now have none. Susan is panting to read the book as a whole. No, absurd of me, you did say they live in Steirnmark, which I gather to be not too remote from Vienna. Do you want to go to Vienna to see him with me when I come?

It is miserably warm and muggy here, and threatens to rain. I
still struggle at my desk. At times it seems hopeless, and of course I
ought not to go anywhere this summer. The publishers in New York will
be furious when they learn I have skipped the country, and will claim all
the bail I own them.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

2 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

I put Leader safely on the train at 4:00 p.m. after an extremely pleasant visit. He arrived at 11:30 this morning, and I more or less took him immediately to Mory's, which seemed very much his sort of club. We actually sat until about two, over his gins and water and my gins and tonic, and then our meals, covering his trip, Margaret Pratt, Joan and the history of Cornwall. I kept it very formally on a last name basis, but it was not long before I kept thinking I was hearing "Norman" and then was sure enough to bid him goodbye at the end as "Kenneth." After lunch I took him for a walk about the campus and into a college or two as well as the Library, all of which he seemed to enjoy and kept calling "old world" as a term of approval. I did really enjoy meeting him. He is a man's man, and the height of any day is when he gathers at the White Horse in the morning for a nip with the other two gentlemen of the village, on in the bar when he is in a corner with the other two colonels especially if one of them has been knighted. But this is not really snobbery, it is only that everyone in any particular company has made good. He is very fond of Ethel, I think, and of you in gratitude and great respect (for after all you have made good too), but in general women never enter into his particular and private world. This is not a world of bawdly but of what he would call responsibility. He is in surprisingly good physical shape, and I should not have been surprised if he had been ten years younger than he actually is. In short, I was delighted to meet him, and we got along together well enough so that he might very well invite me to join him at eleven some Thursday morning at the White Horse. I doubt that he could pay a higher compliment.

After our tour I took him to the shore, but Susan unfortunately had already left for town to do her Fourth of July shopping. Young Susan and her children arrive tomorrow at the shore for the rest of the summer, so of course there are many preparations especially of the house next door. Alas, the Mrs Heyda whom you know and who was to help her prepare the house suddenly came down with the same sort of flu I had. You are right, the flu shots do not help. Nevertheless I am having all sorts of boosters before I go to Denmark.

Ypur letters of the 28th and 29th came today, and I will answer tomorrow. But they were chiefly of your and certainly my sorrow about Greenland, and I need to be fresh for that. It is still hard to believe that you will not be going with me.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

The Fourth is over, the flags put away, and I sit
at a desk as full as ever. Now I am reading the dissertation of
one of the instructors on our staff to see if he can rework it
into a publishable form. One more dissertation after that, and
then perhaps I can get to the books that have to be read and thanked
for.

My grandson came in to our living room at the shore
yesterday and suddenly said: "How come grandpa you're not dead?"
This seemed to me to be a very sensible analysis.

The Addiss family arrived early on the afternoon of
the Third, very much pleased to be back but, it seemed to me, with
the sense that it had been a profitable year after all. The little
girl, now two, has begun to speak a little, but mostly in French
and she seems much happier when she is spoken to in it rather than
in English. The boy, now four, is for the moment almost completely
bi-lingual and when he becomes excited or deeply engrossed in any-
thing his tongue trickles in the most astonishing patois which he
learned in his school. The little girl of course will forget it all,
but it would be nice if the boy could keep it up or at least take it
up again while it is still a natural was of talking.

Two sections of *Sikelia* have come in, and Mrs Dingle will
be at them as soon as she finishes the filing which piled up during her
week at the Baptist Conference. She will still be here during the first
week in August and then has the rest of the month off.

A nice letter in this morning's mail from Kenneth Leader.
Alas, his stops at Wilmington and Philadelphia have been cancelled and
the boat is to go directly to Montreal on Friday. He had planned to go
to Washington from Wilmington, but now hopes to take a quick trip there
today. I should think the plane would let him get a glimpse of it at
least. I hope so.

Yours of the 2nd of July were in this morning's mail, along with
that of the 1st. I still grieve at your not doing Greenland, but not so
much so if you can stay and work on the novel. Israel sounds rather like
fun, and I envy you. But September is a better season for that than July
or August would be.

Much interested to hear of the Kingston book, that is the biog-
raphy. Eventually it should join the others in the collection. I wonder
if there is one on *Wallantyne*, except for his various brief memoirs which
we have already.

It would be foolish, I agree, for you to try to flip to Copenhagen.
I will probably want to spend a couple of days to pick up after my return

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

and then will fly to Geneva. If we go to Anticoli I shall probably fly back directly from Rome to New York. Say three or four days with you at Kenwin, and then about a week or a little less in Italy. I should love to see Anticoli and we could talk while they sleep.

I will really need to talk to Beney so that I can plan a little better for the future. Of course it chiefly depends upon what one can roughly plan on having. The Horace matter seems to me to be too complicated to try to settle by mail. I have enough in the various savings accounts to carry him through the end of the summer. I have just about paid out six thousand for him already, covered by the 4 that our friend sent in February immediately after my return and the 2 that came later from you. The Ballantyne mss took another 2, and as I wrote you I have anti-termited, put in a new garage door at the shore, etc etc. But it is the long term situation with Horace that we must discuss as well as for Aurelia. I will send her her 1 before I leave and give Marya the $500.00 so that she can stay at Wallingford while Pat is away. The telephone bills are back at their old peak, but since the calls seem to be as necessary for them as they were for Hilda I have given up mentioning them.

Much interested in the raison d'etre of the Time review, and suspect there may something in the anti-Freudian point of view. It was probably written by a lapped Analysand (or isn't that a sect?). I enclose a review from this week's *Saturday Review*, which appeared much more rapidly than is usually the case. I was delighted at his praise for your description of your childhood. Any effect of the Time review will be pretty well washed out by so many favorable ones. Both Harcourt and the Wolves should be very pleased. Damn Harcourt, they still haven't sent me the 12 copies I ordered for myself to be sent to the office, and haven't even replied to my last letter. One misses the personal friendliness of the old Pantheon office. The trouble is I have no real contact with Harcourt, except for Holsaert and this isn't his job so I hate to keep bothering him.

The ghost story is absolutely fascinating. I am quite ready to believe it, even though nothing like this has ever happened to me except for the time when I heard Oscar Wilde return to his old rooms at Magdalen. I had his old bed room but for some reason he distained me and instead went to his old sitting room and dining room, the latter of which was in my time converted into a bedroom. The only one who ever came directly into my bedroom was a Buchmanite who wanted to wake me up to save my soul. I wasn't very alert and not wanting to give him anything so spiritual did not think of offering him anything else, not even lemonade.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

One a couple of more Saturdays for the office and I will be off to Denmark. I still work desperately to clear my desk, read dissertations in progress, and, as this morning, interview an undergraduate whose mother insisted I come back to the office (since her son works during the week--apparently she must feel that I don't!) to replan his course schedule for the next winter. I politely said it could be done, and was normally done, in the Fall; but she would have none of it. Yale the Whale has a lot of porpoises playing around in the water.

I was to have gone out to see Horace this afternoon, after going to the funeral of Richard Niebuhr, the famous theologian, who has been a fellow committee member on the Jonathan Edwards Project. But Pat Gregory called, very anxious to see me before he leaves for England and France next week, and is coming up to Wallingford by train tomorrow. I demurred because of being at the shore and having both the Addiss family and Lizzie there (I fetched her from the train this morning before coming to the office), but when he talked about the plans he was working out with his mother I realized I had better go to Gaylord in the afternoon and take him to the train afterwards. So I can come back to the office, at least, for the rest of the afternoon, even though Sunday of course will be ruined. It's a good thing I'm getting away.

Lizzie looked brown and well, and I hope will have a good week's holiday with us. The big problem will be to make her feel that she gets her share of attention, since there is always a latent rivalry between the two sisters. Lizzie was quick to thank me for sending her a copy of *Artemis*, had read it through at a flash and was a great admirer of it. I was to have given young Susan a copy from the batch I ordered from Harcourt twice, but since they haven't answered my letter of June 19th I think I shall simply buy a couple of copies from the bookstore, give one to Mrs Dingle and the other to young Susan, and hope that the books will have come by September when I am back.

Several yellowbacks have come in, with interesting letters as usual. I worry a little about Marianne, whose prose letters I cannot always now follow very precisely as to meaning and reference, and who seems to be on the verge of a collapse. But probably I exagerate. One letter from Richard raised a question or two, if you have time to answer. He refers to a reissue of Schiff's "Richard, Myrtle and I". But what is that. Is the Richard a reference to Mr A? And he spoke also of the Wintertur people forgetting to send the 790 francs for May. This being "all thanks to you." What is the grant for? And what is this about the widow of Carl Fallas whom I gather you are helping or are about to help. The name means nothing to me. I was delighted that George's letters seemed to be more cheerful and that his health is evidently returning. There was also a letter from Catha, asking to whom the book on American education should be returned. Unless you want to read it yourself, tell her it was bought for her and she should keep it. I never did hear from either of them about it. You will remember I had it sent

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

over airmail by Mrs Dingle, because of her urgent need of it, when I was
visiting you last winter.

I will write Omar Pound and ask him if he needs any help in getting
his things to Tangier, but rather imagine that the school will help with
transporting his goods and family. They usually do in such cases. Algiers
must be horrors now, but perhaps Tangier is better.

By the way I saw an announcement in last night's New Haven paper that
Anna Freud is to be teaching at the Yale Law School for the next Spring term
and the Spring term of the year following. Plus research on the relationships
between psychiatry and law. Do you think I should try to get in contact with
her? I imagine she would not be very friendly because of the *Tribute*, but
possibly I should try to mend fences. I'm not sure why, though, a few feuds
are good for anyone.

I loaned a copy of Lethbridge's *Witches* (you sent two) to Horace
who was much taken with it, and when I asked if he was finished he said he
thought Marya had it now and that he had given it to Pat. The opening rather
grated on him and then, against his will, he succumbed.

By the way Horace says he is composing light verse now on his type-
writer. It's a good idea. He says he can't yet get down to working on anything
seriously at any length. He is having Pat call on Rose Odle when he is in
London, so as to explain the situation to her. I suspect this is a good idea,
and I think she'll like Pat. There is also of course the Knopf tie-in.

I had a letter from Ingholt who had asked us for dinner on the Monday
before the plane goes to Greenland. At Tivoli. I shall go anyhow, and he has
very kindly asked Helge Larsen also. This will be pleasant for me. Harsen is
now, I believe, the head of the Norse and Eskimaux section. I met him in New
Haven a couple of years ago, when he came to the house. Vebaek will be again
at Narssaq, and the boat is supposed to stop there. If it doesn't he says he
will come to me. And Melgaard is digging at Brattahlid, where they think they
have now found the earliest church built by the wife of Erik the Red when she
was Christianized in 1000. Maybe you'll still change your mind.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

11 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

This has been a chaotic week, and my desk is again such a jumble of papers that I am not sure I can find your recent letters in order to answer them properly. I have been desperately trying to clear away as much as possible before leaving a week from this Saturday, and as a result have been having final appointments with students, making reports still on one thing or another, and altogether becoming more and more confused. But I suppose everything done is something accomplished, and every summer is the same. No doubt if I were not leaving nothing would ever be finished. I have read a dissertation on Babbitt, More, Sherman and Mencken; and am on the last 200 of 450 pages on Fenollosa, which has to go the Press -- a dissertation done under me. I have read 100 pages on James Weldon Johnson, a dissertation being done under me; some 80 pages of a dissertation on Cabell, a ditto dissertation; and 8 pages of an undergraduate honors thesis being done this summer by a sluggard who didn't graduate. A morning-long meeting with the staff of the junior seminars this morning after the dentist; an a 2-hour preparation of a make-up comprehensive exam in the fall for a student who failed this spring. Conferences on getting a substitute to teach an undergraduate seminar this fall, because of a sudden death. And of course the visitors who want to stop in to say "hello" because summer is a time when one is not so rushed.

Last night we went to Stratford to see Henry IV, Part I in which the Falstaff was excellent, and the Hotspur (played by my friend, Hal Holbrook, famous for his Mark Twain imitations--an odd combination of talents) picked up a good deal at the end. Thank God they did not try to be original, as they did when they put Troilus in Civil War costumes. This was done to give Lizzie a night out, and we took Mrs Bennett along as well.

Faulkner's death seemed sudden, at 64, and was no doubt due in the long run to the amount of liquor consumed by him over the years. The account of his last days seemed blurred in the telling, and one wonders if there may not be some sort of story behind it. The New York Times went haywire in asking for tributes from all sorts of odd writers, like the author of *The Agony and the Ecstasy*, and curious comments from his neighbors in Mississippi. I will show you when you come over, but they are not worth sending even for wry laughter.

Next to the announcements was the story of Chaplin's honorary degree from Durham University, in England, in which he was praised for having produced "some of the great comic art of the age, with a political message that arises out of a deep view of man's small situation in the world." Under the circumstances this sounded very pinkish to me, for a degree day.

A postcard of the White House came in today's mail from Kenneth Leader, posted in Newark on the 10th and saying that he was sailing that afternoon. So he got his trip after all, but must have been bored by Newark before he was finished. As you surmised I did not mean that there was any Greenlandic strain in him, far from it, not does it surprise me that he seems fond of the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

ladies. But his divorce, marriage, divorce and remarrige really bears
me out as not being frightfully sympathetic. You had not told me about
this before, but it sheds all sorts of light on Joan's situation, I think,
puts him a little in the light of her Pole, and allies her with her mother.

Mrs Dingle has just finished typing out all you have sent her thus
far, and I shall try to proof read it this weekend so that it can go to you
by airmail on Monday. She will certainly have time to type the last chapter
which you say you are writing next, and if you have the in-between ones done
while I am away, I should see no reason why she can't do them too. She works
at the office through the first week of August and then goes on vacation. But
she is not going away, and so if you send the parts to her at her home she
can type them there and send on. I pay her extra and she is glad enough of
the money. Her home address: Mrs Albert Dingle, 17 West Helen Street, Hamden,
Connecticut.

I enclose another review of *Artemis* from the Hartford Courant, which
Susan's brother-in-law is editor of. Which presumably accounts for the mention
of me, since I also know the reviewer, a retired professor of English at Trinity
College. Patrick had an interesting speculation, when I saw him Sunday, about
the reasons for the *Time* review. He called it pure economic jealousy: "if I
had money, boy what I would have done with its advantages. I would have been
Gide, Proust, Douglas, Pound, Joyce all rolled into one. As it is I have to
work on *Time*." At any rate they will do anything for a phrase, real wise
guys who are drunk with the power they think they have. But I continue to
read *Time* for their sections at the back on religion, education, and the rest,
for they often pick up what I don't get elsewhere. Politically they have no
meaning; *News Week*, as you say, is much better.

Have for the last three mornings been faithfully to the dentist while
he replaced an inlay that might have worked loose in Greenland, as well as
put in another new one, and done a small filling. My passport is now back
from the government --I had to get a new one--and I shall get my shots at the
end of this week or next. Thank you for telling me about the kroner refund
from Aero Lloyd. Do you think it better to concert to dollars or Swiss francs
when I leave Denmark, or shall I bring it along in kroner to be exchanged wby
Beney? You can write me so that I know when I return to Copenhagen. Meanwhile
I will take along a little less from here and then repay you by check. I am
still too dazed to write very fully about my plans after Greenland, and will not
get my plane reservation until I know just when fifteen days is up which the tour
takes. I think two days in Copenhagen, and then I fly direct to Geneva as you
suggest. From then on the ten days or so (depending on your plans) are entirely
as you want to spend them. Divide them as you will, Italy or not as you wish,
Israel if you prefer, I am yours since it is you I want to see. Only I suppose
I really must see Beney and see how things stand or fall, and I wonder whether
you think we should see Kurt and Helen. I leave this to you. My only query is
whether Kurt will be hurt if I come for a third time within the year to Europe
and never see him at all. Helen, of course, one sees now in New York.

Marya removes to Gaylord this weekend, when Joanna brings her up. I
hope it will not complicate next week too much, especially as Horace wants me
to meet a friend of his at the train in New Haven, drive her out, wait for her
visit, and then take her back to the station again. Alas, living at the shore

more than doubles the length of my drive. I see him less often and I fear he is a little lonely. Having
Marya there will help.

More Saturday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

It's hard to know whether I creep up towards victory over my desk or fall behind. I face next week with trepidation. It is I who should be staying at home to work, not you. Give me the word and we can exchange places while I go on reading dissertations. But I look forward at least to a little of the weekend when I can work. I think I shall have to give up seeing Horace until next Thursday morning when I have to meet his friends at the train and take them to Wallingford to see him. But I did visit him yesterday afternoon and he seemed pleased with the fact that he had walked on the walker for nearly an hour, and was closer to being able to get on and off his bed by himself. Also he is now able to button his shirt, even though only slowly. What a long process it is, but one cannot turn back now when the goal is so near. I certainly, however, did not expect such a long seige. Still, I am sure, even if I had, that I should have gone through with it just the same.

Your check came this morning and relieves a good many problems before my departure. I am most deeply grateful.

At last I have checked my schedule as best I can from this end. I fly from Idlewild as you know on the night of the 21st, will be staying at the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen until we fly out on the morning of the 25th (a Wednesday). Meanwhile mail can be sent to me either at the hotel, or it might be safer to send it care of Aero-Lloyd, especially if it is to wait for my return. I have been calling the trip a 15 day one but I now see it is 17 days, which presumably would bring me back to Copenhagen on the night of Friday the 10th. The Friday is unfortunate, since things are closed on saturdays and Sundays. So I think I had better plan to stay in Copenhagen through Monday the 13th, flying to Geneva on Tuesday the 14th by a plane whose schedule I can send you from Copenhagen. This allows me to see people again, answer any mail from the States which is waiting for me, read anything more that I haven't written while I was away, and permit even some delay in from Greenland. To repeat, the Aero Lloyd address is probably better for this time. I am asking people who need to get in touch with me between the 14th and 18th to send in your care to Kenwin. We will probably be there longer but I prefer to be on the safe side in terms of mail. As from my arrival in Kenwin I leave entirely to you and how long it takes to do what you want us to do together --so long, that is, as what is done doesn't prevent me from being with you and having the chance to talk. All things being equal if I could fly back on the 25th or 26th that would give me a breather on this side, I will not get my reservation home however until we have heard we are together, or I have heard specifically from you. In other words everything is open after Copenhagen, and will be the climax of the trip abroad.

The President's tax cuts and the failure of the withholding tax to pass in Congress seems to be affecting the market favorably. The elections in November are at the root of every possible effort (including the marginal rates) on the part of the administration to give the economy a boost.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

The market is thus almost certain to continue to rise, at least slowly, until November, and I do not think you need to worry much before that date. Actually it is difficult to see how a continuing American inflation can be halted, or perhaps ever halted. For although U.S. Steel were not able to raise prices, nor its labor to get raises, other unions everywhere day by day are continuing to get theirs, and Steel eventually will. Raised wages mean raised costs in a spiral. One does of course have to be sure to invest in such a way that there is always the potentiality of capital gains, for the value of the dollar per se will decline. So that capital becomes more of a consideration than immediate income, but I do not feel unduly pessimistic if one accepts the definitions I have outlined.

I was glad to have your letter of the 9th yesterday, with its enclosures. I suggest you hold Margery Hicks and Rose Odle until I get to Kenwin. You never did send me any of John Phillips poems themselves, but you sent a letter in which he spoke of writing poetry in a way that seemed unusually mature and serious. Have you actually seen of the poems?

Have been delighted with the good response to *Artemis* on the part of the readers to whom you sent it. I slay was most amusing about Richard Mason. You did have a companion in misery, but not one of your stature. And both Durrell and Maugham could not have been more complimentary. Osbert's letter, not about *Artemis*, seemed somehow much livelier than for a long time. David's illness may give him the encouragement of having to do things on his own. Some of course have been intimidated by the book. Viola for one. And not really known what to say. Ethel was another. But Kenneth L seems to have liked it very much; I think I told you I bought him a copy. Pup's report was much what Schaffner had told me over the phone. Funny how each would rewrite some one else's memoirs so much better. Marianne, however, certainly would not; but I am not always sure now just what she is saying, although always certain of her admiration for you. She seemed quite sane about Littlefield; that is, shocked by his crudity. No, as Heydt has written you, I have not written him for a long time. But what is there to say to him now that Hilda has gone. I was enchanted with Kenneth M's houseboat and am eager to try one some day. (By the way both Susan and I hope you will plan for a month in Japan with us in the fall of 1963 when we go out. And we hope to return by way of India if the money holds out.) Poor Catha, she was deeply humiliated, one can tell, by her failures in the exams. I hope Mr A doesn't rub it in. And I notice she speaks little of her cowboy any more. I was pleased to read the note from Harold. Perdita hasn't replied yet about the tombstone, so I suppose nothing can be done until fall. I will drop Harold a note however to get in touch with Pup. I should like to see everything in place before winter. I have been rather intrigued by Patrick's letters, which I find rather deceptive in terms of what seems to be a truer nature than they represent. He is a much shrewdee (in a good sense) person than his letters indicate. Evidently being in awe of you puts him into a kind of literary mask so that he seems a little artificial when he writes. So much for the yellowbacks. Continue to send them if you want to clear your desk. They can wait unopened for me until my return.

I was a little annoyed to be called in a vast hurry by the New York Times Book Review Section yesterday afternoon saying they must have early pictures of you by this afternoon to accompany the review which is to appear on the 26th.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Alas, it is to be jointly reviewed with the new collection of Bob McA's things, called *McAlmon and the Lost Generation: a Self Portrait*. Still it will give more space to the review, especially if they want pictures, and you can't help but come off ahead of him. Still it makes me angry not to have yours taken by itself. However I did send them a few from those we had originally planned to use with the *Artemis*, for as Horace says the pictures themselves are a kind of affidavit. Alas, I shall not see the review because it will appear after I have left.

Now I must sit down and read proof on *Sikelia*, so that it can go out to you on Monday.

The Coigny manuscript has arrived. But I gather that more follows, so I shall arrange to pay her when I get to Switzerland.

I forgot also your letter of the 10th. A good idea to have a copy of *Artemis* sent to the Mercure. If only Adrienne were alive one would be sure of its being reviewed. Since Kurt and Helen are to be in Vienna I presume there will be no point in trying to see them, unless you want me to fly directly there from Copenhagen and you meet me. But I warn that Vienna will be crowded in this tourist season. However it may be smart for them to go, and establish some interesting new contacts.

No, much better for Doris not to try to come to New York just now. As you say, she needs rest and little would be gained at this moment by any change in doctors. One can only hope.

15 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

As you can see I am still striving valiantly at
my desk. I stayed home this morning, since Lizzie was leaving
at noon to go back to Florida, and my grandson was so bewildered
that he could only say, "How come, Grandpa is working at the
office?"

There is still a long way to go, but the distance
seemed shorter by a letter from Aero-Lloyd with last minute
directions and the announcement that one could take only 20
kilos mit, and no more would be allowed even by paying for
excess. This must also include the weight of anything bought in
Greenland. Counting all one's gear, the sleeping bag, and boots,
this doesn't give much leeway. Since the plane carries 80 I
can only assume it will also be filled with little Greenlanders
returning from school, or else Tuborg beer.

Lizzie's visit seemed to go off all right, and there
is obviously a great improvement since a year ago. The only
stiffness seemed to come, as one might expect, in terms of her
finances, but I can go into that later. I agreed to pay 20 a
week of the 25 for each hour of psycho-therapy, but said she
would have to pay the other $5.00 since I think one gets more
out of it and approaches it more seriously when one one's self
contributes. Otherwise in the States it is likely to become
une heure de moi-même. I also agreed to pay a large debt she
had contracted with her aunt, so that actually she is a little
better off now than she has been, and is she finishes with therapy
will be in that much more. At least in Lizzie's case I think I
am right in doing as I did, but we can discuss when I see you. I
value your experience and your judgment.

As I said, better write to me care Aero-Lloyd, Sct.
Pederstraede 38, Copenhagen K, at least while I am in Greenland,
as they would be better as storekeepers than a hotel, and I am not
sure where I shall stay afterwards. My plans now are to fly to
Geneva on the 14th, but will let you know specifically when I get
my reservation in Copenhagen. After that I am your boy companion.
(I am not old, I only feel 87 but am quite spry all the same.)

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

16 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

Susan and I went to a funeral this afternoon, of a woman we knew, killed in a motor accident on Friday and her doctor husband now lies still unconscious in a hospital in Hartford. No one knows how it happened in mid-afternoon, and he was driving. Both legs are broken, and his head injured. It is very sad.

Then we went to the house in town and she helped me pick out some of the arctic things I shall take with me. The blue anorak and the white one we got in Greenland. That was a little sad too, because it would have been much more fun had I known that you were going to see me in them at Cape Farvel. But I do understand how this year was not the right one, and perhaps in the summer of 1964 we can all make the right sort of easy trip to Alaska, or perhaps take the Hudson's Bay Company boat north on one of their trips.

Your letter of the 12th was in today's mail. And with it the ms for the whole of section 18 and the first part of 19. Mrs Dingle can get at them during the week so that these too, when the rest of 19 arrives, can go back to you shortly. I do not want you to wait while the steam is up.

I think you are right in wanting to make the next section your own *Beowulf*. The more I think about the idea the more I like it, and the important thing will be the detail, the good eye you have and the keen ear. This will let you have some flashbacks too, properly, and emphases which you may have felt missing from *Artemis* can appear naturally as they would or might have occurred to you. Maybe this is what the gods intended, without our knowing it.

We must talk about Richard A when we are together in our "retreat." I have rather neglected him, and we must put our heads together.

I have just finished reading the memoirs and correspondence of Fèida Lawrence, for Knopf. He wonders if he should publish it. It was done in 1961 by Heinemann in England. It is a remarkable document. Horace very much liked it, and I do also. She was an extraordinary women, no doubt difficult to take but certainly both influential and necessary for Lawrence. I must write a report on it for Knopf now. It is one more chore out of the way. But there are still too many remaining to be done.

Many thanks for a copy of *The Ring of the Nibelungen*.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

Another day nearly gone and of course not as much accomplished as I might have hoped. Still it was crowded from 9:30 on when my appointments began. A graduate student then who wanted to know what to study this summer; then another to report on the progress of his dissertation and his plans for next year; then a Japanese girl who didn't understand Hawthorne; then a graduate student to announce his divorce and why he hadn't been able to give me as much of his dissertation to read as he had hoped to do (a real sad sack; I sympathize with his wife); then an Indian to bid farewell and give me a piece of temple sculpture from the north; then a lady professor from Albany who wanted to talk about Delia Bacon and French translations of the English Bacon; then one of the editors of Jonathan Edwards who wanted advice on the arrangement of his preface to the *Miscellanies*. Etc etc.

Your letter of the 14th came, in better time than usual. Alas, it was not I who sought the Narval tusks, though I'll buy one this time if I see it. I would have advertised for a lost Fido!

I am delighted that Elsie is taking her cure after all. But hope you won't have to use up some of your English days by a trip across. Maybe we should do that instead of Rome. But I leave to you.

What a very nice letter from Mary Gough, most genuine in every way, and I am delighted that she liked the book so much. But then why shouldn't she?

Have just written a letter to Harold Doolittle with the sketch of the proposed stone for Hilda's grave. I had hoped to hear any answer from Perdita to the letter I wrote her some time ago but I guess she is too busy with the children and the affairs of Long Island. I told Harold to get in touch with her, and to go ahead. I said I would pay for the stone out of Hilda's royalties. As you know, I keep them in a separate account.

A letter in today from Gretchen Baker enclosing a letter from Hilda to her for me to put with the rest. She said Francis Wolle had told her I would like them. A very nice note. We must drive you to Nova Scotia when you come.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 July 1962

Dearest Fido,

This is my last morning in the office, since I take the bus from the Hotel Taft for Idlewild in midafternoon. A few more chores to be done, then I shall go to the house to pick up a few last things, go to the shore and pack. Then I will be off, and I must say I shall be glad. I am frightfully tired, and this pace of the past fortnight has been killing. But at least I have managed to do a great many tasks.

Your letters of the 16th and 17th have not been answered but were gratefully received. I have just dug up Petrie's comments on the *Artemis* and enclose herewith. No, I notice that you prefer a typed copy and will ask her to make one and send to you surface.

I liked your account of the dinner with Lindberg, and see that you have shifted sides. Although not generally popular in a personal way, he obviously must have great character and ability and I rather suspect you will continue to get on like a house afire with him unless, both being firm-minded, your opinions clash.

Yes, do send the yellow backs while I am away. Otherwise they will pile up unbelievably and drive you from Kenwin.

I enclose a sad letter from Aurelia (throw copy away) and a letter from Harold. I have written him again to tell him to phone Pup.

Am putting in a few stamps I have been saving for Elsie. Have been cleaning at least parts of my desk.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 August 1962

Dearest Fido,

...and so now I am back, two days back in fact, although yesterday because of unpacking and taking clothes to the cleaners and to the little tailors for elbow patches, I did not really get to the office until noon and was so staggered by the accumulation of mail on my desk that I gently let the oppressive heat overcome me and went thome at mid-afternoon.

Quite sensibly, I thin, I began with the unimportant details and by this afternoon I have filled six large office wastebaskets with refuse. I now just begin to see random spots of bared wood. But cluttered as it had been, I should not have been able to settle in.

It is hard to settle in and filling wastebaskets is a a good way to acclimate myself. That and sending you off three birthday packages which we hope will reach you for the 2nd. I rather liked the "style" of writing that one was an _unsolicited_ birthday gift. How horrible it would have been to describe it as solicited. They go with all love, of course. I shall blow out a set of candles here for your sake, leaving one for you to grow on and one for your good luck.

Although I never did know what had happened to Islay's Lancia as a result of the bouncing stone, he could not have it back until Tuesday. This comfortably settled my dilemma in not wanting to get him out of bed at daybreak on Sunday to drive me to the airport, since I must report in there by 9:30. So I was up at seven at the hotel, did the last of my packing and paid my modest bill (The Forum proved to be, on American standards at least, really inexpensive), had breakfast on the roof with one last look at the Forum, and reported at the air terminal as requested at 8:30. I found that my tuckle had been made out for Saturday instead of Sunday, but not the least of first-class benefits is that one can usually get on a plane anyhow as I did there and again at Zurich, even being the only one to be *alone* in my two seats across the Atlantic. It was Caravel and therefore rather slow (nine hours across), and I got in to idlewild a little after ten in the evening, got a bus back to New Haven an hour later, and my trip was over.

Actually I did not really mind the extra hours on the plane, since I dozed away the hours, ate moderately and drank almost nothing, and in one way and another felt fitter at night than I had in the morning. After the museum I went to the boys at 8:15, we had a single quiet drink on Kenneth's new roof and then went out to dinner at a nice restaurant of Islay's choice where we could be out of the way of tourists -- except that shortly after we sat down I was greeted by the Donald Cheney who helped us around Rome when you and I were there, and who had come back with his wife for the summer. This gave me stature with the boys, but I did not try to join the two groups together.

It was the best kind of final evening to have, and I am immensely grateful to both Islay and Kenneth for having made my visit to Rome and to Anticoli so pleasant. Our only howl was that you could not have been there to share the evening with us.

There were two notes from you at the office yesterday, and another letter

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

from you today. But I was shaken as you were at the news of Gerald's death on the 23rd, even (again like you) though I could not really wish it otherwise. There was much that was incongruous about the marriage, but obviously each depended very much upon the other. There was really nothing left for him, and certainly the Knights of the Round Table could not have sufficed. I am glad you wrote about Hilda's letters to Cole especially. Anything that survived ought certainly to join Cole's letters to her.

And you will probably already have seen the news of Stef's death. The letter you forwarded to me from Susan contained the news that Rosemary Benet, the widow of Stephen Vincent Benet had died of cancer and that I had been called in desperation by John Farrar about it since Rosemary always depended on me for advice about Steve's things. There was also the news that a couple we know in Hartford reasonably well, very close friends of Susan's Hartford sister, had gone to Nantucket to see their divorced daughter, gone into the house to find her dead on the kitchen floor from a self-inflicted bullet, then gone upstairs to waken to sleeping children in bed only to find she had killed them first. You have also probably seen of the death of Mabel Bodge Luhan while I was away. When will it stop!

I had just seen an announcement of Schabert's resignation from Pantheon, but had not known that Gross had also gone. I think the name will be wiped out in a year or so, although I am told that the Knopf name will be kept. It was inevitable although I had not thought Schabert's retirement would come so soon. In the long run it may be better for Heelan and Kurt that they are with Harcourt. I see that the Lindberg book has already sold over 95,000 copies, is #1 on the Tribune list of best sellers, and #2 on the *Times*.

Everything at the shore seemed to be going well, although Addiss has not yet been able to find a job with an architectural firm. They want people with experience but not beginners. Of course he was not here in the spring when they chose their apprentices from the graduating classes of architectural schools. I bought another sailboat for the grandson, in Rome, and had bought a doll for the girl, in Zurich, so they were both happy with their lot.

Tell Elsie that Patrick, the English boy of Susan's letters, had departed, at last getting a paid job on the crew of a sailing yacht, and *we* will be able to watch the international matches at Newport when Australia sails against the U.S. Everyone seems happy.

I must hop off in the rain to post your packages, and this letter, and then go to Wallingford to see Horace. He seemed happy on the phone but thought things were going slowly. He told me of the Times account of what his nephew is to be doing. The boy's father is the one who runs the business in which Horace has an interest. I will report on the visit tomorrow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 August 1962

Dearest Fido,

One always hopes of course for each letter before the 2nd to arrive in time for the day. Doubtless this will not, but it carries all birthday love of course and one hopes the lines are vibrating properly to transmit even without the letter.

I have worked away at my desk again today and I can even see
several bare spots on it. One of the jobs which I could do undisturbed was
to read the eight yellowbacks that had accumulated so that Mrs Dingle can file
them next week and busy herself without getting in my way. These were all new
and I suspect that the ones with the letters I read when at Kenwin will be
coming along later and be handed directly to her. What a pleasure it has been
to read such warm responses to the memoirs. They are the much better rewards
than those from reviewers since the letters come from those in a much better
position to appreciate the validity of your self-portrait. The vagueness of
reviewers seems indicated in the one I enclose from the New Haven Register,
which appeared soon after I had left. I don't think he was quite sure what
everything was actually about. O.B. was interesting on his comments (and
how you have given him the chance to succeed. It is as great and wonderful
a revival, in other fashions, as Horace's has been.), and I liked Edith's
quite spontaneous and honest reactions of pleasure in your book. (I was much
amused to see her define the amount she received from the sale of her mss as
"a snub to some people." Why do human beings, even with Edith's genius, insist
on vulgarizing art in the market place in this way? I suppose she hardly realizes
how it gives her off-guard.) Leslie's praise was sincere and welcome too. His
letter and his reading of your book must have provided the very few minutes he
has taken off from his task. Urzidel's letter was a fine one and I admired his
tribute to you in the dedication of his newest. He and the Montreal couple are
always genuine and for that reason good. I had not realized he felt snubbed by Kurt.
But they are not the same type of course at all. I was interested in Pup's letter
about the visit from the Brigadier, and on reading its account of her other guests
at the time I can at last see why she felt freer with the Brigadier away from the
house and fell into silence when she was in it. What a gang Schaffner inflicts on
her! Sylvia Beach's interview in the Observer was very gay. (What a time you
had with yours. Kenneth had read me your account of it, but I was delighted to have
my own. Marya's letter was nice, and I hope you wrote her that Greenland did indeed
have a capital. She would have gotten on famously with the British journalist on
the Brenda. It is so odd to call your childhood "idyllic". She does love a myth
of England that will even make Swinburne into a cherub. (The boys would laugh and
say that's how it all began.) I was interested too in finally seeing a letter from
Lethbridge's wife. And delighted that Osbert's signature was almost like old
times in its firmness.

But then all the letters were good ones, and if I don't comment more
it is because we spoke of so many inditers when we were happily together.

Before I forget it, I must tell you about what the boys' friends, Sandy

1 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have just sent off a birthday cable and can only pray that the spellings have not been jumbled by the time it reaches you with our love for tomorrow. Now I have a few minutes for a ost-birthday letter, before I have to go to the New Haven station at 10:30 to take Patrick Gregory to Wallingford to see his father. I am happy enough to do this but did say that his plan of arriving here at 11:30, because he would have been at Palisades with his mother, was awkward for me in terms of seeing Horace myself and getting to the shore for lunch. This is of course the Labor Day weekend, and unless it pours guns I shall make the gesture of staying at Johnson's Point with a well-filled brief case. I have done pretty well in getting through the things on my desk, but only wish my secretary still had another week of holiday so that I could have continued to work undistrubed.

Your letter of the 29th was in this morning's post-- very good time indeed--but I was anguished to receive it and learn about this new torture with your left hour. I am willing to picket the Holy Gates and protest that the Supreme Being is for the moment unfair to organized Bryher. I know exactly how helpless you feel. Time never creeps more hideously.

Yes, you must get away from Kenwin for a bit after this clears up or you will go mad. After all I still feel with you that although chicken pox may merely be chicken pox, lying underneath was a p.a. disposition (temporary) to make some attack of some sort, congenial. There has simply been too much, and even I have shuddered at the number of letters of condolence I have had to write. And none of them so close to one as most of yours have been to you. I am sure the boys would crow with delight at seeing you, and take you forthwith to Anticoli which is indeed one of the heavenly spots on earth. The boys have done abso-lute wonders with the gardens. There is much more than talent in the way they have enlarged the gardens and felt the donnee of the hillsides. And I know you will really approve the new driveway up as well as the reconditioning of the baths. What a pity that they cannot actually own the house in their own name. I report more on them and all about them later, but in this hurried moment all I can express is gratitude and affection to them, and of course to you since my relationship with them is through you as leader.

If not Italy then perhaps it would even be worth using a few of your Eng,ish days to take a quick trip to Cornwall. OR --do not laugh at me --why not try something really desperate and go with Elsie to Israel. 'eally, why not? This would be a violent change and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

an exciting one. It is now past the tourist season, the Americans
will have gone home to their Wall Street offices and dress manufactu-
ries, and the weather should be cooling off.

I shall be most interested in seeing Edith's new poems. Do
tell me which ones you like the most, so that we can compare notes.

Will you send me Catha's address so that I can write her? Yes,
I suppose it really is better that she should marry her cowboy. I do
wish she could finish her degree, however, but she *must* feel frightened
and fearfully lonely. One cannot blame her. As I told Susan, she really
has no friends of her own age except for the French.

Just for fun I checked the review of McAlmon's book and saw that
all the pictures were from the new anthology of his work. The picture of
you had come from that, for I had lent them his copy of the bound galleys
in which he had inserted pictures. They used none of the ones I sent
them at the last moment before going to Denmark. They have now returned
these with thanks.

I dropped Harold Doolittle a note to ask if he had actually been
in conversation with Perdita, and suggested again that he phone her if
he had not. I am anxious that the stone be in place before winter. And
if it is we might want to drive to Bethlehem together.

I enclose the New York Times obituary of Hesse which Susan had
saved for me. I suppose Ninon must have it but you might send it to her
anyway. I thought it was not bad, really better than the one in the
London Times.

Enclosed also is a note on Berlin which rather bears out my im-
pressions when I was there last January. In a way I understand their
attitude but basically there is a kind of underlying arrogance and
induced self-virtue which I cannot care for.

The dinner party I wrote about having to go to turned out much
better than I had thought. I had forgotten there was a plan behind it,
and this was to get the Russian woman to agree to look over and catalogue
Nadejine's papers, especially those in Russian. I forget the woman's
name at the moment, but she teaches at Yale, is the widow of a famous
emigree Russian poet, writes and translates poetry herself, and knows
everyone. The papers were mentioned without the name of the author, and
immediately said that they must be Nadejine's. She knew his first wife
very well, who divorced him to marry Kerensky. An Australian women who
brought him back to Australia, but when her parents saw him as a stateless
Russian they were not at all keen on the matter. This is a good break,
I think, for she will do it and give her opinion as to whether anything
can be done with the poems. At least we will know what there is. She
is most sympathetic. So you see that, even slowly, I do keep at our
tasks.

How I wish I could be with you tomorrow. But then that would be
a birthday present to me, by the chance to be with you.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have not really succumbed to silence, though it must seem
so. But Monday morning the pictures I had taken arrived and I could not
resist sitting down and going over them, removing the poorest (which were
many) and selecting among the better ones so that I could show them to
Susan and the Addisses that night. They seemed to like them, and I hope
you will, although a number of the archaeological ones I had hoped for did
not turn out so well because of rain at Hwahsó, late afternoon light at
Igaliko, and occasional stupidity everywhere. However there are nice ice-
bergs and, for the first time, some fairly decent pictures of people. Of
course they are not up to Islay's standard but they will fill out what I
have.

Yesterday I went to New York for one day of the English Institute.
I find myself rather bored by speaches, but it gave me a chance to see a
number of people and indicate that I was still interested in the organization
which you helped. The session goes on all week, but one day is gesture enough
for me.

Tomorrow, at last, I shall drive to Gardner to see my mother (rather,
to Princeton), while Susan goes to New York. It is rather hopeless to try
such a trip on fall weekends because of the traffic.

I will write more on Saturday. It was good to know that the packages
arrived in time for the 2nd. For once! I did not do the selections for the
poetry anthology, and actually would not have chosen just those. But since a
student was behind the book, a student of mine in Yale College, I felt I had to
do an introduction when asked. I do not guarantee the other books: they simply
seemed possibilities.

I could weep for your eyes and all the boredom as well as the discomfort
that has gone with it. our doctor is of course completely correct, you must get
away from Kenwin for a bit and where could it be better than at Rome. I think I
shall risk a letter to you there. We shall see.

And now Cummings has died! When will it stop?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

I think of you enviously in Rome and Anticoli with the boys, and I am infinitely happy that you could be there for the 10th. I have just sent a nightletter to Hodgson for tomorrow in which I said: "All affection for your 91st birthday, in which Dryher when I was with her in Switzerland asked to join." I am sure you would have so wished if we had ever had time enough outside the chickenpox coop d'etat. Now I can only think of the beautiful nooks at Anticoli where we might have talked and planned such little gestures as these.

At least I am glad you are going to get away, and am risking at least this letter to you. I ought long since to have written Kenneth and Islay, for I owe them so much. Instead I have been working at far less pleasant tasks at my desk to be prepared for Monday when appointments will start. I will indeed write them, but meanwhile convey my affection and gratitude.

Your letter of the 5th was in this moening's mail. Do if you
can return by way of Ninon, or run down to see her at least before you go to
England. She will need your confidence.

Delighted that you liked the Paris book. The anthology of course
I did not myself select, and would not have taken the same ones. I agree, there
is little fire in the poems. But these do not seem to be the right years for
poetry. The good ones are dying off. It will be night for a while. And I do
not at all guarantee the Steinbeck, about which there seem to be differing views.
It is only as a taste of what you could do much better yourself if only you will
give us the chance to take you someday.

I went yesterday to see my mother, who was in good spirits and happy
with her surroundings but in a frightful muddle which made even a pretend-conversation
almost impossible. It seems that the President is a good friend of hers and is
very helpful in taking care of her parakeets. "I do not think I have had the
pleasure of meeting your wife," she said to me rather formally.

On the way I stopped to see Horace, since Marya is on a fortnight's
visit to Joanna in Baltimore. He has just been having x-rays of his left knee
which he drags enough to hinder his walking. They say there may be a muscular
spasm which injections might aid, but will have to consult together first. He
also had x-rays of his lungs, but this is rather a matter of checkup I think,
since they suspected a spot when he first went. He has not smoked, fortunately,
since February. But otherwise he is in good spirits and says his strength is
increasing regularly. He sits well, and tries to walk now with only the help
of two canes. He does, he says, have a feeling of guilt about the length of time
he is staying, but I tell him this is simply a sign of his continued recovery,
and that any time he spends now is a good investment in terms of his own earning

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

power later. This is the kind of talk he likes to hear, for he has a solid
puritan conscience. Marya is otherwise, and is only too happy to grab a
nut and squirrel it away with or without salt. But she too is in an earning
mood, and while she is in altimore is beginning a new children's book which
is to be a Lives of the Poets, ending with Dillon Thomas and Cummings. I think
you will find she is turning more and more in the direction of juveniles and
this may be more practical than another life of Swinburne (to whom crocodiles
did not appeal so much as a whip did. But I think in his case that Marya would
even whitewash a whip. A whitewashed whip would be very chic, I think.)

I think I wrote you that Harold Doolittle had decided to go ahead
with Hilda's stone, since he could not get a peep out of Pup, one way or another.
I see no reason to delay and told him to go ahead. I only hope she will not
be furious.

I enclose, in addition to the interview with Our Dame, the bill for
attachment D, which you might give to Islay only for the sake of the manufacturer's
an address if he should ever need anything again in the future. I had great fun
in chasing it down.

A very kind note from Rosemary Sutcliffee who was at her most charming.
The mouse sits beside a silver jug with a nossegay in, being neither city mouse
nor country mouse, and certainly not a churchmouse, but rather a chambermouse-in-
waiting. I had meant it to be a gift from you to her.

What fun to meet Joy Adamson, but without her lions will she not also
be Billy's chambermouse?

The 12th seems fine for your arrival. We will expect you to come
straight from 'dlewild by bus to New Haven, but we can arrange this later with
all proper directions.

Sorry about the Henty manuscripts in terms of their quality. I am glad
you do not jump like a trout for nondescript flies. The oddments came from
Maggs, and I have had had another suitable book or two from Brimmell, include
a complete run of Ballantyne's Miscellany, 13 vols., which I think you will like.
This will be a really important group when it is finally established. Only these
last decunae will be hard to fill. I ordered another Stables, and think we might
enlarge to concentrate on Henty, Ballantyne, Fenn, and Stables. But you will know
best about this since it is really your field.

Heydt has indeed reached the heights vis-a-vis Swiss Family, and you
certainly must not miss the chance of meeting the descendent. I am fearful about
Dori, and rather think our hunch may be right about her. It is not simply a
matter of psychosis.

Yes, you did help O.B. by giving him the chance to help himself and
re-establish his reputation when the older periodical outlets folded. But then
you have always known that only people who help themselves deserve much help
from others. The world otherwise is a giant vacuum.

How glad again I am that s. Theodoro and Anticoli are so far from being
vacuums, as the gardens, the flat, the novel and the photography all show.

Love to you all,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

This has been another one of those weeks which have proved to be altogether helter-skelter. But I could not have been happier in it than because of your initial note from Rome which arrived yesterday to show how relaxing it was for you to reach the boys and be en route to Antico! It will be precisely what you needed to have in the way of a change, and my only regret is that I could not have been there to share it with you. But it will not be long before you are here with us, and we can make up for lost time then.

I am of course eager to see Islay's photographs, and only hope you indicated which two you liked best of them. Islay says it depends on how one sees one's self. To the contrary, I like pictures best when they please others. So you must tell me which your favorites were. And how I envy you the chance to have seen their photographs of Kashmir, but of course this had to give way to Coward. But I will see them some day.

The week was also made pleasant by the fact that my son-in-law has at last got a position for his year of apprenticeship in architecture. Because he came back late, after the graduating students in architecture had taken most of the slots available for that degree of skill, he had a good deal of döfccility in finding anything suitable. And of course it is important to begin well in a proper office. The strain of not having anything was beginning to tell on younger Susan and on her mother as well, and must have been difficult for him. I tried to preach patience. At any rate he is now to work in New Haven with the firm of the late Eero Saarinen, one of the very famous architects in the country who had moved his office here just before his death. He will be getting $120.00 a week which is certainly a good beginning, much better salarywise than I myself ever had. Now their problem is to find a place to live, for most will have long since been taken.

Most of my days have been taken up with interviews with new students, and I have not been able to get out to see Horace since last weekend. This is a brief letter only, since it is now 3:30 and I must drive to Wallingford to visit him. I will write on Monday, but this is chiefly to welcome you back to Kenwin and to send you my love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

17 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

Have just finished rewriting a dissertation prospectus for a
graduate student, and so rush to the typewriter to write you before I leave
for Hartford for a meeting of the Mark Twain Memorial, one of the few I am
likely to get to this fall. But I will make it a double duty trip, eat on
my way back, and stop in to see Horace tonight after dinner since, again,
I am not likely to be able to get out before the weekend. I had somewhat
bad luck Saturday afternoon, arriving just behind Marya and Joanna's family
who had brought her home after her fortnight's visit. being literally on
their heels I paid a visit to Mrs Kerr so as to not to interrupt their
reunion and was able to have little more than fifteen or twenty minutes at
the end. Horace was eating his dinner outside in the evening air--a beautiful
fall day--and seemed in excellent spirits. Marya was very poised and rested,
and much in the grande dame manner, speaking learnedly of histories of the
King James period and other matters. Somehow I felt a little in her doghouse,
but this is probably a great exaggeration on my part. I gathered she enjoyed
being in altimore but that it was a little too domestic for her. I know what
she means and actually sympathise.

Your letter from Tivoli came in this early afternoon mail (I never
got beyond the first paragraph this morning) and now I must rush off. I really
am glad you liked the new drive to Anticoli. I think especially for Kenneth
it becomes important not to have to tug bundles up. His health is not good,
and his constant preoccupation with it is not good for him either.

I will simply send this off, and get on the road. Or I shall be
late.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

My first appointment of the morning was concluded early, so I will keep your letter in the machine and see if I can work away at it during intervals. I made my trip to Hartford yesterday, and was glad to have been there for the first meeting since it was also the first appearance of the new director and we could therefore go over the progress on the redecoration of the billiard room. I stopped for dinner at a little restaurant on the highway and then visited Horace. He was tucked away for the night, but in fine spirits. A second x-ray has been taken of his lungs, and I shall be interested in the reasons for that when the supervising doctor comes back from his brief holiday, but they have decided he should walk stiff-left-kneed instead of giving him injections for the spasm. My hunch is that they want him to get his mind off it, and then when he is otherwise stronger perhaps he can begin again to concentrate on it. He now uses the walker whenever he wishes to, without being supervised, and takes three or four steps with it lifted in the air in order to add to his strength. And, to his triumph, he has had his first bowel movement sans enema since 1960. This gradual recovery of his natural functions will be of the most absolute importance to his sense of physical well-being. I gather I was wrong about Marya's coolness, since on quite other grounds he said that the drive from Baltimore had been made to Wallingford without stop, and that he was worried about Marya since she cannot take drives of this length without complete exhaustion.

I apparently left your Anticoli note at home, but pretty well remember what was in it. Actually I am glad Islay did not send along the photographs at once, for this means they will be arriving in New Haven just as you are, and we can delight in them together. I am immensely pleased that they have turned out well, not only for your sake but also for Islay's. I did very much want them to be good, and in posing I felt very much as if I were sitting again for the oil portrait that was done in Vienna after the war. The painter didn't want me to see the oil sketch until it was completed, and then I walked to his easel in an absolute panic lest my face show disappointment. (Fortunately I liked it.)

I felt pretty confident that in the end you would like the new drive to their house, and I hope you liked the new bathrooms too. The great pity is that they cannot buy the place, but Kenneth hopes that some day they can; and having ten years of lease they might as well enjoy it now, not when Kenneth is older.

To return to earlier letters, I am eager to have your report on the Capri pink consulate. Coigny talked about it to us when we visited her. I must admit that it sounds ghastly, and, if I may say so, very un-British. It must be the Greenlandic influence being felt in the foreign office. Poor Coigny, it is definitely not her prayer rug. Commiserate with her for me, and do tell her that the typescripts have arrived safely.

I was interested in your letter from the woman who is writing on D.R. What do you and Rose O think? Should I try to get in touch with the sister in Texas to see if she has anything to add to the collection? I'm afraid I've mislaid her address if I ever have it. I must fly to Dallas after Thanksgiving to speak to a convention of secondary school teachers there, on the place of poetry in the classroom (you must give me ideas when you come), and it is possible she lives in Dallas.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Yes, do meet your Chester Page when you come over. After all, he has the first two names of my father, so he cannot be too bad, only a third anyhow.

I was much interested in seeing John Phillips' poems. He quite obviously is extremely serious about his writing and about life in general, which I heartily approve of as an attitude. The more recent poems seem to be better than the earlier ones, which is a good sign. The total effect is one of deep seriousness and an academic rather than a bravely creative touch, but it is certainly clear that he is not ordinary.

Much interested in the Annie Reich letter. She too has never been ordinary, a fine woman. You must plan to see her when you are over.

Hilda's papers were gone over this summer as I had requested, but Mrs Robley's brother has just died so I have not been able to consult with her as to the arrangement. A few papers had been put with her books, and I have only now uncovered them as I have worked on the shelves. One extraordinary document is a kind of detailed outline of her life, at least parts of it, which may have been intended as the skeleton of her own memoirs. Having you fill it out for me will give us months of conversation and would take care of a trip around the world, figuratively. I keep it close to the chest. Much about Kenneth to confirm what you have told me. As to the books I have taken out the duplicates of her own books as well as of Kenneth's etc to take to Goodrich Street to store. Also the presentation copies of books given to her. It will take some time to sort out, but then we will be in shape. You will be here at a good time for settling questions, or at least the first ones. One could not have planned it better.

I have solemnly laid out all of the eskimo carvings on the shelves of the new bookcase at Goodrich Street (wanting to do so before I put books on them), and this afternoon the assistant director of the Peabody Museum is coming out to take a look at the ivories. I think I told you the Museum had asked to have a little show of a selection of them, but I insist that they know beforehand whether or not it is worthwhile. I love every stick and stone, but that doesn't prove that they are suited to the local sanctuary.

Anyhow I have agreed to give another magic lantern lecture on Greenland to a local club in early November.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 16th came in this afternoon's mail, much more
swiftly than post from Italy usually appears. Your typing set me in howls
of laughter; it was like the scratching of some medieval scribe. Or like
abstract expressionism.

I was pleased that Kenneth's health was better, but I am sure he
is not well by any means. I only hope he intends to come over for a little
prutting this winter. It is the only sensible thing to do. Best of all is
your confirmation of my good opinion of his book. It seems to me far and away
better than the last manuscript I saw, and I am not at all hopeless about
getting it published. I spoke to him of the advantage of having perhaps a
small publisher do it so that it would not be lost on a huge list. I know
Patrick approves of this, and says that new books are often simply swallowed
up while the big publishers push their sure best sellers. Did he mention any-
thing of this to you? And what did you think of my suggested new title for
it? At the time the boys seemed delighted with it, and I hope you approve.

Speaking of your own book I think I delayed writing you about my
recheeking of XVII until your return to Kenwin. Then I have been too rushed
in my last notes. It seemed fine to me except for two minor typos which you
might alter in your copies. On page 10, there should be a final quote at the
end of line 4. Abd on the same page, line 11, I think something must have been
omitted from your manuscript. I find it difficult to understand as is: "It was
honesty, and not for the same of his own peace, if the answer was no." *Now*, in
typing it, I see: it should be "sake" not "same." On page 11, wouldn't it be
better to have a question mark at the end of the line?

Mrs Dingle has the first 3 front pages of Chapter XVI as well as the
final 3, but at least one is missing in between. She is waiting to type until you
send. At the moment she is head over heels in work on typing out assignment sheets
for the various classes which begin tomorrow. My lecture class begins then; pity
them students and pray for me!

Edith's *The Outcasts* has arrived, and since it was brief I read it last
night. I am much impressed by it, and it really is enough for a book, being what the
poems are. Do tell her how much I like it, and how indebted I am --we all are -- to
her for the poems. They are a triumph.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

The first week of term is always a busy one. I am glad it is over. I have had my first class, arriving to find both the street door and the classroom door locked, and the 300 or more students milling like a mob. But they laughed eventually after I began talking, once the room was opened, and seemed to leave in what I hope will be good spirits for the year. I have given the graduate students their French and German examinations and will spend the weekend correcting the papers. As well as having a student take boxes of Hilda's books to the house for storage -- the duplicate copies of her own and Kenneth's books, and the first batch of inscribed copies. I only hope there will be a little order at Goodrich Street before you arrive.

We have been shivering. At night it has been going down into the 40's, and as you know we have no heat except from one fireplace and from an electric stove in our bathroom. But fortunately the Addisses have found a small flat for the winter, so that Susan will soon, we hope, be relieved from baby-sitting while they search. There will be a little more of the same while they arrange their furniture, but the end is in sight. Last night after dinner we loaded the station wagon and took all of her most perishable orchids into town and switched on the furnace for the greenhouse there so that the frost will not hurt them. Many of course are already in bud for the winter.

I had put out all of the eskimaux artifacts on the shelves of the new bookcase as a convenient spot for the representative of the Peabody Museum to see them. They plan a loan show of a few of them, along with some Pacific ivories owned by another collector, in February. Now I must run out and put the things away so there will be room for the books tomorrow.

Had a pleasant card from the Urzidels, in Israel, which I enjoyed. They seem to like it immensely and will be full of good advise for you and Elsie.

30 September 1962

Dearest Fido,

We have been moving in all week, and there have been so many
meetings and so much to do that I realize I am not wholly happily or easily
in harness again. But if only we can once catch up during your visit, then
maybe we can stay caught up. But that is not the only reason we are anxious
to have you come. It will be sheer delight simply to see you.

Now as to plans. I do not know yet when you are expected to
arrive at Idlewild, whether of the 12th (the day you leave) or the day after-
wards. The thing to do in any event is to ask the Swissair people in New
York, or Pan-Am or whatever line you fly by (by New York I mean Idlewild)
to call the Connecticut Limousine Service by phone and engage a seat on the
next limousine to New Haven where I will meet you at the Taft and take you
home. If you tell me the flight, I will reserve a seat for you; but in any
event you will have to phone to confirm. Don't worry if your plane is late;
they will check and transfer to the next one. They run every two hours.

Unfortunately there is no football game on the 13th or on the
20th, the two games away from home during the year. I will reserve three
seats for the 27th in the hope that you will be able to stay that long. If
you can't, we will ask some foreign student as guest. I have to give an
oral examination, I think, on Saturday morning the 13th, which I can't escape;
but I thought we might go out to see Horace on Saturday afternoon. Would you
like me to try to arrange to have Marya and Patrick come up that day so you
could see them at the same time, and perhaps avoid a whole day in New York
devoted to her? They could even stay for supper and take an evening train back
to New York. I will do nothing until I hear. The following weekend we can
go somewhere in the country for a little fling, perhaps to the Berkshires which
I don't think you have ever seen. On the 14th we might drive to Sturbridge Village,
an outdoor museum which Susan has never visited and would like to. Or to Mystic
again. I should think weekends with us, and as much of the week days as you can
spare. Say that you are going over the manuscript of the new novel with me. You've
done so much on the corrections that we really don't have to, but it will make a
sufficient excuse.

Islay's photographs have arrived and are a delight. It is so hard
to have an image of one's self, and here are annumerable images to choose from.
I showed them to Horace this morning when I went to Gaylord to see him, and he
was delighted with them.

Thursday night we had a visit from Frau Schack, the translator,
whom Hilda seemed to like. She thought your price for the dishwasher was about right,
but of course to us it seems stupendous. Susan thinks the average price here is
about $150.00. But I think Elsie will get to like it, even to depend on it. And
it can be a lifesaver. What a better that Inez is in a flap. Elise can be difficult
at times and is certainly no one to smooth over domestic crises. Her speciality
seems to be starting them. But one would be lost without her, and she really is
dependable in the largest sense, and completely loyal which is enough in itself.

I do agree about your shifting to the Hanover--a very good bank indeed.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

And actually I see no reason for hanging on with the Chemical. It seems more of a nuisance than anything else, and there is no sentimental tie to attach one. Quite the reverse.

The more I think about Ninon, the cruel/er it seems of the Bodmers to turn her out. Surely Hesse could not have earned very much income from his writing, and to help his widow is to continue to help him. I was much interested in the plans for a Hesse collection and study center. This sounds like a good thing. If there are triplicates of books especially the privately printed things one might fill out the collection at Yale so there would also be a center on this side for him. One can see and discuss, as events develop.

Petrie sent a typed copy of her review of *Artemis*, which was certainly kind of her. I shall write to thank her. Pippitt's letter seemed as though from a nice person, and I should certainly see her while in New York if you possibly can. Much mystified by Helen's letter about the Verona pamphlet, but you can explain all when you come. To judge from Collins' letter there should be a good press built up by the time *Artemis* appears in its English edition. Perhaps better than if one had planned it so.

Alas, it is difficult these days to get out to see Horace. But he is always glad when I come, and seems to have made some acquaintances at the Sanatorium who fill his days a little. Marya is not so well he says, and has dizzy spells, but is seeing the doctor for a checkup. He had a bad cold all week but was well recovered. "as sitting in the solarium when I arrived and went back to his room easily on the walker. And says he has been able to take as many as seven steps without even a cane. His spirits of course are excellent. "e has just been reading the letters of Oscar Wilde and is to do an essay review of them. I am glad to say he plans to do this now, and it may mean the end of his vacation from the typewriter. He had good things to say and the essay should be an excellent one.

I must fly and go home to shave in time for the English Department tea this afternoon. Always a bore, but one must put in an appearance.

Will try to write tomorrow. I was horrified that my letter to Italy never reached you until it had been forwarded to kenwin.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

1 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

This time I shall begin the day--even before the secretary arrives--
by beginning a letter to you. And now, with the knowledge that your letter, too,
was another in a series of yesterday's accidents, I hang my head in shame, and snort
with rage. For, having written especially in the hope of its being at Sesame
more or less immediately after your arrival, I then --in my rush at the end--
simply sent it automatically to Kenwin, from whence it will have to be forwarded
if at all.

It really was a day. The morning went in my visit to Horace, which
was pleasant and I enjoyed except that it took important time away from my desk.
To repeat yesterday's Kenwin letter, he had had a wretched cold all week but was
now recovered. Was in the solarium when I arrived, and used his walker to get
back to his room with remarkable celerity. Says he has now taken as many as seven
steps without either walker or sticks. Was deep in reading the new edition of
Wilde's letters, and seemed ready to write a review essay on it immediately. I
hope he does, for this may break the spell which has kept him away from the
office.

Carrying a sealskin doll with carved soapstone head from my office,
I turned it upside down (carrying too many other things at the same time) and broke
off the topknot when it hit the tile floor. It can probably be mended, but is
annoying when I think it came safely from Skjorlungen only to meet an ungluck
here.

The late afternoon had to be devoted to a reception given by the chairman
of English for members of the department. Counting wives I believe there were some
120-40 there. These affairs always tire me. Then Susan and I hurried through
dinner in order to listen to Kennedy on t.v. talk on the Mississippi affair, only
at 7 to find that the paper had been wrong, that the time was 7:30 instead, and
finally postponed until 10. Then we did listen and I was particularly interested
in the newsreels that followed, showing the mobs and all of the disgraceful inci-
dents.

In the midst of all that a long distance phone call came for Susan from
Florida toom a doctor, to say that Lizzie had taken an overdose of 10 sleeping
pills, then called her psychiatrist who told her to go to the hospital. She will
of course recover, for the dose wasn't that seriously large, I gather. I will
try to speak with the psychiatrist by phone this morning.

(At that moment was interrupted by the editor of the *Galaxy* at Sturbridge,
whose poetry I select, full of woes at the new director of the Village. Meanwhile
I have called Florida, but no one is yet in. This is probably lucky, since the
answering service says they will tell him to call at my expense, and he perhaps will
do so before he takes on his first analysand of the day. Otherwise it is pure hell
to get to talk to one of the tribe.)

Meanwhile three letters came in from you in the morning's mail, or
rather two letters plus one with corrections. These should be well entered before
you come. You are quite right in getting these in order first. The inserts came
come later. Meanwhile the pure act of correcting gets the thing in your mind again.

2

No, I am not really surprised at the valuation of the Henty mss even if the quality is poor and they are only typescripts. I am sure they would fetch much higher if put at auction, simply because--as you say--there are no Henty manuscripts known. The Morgan Librarian weeps because they have never been able to find one; and we know how scarce even the letters are, from Maggs' difficulty in finding anything to compare the handwriting with.

Kershaw sounds like a very stupid person and I should wash my hands of the whole thing. If Catha has confidence in him I suppose that is the main thing. But anyone but a fool would jump at the chance of having the Authors take over collections.

I thought of you on the 27th, but did not send wire as too maudlin. It was a mercy for her to die, but, alas, how I still miss her. I keep looking at books and thinking that this or that would be fine for Hilda. But I am glad she did not linger.

The dress rehearsal for Edith sounds heavenly, and no royal coach can compare with the ambulance to convey you to tea. No, I don't really blame you for skipping the reception. This sort of thing is a bore, and the uproar is so immense that one can think of nothing except the hope that one could become a snail, draw in one's head, and crawl across the floor and out of the door.

It is sad about Melvin, and I suppose one ought to be grateful that he will have the chance for the newest drug. And it is important for his wife and daughter to know he has had every chance. But, but, but, but. However--and this is the really important thing--I am sure he does need a vacation, a moment of pleasure for them all to remember, and I am certainly glad you are sending him.

Poor Heydt I presume is trapped. And if, as I suspect, it is drugs with Dori, then it must be frightfully expensive. Perhaps after you come back from the States you will be in Zurich, and then can put it to him straight. I think he would tell, and then one would be in a better position. I rather, no considerably, feel for him in the situation.

No reason, I suppose, for Helen not to see Kenneth's manuscript. But unless he is sending you one, I think it would be better for her when she makes her fall visit on this side. At least I presume she is coming. I hear nothing directly from her, and of course all is mum from Harcourt. They have never sent me the requested copies of Artemis, nor answered my inquiries about invoices etc. It is a little annoying but not catastrophic, and one becomes used to it. Helen can uncover the answers when she is here. Do you know when that will be?

Various yellowbacks have arrived and been read with interest. The Hotsons are not yet back but are expected soon. There will be plenty of time for you to see them, but I will not mention your visit in order to keep it as a surprise. What a pity that they could not "pop in on you and sing you a birthday song." When you do decide to go out, I will suggest they "pop" when they come to fetch you.

The Delgano story is pure True Confessions, but I suspect not quite all is being told even now. I do not really see what difference the new spelling of the Dutch sons' name makes. And no reason for them to be Delgano, as Martin is.

3

An interesting letter from Harold Collins. I will try to write to him this fall to see about one or two manuscripts he has.

Was interested to read that Herrings' house had at last been sold. I never read a letter from him without being saddened at the waste.

Now about your trip this side, to repeat since I misaddressed the other letter of yesterday. I do not know what flight number or airline you are taking from London so cannot inquire as to whether you arrive on the 12th or leave then and arrive on the 13th. Once you get to Idlewild, have the porter take you after customs to the desk of Swissair, Pan-Am or whatever line brought you and have them call Connecticut Limousine Service and engage a seat on the next bus to New Haven. The number is Olympia 6-5262, but you don't need to remember this. Buses leave on the odd hours every-2-hours, and every hour after 5 p.m. until 11. Be sure to have the girl at the desk ask where they are to pick you up, and a porter can take your bags there. It can be a long wait for them to come, alas, so don't take alarm. I meet you at the Taft.

I will probably have to give a doctoral examination Saturday morning the 13th, and, alas, there is no football game that afternoon. But I thought we might go to see Horace that afternoon if this was agreeable to you. I thought too if you give the signal that I could see whether Pat and Marya might not also come up that Saturday, arriving at lunch time or just after, so that you could have seen Marya without running out to Palisades or giving an afternoon in New York to her. We could take them to the Lawn Club for dinner and put them on the train. Or perhaps they can scrounge a ride direct from Palisades. We can have other visits with Horace alone. On Sunday we can drive in country, go to Sturbridge (which Susan has never seen but would like to sometime), go again to Mystic etc. The next Saturday I will reserve three football seats for what will be our first game of the season too, and we can use or not as you like. And will also reserve for following week since we can always give either set away if other plans seem preferable. Will do nothing in preparation for the midweeks so that you can come and go as you prefer or is expedient.

I was sorry not to catch you in time about the typewriter. I have the little Italian one which I do not use waiting for you. Also one larger thumpy one which you can hurl at any porter's head and kill him with easily. So why not leave your little Hermes in London and save the nuisance.

If you wander into Bumpus or such, why not see if they have any new books of murder trials, for Horace. If you brought one to him he would be in seventh heaven. I just gave him one on the Stanford White trial, and I think he will even drop Oscar Wilde because of his excitement. He likes it best when there are transcripts of the evidence. He enjoys the woolTail.

The last week has been sheer hell, partly because it has been difficult to get into gear again. But I hope to improve. I shall have to if I am not to go completely dotty. But we moved into town on Friday and Saturday (Saturday, really) so at least we are warm again, and I do not have the long trip back and forth each day. This will mean I can see Horace oftener. I fear he grows lonely.

Friday noon I went into town for a meeting of the National Book Award Committee, and beforehand went uptown to the local Spinks I patronize occasionally,

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

and bought a couple of ivories because of the midwinter show. They are
amusing and the sort of thing the public will like. But also, because from
Greenland, and as you know things from there are almost non-existent in
private hands--I bought an Angmassalik finger mask which had its provenance
from a Moravian bishop, and a stylized woman's figure of bone which Susan
thinks is the best piece we have. Also a tender bag, with gulls feet, made
out of gut, if I remember, but this was more or less tossed in. I suspect
I am now pretty well finished with this sort of eskimaux artifact unless
some other Greenland pieces come to light, as balance. I would give anything for
an old tupilak, but it is unlikely I shall ever find one.

I daresay I have forgotten many things, but if so I can send them in
my next. The morning has gone, and it is now noon. I have not bothered to
note the various interruptions, but the doctor has just called from Florida
and Susan has also talked to Lizzie on the phone. She seemed very low in
spirits, which is certainly natural, and was of course, at least one imagines,
still highly sedated. Susan asked her if she wanted her to come to Florida,
and Lizzie said no, she didn't see it would do any good, and this was something
she had to work out for herself. So perhaps it was not done as much to call
attention to herself as I had thought, and as used to be the case. The psychiatrist
also agreed that there was no reason for Susan to go, in fact better not at the
moment, but said he would let us know if it later seemed otherwise. He has a
long hospital appointment with her tomorrow afternoon. Perhaps this will at
last give him a better entry. One hopes so. It is a little discouraging, and one
worries, and it is especially rough on Susan, and even more so on Lizzie herself.
But I guess one should expect downs as well as ups, and on the whole her record
has been excellent since she went to Florida. The psychiatrist sounded young,
pleasant, and competent.

Do have a whirl with Edith and present my compliments as indicated.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

3 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

Sorry not to have written you yesterday, but the day was too filled. I had to go to Customs and at long last get my duffle bag, shipped from Denmark, out of their clutches. Fortunately they were kind and charged me nothing for my still-dirty clothes, but so far as the shipping charges were concerned it would have been as cheap to buy everything new. Not quite of course, but it irritated me to pay only five dollars to the boat that brought it over, and then ten to the broker who transferred it to the railway express who charged me fifteen dollars to bring it from New York to New Haven.

Last night was Mrs Bennett's 86th birthday party which we gave her by having the four daughters and two husbands take her to the Mermaid Tavern in Stratford. A distance to travel but she was very keen dining there, and indeed the food was excellent and although expensive not so much so as I had feared.

My lectures still keep me busy while I get into the swing of it again. Fortunately, so far the students have not marched out in protest. But what with preparing them, the pile of undone business still grows on my desk.

I am glad to report however that I will not have to give an oral examination on Saturday morning the 13th, so the day is free for however you want to spend it. I think I will not arrange for the Gregories to come up precisely then, and if it is good weather we can drive north for whatever is left of the foliage. Or if not so good, see Horace alone and try our luck the next day.

Susan, alas, will be gone during your first week on this side. They will not release her from the hospital unless she has some one, preferably from the family, to stay with her for a fortnight. She phoned two aunts first, but it was patent that they could not leave their families to go South, and when I heard of her calls from Mrs Bennett (whom we had not told in order not to spoil her birthday), Susan called the psychiatrist and then Lizzie. She will be gone for the two weeks, starting on the 5th. I agonize for her; it will be an emotionally exhausting experience, with all sorts of rules laid down by Lizzie that her mother must not ask any questions as to why she took her overdose, etc., etc. But it is better that Lizzie start work as soon as possible, so that there is no point in her coming north for the time and then having to adjust again on her return. One useful thing, perhaps, is that the psychiatrist wants to see Susan and talk with her, and this will give a chance for that sort of contact.

Why don't you plan to spend the first week here, under the circumstances, and go into New York only for the day if you want an early visit to Prutting and for the formal first call on Pup. Who knows, what with the quiet all day long, you might even feel the urge for *Sikelia*. And we will certainly have a good chance to go over things together.

I was delighted at the tone of Melitta's latest letter, and the news of

her first patient. It sounded as though she had been re-born.

I daresay you will not see George this time, with all you have to do. I do hope he will come over again. He is so lame and tired and feels so old. He cannot be alone in his little cottage, but he must do what he wants to do.

I love to all, and all my friends.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

This is a kind of dogday when it feels as though both guts and soul were being dragged down and out of one. However since I lectured this morning and had interviews with students all afternoon until the general faculty meeting at 4:00 p.m., a certain dignity was added because of my lassitude.

Everything is all set, and Susan takes the 8:00 a.m. train for New York tomorrow, has a permanent at her hairdressers, (long planned ahead), takes a 5 o'clock plane from Newark, and is at West Palm Beach at 7:35. Since there is no one to take her to Delray and no car of her own she is taking a Drive-it-Yourself from the airport and will drive directly to the hospital to pick Lizzie up, pay the bills, and take her to her flat. Lizzie will go to work, I presume, on Monday, while Susan sits for the fortnight in order to be there in the evenings. Susan spoke with Lizzie on the phone again last evening, and she seemed pleased that Susan was coming down; although I still imagine she doesn't quite see why either of the two aunts she asked from here, or her sister, can't knock off everything for a fortnight. But it is right that she should have some one with her, and it may be a very good thing indeed, although hard on Susan.

I have been busy putting books on the new shelves in the typing room upstairs, but have not bothered to put any order to them, hoping that I could prevail on you to arrange them by authors. Last night I unpacked the Elizabethans which had just come back from their summer visit to the bank vaults, and those too have to be arranged. Also--and we are not unlike Anticoli--there is more than enough weeding to get at. So don't think you're coming over for a rest! I shall work you like a galley slave.

I don't think I wrote you of Islay's very great gesture of friendship just as I left Rome. He went to his own bookcase and took out from a book by Uncle Norman a drawing that Norman had given him, signed by Norman on one side but with drawings on both. I was deeply touched because this must have had a very special sentiment for Islay. I have now had it framed so that it can be seen from either side, and will fetch it from the framer so that you can see, approve (I hope) and rejoice with me. You will know whether Islay would approve. Uncle Norman would laugh to see himself so dressed up. "I am not a Leonardo, my dear," he would say.

I also had yesterday a very sweet but rather sad letter from George, saying that he had packed all of Hilda's things to send me, and would do so when he could be taken to Tunbridge to post it. And then asked me if I wanted various other correspondences, and how he could sell his Gordon Craig Collection on this side. I shall write him that I think the best thing is to send the Craig Collection over and then let me arrange for it to be sold by a dealer on commission. That is, unless he needs the money at once; this way would be likely to fetch him more in the end. He also asked advice about how a friend of his could sell a 300-book collection of Elizabethans. I shall suggest Sotheby's. It really works out better in the long run. I think the market holds up better than on this side except for very great rarities.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

There were two brief letters in today's mail, which of
course made me happy: yours from Zurich and then your first from London.
By now you will have had several letters, I hope, at Sesame, but I still
curse the stupidity which me address the first intended for London to
Kenwin instead.

I'm delighted that Joan's three weeks of horsemanship turned
out well for her. The important thing is that she kept at it -- a very
good sign indeed of her increased confidence and ability to stand strain.
Also it is good that she wants to be better in her skill. All of these
she will transfer to daily living, increasingly, I feel sure.

Thanks too for the address of the sister of D.R. in Texas.
Alas, I am afraid that San Antonio may be too distant for my Texas trip
this time.

London, with the strike and the appearance of the *Dame*,
sounds electric with excitement. I am breathless for your first accounts
of the rehearsal to come in. You are in precisely the right epic mood
for it. My only fear is that, like myself, you will wait to tell all
viva voce. Meanwhile I shall be an a torture of suspense.

This has been a beastly day, with streams of rain pouring
down steadily since morning. I got Susan to the 8 o'clock train with
her luggage, and by now (7 p.m.) she is nearly at West Palm Beach. She
was a good deal nervous about the next fortnight, and no wonder. It will
be a strain. And she is particularly upset to be missing the first week
of your visit, although she counts much on the rest of it.

Must go now for dinner at Mory's, and then back to the office
for a little more work at my desk. At least one benefit of all this may be
that I can catch up a little by working nights. I hate even to think of
how much needs to be done.

A beautifully immaculate copy of Gordon Stables' *Every Inch a
Sailor* has just come in from Brimmel at 15 s., with a fine mustachoe admiral
on the binding, in blue and gold. It will be waiting for you, even though at
this moment you seem more like Every Inch Lady in Waiting.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

I was delighted this morning when your cable came to say you would be working in New Haven the first week. This way we can be sure things will be done, unless I come down with chickenpox, and even that won't matter since New York is no so distant as Rome. I will take care of the hotel in New York for the following week, and since I have not heard from Pup at all and have not written her about your plans you can take care of that from New Haven. (I see now that no change need be made for Beekman)

On your schedule as planned, you should easily be able to get the three o'clock bus out of Idlewild for New Haven and I will telephone the office here to have a place reserved for you on it. And will be at the Taft at 5 to meet you unless you phone my Yale office to tell me otherwise. But still have the Pan-Am office call the Connecticut Limousines service so that you can report in and be picked up. It will be a boring hour's wait for you, I fear, but better than the long train trip from New York, and certainly better than risking having me lose my way as I did when I met you and Hilda at the time of her 70th.

There is absolutely no point in your bringing your typewriter from London, since I have (a) an old fashioned heavy model, (b) an Olivetti, and (c) the electric which Susan is most anxious for you to experiment with. All will be be-ribboned at the house waiting for you.

I had not known about the dental extractions (an elegance for having teeth pulled) but am pleased you got it out of the way. Or them out of the way. It is miserable but necessary.

There is not much to report except that I have made good use of my time, and accomplished a good deal at my desk in the way of revising papers, correcting exams, writing letters and the like. And of course going over more films at home so that I can keep you up nights while you see Greenland with myself as your ambassador.

I was bemused by Ena's letter about the refrigerator business, which implied much I had never guessed about its economic situation. Rita seems a little listless as though feeling thwarted for the moment.

The latest tributes to 'erald were very touching and properly in form for him. I am always glad to have known him. I will try to see what can be done about the letters, unless you feel that you can do it better vis-a-vis Hilda. There must be much that is interesting, and perhaps even a little left from Violet Hunt.

I shall count the minutes until the right five o'clock. But will not try to write again to London after this one which carries all my love.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

An envelope in this afternoon's post, but no letter from you in it: simply three letters, as from Maggs, Elsie, and D.Richards. I am glad you saw you, and had almost proposed we drive to Cambridge for a visit to them. But now we will have greater freedom, like coblers, to stick to our lasts.

Yesterday I said it would be my last letter, but I write today briefly because I talked with Susan on the phone this noon and she reported her and things in much more favorable light than she had expected. Lizzie had talked to her in some detail, I gathered, but she preferred to tell me about all this when she got home. Obviously the story or stories will not be straightened out until then, and Susan is wise in letting things take their own course. It did help to know that Susan felt better about the situation, and perhaps (as I suggested in my letter to you) the affair may have been a (dangerous) safety valve.

What bad luck about the Henty manuscripts. I leave it entirely to your judgment whether or not to send them over for checking. I have a hunch it might be a good idea for me to have a xerox made of a letter or two and deposit these with Maggs in case a similar opportunity rises. I fear it won't in this Hentian world of hen's teeth!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

You will be delighted to know, by
the enclosed letter from Mary Gough, that you
were right again. I am pleased that you will be
able to see them.

Ingholt has been in to say that he
has just discovered that 'ale has the Byrsa series
and that he had uncovered another book on Carthaginian
excavations in Sicily. He is taking them out of the
Library so that you can glance at them when you are
here. This is a "just in case", and to save you
the trouble of looking them up in Lausanne.

Mary Hotson called this morning to say
they had just arrived home last night. She likes the
idea of Friday, but I will be talking to you about
this tomorrow morning by phone. Actually after you
have gotten this, I should imagine.

What a ghastly situation with Cuba
and Russia and the world! I have been too rushed to
be able really to absorb it, but props seem to have
been pulled from under the young. They are ashen
out of a fear of being ashes.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

After putting your today's mail
in an envelope to be sent to you, I talked
with Dr Anderson on the phone about Marya. The
operation, which he says will almost certainly
take place, will be tomorrow after today's
regular tests, and the biopsy will be done at
the time of the operation. Thus, I suppose, it
is presently not absolutely certain that the
tumor is malignant, although Anderson implied
to me yesterday that he was certain it was,
perhaps because of her various complex of symptoms
I spoke of the fact that Horace had not seemed
to think such an operation likely, but he said
he had explained this clearly to both of them
and that like most people they had heard only
what they wanted to hear. He will call the
hospital tonight and then get in touch with me,
so I may know more by the time we speak on the
phone tomorrow. But this note will obviate some
extra minutes on the phone. I did tell him to
be sure she had nurses if she needed them, and
he had apparently not directed the hospital to
do so. I am glad I phoned.

It was marvelous having you here
again, and I shall miss you during the week.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 October 1962

Dearest Fido,

It was a delight to have your letter of the 29th in this morning's mail. Timothy's description of his christening shows he has a flair and perhaps even a wave. So sorry that the subject of Pup's Christmas presents came up; I hadn't been annoyed, and simply mentioned it to you in case they ever wondered why we had stopped. I'm afraid now one won't know what to do.

Have just spoken to Marya on the phone, and she is pleased because she has finished her review of Edith's book. I am to fetch it tonight and mail it for her. I really shouldn't try to go down, but won't be able to do so tomorrow night. It will be Halloween and one must stay at home to guard against a mischief. One is terribly confused about just what is actually happening. Marya told me last night that they had found she had a mastoid, which caused the earache. Dr Anderson this morning said they had not told him so, and his x-rays had revealed nothing altho he had taken this into consideration. He says she will probably be operated on Thursday morning, although they still worry about the thyroid since patients of this kind frequently go into shock. Marya says tonight they will not keep her long, unless they decide that it would be better to take the lump out. So I think it may well be the case with her (as it used to be with thyroid patients in the Chicago hospital where I once was) that they do not tell her much in advance lest she become overexcited.

Simply wrteched weather here, rainy and cold. How lucky we were over the weekend.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

It is at least a little comforting to think of you as still
in New York when I write this noon-time note to Kenwin, and I shall feel
all appropriate vibrations when you jet off the runway at Idlewild this
afternoon. It appears to be on the verge of snowing here, and I wonder
what it will be like as you take off. One thing is certain, we will
have Frost this evening, for he is to speak at Yale. Whether I shall go
or not depends on when my afternoon committee meetings are finished,
and my dinner (whose time is dependent on my return home) is finished in
turn.

A telegram from Aurelia did come yesterday afternoon, in which
she said:

YOU ARE A DEAR. I SHALL BADLY NEED ADVICE IN A FEW WEEKS.
COULD YOU COME THEN? MY HEAD IS NOT BRIGHT TODAY. TWO
SISTERS ARE WITH ME FORTUNATELY.

And in this morning's mail was a letter from her written when she had taken
him to the hospital. Since she wrote it on the 1st I presume she thought it
would reach me before his death on Saturday. It was not that I minded not
being wired then, but only that I feared she was afraid to, or had collapsed.
I shall send her the cheque in a letter written after lunch, and bless you
for having made it out to her. She is such a practical little thing that
one doesn't have the same worries as, for example, with Horace and Marya.
But perhaps that only makes one all the more protective of them too.

I do apologize for having given you the Virgilia Peterson memoirs. I'm glad my reading of it, out of curiosity, on the train last night, relieved you from any sense of duty. It is really not frank at all, from any p.a. point of view, is highly sentimental and almost unbearable in the style of its presentation. Ends are never brought together or even explained in passing, and the book seems little more than a rewrite of what appears to have been her Polish reminiscences. No, you are well delivered, and I tossed it in the waste basket.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

7 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

Again a mid-day letter, but this afternoon will be filled
with my seminar, appointments, and then a meeting of the International
Student Center Board (from which I have been absent the last two times).
But I write especially to say that the check from Benay has arrived,
this morning, and I have deposited it with my checking account where it
will be ready for the bills as they come in. Counting the $8,000 you
have given before, this makes a total of $13,000, against which I have
paid out $9,948.97, leaving a balance of $7,051.03. Gaylord has submitted
no bill for Marya as yet, and of course there will be the New Haven Hospital
bills for her.

I also deposited the checks from Random House and Harcourt,
which you saw, but will not report on that savings account until I have
the new check from Random House.

A note from Mary Hotson yesterday, enclosing a ticket for
Leslie's show. I enclose it for fun, but throw it away. I knew what she
hoped for and so sent her a check for ten dollars, entering it in my checkbook
as "Contribution to Hotson Festival." It seemed to me an elegant entry

[that is far as I got yesterday. Now it is early morning of the 8th, and
I must prepare my lecture. There is much to write about. Your letter from
the Beekman arrived this morning. I do miss you]

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

8 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

Let this be an Irish stew of a letter, begun tonight after
ten o'clock and carried through tomorrow, bit by bit as I a little clear
my desk. I am just back from visiting Marya in the hospital. Lonely,
she naturally enough called this afternoon and wanted books some and
company more. So after the Fellows' meeting at Jonathan Edwards College
I visited her with a satchel of books, among which, I am glad to say,
that there were which interested her enough to keep. She is improving
and seemed much better. They tell her she can go back to Gaylord on
Saturday, and Joanna is coming up from Baltimore to take her. This is
lucky, since I have a class in the morning and had promised to take Susan
to the football game in the afternoon. Poor Susan! My good deeds don't
leave much time for her. Marya also says she can go back to Palisades
on Thursday or Friday until Thanksgiving (a week) after which she will
return to Gaylord and from there take her x-ray therapy for three weeks.
It would be easier for me if she could stay that week in Gaylord, but she
wants to save the money. I'm not sure yet how she can get home and back
again, but the answer may be for me to hire someone to take my car and
drive her across the Hudson.

My desk is such chaos that I simply pick up envelopes and
work on whatever is inside. The latest task tonight was to thank a poet
named Albert Campbell, from Philadelphia, for a privately printed book
of verse, a copy of which he sent to Hilda in my care, and another copy
to me. I searched in vain for lines I could pick out to praise, and
found nothing except bits like the following:

But, Marvels, why! O why, why, why, why, why?
O Truth, Truth, Truth, O greatly beloved Truth,
O you are everything that we are not.

I see what he means when he writes:

Continue, and for evermore continue:
For victory matures from diligence.

Who can say that I do not serve Hilda even after her death!

9 November 1962

It was most interesting to see in the morning's *Times* that Galbraith
has been forced to resign his post as Under Secretary of State for Scotland
because of the Vassal affair. It looks as though Parliament would more
and more be taking on the nature of the American Congress in terms of
Congressional investigations of aspects of the government, if the government
itself always is to act like a public school whose members must be protected
and continued at all costs. Quite obviously Galbraith was removed
from the post of Civil Lord of the Admiralty and demoted to this new post
because the government knew what he had been up to, but was not willing to
kick him out. Others must be in the same boat. One thing ought to be made

2

clear to the government even in times of economic hardships: that is,
it may or may not be right for high government officials to have their
boyfriends but the British government ought to take the cost of such
boyfriends onto the budget rather than expect Russia to pay for them.

10 November 1962

And so it goes. I have just finished my Saturday morning class, and
have ten minutes before I go home for lunch and then, probably, to the
football game. There were gales this morning, and driving winds, and
no likelihood of anything but lakes. Now the sun is almost out, and
there are patches of blue. I ought to work, but I am so tired that I
think I need the change.

By now I almost begin to forget what I have written, but perhaps
tomorrow morning I can write more. I don't want this to wait until then
before being mailed.

I went down to the travel agency two days ago and made my reservations
for the spring vacation. Don't laugh! I am, we are, going Air India.
It's flight over comes at a better time: nine in the evening out of New
York and into the London airport at nine the next morning. Pan-Am arrives
at London at 7, a bad hour to get one's room. People say Air India is
good, as Luft Hansa is, by necessity of competition. We will see, and
can transfer to another line for the return. And we come back one day
earlier than I told you we would, in order to save $300 on Susan's ticket
by family plan if we travel together. 31 March is the last day for
winter rates and family plan, and my sense of thrift won't permit me to
pay $300 for a Sunday in London. We will leave the airport at noon on
Sunday, which will let us get out there easily. So we arrive at 9 in the
morning of Friday March 15, and return on March 31st. If Doris could
make reservations at the Normandy for us it would be splendid, but I leave
the precise number of nights at each end to your planning. Let me know if
I should make train reservations to Cornwall, and how to do so. Can one fly
down?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

11 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

Sunday morning at the office and another scrappy letter to you. But I hope you prefer this to the absence of letters, despite the confusion of what I manage in each. I leave soon to go home to dress for luncheon at the Lawn Club with the speaker at the Historical Society this afternoon! the curator of Mrs Kennedy's redecoration of the White House, who will talk on it, and her husband who works at the Smithsonian and is a former student of mine. All this is part of the 100th anniversary of the N.H. Colony Historical Society of which Susan is a director (the first woman on the board). Friday night we had to go a cocktail party, and then a banquet and a preview of the new show at the Society building. Susan did the flower arrangements for the ballroom which were handsome indeed. Yesterday we skipped the festivities although Susan went down and did more arrangements at the building, and now we have this afternoon.

Monday night I have to give my lecture on Greenland and the Vikings, and tonight will spend selecting the slides from among those we sifted together when you were here. Plus some, especially of Valsoe, from our first trip.

On Wednesday afternoon I have to introduce Bennett Cerf at a Yale lecture. Thursday we go to dinner at the Washburns. He is an arctic geologer, habitue of Greenland's east coast, and a friend of Stef's whom I met through Stef. Friday I go to New York to talk with Jovanovitch.

Your trip to Harcourt, plus my letters of protest and your oral ones, plus perhaps Helen's intervention, make us prize problems for them. The man in charge of paperbacks has been on the phone three times with me last week, wanting to arrange something. I told him of the eventual groupings into two trilogies, which would make a combination of Roman Wall and Gate more appropriate as a companion to *Sikelia*, even though one half had to be leased from Pantheon. He thought this made sense, but then called later to say that Jovanovitch wanted me to come to New York to talk it over. I gather he wants no truck with Pantheon. Friday is the first noon I can do it. So I am loyal, steadfast, and trustworthy as a boy scout or lead dog should be.

I have also just banked a check for $500 from Grove to Hilda's account; only 54 copies of the *Selected Poems* sold in the last six months, which is disappointing, but there are permissions fees to be added. About 1500 copies of *Helen*, however had been sold, which is much better than I had thought. This makes a total of $968.30 in her savings account, although I have not yet withdrawn the $229.00 for cataloguing the Moravian manuscripts, which I paid for out of my own funds.

So much at the moment for business.

No word as yet from Gaylord after Marya's return. If possible I shall try to run out after the lecture this afternoon. But there is to be a reception and there may not be time. Pat forgot to give back the housekey we gave him when he was here, and I shall write him to ask him to mail it

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

12 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

Jim Holsaert had phoned me early this morning about the copy for the Spring catalogue of Harcourt, and I could only say I had heard nothing about it. Then the second morning mail brought two letters from you, with the material in one of them. It is now ready to go on to New York, this fortunately being a morning when I could work immediately on it. I made a few stylistic changes, chiefly so that sentences would not begin with a weak 'It is,' and also changed the sentence about Dasius so that it now reads: 'Dasius cannot resist the mirage of memories and trying to work his way back to what he had had as a child and lost.' I agree with you that 'romantic', although true in one sense would at the same time give the reader a false impression of his character. This certainly is not what he ordinarily mean by the word. Yet on the whole I think she did an excellent job, and the whole will read well.

I have written Maishman much along the lines of the remarks by the Henty granddaughter, and enclosed a thermofoxa of Henry's handwriting and signat re for her to have as a reference. I am glad the granddaughter had this chance of confirming your interest, and the more I think about the five mss, the surer I am that they were worth buying even at what seems a high price. But they tell his way of composition and are all we have. I did suggest to Maishman that she inquire of Blackie's whether or not they would be willing to sell their business correspondence with Henty, and that they perhaps would know Griffeth's first name.

No news from Aurelia. But this is hardly surprising.

Should I read Diana Athill's memoirs, or perhaps wait to look at it when I am next at Kenwin.

What a nice comment from Mary Renault. I am sorry you can't meet her. Perhaps she will be in Europe some time.

The luncheon and afternoon lecture and tea went well yesterday, but were not over until five-thirty so I could not get out to see Horace. It has been over a week since I got to him. He will be disappointed, but, alas, I am helpless. Last night I spent frantically trying to choose some 70 slides of Greenland to show tonight. These are too many, but it is hard to resist anything. I wish you could be here to see them ensemble, your trip with me and that of this summer.

Have just had a letter saying that the musician I met at Bethlehem last spring at the Bach Festival, to whom I sent a copy of Hilda's poems has set her "Epitaph" to music. It is to be performed in Boston next month.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

15 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

I ought already to have started working out my ten o'clock lecture on Eliot, but since two days have gone by without the chance of writing you I want at least this moment for a note before beginning. Many thanks for your businesslike arrangements in yours of the 12th, which came yesterday. I am sure there will be no difficulties no matter how you finally decide to send over lists of corrections as before, or sheets which I in turn finally send back to you. I prefer whatever suits your convenience best, and leaves you free for your guests.

I will see if Ingholt has any ideas about Hannibal's port, and report to you.

Today is Marianne's birthday, and I enclose the interview from this morning's *Times*. It is gay as always; she does have a real style of her own. I wish other poets might have more attention than they do, but I begrudge Marianne nothing. On quite other terms, how different Hilda's 75th was from Marianne's.

I did see about the Saxon bones under 10 Downing Street, and there have been pictures in the papers of the sherds and other artifacts uncovered. The duration of prominent sites is always amazing.

England has actually been much in the papers, and a good deal of attention is being paid to the Vassall affair and the at-last inquiry by Macmillan's committee. I fear that Macmillan did it only because he was driven to the wall, and oddly (or sensibly) enough the result may do more to topple him out than the Common Market will. I wish I could have seen the text of the 24 letters printed, or even more the text of those that were not. Do clip for me like mad. This is espionage among great traditional lines. One used to echo Nathan Hale in saying one's regrets that one had only one life to give to one's country; now they will be saying they sorrow that there is only one country to give for the life one wants to lead.

Last evening was the party for the 50th anniversary in the book business for Jules Kronisch, the clerk you met at the Co-op. The older man. Beforehand, Bennett Cerf lectured on publishing, at Yale, and I had to introduce him, rushing from my seminar to get to the hall just in the nick of time. The lecture was a series of extemporised non-sequiturs, but since the hall was filled with old dames from the town who idolize him on t.v. the audience was happy. One ominous note for the fate of Pantheon (though one might expect this): when I talked with Cerf about Andre Schiffrin he expressed great admiration, and said that if anything happened to Pantheon they naturally would take him into Random House. So at least the cancellation is in their minds. He described Cyril Schabert as a pompous fool.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Monday night was the Greenland lecture, and Tuesday night I went out to see Horace and Marya. I got there about 8, and Horace was already in bed, looking rather tired I thought. He said that the other patients were getting on his nerves and he was tremendously anxious to get home. Fortunately Marya is to stay on for the three weeks of her x-ray treatment, without going home until Thanksgiving. But in a way I see difficulties, for she is on the same floor, presumably works or reads in the afternoon while he is at therapy, but otherwise is with him all the time, talking, talking, talking. There is no question about their mutual devotion, but he is so used to having periods of the day to himself that I think the constant chatter exhausts him. And as far as the other patients are concerned, I have my own image of what is happening. Horace, alone, can get on very well with them, or reasonably well. He listens, picks up their stories, and both diverted by them and a part of the community. With Marya at his side, they make a couple which is apart from the rest. More intellectual obviously, with famous friends for Marya to talk about with warmth, and famous enemies to attack. But neither famous friends nor enemies are even names to the other patients.

But we had a nice visit, and I listen well. Horace is enchanted by
Sylva Norman's book on Shelley, which I took him and feels it gave the idea
for the book on Byron's posthumous fame which he had so much enjoyed earlier.
Marya had a good deal to say about her non-yet-printed omnibus review of
younger poets, and again recounted the clever attacks she had made on them.
The attacks are justified I am sure; but whether the tone is, or her relish
of it, I am not so sure. In any event I have the review pretty well memorized
through her reptition. They needed typewriting paper and filing folders, and
were distressed because no paper of that size was available on the hospital
truck. But I told them to ask Dr Anderson for some, and I would bring out
a package the next time I went. The only time I really spoke was when they
went on about Chegg young Gregory ----'s future education in England, or rather
in Scotland as you seem to have advised, at least for archaology. No, that's
not well expressed; your opinion was only that Edinburgh was better than the
old universities in that field. I said simply that it all depended on what
nationality Gregory planned to assume, or his parents planned for him. If he
was to become a British citizen it would be a good idea to send him across now;
if there was a chance he might want to be an American I advised an undergraduate
degree here first, and then a post-graduate training abroad. Otherwise he
would be neither American nor British, and not really accepted by either. This
seemed to be a new idea to them. Perhaps I shouldn't have said this, but I do
think they ought to take these factors into consideration before making a
decision or building up either possibility too much. Marya keeps repeating
that Gregory is very Byronic and very handsome, and I assume this means he is
more British than American. On the other hand the younger boy now wants to go
to Annapolis, so he seems increasingly to be at home on this side.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

The various changes in the manuscript have been coming in, and
Mrs Dingle will see that they are incorporated according to your directions.
I have not studied them, but know they are good. Your revisions always are.
As to Brundisium I have dropped a note to Ingholt for his opinion. He is
always good on such matters, and interested in what you are doing. Luckily
he is no pedant. Y

Your letter of the 14th was in the morning's mail. They come
more swiftly than usual, which is good. Many thanks of course for all the
care with the schedule for spring. We look forward to the visit immensely.

Don't worry about the missing issue of the Times. Since the new
hearing is to be open, there should be enough details to satisfy both of us
coming in the future.

I am glad that Catherine has a good-looking one. I wonder if she
really will ever finish her exams. Maybe it doesn't matter at the moment,
and if they don't have too many children too quickly, she might be able to
pick up her education later. She is not really a student at all, I suspect,
but what does it matter if she is happy! And serious. Much better that they
should marry at Christmas.

I took an early morning train to New York yesterday, and went
first to see Melville Cane, my lawyer for literary matters, as well as Helen's.
He had had all the Pantheon contracts since the time when we spoke of the
possibility of Harcourt's taking over the earlier novels. But had not looked
at them very carefully, I think, for this time when we went over them in detail
we found a slight confusion had existed in his mind and mine. Although I owned
as sole property each edition of the various books, the assignment of copyright
as Helen had drafted the contracts, included two important statements to guarantee
Pantheon's continued rights over the books. One para began:

"The Author grants to the publishers the sole and exclusive right to publish the book in volume form in the English language throughout the world, and to take out copyright in the name of the Publishers."

Further:

"The Author grants to the Publishers the right to arrange for a British edition. The net receipts from such an edition shall be divided equally between Author and Publishers. The net receipts from any subsidiary rights, serialization, book club, etc. shall also be divided equally between the Publishers and the Author."

In other words, we do not have the right for paperback publication, and any arrangements must be made for that with the present owners of Pantheon, that is, with Random House. So any arrangement with Harcourt would have to be made with them.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

After my visit with Schiffrin, I have had a letter from him saying "I have talked with Arabel at NAL who is very interested in GATE TO THE SEA and THE FOURTEENTH OF OCTOBER which we sent her, and I will let you know as soon as we hear a final decision. If they turn us down, I am sure we would be willing to consider any reasonable offer that Harcourt Brace might want to make to us for our share of a joint volume."

All this was important to know for my talk with Jovanovitch. He agrees that a paperback edition would be useful in presenting your work to a wider audience, and thus help any future Harcourt sales of the new novel and subsequent ones. But says that Harcourt could not begin to offer as much as NAL would, nor reach as wide an audience as NAL would reach. In other words, Harcourt would also benefit if Arabel Porter did want to go through with it, and so we will wait to see what happens there. If she doesn't want to, then negotiations can begin between Schiffrin and them. Everything was discussed in a most friendly manner, and I continue to like working with him. One knows exactly where one is.

He is a great enthusiast for the new novel and thinks it the most subtle and eftly devised of any of your novels so far. And is greatly pleased because he thinks you like him too, and don't too severely hold it against him that he is a Serb. He says any time in early December will do for the manuscript, and they hope for a May publication. I asked him about the title (there was another man along for luncheon where we met) and they again raised the problem of possible confusions on the part of both the readers and the reviewers if *Sikelia* is kept. (a) that by itself it is apt to imply the Greek as the Carthaginian, or imply nothing very specific; (b) that it would seem to the reader going into a bookshop to order it, to have half a dozen possibilities for pronounciation; (c) that being the name of a donkey, the reviewers might try to work too hard, even with your help, in making the donkey a symbol of for the very subtlety you have included in the book; (d) that it does not contain a hint in the title of the new and exciting area of history that you are treating.

I went over the history of the title with them, said that I had suggested *The Coin of Carthage*, and that this had been changed to *The Carthaginian Coin*. Both men jumped at *The Coin of Carthage*, saying that it was perfect; they did not like Horace's and Pat's suggestion. When I explained that the jacket could have a picture of this coin, they said, "Now we have the right sort of jacket." Jovanovitch who had read your book gave a fine explanation of the symbol of the coin to his colleague without my having to correct him at any point. They are anxious, therefore, to go back to *The Coin of Carthage*, and hope you and Helen will agree. Jovanovitch is going yo write Helen immediately. Will you let me know what you think, so it can be changed in the catalogue copy. Perhaps after talking on the phone to Helen about it, you could cable me, one way or the other. I hope you will agree.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

The three packages of books arrived this morning, with
no trouble from the customs at all. This is the advantage of having
a Yale address. But I can't tell you how grateful I am, since this
means that I can one for my mother at Christmas, as well for others
in the family and among friends. I gave one to Donald Gallup and he
was ecstatic in his praise of its appearance. He knows the press and
agrees that it is at the top. On such matters I am sure that Helen
and Kurt are infallible.

Your foreword also arrived today, and it reads very well. I don't think, at least at first glimpse, that you should take anything out of it. Actually the Henty dedication really becomes meaningful to the average reader because of it, and therefore helps him in a wonderful way as well as expressing your gratitude to him. You were a good dog to get it out of the way before Christmas.

You ask about the Literary Guild. It's not quite so big
as the Book of the Month, and perhaps a cut below it. But it does mean
substantial sales

England and the States? No wars certainly, but an outlet
of mutual irritations I am sure, and rather bad luck for Macmillan at
just this point. I find it hard to take sides, since reputations are
so politically at stake that they may account for much of the dispute
about whether or not the US should spend two billions for a missile
useful only to England. Yet I presume it does leave the UK considerably
in the lurch, and if the US takes over the protection of England then
it certainly has responsibilities. One chief difficulty, I imagine, is
that it comes on top of Acheson's statement which certainly had little
politesse to it. Acheson is a curious figure at the moment, uneasy to
be out of it, not quite a grand old man but anxious to be one because of
all his proteges in the Kennedy cabinet. The real feud is between him
and Stephenson as the fight over Stephenson shows.

I was intrigued by Durrell's letters. He writes very well and with real friendship for you. Alas, he seems to take a somewhat different point of view from your own about "help with spelling and punctuation," but in any event, his or yours, I don't think the word "help" is quite appropriate. There is no reason for you to change your mind simply because he takes another path.

Much mystery about the Heydts. I suppose we will have it all
cleared up one day, but not probably until the wife is out of the picture.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

I went to see Horace and Marya yesterday afternoon, after the football game, and now have an entire Sunday to myself at the office. Alas, I haven't even yet begun my talk to be given at Dallas a week from tomorrow; but unless I clear my desk I shall be in agonies of administrative and personal guilt. At the moment I feel a combination of relief and exhaustion, having just finished reading 2000 typescript pages for the Yale Press, of an amateurish edition of the letters of Sophia Hawthorne. The draft of my reader's report (a negative one) had just been finished.

I was sorry to have finished yesterday's letter to you in so curt a fashion, but it had been interrupted by the chairman of Philosophy whom I had vainly sought all week on budgetary matters (the next year budgets are due tomorrow), and he had kept me long beyond noon when I had promised to be home for lunch before going to the game with Princeton. I really don't know how you feel about the title, although I do know that in any event it will always be *Sikelia* to us, just as Roman Wall is still *Fabula*. But some of the arguments are the same for one as for the other, and I was surprised that Marya, last night, immediately preferred *The Coin of Carthage* over both *Sikelia* and *The Carthaginian Coin*. I do myself, for the reasons I agreed with, but the decision is yours.

The game was exciting one. Yale lost, but not so badly as usual, and had it won would have won with an illegal touchdown which would have made for bad feeling later. That is, an illegal reciever caught a forward pass over the goal line for Yale, but the referees didn't know he was illegal, and once the decision had been made couldn't be reversed. I didn't even know this until I read the morning papers.

Marya looked wonderfully well, has lost ten pounds, mostly in her stomach and hips and in her face, and benefits from this. She was dressed and in excellent spirits. Horace is more restless than ever, but has made great progress with his introduction for Ovid (at which Marya says she keeps him working, and I think she does). He has read none of the Collette I took him, but proudly announced that he had worked her into his Ovid introduction on the basis of what he read before. It must have taken some doing, but he loves to lard his meat. He says they have told him he can go home in December a week after Marya has gone back to put the house in order. I will drive him down, since the car is more comfortable for him than most would be. He has been taken off the two canes he used, and given elbow crutches which give him a greater sense of security. He needs to wear his (much hated) brace only when he goes out of doors. I suspect they feel he has reached the end of his recovery, and will always have to use the elbow crutches. But this is still so wonderfully beyond what we saw his future a year ago, that we can only cry hallelujah! And he does handle himself with increasing skill. They have advised him to take a drink of whiskey in the evenings (obviously as a mild sedative so he can sleep), so I gave them a bottle of Irish whiskey as a Thanksgiving present.

Susan looked very gay at the football game in the blouse you brought her, and had bought a new skirt and sweater to wear variously with it. The gift

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

Who says there are not ghosts from the past! In this morning's mail was a letter from a Miss Dorothy Yorke, of Reading, Pennsylvania. "I am known also as 'Arabella' and you will find references to me in the Collected Letters of D.H. Lawrence. (This will identify me to you.)" She writes saying that Bryn Mawr has told her (why?) that I am interested in D.H. Lawrence, and she wonders if the Yale English Department would be interested in buying a water color portrait of her by Lawrence. Now, if Bryn Mawr told her about me they must also have told about my connection with Hilda, and my hunch is that the Hilda connection is what she wants to establish. She offers to send the water color on approval, and I think I will let her. For, if she still has Hilda's letters they would be important for me to get my hands on. It might even be a good idea, espionage-wise for me to talk with her sometime, while there is still time. It is all a little eerie. I don't like it, and yet I'm curious.

Your various corrections continue to come in, and you look to
be making really progress. I only hope you stay alive in spirit during what
by now must be a stupid drudgery for you, even though it is an important one.
By the way, will you tell me what other book besides DeBeer's contains an
illustration of the coin with Hannibal's head on it? The DeBeer has only a
line cut of the coin and does not say where the original is. I do have to
know where the original is, in order to put a note about it on the inside front
jacket. Otherwise, like Ingholt, they will say that they know of no Carthaginian
pieces with Hannibal's portrait on it. He was going to check it, but of course
DeBeer did use one.

I realized that we had never made out a contract for Sikelia, and
on the assumption that you would want to treat this book like the rest, I am
enclosing two copies for you to sign with Coigny (don't forget to put in the
place also), and a check for the munificent sum of one dollar. If on the other
hand you prefer to sign this contract with me directly, then
tear these up and I will have the contract made out in your name and sent to you
by them for your signature. It does not really matter to me either way.

Yesterday I had a letter from Aurelia which will please you, I think,
both by its tone (she is a sturdy-backed girl) and by her gratitude to you for
your generosity in sending her the check immediately after the funeral. I don't
think we can make plans for what should be done until I have had the chance to
go out to see her and the books and papers, and discuss directly what her finances
are. This matter of the settlement of an estate is something most people don't
seem to have provided for. One thinks of poor Catha's dilemma.

Your visit with Catha and her Jacques must have been an important
one for her psychologically, and I am glad you liked them both. I see that you now
feel as I do, however, that she is not very likely to get her degree. It would
have been better if she had, but if she has a child on the way there is no point in
building up a sense of academic failure in her. Better for her, I suspect, to
have a Frenchman of Jacques' kind than one of the upper middle or upper classes

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

who play around in the usual French manner of a gallant. This one will adore
her as a person above his station.

I'm sorry that Annie Reich did not get her regular copy. Are you sure she didn't? Because she thanked you for it, as I remember, before you saw her, and found it interesting. Originally you had not wanted to send her one because you felt she was too ill, and I put her name on the list anyway. One might have checked more properly if Harcourt had ever sent the invoices for books to go out with your card, as they did for those that went out with mine. I asked them twice for your invoices, but never got anything but the bill.

One more seminar tomorrow and I will be finished with classes until
after Thanksgiving on Thursday. The college is closed until the weekend, and
on Saturday I fly to Dallas, going a day early in order to have Sunday in which
to rest and to see the town. I have never been there before. I worked like
very hell yesterday and wrote the first half of my lecture for the Convention,
and only hope I have luck tomorrow in being able to finish it. The worst half
is still to come. This first bit is a good deal of poetry to be read to
illustrate what I want to talk about later, and to give them a little entertain-
ment. God knows it will be hard enough to keep the teachers awake at 9.00 a.m.
I feel as though I were the priest at early mass.

We go on Thursday noon to the Lawn Club for Thanksgiving, in order
to save Susan from having to slave in the kitchen all day. You may remember
how many families were gathered there last year when you and I went. The
grandchildren seem very pleased at the idea of going out to eat, at least
Justus is. So Susan does not mind publicly; privately I imagine she is greatly
relieved. Sunday night when they had all come for dinner, Justus threw his
arms around me and said, "I love you so much, grandpa, I am never going to let
you die!" I hope he's successful for a while at least.

Naturally do as you think best about the spring holiday and being with
us. But don't forget that we really come to see you, and will be disappointed
at any day you feel you ought to absent yourself. Ethel and the others will
miss you too.

Now I must be off to a faculty meeting.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

Yours of the 19th was in this morning's mail, for my thanks
to you for writing it and to God for speed. Thanks also for the copy of
Richard Mason's THE WIND CANNOT READ, which arrived today also. You obvi-
ously have better luck in digging up rarities than I do. I am eager to
see what the wind does to Islay.

Alas, and alack, there is nothing I can say to Romaine Brooks
at the moment. You know what the fall was like for me after my return from
Rome, and when the last of the manuscript arrived from Coigny it could only
be put into safety. But my trip to Dallas on Saturday is my last speaking
engagement for the moment, and the departmental budget is in. I hope in
December, once the Christmas letters are done, and Horace and Marya safely
back at Palisades, that I can work on things like that. And Kenneth's novel.
You forgive me anyhow, I hope.

Am much interested in what you say about Trude. I do see the
resemblance to Helen's situation. It is the men who really had a European
reputation who want to go back, to pick up the past insofar as possible.
Mann was the same. And Hindemith. Many reasons are given, but the emotional
ones are deepest. Women adjust better because in most cases they have never
really relinquished a career, and because in so many ways a semi-professional
woman is freer, I suspect, in the States than in Europe. She sounds interesting
and worth your keeping in contact with while she stays abroad. Which will
probably coincide with your Swiss days, if you carry out your present plans.
I am a little doubtful about the chances for a revised *Light-Hearted Student*,
but will look at it again after Dallas.

I shouldn't mind what was missed about the Galbraith letters. What
the papers here carried was Macmillan's admission that there were accusations
of a Greenlandic relationship between the two, and that Galbraith was to have
joined his friend in Rome, and then popped off together to Russia. But these
were only accusations and rumors. We will see what comes out at the investigation.

The audience was very enthusiastic about the Greenland pictures, and
I must say that when cut down to the very best they make a good show scenic-wise.
One had to hurry a little over the Vikings, alas.

I missed you in yesterday's letter about Arabella. It was a named member
of the English Department at Swarthmore who recommended her to me, so I doubt she
knows about the Hilda connection. I shall have to play this by ear. If she doesn't
know, then it is a simply extraordinary coincidence that led her to me.

I ought to work on with my Dallas talk tomorrow morning before Thanksgiving
dinner. But my Puritan conscience haunts me, and I think I really must go out to
see Horace and Marya in the morning, and if the weather is good give him a little
ride in the car to whet his appetite for hospital turkey. I have really had to
neglect them during these last weeks. They understand, I am sure, but it is none
the less lonely for all that.

All love, Mommy

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

My letters, ante Dallas, were rather scratchy, I am afraid, since I was in my usual anguish in not having my speech ready. In fact I only typed the last pages (copying them it is true from a draft) after twelve on Saturday when I was scheduled to go home, eat lunch, pack and take the bus at the Taft at 2:00 p.m. But the talk did get finished and people seemed to like it on Monday morning when I gave it, and so one burden is off my shoulder. I'll tell you about the trip in another letter, and send you a copy of the talk when the Association publishes it in a month or so. It will be in their Annual Proceedings, and the John Hay Foundation says they want to send it out to their former Fellows. It was an old hat, but worn sincerely with a new feather or two. I wanted to write you from Texas, but there simply wasn't time, what with eating and sleeping and talking and taking a bus tour of the city.

I am anguished at the lacerations you get vis-a-vis Sikelia, and wonder if any book can ever be brought out with no difficulties. I am especially sorry about the matter of the elephant and Islay's photograph, and the title. For I had no notion that I was taking anything away from you. You had been the one who originally brought up the admissability of another title, and I went on that basis when I brought the matter up with Jovanovitch and the trade editor. As for Islay's picture of a coin, I had never heard of that at all, or anything except using one from De Beer's book. And so I suggested that too to Harcourt when I was with them. Well, anyhow, you know there was no malice in it.

Just confusion as you will have learned from Ingholt's letter. He was so interested in the book that I let him read it, especially in terms of your Brundisium question. And I said to query anything so that you could at least query his query. He tells me he has written you over the weekend. The only important fact he brought up had to do with the coin not being of gold but of silver. What is known as a triple shekel. I have a good photograph of it in the Essays in Roman Coinage Presented to Harold Mattingly. It turns out there were some copper copies of it made later, but never of gold. Which means one could not have bought a farm with it, although perhaps a gold coin would have been too big a gift from Hannibal anyhow. Do you want to change it to be correct into silver, and take out the reference to buying the villa? This is the only coin which possibly has a head by Hannibal. Fortunately it has an elephant on the other side, so why not use a drawing of both sides on the jacket. This will give the elephant too, and let us make the reference to the coin with all excititude in the inner front jacket. The larger question which Ingholt raised is that this was not of course a Carthaginian coin since it was issued in Spain. Ingholt thinks it is better described title-wise as THE COIN OF HANNIBAL. Do you think we should change the title to that, if there is still time. Harcourt would probably like it because the name of Hannibal gets in. But this may be quibbling for anyone except scholars, for in the book I mentioned it is mentioned as a coin of New Carthage. You'd better write me at once what you think of this. You may or may not want to discuss with Helen, who must be pretty confused by this time. I wrote to apologize to her for unwittingly having gone against her preference for Sikelia over The Coin of Carthage

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

only to have her answer that she had never heard of any alternative to Sikelia.

I was terribly saddened to hear of Barba Delgando's attempted suicide. Life can seem pretty overwhelming at times. I can only hope that this will have been a kind of purge from which she can emerge stronger than she was before, with more sense of the realities.

Horace called up this morning on the phone. Nothing particular to say, but mostly to welcome me back and ask me to get some books from the library for Marya. He says the walking goes slowly but otherwise he is well. Has now written 21 pages of his introduction to the Ovid. Marya is now going in daily to the New Haven Hospital for her x-ray treatment. He says they both will have to stay at Gaylord for at least four weeks more, which will mean that they will be at Gaylord for Christmas, "in prison" as he naturally enough calls it. I really am sorry for their sakes as they had counted so much on having the holidays at home. And who can blame them!

I lunched with Donald Gallup this noon who told me that Marianne had been given an electric typewriter by a friend, which she had much enjoyed. One day a man appeared at the door and asked if Mr Moore was there; she explained there wasn't one. Oh, he said, it was only about your new typewriter; I wanted to be sure if everything was all right. She explained that the question mark stuck a little, and he asked to take a look at it. She let him in but said she was busy getting ready to go to Boston. Well, he said, I'll take it with me to fix and have it back this afternoon before you leave. He disappeared with the typewriter and that was the last seen or heard of him. One only hopes the friend will give her another.

Must close shop now and go home. Alas, am supposed to go to Hartford
Friday, and I really must try to see my mother this weekend, sometime. I have not
been able to find a free moment to drive there since my visit after my return from
abroad. It is three months now since I have been.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

We all seem to be in such a rush, and I am troubled to add to
your own pressures. Some day perhaps we will have a book really ready long before
it is handed to the publishers. I had expected this one would be in such a
category without realizing that Harcourt would want to push it into production
so fast. However, a fortnight and all should be well, and perhaps then we can
relax and forget it. Mrs Dingle is now busy in the other office putting the
corrections in, and marking the pages that have to be re-typed. I am sending
the Punic coin over to the Library to be photographed. This is the silver one.
I do not have any illustration of the later copper copies which showed that
Hannibal must have taken the Punic ones with him and so could have given one,
most appropriately, with both his own picture and that of an elephant on it.

You asked about the propriety of an English edition of the memoirs,
and I can see no reason against it. It has had exceptionally good reviews in
this country and I think there will be equal if not even more interest in it
overseas, not in terms of any *quāfrel* with your brother but rather as a social
document. Nor do I really see why you should not make any changes or additions
to the English edition you want to make. This is done often, and for every
reason possible. In fact if the book doesn't appear in England people will
think you are afraid to, and that certainly is not the reason. The only possible
bad taste to be shown --and on this score you would never be guilty of it -- would
be to appear in England at the time of its publication to grant interviews empha-
sizing the family relationships. You have been immaculate about this.

I forgot to thank you in yesterday's letters for the two books which
arrived from Tunbridge Wells: David Lewis' *The Ship Would Not Travel Due West*
and Francis Chichester's *Alone Across the Atlantic*. Both look most interesting,
and Susan has asked for first chance at them.

I still have written neither Kenneth nor Islay, but hope to do so after
this week. I did have Susan read Kenneth's book and she was honestly delighted
with it, found it absorbing and could not put it down. Naturally I take Patrick's
opinion (which was a way of submitting it to Knopf) with real seriousness; but I
take Susan's stance as the average reader also with seriousness. You had spoken
to Helen about reading it, and I asked her if she was really interested. She
wrote she was, so I am going to send it to her by air mail and ask to have it
returned similarly. I doubt that she will feel she wants it, but she is a good
judge, and I do know that Jovanovitch said it had been hard lately to get good
novels.

The Yale Library is having an exhibition for Marianne's 75th year, and
this morning I gave them my own collection of Marianne's books which will complete
their collection. All, with the exception of a shabby *Observations* are in first
class condition with dust wrappers. I am lending to the exhibition one of her
presentations to Hilda, but not giving it. Also some of Marianne's letters are on
loan, none personal. I did not lend any letters from her to you, since it is just
as well not to have it known that these letters of yours are on this side. The
exception was one early photograph of her which could have come from anywhere.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

The trip to Dallas was interesting, and I derived a good many insights of Texas from it. On the plane down (I went coach, which was certainly sensible and saved a good deal) I sat beside the district head of Johnson & Johnson's, the medical firm, and by a little questioning found about the business situation in Dallas, and how the easteners lived in a little enclave by themselves--on the same street, going to the same parties, joining the same churches. The weather in Texas was foul; it rained constantly from the time I arrived. I got there about 8:30 at night, and after checking in at the hotel, wandered to a few bars where I found only beer was served, but people very friendly but not very bright. Two beers was actually my limit, and I went back to the hotel and corrected the typescript of my talk which I had not had time to do in New Haven. I got up late on Sunday morning, looked out at the rain, and continued reading Alice Toklas's memoirs for which I had been asked to give a blurb. They are an odd mixture of what I should call triumphs and trivia, but the combination was beiguiling. You appear a couple of times, and I once. I will send it to you when it is published.

Sunday afternoon I took a 2 1/2 hour bus trip of the city, and kept thinking en route of our bus trip through Toronto. The information and points of interest were highly miscellaneous. "On our left is a very, very old building. It was put up in the 1920's." I was properly impressed by such vestiges of the past. I admire billboards which urged contributions to Southern University's "Sustentation Fund." I marvelled at a new word $to me). I discovered that the average attendance at the two Sunday services of the chief Baptist Church was 8,000. I found that Greer Garson paid a monthly rental of $1,500 for her apartment on Turtle Creek Road. Later I discovered that the reason Lily Pons lives in Dallas is because she is kept by H.L.Hunt, the chief local oil man. I went by the home of Major General Walker, who got into so much trouble in Germany and then by stirring up the students at the University of Mississippi, and admired the huge mailbox in front with his name on it in large letters. And in the picture window, facing the street was a lamp whose stand was an Uncle Sam with his coat off and his shirtsleeves rolled on uplifted arms to show he was actively ready to work to save his country. Elsewhere there were roses in bloom.

I got back from the ride in time to get into a bus with the secondary school heads to go to a cocktail party and dinner at a local country day school called St Marks. One of the masters turned out to be an ex-student advisee of mine. A visiting teacher was another ex-student. One of the headmasters from Houston was a Yale classmate. The next day several other ex students appeared to hear my lecture, including the mother of a boy in my present lecture class at Yale. I was not lonely. The school was new and rather a wonder. The science section had just cost $4,500,000 and had even a planetarium (Yale doesn't have one).

Monday morning of course went into the meetings, and I lunched with four headmaster's in a hotel bedroom where we could have a drink. That afternoon I went on a tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright theatre, with special guides arranged for me by the headmaster of St. Marks. Then I went to shop at Neiman-Marcus, which has a fabulous reputation and was certainly good though not fabulous. On the arm of a pretty Jewess who worked at the candy counter were the tatoo marks from

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

a concentration camp. The world and time shrinks. That night there was another cocktail party and dinner, and then the trip to Dallas was over.

I flew back the next morning at 9:00 a.m. and was in Idlewild two hours and thirty-five minutes later. The bus trip back to the Taft, and I could be at the office at work again.

There is still plenty of work to do.

Tomorrow afternoon I go to Hartford for the annual reception, because the secretary of the Coe Foundation (from whom I got the money for the billiard room) will be there. Saturday I really must go to Princeton to see my mother. I will try to work in Horace and Marya on my way up or back on Saturday. I shall have to try to work in a visit to Aurelia some time before Christmas, so that she can be free.

We both keep busy.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 November 1962

Dearest Fido,

This morning I have talked with Mme Berberova-Kochevitzky who has been cataloguing Nadezev's papers for us. Alas, although she made cards of a sort they are not so complete as what was done for the Moravian documents, but they do let us know what exists. I have asked her to put the dates of the letters on the cards concerning them, and to identify any of the people she knew amongst the Russians. Aparrently he did not move very much in the Russian literary circles, at least, for Mme B-K was a part of the group in London and especially in Paris before coming here, is herself a well-known Russian poet and editor. She knew who Nadezev was, and was a good friend of Teresa who was N's wife, and then later married to Kerensky. Actually Mme B-K, a week ago, talked to Kerensky about Nadezev who said he had met him a couple of times, that N was attractive and a gentleman but a rather light figure who lived by being attractive socially. Mme B-K was much touched by N's great kindness to Faith, who apparently wrote one or two stories out of incidents which N. had told her. The poetry in English of course you and I knew to be hardly poetry at all. Mme B-K says that the Russian originals, or versions, are unprintable and made up entirely of cliché's as though by a complete amateur. Naturally she did not find the early section of the memoirs as interesting as I did, since she had lived the same kind of life as N had done, but she did say that she thought the other papers ought to be given to the Library, or kept since people interested in Faith or you would find them interesting, and they might give a picture of the life of an emigré. Let me know what you think should be done. There is no hurry of course, except for tidiness.

Your letter of the 27th, with the additional corrections, was in the morning's post, so that Mrs Dingle can add these corrections to the others. She is nearly finished with the ones you have sent earlier, and we will be in good shape to send the manuscript off pretty much as soon as the last emendations arrive. I was sorry to have cabled you this morning, but I realized that I ought to know what you felt about changing the title once again to include Hannibal's name. The greater accuracy may strike you as a little pedantic, but the emphasis on him and his significance may be somewhat more attractive. I am sending you copies of all retyped pages.

I am considerably relieved, for Doris's sake, that Barbara is to go for treatment elsewhere than to Doris herself. The responsibility is really too great for her to assume, as we know from the strain on Susan in Florida. Unquestionably she will need a little therapy. It is too bad there is not a Heydt handy. You are wonderful to help Martin in this way. He has had a rather rough time of it in life, and this period is, as you say, the most important in his career.

Delighted that Doris has booked as of Monday and back on Saturday. Shall I get the train reservations myself to Cornwall? I am sure I can do this through a local travel agency. This would be easier in terms of payment and the like.

I go to Hartford this afternoon.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

Sorry not to have had a true 1st of the month letter to you, but I came to the office yesterday only briefly, went through the morning mail (nothing, alas, from you,) and then did two long and dreary letters of recommendation before going out to Gaylord en route to Princeton. I was glad I stopped off, and it was over an hour before I could get away. They feel imprisoned, I suspect, and one cannot really blame them. Horace spends much time down the hall in Marya's room simply for a change; but in a way it is too bad that he doesn't go to the room where the other patients gather. When he did, he was king even though over an undistinguished group of subjects. But otherwise he looked well and was most lively in his conversation. I cannot remember having seen Marya look better, and Horace remarks proudly that for the first time in ten years she has color in her cheeks. The flabbiness in her face has gone, and Marya says she feels so well that she is only beginning to realize that she has been ill for many years. I took them the Hazlitt biography, which finally came, as your gift to them both. They were greatly pleased. They spoke over and over again of all you have done for them. They have a real capacity for gratitude, and it is one of the qualities I like in them.

The day was almost springlike, with the temperature in the 60's and the weather crystal clear, so that my drive to Massachusetts was less tiring than usual. My mother was dozing when I arrived, in the midst of the Army-Navy football game on t.v. which she seemed to like without understanding, but was immediately alert, explained that the postcards from Texas had come from her son, Alfred, and five minutes later told me that the pot of flowers I had brought her had been given her by someone else. There was little point of contact except one of affection, but I was happy to have been able at last to go and to see that she was happy. She is unbelievably frail but looks forward to her 90th birthday in April.

Your night-letter cable was phoned me this morning, and I was glad I had not waited for ordinary mail for your reaction to the suggested change of title. Nothing had been said to Harcourt about it, and in fact though his suggestion may in reality have never been anything but an idle gesture. I suspect it is too late for any changes one way or the other, since the catalogue went off to the printers with the title listed as The Coin of Carthage, and the jacket design has been already made as I told you in the last letter on Friday. I will write them however in case they feel it is possible to shift back to *Sikelia*. I doubt that they would be sympathetic to *The Road* because of its lack of particularity.

I always pray for some day when we can have the manuscripts of the books really in shape before the deadlines and pressures to which you have habitually been subjected. This time I had thought we would, not

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

expecting that there would be a rush for a spring publication. Perhaps
you should insist on plenty of time for the next volume of memoirs.

I enclose a long clipping from one of the cheaper Sunday New York
papers, an advertisement of which I had seen and so bought out of curiosity.
I won't try to continue with later installments unless I happen to see a
copy. I found Vassall's tone unbelievable. It is filled with all the
cliches of martyrdom and all of the stimuli for sentimentalism. I admire
his gall, and condemn the chance which British authorities gave him to
sell such a memoir, written in prison. As a document, however, from the
p.a. point of view, it is a little classic.

A letter came on Friday from Collins asking if I had ever received
the ten copies of *Gate* you had asked to be sent to me, saying that from
certain unspecified indications they had reason to think the copies were
never shipped. They were certainly right; the copies never had been.

How nice of Sylvia Warner to let George send her letters to him.
It was most kind. And kind also of Cole's sister to send Hilda's letters.
I gather she is assembling a little memorial of Cole in her own home. By
the way, you spoke of George's coming across on the 17th. Of December or
January? He has always written to me as though he would go only after
the holidays.

Yes by all means send a copy of the biography of Little Bill
Stephenson. I knew him well, but had missed any announcement of the
book. I am most grateful to your alert eye. If you want to cast an eye
on it have it sent to you first and then post on to me. H. Montgomery
Hyde, The Quiet Canadian (Hamish Hamilton)

Picked up Horace's latest telephone bill yesterday, which seemed
almost as big as always even though Marya was at Gaylord. But I thought
myself in his class when my own telephone bill for long distance called and
I saw I was charged with a $6.50 bill for talking to Patrick the day before
his mother's operation. I was flabbergasted, as you can imagine, especially
when Mrs Dingle checked with the Company and found the phone had been
connected at +1-591:55 p.m. and disconnected at 2:36, making a 42 minute
call. But how can I prove I didn't, I gasped. The clever Mrs Dingle could
to their satisfaction, by reading my office appointments at that time which
went from 2:00 until 4:00. The visitors would have been piled up and screaming,
she told the Company. Fortunately, they agreed and charged me only 80 cents.
I feel triumphant.

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

6 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

Mrs Dingle and I have been working like furies, and with
what arrived in this noon's mail I think we now have all of your emenda-
tions and revisions transferred to the top copy of the manuscript, which
I shall take to Harcourt to-morrow when I go to New York for a meeting
of the National Advertising Association Committee to which I belong. (I
really hope I shall be going to a funeral of the committee, for I can't
see that I serve any really useful function on it save as a mild window
dressing.) Some of the later revisions, when you did not put the line
numbers on, I could not find, but I will make a note of these and a
query or two of my own (none of them ague-producing, I hope) and send them
along to you later. We can always change in the galleys. I wait until
I am less pressed and less fatigued. Unfortunately this has been an
unusually hard week, and at the moment I seem to tire a little faster than
usual.

I am sorry there have been all these difficulties with Helen
over punctuation and the like. At least they did not come from Holsaert,
since he could not have seen a copy of the manuscript. But your replies
were helpful and I was able to deduce a few principles to give to the
reader at Harcourt. The principal one, as I gathered it, was that the
final --on's in colour, neighbour, etc could, as with s and z be used
for the Harcourt text in the American manner, but that hyphens should
keep to British practise except that they should also be omitted when
the double qualifier immediately precedes a noun (in which case the
British printer's dictionary I have says to use it in England. I liked
your figure of speech about making novels into textbooks on growing
barley in undeveloped countries, and your letter to Durrell was written
with wonderful vigor.

I lunched this noon with Marianne and her brother who had
come together to see the exhibition of her books at the Library in honor
of her 75th birthday. There were other guests, and by faulty communication
to me of arrangements I was late to the luncheon but I did have the good
fortune to sit by her. You were quite right: whenever she mentioned her
trip to Greece her face lighted up like a small child looking at her
birthday cake. She was in excellent form and seemed much better than I had
seen her lately, and liked the exhibition immensely. We talked of course
chiefly of you, and she is certainly devoted. Again, like a child at a
birthday party she told me of your birthday gift which will, I am sure,
permit some appropriate luxury. John looked very well, and for some reason
was extremely effusive in expressing his gratitude for all I was supposed
to have done for --but I could never quite make out what for, or for what.
Nevertheless I was flattered at the possibility. Marianne kissed me when
I left, and said to tell you she would write soon. When she doesn't, I am
sure it is really a matter of conserving her health.

The New Haven Hospital bill for Marya's period there came yesterday

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

in the mail, and has been paid. $852.61. Alas the New York Medical Plan rejected any responsibility for it, or eligibility on Marya's part, since they had allowed the medical insurance to expire. One presumes now that it is again taken up by them that the future will be a different matter. But I am in a quandary. Don't you think I should take their card, write to that particular insurance plan and find out just what they can count on in the future? I am not altogether confident that they have any real idea where they stand in regard to medical insurance, since both Horace and Marya keep telling me that they can draw out up to fifteen thousand dollars. "We put so much into it over so many years" they keep saying. But that isn't how insurance works, and one would think that even a child would know this. Nor do I know whether I should ever admit that no assistance was possible in arya's case, because they so gleefully repeat that even though the insurance had expired, they had been able to fix it so that everything was as though it hadn't lapsed. What do you think?

It is fun to have the yellowbacks start coming again. Much interested in Doris's letters about Barbara D., and am thankful that Doris doesn't have to cope. Some p.a. treatment, such as Barbara will get, certainly seems indicated. As to the New Jersey Barbara, one sees a kind of desperation in all her zooming manner. But how much is revealed by her saying that once one knows Wagner... Rachmaninoff etc "you don't have to bother listening to anything else." Congratulations on your newest discovery of a bit on Henty! Perhaps you ought also to enlist Leslie's assistant at the PRO to go through the chances there. One can't really work in the Public Record Office except as a pro. Poor Herring. I do feel for him, but couldn't really cope with trying to get his book published. Kenneth is another matter, for he really does have talent. Dorothy R does seem a little uncertain about the future, and I can't say I think her suggestion for the location of funds is altogether smart or even sound. But let her do what she wants with it; it will certainly be a blessing to her under any circumstances. And getting it done now, will, as you say, not only give her the immediate advantages of it but reduce your own estate.

I do agree that you should contribute to the *Homage* for Mr A. One can't really refuse, and you can concentrate on the quality of his French translations and his feeling for Venice. Would you like me to ship his letters to you back so that you can refresh what he stressed. You can also mention the symbolic importance and actual pleasure of the Russian trip.

I have met Saul Bellow once or twice but am not quite sure how a correspondence would work out. I mean by that, that I simply don't know. He's rather rugged, but he might be pleased. Or perhaps when you come over the next time I could arrange for a lunch. Your feeling about the Zola tradition is a sound one, if you can add other experimentations in form to it. Just what of his have you read so far, so that I can try to get the others--if there are any--to you.

I quit work tonight and take Susan to a new Tennessee Williams play which has its premier at the Shubert. It is fun trying to anticipate just what perversion he will take as his shocker. He has brought the Gothic novel up to date.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

My fingers are so cramped I shall hardly be able to type even a note to you. I am halfway through signing by hand some 350 letters to go out around the country with notices of American Studies Fellowships to be awarded by Yale. I am a fool not to use a facsimile signature, but at least I have sometimes been complimented for not doing so. And a batch of them, when I know the recipient personally, get notes scribbled in the upper corner. That helps too to distinguish these notices from the dozens which come in each week only to be thrown in the wastebasket.

Your letter of the 30th came in the late afternoon mail. For which as always thanks, especially on a foggy day like this when nature itself sheds no welcome ray from the sun. I am glad that the Goughs' visit has gone so well. They are obviously unusually nice people, with the great good fortune of having something to say when they pay a visit. I do hope you manage the visit to them in May, but hope you can combine this with a flip to Israel with Elsie.

Don't worry about the punctuation. We went over it carefully together, and unless something turns up in the rewritten passages I can't see how there could be much to change. I hope to have all corrections in hand by the end of the week wo that on Friday when I have to lunch in New York with a committee of the National Advertising Council, I can first take the typescript to Harcourt. If I can't take all, I will take what I can.

I thought you might be amused by the misadventures in the post, described by the enclosed clipping. You may remember that I once took you to see the Stonehill shop and we were offered the very copy of the English Decameron which accompanied Alice on her travels.

You keep asking about my views on the Cuban and Indian withdrawals. We were all startled. I am no authority, but so far as the Indian campaign is concerned I imagine that everything was originally planned to go as it has gone. There can be no Chinese campigns over the mountains in the winter, and so supply lines cannot be maintained by the Chinese. By pushing ahead farther than they wanted (at this stage) they are able to withdraw to where they wish to be, and, withdrawing, take on the dubious status of peacemakers who are eating cake and having it too. Nothing the British and Americans can do will alter the situation much, except in the long run (and this China may not have counted on) to turn India back towards the West. I rather hope this is the end of Nehru who has been so morally smug and so double-faced. Mennon of course has not bother about two faces, and I would not put it completely beyond him to have hoped for a Chinese or Russian victory with himself as the native leader. What India did to Goa was no worse than what China has done to them, but we are right to step in. The main situation to be watched (in the dark, of course) is the strain between Russia and China, with Russia a little on the run. Russia has pushed the Western countries so easily around that I am sure they did not expect the really all-out mobilization

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

of American forces in the Caribbean and in Florida. If Castro were not a fool they might have been willing to try a little more, but he is really psychotic and the Russians would be glad to dump him. Russia may be forced to fight, but we must not forget that Russia at the moment has groups ready to take over from the government even if there is no two-party system at work. K cannot be sitting very easily. A war, even of a minor sort, as from Cuba, would mean turning affairs over to the Russian Army and K is not an Army man. It is a matter of power politics within Russia as well as within Europe. Russia does have the warheads for nuclear fighting, but not the supplies with which to overrun and control a Europe many parts of which would be ready for revolt. All these are odd reasons for drawing a comparatively free breath for a brief while, but I think we can.

It is exciting to think that the Christmas books have arrived. Do send to George, Elsie, Doris, Heydt and whomever you think would be interested among our common friends. Only let me know so that I won't duplicate. I'll send a list for others later, since it is foolish to pay postage back and forth again across the Atlantic.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have never felt so infuriated at anything as at the fact
that the right-hand drawers in my desk refuse to unlock (one of those
tie-ins with the center drawer which has gone suddenly kaput) so that I
cannot get the list of queries out for this letter. So I will leave them
for the moment in order to get something in the mail in a half hour before
the last Sunday afternoon post goes from the mailbox outside the Hall of
Graduate Studies.

I had thought that all corrections were in (stupidly on my part) and had arranged to turn in the ms at Harcourt's Friday morning when I took down the photograph of the coin for the cover. But since a letter from Kurt and another from Helen told me they were shipping over the sheets of comments, and a letter from you enclosed some more as well as a check on what was to come, I did not hand it in but did have a good talk in New York on what was allowable and what was not in their final check. In any event I have promised to go down and pass on each regularization into American spelling etc. This of course is not final, for the galleys will be going to you.

Actually I was glad to have Helen's sheets, which made your
upset understandable. Of course what she did she did out of friendship,
but alas she had a case of what the 18th century used to call enthusiasm.
I had not expected her to do any more than make general comments on the
whole, since we had gone so carefully over the pages together and any
inconsistencies would have been caught later. You were put in the spot
of having three editors instead of one, and you must have felt besieged.
It won't happen again anyhow.

All of this only points up the agony of having to rush a
manuscript through. Fortunately, no matter where the next is published,
you will have a couple of years to work on the next volume of memoirs
so one won't have to live on the edge of hell.

This news about the adoption of Rosemary Sutcliffe's book by
the Literary Guild will be a fine break for her in the field of a public
which would not be your cup of tea but which is presumably hers.

As always, you are doing just the right thing about Martin
'Delgarno. But what can the real story be, to account for Barbara's barring
from the Scillies? There must be something really behind all this that we
do not know about. Doris must set her espionage lines out to fish for the
truth. And what a display of societal strength, for good or bad, on the
part of the islanders. I wonder if you could really take living there, since
one might not always vote with the majority in similar cases.

I am most grateful for all plans for the Easter (spring) holidays
with you. Doris is wo derfully kind to make the arrangements, and no one
could ask for a better Christmas present than you are making. I think Phyllis's
car will work out all right, with perhaps my sitting in front part of the
time, and room for pairs of you and me, you and Susan, etc in the back seat.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

If we need extra baggage room we can ship a suitcase directly to London by train.

I will probably take your advice and hand over Nadejine's papers to the library for safe-keeping. With the understanding that anything can be taken out by you for study whenever you wish to do so.

Oh yes, if you want to cut the slave girl episode, I will count on you for making the proper transitions. We can always change in the galleys if necessary. I will send you a set of the retyped sheets when everything is in. I can reinsert in the New York copy the altered pages when I go there to check, so the manuscript need not be held back. We are now given by them until the 15th for the deadline.

I drove out to Gaylord this morning to see the Gregories, and he gave me a copy of his Oscar Wilde article to send to you. It will go out surface tomorrow. They seemed well and reasonably happy, he in good humor because he has at last finished his Ovid introduction in the first draft and is back making a few revisions of his translations. They will both be there until after Christmas, and then Marya will presumably go back to Palisades. The matter of health insurance was brought up by them, with direct reference to New Haven Hospital, so there was no pint in not telling them exactly what happened. As a result I now have what correspondence there is on the matter, and after the vacation begins will try to clear up the situation (insofar as the future is concerned) with the hospitalization plan. I also found that although they had told me they had an accountant prepare their tax statements, in fact they didn't. So I shall have to try to see that this is put in order also. I only fear however that as with Lizzie, one straightens out only to make the next snarls easier.

My Christmas gift of *Four Studies* has come, and being human I could not wait to Christmas to open the superb wrapping paper which was a triumph in itself. But so is the book, in terms of printing anyhow, and I am deeply touched by your generosity and your confidence. It is, you see, in a way, my first book to have only my own things in it, and I have read through it with fear and trembling. But they seem all right, much better in fact because of the beautiful printing than I had remembered them to be. Though I have not read them for several years. And it has been a stimulus. As well as a rubbing of noses. I feel a little unreal about the book even now, with aawk-a-mercy, this can be none of I air. I find myself unexpectedly inarticulate in trying to thank you. But I know that you know how I feel.

All love and thanks

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

10 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

To New York yesterday for a full day of it. I went down on
the nine o'clock and stopped off at the 125th Street Station en route to
Columbia University Library where I checked on a Pound typescript of the
Pisan Cantos which Dudley Fitts owns, thinking it unique whereas Columbia
has a twin reasonably identical. Afterwards I subwayed down to 42nd Street
and from there to the Harvard Club for an endless (though not unpleasant
meeting of the New York members of the editorial advisors to The New England
Galaxy. Pleasant because there were so few there, only four in all (including
an Edward Streeter whose *Dere Mabel* I remember as a boy from World War I, and
who re-emerges from his Wall Street office as the successful author of recent
books like *Father of the Bride*, *President of the Bored*, etc. He said he had
given up writing and gone into banking when after *Dere Mabel* the pub;ishers tried
to make him keep on rewriting the book with new words but the same thought.)
Endless because I just missed the 3 o'clock back to New Haven and had to wait
an hour for a train which in the end was 20 minutes late into New Haven.

Your revisions for VII had come, and Mrs Dingle had done some of
it and is finishing the rest tonight. Also has done the bridge for cutting
out the slave girl scene. I am not sorry to see it go, but I am a little
troubled about her, lest she not fetch the "good price" she hoped for, as
a result of this rejection!

I'm sorry that Helen keeps on sending hyphens to you. My suggestion
is that you simply say you do not want them because you do not want them, not
because you are afraid of being laughed at for using them or because you want
to observe decorum. You are too academic! You throw rules at her, so she throws
rules back! Now that you've put commas strictly on the basis of style, you've
won.

Anyhow, I'm rather glad you're not going to Locarno for Christmas,
though Helen would have found it a life-saver I'm sure. Much better to see
Ninon on your own and keep a two-way rapport rather than have everything go
in three directions. I really hope you won't ask Melitta for the holidays
either. I doubt that just at this moment she is what you want to find that
Santa Claus left for you in your Christmas stocking.

I will see if I can find the right kind of paperback to spend your
dollar on, but since there will be other financial rewards from the book there's
no reason why you shouldn't "see" them. Why wouldn't it be a good idea for me,
once the royalty checks come in from Pantheon and Harcourt, and the taxes are
paid, to deposit the rest to your checking account in the States? Or to Beney
if you want? Instead of keeping them segregated in the New Haven special savings
account.

Am glad you raised the question of sending the 3000 to the Gregories,
a matter about which I had intended to write you since they will shortly be both
back at Palisades. I have still not had a final talk with Horace about the
matter, wanting to wait until the very eve of his return. But it seems to me

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

that, between us, we have pretty well come to the conclusion that the total
amount should be 5000, of which 3 from you and 2 from me, for the time being
also I am willing at any moment you direct to pay over the entire 5. This is
better divided for the moment so that you will not seem a bottomless source
and I can continue a reason for a long-distance check. So if as for Christmas
you send Horace 3000, say that it is in view of his expected return and for
next year and that you understand that I am going to do something too when
he goes back. Or, of course, as you prefer. This is only a suggestion.

As for Aurelia, unless you want to send her a check for 100 simply as
a Christmas present, or less, I think it would be better to wait until I have
had a chance to go over her finances with her. And then for me to continue to
pay as before, since she is used to that arrangement. At the moment I hope to
be there either before or just after the holidays, but have not yet heard from
her.

To return to Horace for the moment, since you are likely to have extra
expenses for Catha during the period when you are wisely, and luckily for her,
taking over with Philip's and Beney's help, there is no reason why I should not
pay the 3000 as for you out of the end of the year check from Beney. You must
keep something on hand for emergencies, of which there never seems to be an end.

Don't worry about Mrs Dingle's expenses for the typing. I have always
paid those, and give her something extra for Christmas too.

Mus rush off,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

I have just now finished checking Mrs Dingle's copying of
the changes in Chapter VII, to find only two minor errors. She is
really very good at this, and she tries to be scrupulous in following
precisely what you have put down. I like the changes you have made; they
fill out the hollows in the body in an admirable way.

I think this does it, with the slight possibility of a query
or two among the notes I made and will send you over the weekend. There
are always the galleys if you want to work those or anything else in. I'll
send along your copies of the re-typed pages under separate airmail cover
in order to save money by making them papiers d'affaire.

I was immensely sorry to hear of the competitor to Islay's
planned volume on Hadrian's villa, but I wonder if it really should stand
in the way. You say the photographs are bad, and I should very much doubt
that the book includes objects that were once in the villa but are now in
museums around the continent or in the States. This is what would give
real character to Islay's book, which is one reason I had thought of helping
him to photograph the objects in the Vatican.

When your foreword comes do you want me to have it read by
Ingholt before sending it on?

I waited to finish the letter until after my lunch with John Moore.
As I may have told you he had invited the Librarian, a painter on the Yale faculty who was
a classmate at Yale of John, Gallup and myself. This was at the Graduate Club, and when I
arrived the other three guests had already come to the party. It was a party. John had
made little straws (I enclose mine) for us to draw for seating at the table. Together
the letters for four spelled Y A L E. And when we got to the table in the
middle of the men's dining room, Christmas cards were at each place, marked with one of
the four letters. Also at each place was a green cardboard engagement book, a red and white
striped candy Christmas cane, and a piece of chocolate wrapped in gold foil to look like
money. I doubt that the business men who inhabit the club have seen anything quite like
it, but he had spent a lot of time working it all out, took immense pleasure in it, and the
mood was contagious. He is evidently a dedicated Yale alumnus and told many stories about
his classmates, and funny stories that had happened at the Gunnery School when he taught a
class in Bible, and said how delighted both Marianne and he had been at her show at Yale,
etc. It is a marvel to watch him, for one sees every gesture and mannerism of Marianne
repeated in him (or perhaps more properly one should say that he is repeated in her). Or
were these facial tricks and intonations originally the mother's?

Your letter of the 10th was in the afternoon's post. How I wish mine
went so quickly to you. ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T CHEAT ON DATES?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

This is most intriguing about the request from Pittsburgh for your affidavit about disinheritance. I did once tell you that my impression was that most legally acceptable American wills require a recognition of children in the will, even if it is no more than a bequest of one dollar or saying that they have already been provided for.

I was delighted to be back in again on the Agony column of the *Times*. By now we are almost forgetting what it is like to get a New York newspaper, for, as you know, all papers have been suspended since last Saturday because of the strike. Fortunately we get the New Haven paper and so at least know that the world is round. The queen mother must feel the world gets around after the dinner party that Osbert described!

It really is too bad that Barbara tries to go back to the Scillies, and it would be most unfortunate if Doris has to take her on. I do hope she won't. You are right, Martin should not get his apprenticeship with his mother. If she has any ambition for him she must realize that professionally this would kill him. I daresay the eventual breakup between them as he starts to be an adult and himself will be terrifying. And I pity the poor girl he marries, if he does, for Barbara will feel she has been robbed. The pattern is familiar.

I'll let the Bellows go for the moment, but as a late Christmas present I am going to send you a subscription to *The Noble Savage*, a magazine he edits. It will let you know the people he likes, by which of course I mean the writing he likes. I saw Ralph Ellison when he came to the office on Saturday, and Ralph says that Saul Bellow is just back in the country and is now en route to the University of Chicago where he is to teach in the social studies for the next two years anyhow.

Susan much pleased to learn from Doris' letter that the Susan Pearson had done so well in the flower show. I was especially grateful for the Hodgson obituary which told me more of his biography than I had known before George had told us that Aurelia was #3. Interesting that George knew Demuth, who was a Lancaster friend of Mary Herr. I think I spoke in my last of hoping that you would not permit Melitta to descend on you for the holidays. It could prove very exhausting. One may have to watch out a little also lest the Pippitt take you too much into her life as well as into her dreams. One almost senses a vaguely Greenlandic scene which I am afraid would become incredibly involved and involving. What an incredible letter from Schwartz who really has no business to say that Yale is a client. I am sure ale buys occasionally from him, but this is quite different from the inference that he is Yale's agent. You were quite right not to reply.

I think I forgot to tell you that Susan had a package in the mail from John and Erdita some time ago of two cookbooks. They have been thanked for. So now we have been trying to think of appropriate presents for them for Christmas. I have two OSS books for them, etc. For one of the boys I bought an especially nice volume for children about Polar exploration, with superb illustrations in color from old prints etc. If I dared, I would send one to you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

These weekend days have been hectic ones, with last minute
shopping so that Susan could wrap her packages and ease the pressure of
her conscience. She was delighted to have your letter, and we do little
but talk about the spring holidays and our visit with you. I think I
wrote you already that I see no reason why we should not take a chance
with Phylis's car as it is. I can surely fit in without any renovation
or substitution, and there will be plenty of room for the four of us:
you and she and Susan and myself.

I have also like a madman been scribbling cards from my office,
by which to thank for offprints and books that have been sent me for the
past six months, which if I acknowledge now at yhe Christmas season can
be brief but not inappropriate. As a result my desk already looks a little
better, but with a full week ahead I shall have to hump to get them done.
Tonight, at home, I shall start on the cards that go from there. This is
my task. Susan works full time at the presents.

It snowed all night, and although I had no snow tires on my
car as yet, and the road up the hill to Gaylord was steep and slippery, I
decided I had better try it anyhow since I had not been able to get out to
see Horace and Marya all week. They seemed well and cheerful, although I
gather the two of them are now quite apart from the other patients. Marya
continues to lose a little weight and to look the better because of it.
She has eight more x-ray treatments in New Haven, but not hopes to go back
to Palisades about the 27th when Joanna is coming up with the car to visit
her parents. Nothing was said about Horace's return. I shall try to phone
Dr Anderson some time this week, out of curiosity. Not much having happened
to them, there was not much of interest to be said, but it was a good visit
all the same. A little after noon, Pat came in so that I was able to get
back in better time for lunch that I could manage last week.

I have at last had a second letter, or rather a note, from
Aurelia. "Frankly," she says, I'm fighting depression right now. Perhaps
I'll go in and play, play on the piano. It usually helps." She had just
had Christmas greetings from the I.A.Richards who had not heard of Ralph's
death. Because she planned to go to Kentucky for Christmas with her sister,
I finally decided to send her a check for $500, since something would
usually have come at this time. I told her we would talk over finances
when I went to see her. I thought this might take some of the burden off
her trip, let her buy a present for her sister, and not think she was
cripping herself. A change and sense of freedom at this moment is, I
think, important. I hope you agree.

How marvelous you are to have thought of so many to help at
Christmas! And I mean it. This unexpected extra makes all the difference
for them in just the sense of freedom I mean, the important kind.

The Ben Duncan, The Same Language came yesterday. I am eager
to read it once the Christmas duties are out of the way. It might be good
to lend Horace, for reasons that are obvious.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

And thanks for sending along the volumes of *transition*. They
will of course go together, and with some other volumes that came from
you or Hilda earlier.

Many thanks for chosing so well as to whom the books should go.
I agree in each case, or any you suggest. I have been writing Christmas
notes to several to whom copies ought to go. Will probably not send a
note to Heydt, from whom I have not heard in a year or so, but perhaps
he should get one. And certainly one to each of the boys. I will send
my list and proper addresses along later in the week. No point in
rushing about it at Christmas. Oh yes, please do give one to Elsie for
Christmas with my love.

I will get Ingholt or someone here to write me an archaelogical
passe-partout, just in case the weather is kind to us. What fun it would
be to get to Nor Nor. The name sounds like an affectionate diminutive of
my own.

It looks as though you had just the focal theme for the next
volume of your memoirs. And how curious it is that in the effort to
survive one can increasingly define one's self.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

This is the penultimate moment before Christmas, and what is not frazzled salutes you! I did drive safely to Princeton and Gardner yesterday. It snowed occasionally along the way, but the mainhighway was clear and the roads north over the hills from Sturbridge were well plowed. Actually whenever the sun came out, as it did occasionally, the landscape was brilliant with diamonded ice on the trees and a foot of snow covering the earth. My brother was not at home so I left their presents and skedaddled. My sister was, and I listened to her various laments and gossips for a half hour and then drove to Princeton. My mother was a bit on the groggy side, but pleased enough to see me and have the nicely wrapped bundles which she admired and then later told me had come from where-she-didn't-know. My father had been to see her recently and was well. And her son, Norman, was very nice to her.

This morning we put up the tree in the front room so that the branches could open before Susan and Liz decorated it this afternoon. Then I drove to Susan's uncle to leave a present, and to the shore to leave gifts for the caretaker and his assistant. After that I went to Wallingford with the presents for the Gregories. Horace was at therapy for all but the last ten minutes, but Marya was of course glad to talk and did. But I must say she looked in good health and really seemed in good spirits. Her treatments at the hospital are finished, and she expects to go back to Palisades on Thursday when Joanna drive up. Not very much definite was said about Horace's return, and I did not raise the matter with him. I had hoped to see his particular doctor on the staff, but Anderson had flown for the holidays to Rome, Paris and Cambridge. He needs a rest, having really run the hospital during most of the fall. Marya was blissful about your comments on her anthology, and was busy re-reading the anthology to see if it was as good as you had said it was. It has had very good, although brief, notices, and I must say that I thought it both fresh and unpretentious. They both have good eyes and good ears.

Did I tell you that Hilda's *Bid Me to Live* is to be published in paperback in February? I read an advance notice in *Publisher's Weekly* of a fortnight ago, and a letter in today's mail directly from Grove kindly informs me. They are a strange lot; one would have thought they would have written me beforehand. I will see that the Pippitt gets a copy when Mrs Dingle returns after New Year's. I find myself a little scared of the Pippitt, and suspect that eventually I might even be bored. But it would be nice if we could get her on Hilda's side.

Three letters and a yellowback were in today's post, which made it a Christmas fest for me. I was much interested of course in the Parliamentary Report of the debate on Vassal, and interested too that Rita mentioned it. You have handled the Dorothy Doolittle case precisely right. One helps as much as needed at this moment, but not as from a bottomless pit. I don't know quite what to say about the Roman Britian map. It would be interesting, but if you can exchange one you'd better do so. And Hilda Quick would of course have daily

use for it. In any event she must have one. For me it would be more of
a curiosity.

I do feel pleased with having gotten the Ballantyne manuscripts
as well as grateful for your addition of the Henty typescripts. The
collection gradually assumes real importance. And I think I may have a
first scholarly user of it, for the books on the American West which would
provide a section in a book he is writing next year.

Best of all is the news that you are on the memoirs, or will be.
You will feel the right moment for the new experimental novel and when the
moment comes you can lay all else aside. But the momentum of working on
towards the war, or rather in it, ought not to be lost. It will, I think,
be a very important book. I am confident of it.

I plan to take the Mason novel with me on the train to Washington
when I go on Wednesday to the meetings there. It's a six hour ride, I have
taken a chair in order to guarantee a seat, and give myself the treat of
reading what I want to read rather than what I ought to. That is, if I can
finish a section of a dissertation I have to go over with a student while I
am there.

I have been working like mad at Christmas cards, and never want
to see another one. Except of course that I did manage to make an absolutely
terrific dent on my desk of the pile of hitherto unanswered letters. The
only large group I did not touch were the ones to Japan. I shall write them
after Christmas and pave the highway. Today one came from Brother Volant, to
whom I had not sent. He says the new museum is nearly finished, and he is
of course much excited about it. He wrote that he was going home on leave to
France in spring, the last time he fought he would ever be able to go. Perhaps
he was reminding me of our promise to give him the cost of going to Copenhagen
to see the men and the arctic things there. I think I shall, but out of my
own funds of course.

One of the two new filing cabinets is here, the other still not
delivered, so there will be more room for your letters and Hilda's things can
be taken out of the boxes and made more accessible.

Arabella sent the watercolor of her by Lawrence, and I paid her the
$100.00 she asked for it. It is signed on back by him, and because she figures
in Death of a Hero, in Kangeroo, and in Bid Me to Love, is worth having. She
promises to write me an account of how and when it was painted, and I shall
try to draw her out eventually on the whole Mecklenburgh Square menage. She
also sent me a letter, to keep, from John Cournos, about Hilda's and Aldington's
death. He is now 82, but lively enough to play arpond with a Central European
ballet dancer.

Lizzie seems in pretty good health, and I was pleased that when we
went over finances she seemed to take it in good spirits and not think she was being
done in. She has a strong under-feeling for what she defines as "rights." But
this time this was not brought up.

We open presents tonight in order to be clear tomorrow when the Addiss
family come with children and happy bedlam. All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

I am at the office for an hour and a few minutes before taking a cab to the station and the train to Washington. I thank you again for my little book. I gave copies to the two girls and Mrs Bennett, and they seemed delighted with it.

Everything went well, to our great relief. Lizzie seemed in very good spirits and more relaxed than in the last several years. I notice she tires easily and goes to bed earlier than she used to, but this is highly sensible. As I may have written you, Susan and she and I opened our own presents on Christmas Eve, and then put them away to make room for the innumerable gifts to the little ones. Psychologically it was good because Lizzie could feel near the center and not at the edge as she sometimes used to when the general focus was on grandchildren. A little before noon I drove to the country to pick up a goose dinner that had been cooked for us and brought it back for Susan to keep warm-- a splendidly good way of taking the burden off of grandmothers. Then Mrs Bennett and her sister-in-law and the four Addisses came for lunch and the afternoon, when the youngsters had their gifts. The children were models of decorum and satisfaction with their gifts.

Your letter of the 21st was in the morning mail. Actually I'm not really surprised at the sort of thing you put down in your diaries. War makes a Magic Mountain for one, with the daily personal things all the more intensely felt because the world outside is too overwhelming and the property of generals and politicians. Of course the war is felt, I don't mean the opposite, but it is felt personally. That is what I used to mean by saying that for the first time for the English-speaking people this was a civilian's war. He had never been involved, known it so closely. The chief poems of the war came out of civilians: Hilda's trilogy, some of Edith's lyrics, Eliot's Four Quartets, and Pound's Pisan Cantos. It was not so common in fiction, that is why Beowulf is so extraordinarily valuable even though rejected.

Strange that seeing you so often, as I did, I never realized that the Bowen was playing a role. The Sitwells of course; and one can do them and their teas and Renishaw without breach of taste. The main thing now is, as you say, to make at least a preliminary blocking out of the material.

I frankly don't know what to say about Doris and her coming to the States for treatment. You might ask Prutting's advice, since he knows the case. The main difficulty is continuing the treatment after the initial work on her. Home for her is England, on the Scillies, and near Dean. Sometimes I think it doesn't much matter so long as one has confidence in one's doctor. Does she? My own fear is that the trouble has gone so far that not much can be done to recover lost ground. But try Prutting. She could be put on a plane without a nurse to come with her. Here it might be more difficult, but I could manage. Or it might be possible to work as with Gaylord and treatment

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

at the New Haven Hospital. Prutting again would know. I realize that
Boston seems to be better for diabetes and I know of no famous eye surgeon
here.

Alas, one can't quite parallel any two cases of illness of this sort,
so that the results of the work on Dorothy Doolittle wouldn't be conclusive.

Still no newspapers in New York, or for us from there, so one hardly
knows what goes on in the world except for the snippets in New Haven papers.
The loss to New York merchants must have been frightful because of no place
to advertise. And they say the theatres are being hard hit.

Just before Christmas I had another nice note from George saying he
was sending on more things but wishing I could only go to Marvels to pick
out the things for myself. I have not said anything about our going to see
you in mid-March, just after his return. But I wonder if it would be a nice
drive if the three of us hired a car in London for the day and drove out to
see him. I should love to have seen his house. I leave all this to your
judgment, for you will know who we ought to see in the two or three days in
London at the end.

I rather dread the days in Washington at the convention. I return by
train on Saturday in order to be here for Susan's birthday dinner that
night. I am taking her and her mother and Lizzie to Mory's, since this is
Lizzie's last night. She flies back to Florida on Sunday. Then I must
really get down to work at my desk.

All love and thanks for the Christmas cable and my gifts.

Norman

The Mayflower

WASHINGTON · D. C.

29 December 1962

Dearnest Fido,

I am now pretty well (and that's as far as I got in my attempt to write you from Washington. And even that was on my last morning after I had packed and had ten minutes before going down to pay my bill and catch the train. Instead the phone rang and a man wanted to see me. So it is now 30 December in the afternoon of a gale like wind and freezing temperature at the office).

The meeting was of course hectic all the way through. I went down by train on Wednesday in a snowstorm so that the train was an hour late and I arrived at Washington only about 8:30 at night. I had no engagements that evening and no one had yet come, so I went to my room, had a drink, finished reading 66 pages of a dissertation (which I discussed the next morning with the doctoral candidate who was writing it), read in Mason's novel and went to sleep exhausted). Thursday was filled with meetings and conferences, the last of which began at 5:30 p.m. and lasted until 11:30 that night. Too much talking; I kept silent and voted now and again as resolutions were passed. Friday I had fewer formal meetings but many appointments with people, except that late in the morning I took a cab to the Smithsonian to see their eskimo exhibits and to have lunch with Henry Collins, the eskimo curator, at the Cosmos Club. And then back in mid-afternoon for more appointments, including one with the New American Library about the possibility of a paperback of your novels. Saturday I took a 10 o'clock train back since it was Susan's birthday, arriving late in the afternoon at home by taxi just as Susan was driving out from the garage in the Olds to try to find Lizzie, who had been in the Dauphine and been stalled on the highway. Susan had also called a garage man who had reached her before we did, or rather we could not find her at all since she had started home. Then dinner at Mory's, which lasted until latish, after which Lizzie packed and we all went to bed reasonably early. She took the 10 o'clock bus this morning from the Taft to Idlewild, after what seemed to be a happy vacation for her as well as for us in our realisation that there had been no upsets or tensions while she was here.

One of the delights on my desk today was to find your five letters from the 22nd to the 26th, which were certainly more welcome than the pile of Christmas cards from people I had not sent to, and new letters to answer when I had thought I had been making headway. First I have been paying bills (including Horace's and Marya's and trying to bring a little order before I sat down to write you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 December 1962

Dearest Fido,

It is -5° below zero outside the office window, and to judge
from the cold air that is coming through the cracks it is not much warmer
inside. I sit at my typewriter and shiver despite the warmth of my green
Shetland sweater. I have been working like mad all day, still answering
Christmas notes from those I had not greeted, paying bills and generally
trying to bring order to my desk.

Yours of the 27th was in this morning's post, for which my
thanks. We suffer together. What a pity that we are not in an igloo with
a hunk of whale blubber to gnaw at.

No Tolkien, then, if you prefer. Given my 'druthers, as they
say in the south, I'd prefer Tenthbridge and George. With Maishmen gone
from Maggs we shall be, I suppose, drifting away. But good for you to get
her to look into Records. She has the instincts of a scholar; really she is
one, as so many good bokkmen are.

I will try to sort out the Shakespeare drawings from what George
has sent me. I told you about the two bundles of his drawings and bookplates
and material for the *Butterfly* and for *Vogue* which were waiting when I got back
from Washington. Today there were two more bundles, this time of books for
which he had done jackets or drawings. What very real gifts he had! He wanted
these to go to the Library for what I have called the George Plank Collection.
Today it became a reality when I had Donald Gallup over to look at the things.
There will be a bookplate and everything to make it official. I will do more
details about it later. In order to add interest to it, I also gave the many
letters from Hilda to him, and added to these the ones he had written to Hilda.
Thus there are both sides of the correspondence. And I also gave the letters to
him from Vachel Lindsay which he had given me. Thus he begins to assume stature
as an important friend as well as a fine graphic artist. Now one additional
thought occurs to me. As you know, George has what he describes as an extensive
Gordon Craig collection. When I asked Gallup if Yale had a good Craig collection
he said we didn't. Wouldn't it be a good idea if I were to buy the collection
from George, with my own funds (he wants to sell it to have a little cash to fall
back on) and gave it to Yale alongside his own papers and work, as the George
Plank Collection of Gordon Craig. This I think would please George mightily,
and he has been such a good friend to you and to Hilda that I would do everything
I could to please him and help him to think he has had his own niche. But I
value your advice in this matter. Do tell me what you think.

I have had anoyher letter from Eric White in which he says that
Hilda loaned him some eight months before her death a copy of the manuscript
of The Mystery, because of its Moravian associations. He offered to send it if
I wanted it, although he would like to keep it for association's sake etc. I
know he would, but then someday, somehow I am sure it would get on the market and
out of control. So I have somewhat exagerrated by saying it was most valuable to
me and asked him to ship it along. Again, I hope you approve.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

A letter from Helen as of the 26th, as follows:

"And now to Kenneth's novels: this has been read both by Kurt and by me, with great interest and considerable admiration. Kenneth is so astute psychologically and knows his milieu, i.e., place and people, so well. And yet, we both doubt that the book would find a sufficiently large American audience. It is very English or should I say European? Don't you think it should be first published in England, and build its reputation there?

"We ate understandably reluctant to propose to Harcourt what we don't believe is really suited to the American market (how I hate that word, but we are in the market place!) And I am quite sure that Bill would not want it subsidized. He is not suffering as Pantheon did from undercapitalization, and I feel sure he does not believe in subsidies. I am so sorry what we have to disappoint you, but trust your understanding. The typescript goes to you tomorrow--post office closed tomat--as commercial air papers."

Well, I'm not really surprised, and take it all with a grain of salt. So I'll start again, and with my desk clearer there will be no waits.

It snows outside as well as freezes, and I must get home, stopping en route for four pounds of onions for Susan.

But before I go out to buy I send all love and new year's greetings, in this my last letter to anyone in 1962. May we be often together in 1963.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

American aristocrat of the old stock (hardly true) and that the Gregories were all basically Irish aristocrats (a vision which Irish immigrants often have of themselves, based on the multiplicity of Irish kings in the past). The second is a feeling that they have been rejected by American literary circles, for she keeps repeating how it no longer matters that the Academy and Institute never elected either of them (although both are, she says correctly enough, insignificant and meaningless. Unfortunately, although I am entirely English by descent, I doubt that their dream of England has very much reality in terms of themselves at least. They are a little like the Ben Duncan, whose book you sent me: an orphan, a poor boy with a Southern accent, helped by Libby Holman and a rich American or two, who found himself accepted in certain London circles really as a curiosity but giving him the sen se of belonging.

One difficulty you can see in Marya's letter which I enclose. They cut themselves off emotionally by never having a generous word for anyone outside their immediate small camp (which is chiefly their own family and a very few others). Callaghan's book is an example. It is by no means a great book, 'allaghan over-believes in his own ability as who does not, but he did give me a slant at Bob, and pictures of Hemingway and Fitzgerald which make them come alive in their weaknesses. Incidentally, Fitzgerald is a hero to the Gregories not so much because he is a good writer, I think, as that like Horace, he is an Irish-American who wanted to be an aristocrat.

Well, enough of that. I have at last had Marya's bill from Gaylord, for the whole stay, plus Horace's for a month, plus miscellaneous expenses. The account for them, since your return, is as follows:

Marya:

Gaylord (13,14 Oct. weekend before entering hospital officially) 16.00
To Patrick for train expenses etc in visiting her at New Haven 58.00
Grace New Haven Hospital 13 days at 33, plus extras 852.61
Dr Camillen (cystoscopy) 40.00
Dr Lavietes (consultation) 25.00
Gaylord 15 Oct-26 Dec 1940.00
(surgery bills, plus x-ray post-operative treatment not yet in)

Horace

Gaylord 11 Oct -- 24 448.00
Oct 25 Lumex adjustable walker 17.55
telephone bill to Oct 21 96.36
Gaylord 25 Oct to 7 Nov 457.80
8 Nov-21 Nov 452/00
telephone 21 Nov 68.86
Gaylord 22 Nov 26 Dec 11 23.10
Dec 17 orthopedic appliance 45.
21 Dec. telephone 58.85
(fortunately because Marya was at Gaylord ruling this period the telephone bills were only for calls to Joanna in 'altimore and to Pat and so were smaller.

Counting the $13,000 you had given as from 1 Nov, plus the $9,984.97 I had paid out up to that time, there was a balance in your favor of $3,051.03 as of 7 Nov. in terms of bills actually paid as of that time. Bills listed above for earlier

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 January 19623

Dearest Fido,

I sit down at my typewriter, pull the cover from the calendar I bought in August at Montreux, look at the snow-covered chalet and mountain of Grindelwald mit Wetterhorn, and write you my first letter of 1963.

Not that there is much new to write about, since you had the last one of 1962, but anyway ...

Our next door neighbors came last night for bridge and to watch the New Year in. It was bitterly cold outside, but we had large logs burning both in the study and living room fireplaces. They stayed rather late, so in turn I am late to the office; and this afternoon I must spend at home taking down the Christmas tree and otherwise picking up after the holidays. Mrs Dingle returns to work tomorrow morning after a holiday from the Friday before Christmas. I hope she will feel I have made some progress.

I saw Horace Sunday, but think I will not try to go out today. I want to take a morning later in the week and go to Gaylord to talk with his doctor. He is really rather restless now, and I wonder if it might not be a good thing for him to go home for a month or two and then come back for a checkup on his progress and general health. He says he needs new stimuli and challenges for walking: the feel of rugs, the step rises into his own bedroom etc. Hospitals do, sometimes, get as used to having patients there as patients do to being in hospitals. But, still, Horace's spirits are good and he is really busy at revising his translations of Ovid, doing at least a page a day, and now is able to type quite professionally again. I thought the sheet he showed me had been done by a typist at Gaylord, it was so even and good. He had an attractive picture of Patrick, taken by Marion Cummings, as a Christmas present. I liked it, but of course it is not in the class with Ilay's. Their present to me was a pewter ounce-and-a-half jigger for pouring drinks. Joanna had of course been up to take Marya back and had brought his grandson (and favorite) Gregory with him. He was full of Greg's beauty and intelligence, and said that the boy's ability with poetry was extraordinary. Joanna, he laughed, would have been satisfied to limit the poetic talent to her own parents; but it might well be that a skipped generation would bring it out again. All is apparently settled about Gregory's education at least at the university level. A master at Gilman, where he now goes and from which he will graduate in two years, is wild about Gregory's abilities in history, and as a former Rhodes Scholar has been made head of the history department at some newly established red-brick university in England. He has told Gregory he will get him in there (I forget the name, never having heard of it before) and that it would be better than going to Edinburgh, Oxford or Cambridge. "So that's that!" Horace said with immense pleasure. It does seem odd for a country-day-school teacher in America to be made head of a significant history department in England, but one never knows. Does Joanna simply want you to help Gregory be admitted to some English public school, or does she want you to send him there yourself? I don't really cotton after the idea but it is not my life nor is the boy my grandson. I suppose it all has to do with two pulls on Horace's part and Marya's. The last time when I saw Marya alone she spoke of me as the only

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

I am greatly relieved at your good judgment in not taking the eighteen-year old Tibetan. Charming and intelligent as she might be, you would be tied down at every moment. And charming and intelligent as you and Elsie would be, there is more difficulty than one thinks in arranging diversion for a girl of that age and bringing her into contact with people of her own age.

We were delighted with your cable, and hope that ours reached you as promised by the Western Union. At any rate if you read your war diaries you would have sensed my love from, as you say, my faithful attendance Sunday evenings. These were really my only regular diversions, otherwise I worked solidly and always came to you as from the office. You were so wonderfyl to share your meat ration with me, and I felt guilty even in drinking your whiskey. But it was through your eyes that I saw a side of England at war that I missed when I was with no one except those who wore pips on their shoulders. *Beowulf* retains the memory for me.

Jocelyn: yes, much better to do his criticism at the moment, better so even than with his entertainments. He is, I feel, out of touch with life, more so than O.B. There is too much mother hovering about him and concealing the sort of experience which goes into novels. But he is good, and may well re-emerge.

English pro-gress against American prog-gess. By derivation the British pronunciation is of course correct. My guess (only a guess) is that the American rule for dividing words into syllables, at the end of a line for example, is to split the double consonant, as in prog-gess, and perhaps this carries on here. But we are not consistent, since we follow English custom in a word like protract, which we would divide pro-tract.

The no Christmas card notes in the Times were superb. Susan roared with delight.

I agree, right or wrong as he may have been vis a vis Skybolts, this will push Macmillan over the edge.

In talking with Ellmann, who wrote on Joyce and knew Sylvia Beach from that, and with a Charles Feinberg, of Detroit, who was the man who interrupted my letter to you from Washington, I picked up the idea that one reason for locking the apartment is the idea of its value as a unit. Feinberg who made lots of money from delivery oil to houses had offered to Sylvia to buy it intact, have it dismantled and moved to the States for re-assemblage at some university. Not really a sensible idea, but Feinberg wrote to Holly and repeated the offer. When Sylvia talked to Feinberg she said she realized she could never go back to the States unless she had lots of money to prove she was a success. Feinberg, a Russian Jewish boy of immigrant stock, a Canadian, said it was typical of Italians and Irish who came to the States and wanted to return home and be applauded for the success of their mission. You recall this was my idea.

Perhaps we could see Lethridge and George on the last few days. Two wonderful packages from George were waiting for me, filled with examples of his bookplates, drawings, covers for Vanity Fair, and the like. All for the George Plank Collection at the Yale Library. He also offered letters from Sherwood Anderson. I really hope it may be possible to see Marvels.

I was honored by your first Christmas letters, and was glad that at least most of the packages reached you and Elsie in time. Homage? YES. The definition reads: "anything given or done to show the reverence, honor, or respect in which a person is

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held." And that I most certainly have and insist on, or neither your writing nor you would interest me as they do. As for the bites on the tail, I have just consulted my shelf of sex manuals and they agree in the desirability of love bites, and even in their inevitablity in the maintenance of any intimate relationship. And you will notice, if you look at where the hairs are missing, as you say they are, that the bare spots on your tail spell out my initials. That, the manuals say, is because I am sometimes possessive. I shall not send page references for my authorities, but can do so if you like. Yes, homage is a good companion for the word love.

That was an interesting letter from Marianne. She obviously meant that she had never read Whitman, and I suppose one can understand this perhaps on religious and certainly on moral grounds. It is a matter of commas. She reviewed many of Stevens' volumes of poetry and was a great admirer of his. And he wrote about her. One of my happiest memories is a twenty block walk down Fifth Avenue with the two of them after Steven's 70th birthday party. But Whitman was fleshly, and that was something Marianne could never abide. Do you recall when she returned the Bestiary to Helen Wolff because some of the drawings by Peter Blume or Ben Shawn, the latter I think, primitive cave-like illustrations, gave very subdued implications that there were other differences between men and women than those of dress.

All of this recent squabble between the States and the U.K. is a pity and a little hysterical. But I will discuss this later in another letter.

What a good Christmas Elise must have provided for you and we would both have given a good deal to have seen her decorations. I will keep the Lewins boys in mind for science fiction. Wouldn't it be a good idea to send them direct rather than through you?

I enjoyed the *Richard Mason* book, and the train and hotel room was just the situation in which to read it. What an odd and interesting combination of styles and attitudes it contained. The opening sections were pure *Hemingway* of the early smart bantering dialogue, and the ending was equally pure *Farewell to Arms*. But other sections when I felt *Mason* was more nearly on his own took on another quite different tone, with extended and long drawn specific descriptions of landscapes and sunsets and bazaars and emotions. He seemed more at ease in these, and one can see the path from them to his later Susie Wong. Rosie was a kind of Rosa Lewis transplanted to the east, and in many ways *Peter* was his most successful sketch. I did feel Islay at his best appearing with *Command banter* and kindness in each of Peter's scenes. I am most grateful to you for sending it.

My desk is such a mess still, or again, that there are many things for me to mention hidden away amongst the papers. But since I want to take this to the post office to mail I'll save the rest until tomorrow.

But, oh yes, my Paper Mate was waiting for me when I got back, and I use it now with gratitude for the first time in sending you all thanks and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

It is still cold here but a little warmer all the same, though I still shiver at my typing desk by the leaky window. Alas, I seem to have a touch of intestinal flu which does not help at all. It should be over by tomorrow, I hope. I begin tomorrow by a trip to the dentist, and then back to my desk.

Your letter of the 29th was in today's mail. We both slave at letters.

No, Swiss family parties are for the family. You are right to keep away.

I have had a phone call from Horace's Dr. Anderson who agrees that Horace should try going back to Palisades. He thinks it will be more difficult than Horace anticipates, but the change will be good and one can see what has developed when he returns for a checkup. He had even thought of having Horace go back this weekend, but it appears that painters are at work at their place in Palisades (Horace had not spoken of that), so this is not a good time. I am to be away next weekend, having promised Susan an overnight change from housekeeping "anywhere." I can't break this off after having promised, but it may be anyhow that the painters won't have finished until the following weekend.

Had a letter from Benay today; they had made an error in the check they sent and he hoped for it back. Otherwise take less for the next time. But in order to pay Horace's bills I had already deposited it, and don't want too many checks going back and forth. So will take the future debit. I am delighted that even the Swiss can make mistakes.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

A dull day, with no letter from you to brighten it. But I kept
at my desk, read proof of a speech to be published as a pamphlet by the
University of Alabama, and an endless lecture given years ago by Fenollosa
on Chinese painting and poetry. By the way you mentioned a Pantheon book
on Chinese painting you wanted to get rid of if I wished it. I should, if
you haven't changed your mind.

I began the day the dentist's, and have to go again tomorrow for
a filling. But my mouth holds together.

Susan's sister Barbara, of New Haven, discovered that she had a
malignant polyp in her rectum which was operated on successfully yesterday,
but at the cost of a total colostomy so that she must now wear a bag for the
rest of her life. But everyone is so pleased that it was caught in time, that
this seems a minor difficulty.

I have said I would go to New York next Thursday afternoon for a
final look at the typescript of the novel. Which brings suddenly to mind that
I never did check with you on the queries I had. But you may have done so on
the copies I sent back to you. If you disagree, as well you might, we can change
in the galleys which you will see. If you get a word back in time, I can revert
beforehand. This is what was:

p. 70 in your sheets sent me you mentioned two changes to be made on this page, but I couldn't find the right spot on this or adjacent pages.

60 I changed these gold coins to these silver coins. OK?

104 your revised text reads "Carthaginian here or Formiae" I changed to "at F."

87 Your correction reads, "She did not actually blame for falling in love." I changed to "blame her for falling"

107 Your correction reads "his buckle." Original read, with a typo, "he fingered the buckle of this belt." I changed to "his belt" but did you mean "his buckle of this belt" pr "his buckle" omitting the belt?

156. This will permit you to spit at me even for asking! Your revision reads "There had been less division there between the priests and the worshippers and the children had carried flowers and cakes." It is hard to know whether the divisions was between the priests, between the priests and the worshippers while the children carry etc. May I put a comma between worshippers and the following and, or is this too pedantic? 156a, 157. The original typing is exactly as you sent it to us. I have corrected to what I think you intended. Will you check to see if I was right?

208 May I change to "such a turmoil among sailors that..." instead of, as you have it, "such a turmoil among tailors so..."? Or is yours British usage?

213 May I change to "their unknown notions of change" in place of your "motions of change."?

And in line 5 (and I won't ask again), may I put a omman at the end of the line "him" if not the" so that the presence of Kallistus won't seem to help the philosopher's words. But maybe it did. And maybe this is just the sort of interference you hate.

All love,
Norman

1963

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

A rather exhausting two days while the Bollingen Prize Committee has been meeting: Louise Bogan, Richard Eberhart, Robert Lowell, John Hall Wheelock and Allen Tate. Plus wives. There was a dinner for them at the Lawn Club last night, and afterwards (as usual) Susan and I were given the assignment of asking all sixteen to the house for the evening. It was pleasant but tiring. They met this morning, and as one would have expected, gave the award to Robert Frost for his last year's book. He is in a Boston hospital, perhaps dying, and seemed to be pleased when he was phoned. Or so I was told when I joined them for lunch at the Faculty Club.

It was a Frosty weekend, for yesterday afternoon I did my 5 minute talk on television about him, to go along with a half-hour interview with him by a t.v. man which was taped last fall when he was in New Haven. It is to be telecast on Tuesday night of this week, but since that is symphony night I probably shall not see it, or does one say hear it.

Your letters of the 30th and the 1st were in yesterday's and today's mail. No, they were in today's mail. Your letter of the 31st came yesterday.

Glad you are finishing up the *Artemis* corrections, and glad too that you are not worrying too much about what you left out. As I once told you, there is no reason why there should not be flashbacks in the next volume. One has only to be reminded of something to tell it and thus fill in. After all this is realism, the way the mind works. Not always month by month as though ruled by the calendar. *Artemis* really *must* come out in England; otherwise people will think you are frightened to have it there. And this is the farthest possible from the truth of the matter.

Much interested in the Maugham adoption, which I am ready to believe both as a fact and as something deserved. But what a pity for Willie to stir up all this about the daughter. You have probably seen that he denies she is his, since she was conceived while her mother was still married to his predecessor. The picture of the mamma as a tramp is not an attractively gallant one. But he is obviously angry because of the daughter's suit over the pictures.

Dorothy Doolittle's letter was a distress to read, with the doubling of trouble both for her and her husband. Like the Grace Irwin situation, or the Gregories, one wonders what would happen if there were not people like yourself. There is no good dreaming of a society in which such things could be taken care of by the state. The state is always sound asleep.

I paid my second and final visit to the dentist yesterday morning

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

and then went to the bank to get notations of last year's interest on
the various savings accounts, and made a few transfers for the sake of
accuracy. From the royalty account from your books I transferred the
$75 for cataloguing the Nadjehine papers, plus the 136.36 which the
filing cabinet cost. Later when I go over all accounts I will straighten
out the fees to Mrs Dingle for typing, and a bill I paid for copies of
Artemis to go out. Also the cost of the Gandharan books for Ingholt and
Islay, but this will be more than offset by the check to settle the
argument with Pantheon. This has not yet been paid. At the moment,
after yesterday's transfer, the balance is 4,378.57. From the account
for Hilda's royalties I took the 228.95 for cataloguing the Moravian
papers, as we agreed. Her balance is now 752.32.

Did I tell you that I bought the water color of Dorothy Yorke
by Lawrence? She wanted 100.00 which didn't seem too much because of
its link to Death of a Hero, to Kangaroo, and to Bid Me to Live. It is
now framed to keep it from cracking, but I shall not hang it. I don't
need to be reminded of her that much! She has written me an account of
its painting, which I will have copied for you when I do it for her.

I shall go out to Horace tomorrow morning, and will perhaps
learn then when he expects to go home. I shall try to go over finances
with him tomorrow, but this is pro forma since it seems indicated, as
we said, that if you give him 3000 a year and I give him 2000 a year
this ought to take care of him, the amounts being tax free. I can take
over the entire amount whenever you indicate.

I shall get to bed early tonight.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 January 1962

Dearest Fido,

The meeting of the faculty of the English department is
over sooner than I expected, which permits me time for a paragraph to
you before I go home to curl my moustache and then take Susan and her
mother and sister to the Lawn Club for dinner and then to hear the
Boston Symphony. I am a little sorry to be going; for, with complete
ego-centrism I should have been interested to watch the Frost t.v.
program which is being shown tonight with myself giving the benediction.
Part of my curiosity would be to see what they kept of what I said,
and what they cut. But anyhow Frpst won't be hearing the program
so there will be no danger of offending him. He called the Bollingen
award "one new reason to live," and then went on to say, not uncharacter-
istically: "I am in a critical position to appreciate the committee's
unanimity. It is magnificent. I was not always too sure of where all
of them stood...." Frost does indeed like to know where people stand
in regard to his poetry. I remember once when it was reported to me
that he'd said: "I'm not sure about Pearson. I don't think he's for me!"
When people talk that way, I usually end up, like a Yankee, by being
'agin.

My morning's lecture to the undergraduates was the first
of two on Cummings. I think even you would have approved. At least I
hope so.

Your letter of the 3rd came yesterday; there was none today.
Oh, yes, my dear, you did do right in saying no to the Tibetan kitten.
A weekend, or a week, would be another matter. But an adolescent girl
is no Tingli for Elsie, even though Elsie might think she would become
a nice little Swiss girl. Why not suggest to her that she adopt Inez?

A card from the Heydts, Erich rather, but the handwriting was
unreadable as was the address. Will you send the latter to me? And a
copy of the book to them? I am having Mrs Dingle type out the list of
those on the continent and in England to whom I should like copies to
go. It should be ready in a day or two when she catches up.

Classes stop again at the end of this week for the examination
period. I pray to be able to get in more licks at my desk. It never
clears!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 January 1962

3

Dearest Fido,

I hardly know whether to be happy at the gift of three extra days at the office, or sorry for Susan at being deprived of her long-promised holiday weekend. But this is her third day abed with a severe attack of the flu (all innoculations notwithstanding) and it was of course absurd even to think about driving to Princeton. Tuesday night we went to hear the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which is one of the year's musical treats locally, she sniffled a little, felt wretched by the time to go to bed, and announced the next morning that she would have to stay in bed. Susan has a Puritan's feeling that to be ill is sinful, so I knew it was serious, called the doctor, made the breakfast and watered the plants, etc etc. Fortunately both Wednesday and Thursday were days for the cleaning woman to come and she was able to answer the door, make lunch etc. This morning she had only a slight fever, and so is on the way to recovery. Meanwhile I cook and help as I can.

Yesterday afternoon I spent in New York at Harcourt's, going over the manuscript of Sikelia after their editor has seen it and put his queries. All commas were left as is, one or two of what seemed obvious typing errors by Mrs Dingle were corrected, and I don't think you'll be upset when you see the galleys. At least I hope not. Your letter arrived just before I left, so "notions of change" reverted to "motions of change." I still don't quite understand it, but, after all, it's yours. You will have a chance to check on everything in the galleys, and please, please, please alter any punctuation or other features which strike you as against what you want!

They were very good in catching a number of occasions where we had not made the change from general to commander, for which I was grateful. I know you are sick of the ms, but hope you will consider two problems which were pointed out to me to ask you about. Viz:

p.105. The opening sentence, begins: "Gold, gold ... [like the] two coins he held." (or something like that). But the stater is now a silver one, at least one of the two coins I presume being that which Hannibal gave." So much is made of the coin as silver that I wonder if you want to rewrite the opening sentence so that we can change it in the galleys?

p. 108. See also the final line of the page where you speak of there being a "better gold" in the hills. The same problem occurs, and you may want to change for re-setting in the galleys.

Then I was bold enough to risk a sop to them, but on the distinct understanding that the galleys could be re-setting restore the original reading. On page 210, you wrote "The smallest object and the simplest dish was double what it would have cost him in Italy." Although I pointed out that "it" and the singular verb referred to a dish which was at the same time both the smallest and the simplest, they were much troubled about the inference that the subject was a double one demanding a plural verb. I didn't know it mattered that much and so suggested we omit the bracketed sections so as to read "[The smallest object and] the simplest dish was double what it would have cost him in Italy." This was a sop to them, not

NORMAN
HOLMES
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231 HGS

the result of pressure, and the responsibility was mine. It is very easy to
restore the original reading.

My other change, again for which I was responsible, was on page 230,
where the old trader is musing, and refers to "Sybilla, Dasius, Melanie...."
although always elsewhere he has used "Dame Sybilla" out of respect. So I said
to stick a "Dame" in, again saying that we could delete it if your intention was
to show that he now thought of Sybilla as having the same rank and status as
Melania.

I took a late train home and ate away so as not to delay Susan's supper.
After Mory's, I called Horace to say that because of Susan's sickness I could
after all drive him to Palisades on Saturday. But he had made arrangements for
Patrick and his son-in-law to come up to fetch him and his chattels back in the
son-in-law's station wagon, and so we let it stand that way. In some regards
I think this is better for it will permit a happy family reunion at Palisades
confined really to the family. Marya, Horace says is much weaker than she
thought (I am sure she has worked too hard in getting the house ready) and it
will be nice to have Joanna there to help her.

So he goes home at last! It was a wonderful thing that you have done
for both of them, and they are truly grateful to you. Both would either be dead
now, or very soon dead, if you had not made their hospitalization possible. And
I am grateful too for being allowed to help a little as your agent.

I saw Jovanovitch for a few minutes in New York. He is about to set off
for London where he will see Helen. He laughed because Helen had planned to be
in London only half a day, meeting him to work late at night on the day of his
arrival. He has wired her hoping she can stay a little longer. I shouldn't think
she was so worked that she had to adopt such a breathless pace, but I imagine she
wants to be with Kurt.

I forgot to tell you that Susan and I saw on Monday night a t.v. program
of Marianne reading her poems at the New School for Social Research. It was taped
last summer in their courtyard. She was charming and ingenuous as always, a real
showman who has developed as unique a stage presence as even Mark Twain or Robert
Frost has. We were particularly delighted when she spoke of the problem of over-
patriotism and told how her mother used to make her brother and herself stand at
attention when they listened on the radio to a baseball game and the band played
"The Star-Spangled Banner" before the first ball was pitched. "It was inconvenient,"
she said.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

Sometimes it seems as though I were fighting a losing battle against
my desk, which bubbles up with papers like an endless well. But these extra three
days have been gift, and not having had to take a vacation has in fact given me a
sense of relief in each objective that has been typed and stamped and sent out.
Even a Sunday morning without a New York newspaper to read (the strike goes on
endlessly) let me get away to the office earlier. Peck, peck, peck go my fingers
as each task is done. My only sorrow is that I have let a day or two go by without
a letter to you.

Many thanks for the two volumes of *transition* which have arrived and
will be joined to the other volumes of it which have come over in other years.
One looks at it and still feels how much more life it has than the magazines which
are given us today. And thanks too for the little private brochures by Hesse.
Your collection of him is so important in itself that I still wish we might per-
suade Ninon to let us complete it as nearly as possible so that there can be a
real study collection of him in the great German-language collections at Yale.
Yale has oustandingly the best collection in this country of literature in German,
and it is said to be greater (because of the war and the divisions afterward) than
any even in Germany itself.

Among other tasks in these past few days has been my cataloguing of the
Ballantyne presentation copies I bought to add to the collection, plus two books with
Henty contributions in them. Plus one by Gordon Stables. So little is known of the
history of this sort of book that everyone makes mistakes about them, as I realize
from looking at the cards of those books we bought long ago from Maggs. Not only are
the Maggs prices much higher than Brimmell's, but books were described as first
editions when I know have from Brimmell the same titles but published ten years
earlier. Brimmell has in fact just offered me a number of new items of which I
have bought several, though not all. I did take several drawings in his hands
from frontispieces and illustrations for his books, which it appears he did
himself. Also an inexpensive journal letter he wrote, some letters to his sister
about his royalties and his books in print, etc. Plus, I am glad to say at last,
a first edition of *The Fur Traders*, since it seemed too bad for you to have the
manuscript of a book not in the group. These, like the manuscripts, are out of my
own funds. Actually I have not for a couple of years touched the savings account for
anything for the collection.

I have just written O.B. to thank him for his letter of the 24th and
a very fine explication by him for *Time & Tide* of what he is after with his new
chemical painting. His account is unpretentious and makes good psychological
as well as artistic sense. You really have given him a chance to create himself,
and I admire him for the way he has managed to do it. Those gifts for travel
let him have a new beginning. He's all right now.

I think I wrote you that I had, at the time I asked Eric White to return
Hilda's manuscript, asked him also to let me know if he ever wanted to get rid of
his letters from Hilda. He has written and sent the enclosed list of the letters
(I have a duplicate copy). "Let me know," he writes, if you think this material

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HOLMES
PEARSON

ought to join her papers at Yale....I'd be quite prepared to offer you the material if you want it.'' By this I take it he means offer it for sale, and because we have his letters to her, I suggested he send them along to me, at the same time he returned the manuscript, and I would have them valued. If the price was satisfactory to him and to me, I would buy them and present them to Yale. I hope you agree. It is certainly not a key collection, but would help to round out the picture of her as someone who was not frightfully aloof from everyone.

Urzidel has just sent me a nicely inscribed copy of his new Goethe in Böhmen, which I am delighted to have. I did not write him at Christmas, thinking that they were still abroad. I shall thank him this afternoon. He too seems to have made a way for himself, although I feel he may need some help during his final years or if anything should happen to his health. The main thing is that he has his place, and hence his satisfaction.

I enclose a rather poor copy of a letter to me from Aurelia (throw away, since I have the original). Susan's guess, and mine, is that it would be better for me not to go out until spring. Not because of the weather, although I just say that my one experience there in snow was not a happy one, but because she needs to get to know herself and what she wants to do in terms of keeping things for her own use. I am however a little troubled about not being able to speak to her about finances. Yet I cannot really do this by letter without seeming to embarrass her. And indeed she may not know what will be required until she has had some experience of living alone. (Does the "our highest regards" include the plural of animals or her sister?) So I think it is better to wait until I can define my inquiries by the tone of my spoken voice. I will not write her until, however, I have heard what you think. As you know I sent her $500.00 from my funds at Christmas.

Horace presumably went home yesterday. I may phone him to inquire, but do not really want to get him in the habit of a long-distance friendship by telephone lest he add that expense to the cost of keeping in touch with Baltimore. I suppose one really can do nothing about the young archaelogist, historian, poet, grandson and his English education --since this is their affair, after all. But there is no need for us to be enthusiastic about it or to give additional funds in order to make it possible. In general, I should think the level of historical research and writing was no better in England than here. In archaology I agree that it is possible for a person to concentrate earlier in the U.K. than on this side. It is graduate training in the States.

My mind being on British matters, I think I forgot to write you that I had had cocktails on last Wednesday afternoon with Jo Grimond, who is the chairman of the Liberal Party, and at Yale as a Cubb Fellow for a week before going on to Washington to talk with Kennedy. He seemed like a pleasant man, rather boyish with the usual wild lock of hair over the forehead loosely, an easy smile, and what was no doubt a professional manner of innocence. We both agreed that the British political situation is an odd one, with the Conservative Party breaking up its earlier coalition strength, but leaving the drifters in the awkward position of having to tie in with Labor if they opposed the Common Market. Since the Liberal Party has always been for the Common Market, one would shift from Conservative to Liberal chiefly on the basis of leadership, and I myself doubt that the Liberal Party has shown much so far in this way. Grimond is certainly shrewd but not dynamic. Labor's difficulty is the bedevilment of seeming to be associated with Russian definitions, and this makes ex-Conservatives uneasy. If Conservatism is to get a

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HOLMES
PEARSON

new lease on life it seems to me that it can only do so by getting rid of
Macmillan, then take a short nap, and hope to wake up refreshed.

I had a letter from the Montreux Bank, and answer to mine, and all
seems to be in order.

A copy of a letter from the Grove Press about permission asked to
print Hilda's "Oread" amended. The request was made to alter the poem
slightly if it was to be used in a special edition for Catholic parochial
schools. I am glad to say that Grove denied permission if any changes were
to be made, but referred the matter to me if I thought differently. I have
written the requester to double the denial. But what do you suppose they
wanted to change? It quite escapes me, unless the pine tree would be thought
by nuns and infant faithfuls as being phallic, in which case one would have to
erase the whole poem, and dry one's self before going to confession!

The Swann has answered my brief Christmas note thanking for his book
on Hilda, and graciously says that "I see your point about H.D. so often using
classical themes and imagery to express her own experiences. Helen in Egypt,
I imagine, would have particularly lent itself to such interpretation." But
if he feels that way about Helen, why in heaven's name, didn't he say so?

Gretchen Baker has been kind and has sent along two more letters from
Hilda to her, for the collection. This makes three in all. I have written to
thank her, but you might mention her generosity when, or if, you should be
writing to her.

I was pleased to see that Bertram Rota listed four of your recent novels
in his catalogue of First Editions. So you are being collected.

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the country for cocktails to see Mary de R, who is staying with a faculty family there whom she knew in Italy. She is really beautifully mannered, very modest in appearance and yet handsome. She was completely at ease with the other guests. We will have her to dinner on Monday night. Did I write you that I am now laden with her passport problems which were tossed at me (because Pup had once told her I did so much to get Hilda's citizenship back). In 1953 when Mary came over to Washington to see her father at St Elizabeth's she had a perfectly normal U.S. passport as well as a certificate from the consulate at Florence that she was an American citizen by birth. In 1957 when we gave her the money to come over with her children so that the grandfather could see them, she applied inquired about a new passport, the old one having expired. They said she could have only a limited one and must which would permit her to come back to the States but she would have to apply for permission to leave again, this being only a limited passport. Since Ezra was to be let out she did not come however and did not get a passport of any kind then. But now she has been given one with the same restrictions and must request permission to return to Italy and her husband and children. Naturally she wants an unrestricted passport and should certainly have it. So I got in touch by phone with the Washington firm that handled Hilda's case for me, and they have agreed to get to work on it. God must designate the stupidest Americans as vice-consuls. They are a race apart. In any event it would please Hilda to know that she paved the way for helping Mary with a similar problem.

I have been pleased with the yellowback, that is the last one which has

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

just come, and am quite overwhelmed by Marianne's kind words about me. I feel
clad like a mandarin by her adjectives. Poor Islay, what a rough time he is
having with his health. But I am pleased that Anticoli is no nearly done; it
will be a vast improvement.

Now back to your various letters: Collins had nothing much new to report,
except to show me the new displays of ancient eskimo material that he had arranged
at the Smithsonian. He still plugs away at cataloguing the vast amounts obtained
from digs over the last decade. He has become, I think, a little institutionalized.
But he may have some sense in his objections that Melgaard and the other Danes
never do catalogue their material or make full reports. Instead, he says, that
advance conclusions on the basis of evidence at which they hint but never detail.
I get at Romaine Brooks and Annie's history during this next fortnight when there
are no classes. A few days ago I sent off four books to you on the quick learning
of Hebrew. I was unable to choose among them, all being completely unintelligible
to me. They seemed useful only if one had a tutor. I suggest you and Elsie divide
them and then instruct each other. No, I did not howl at your help to the Page-boy
whose letter about the boats I liked. He sounds very much like Hart Crane who adored
both the sight of sailing boats from Brooklyn and the touch of sailors too. Perhaps
like Crane's great friend of "Voyages", your little sailor boy should become a
purser for awhile. I'm serious though in saying that a trip such as he plans might
be the very thing to give him confidence. Like so many others, he seems to have too
much mother.

I am glad you are being sensible about the Durrell Zoo. There are no
extravagances to compare with private zoos or aviaries. I know from Dillon Ripley
who maintains one in Litchfield. And it isn't very certain that the advantages to
the public are really great; one thinks of zoos at London or Munich or Hamburg in
terms of maximum service, where they can draw not only on the population locally but
also on tourists to there. As you say, not enough people would ever go to the
island to support it, and if they did go then why for the sake of a zoo.

Susan's sister seems to be much better. And she will be able to swim,
play tennis and do everything she ever did. They claim to have gotten every
contaminated bit out of her, and in the case of a polyp this is easier than for
general affection.

Susan herself is much better and almost her normal self again. It was a
pity she had to go to bed, but the rest may have done her good. We go to the daughter's
tonight for dinner, Susan's first step outside the house since Tuesday.

Delighted that you like *The General and the Lady*. I have your Sikelia book
now, it having just arrived by mail. But being selfish I'm going to take a peek at
it first.

I am pleased that Catha is now married. I am sure it was the only thing,
no matter how this particular marriage turns out. By this I mean that she needs,
for herself, the psychological sense of belonging which a marriage will give.

Now to a few other matters. I enclose a list of those to whom it would
be wonderful if you could have copies of *Four Studies* posted. I have not included
the boys on it. Will you let me know whether you sent to them or not? If not, I
will send from here to each with suitable dedications. I have begun sending out a
few from here. A goodly number will go to Japan as a kind of passe-partout for the

5

three of us next fall.

A few questions now for you to answer.

I am trying to put things as much in order now as possible before I go on leave, particularly in terms of books and papers. I have started giving to the Library H.D. Collection the manuscripts of whatever has already been published. So there ought to be a collection of her books to go with it. This will not be difficult and I shall be able to be complete without giving any presentation copies from her to you or to me. These are better to hang on to for the moment, and the others can always be working copies for scholars who will not have to dirty up the presentation copies.

But I thought I would also give a complete set of McAlmon's books, both those he wrote and, when Yale does not already have them, those he published. I can make up a set of these without using any which he presented to you. But these might perhaps, if you think so, go now. What do you think? And if you think they should go now, do you want them to go as your gift to the McAlmon Collection or from me. This is a matter of sensibility for you to define. But let me repeat, there is no absolute reason why his to you should go now.

The third group I thought we might give now, for the sake of shelf room, would be the group of Aldington's books which Hilda had, many of which he presented to her. I could always consult them at the library, but do not imagine I should myself ever voluntarily sit down to read them through. What do you think of this?

And now don't say this hasn't been a letter instead of a brief note. Poor Fido, having gotten this far you must be ready to sink to the floor in exhaustion.

Oh yes, one last query (but very sotto voce). Did Elsie get her Christmas package from us? You did not mention its having arrived, and I only feared it might have gotten lost. It went at the same time as the first group to you.

Still on other subjects. An article on Arthur Clarke's apotheosis of his 2 best novels as a child, called 'End of course' and 'Against the Fall of Night', 1937 (written in 1946 under the name of the city and the stars). Susan says she has not read it. Have you? Let's not in paperback.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am always thinking I am about to get my head above water, when a new wave comes to bury me. This time it is the likelihood that I shall have to fly out to Chicago to talk to the alumni on Feb 5th. It could 't be a worse time; the notice is too short; but as always Yale is in a spot and so I am spotted. You talk of Yale the Whale; maybe, but I think it's an octopus. I am really mad.

Your letter of the 10th was in yesterday's mail, and the check from Beney came, for which of course my thanks. Why not let the difference and the bills that may come in now at the end come from me. In fact, I shall. I really got you in far and away beyond the point I intended, and you have been wonderful about it. This is too rough a time for you with all of the unexpected burdens you have been taking on. Mrs McPherson certainly must be taken care of, and I am shruggingly not surprised that her fees at the nursing home have been raised. My mother's costs are being raised almost fifty percent, for some reason they are objecting to having her own furniture in the room, etc. I wish I could feel confident that my brother was handling the matter wisely. I should so much prefer not to disturb her or her way of life, if it can be called a way of life.

Did you by the way, as you promised, by your power of attorney, arrange with Beney to have Churchill immediately take over Mrs McPherson's costs in case anything happened to you. I have a strong feeling, because of my own mother, that this ought to be arranged. For one knows what beasts the legal minds turn into in an emergency. Or I can write him myself to this effect if you think now that this would be a better way of doing it.

Susan's cold is now much better but she has now burst a blood vessel in her left eye. It does not seem to be anything serious, but the doctor has given her washes to be taken every three hours, and she is to report again on Friday.

Mary de R came to dinner last night. She really does make a very good impression, has immense devotion to Hilda, and speaks wisely about things in general. I suppose I really ought to make notes.

I will talk to Ingholt about a lecture by Gough next March. I hope it can be worked out. Susan and I should be back by then, so they could stay with us. I will let you know what Ingholt says.

All love as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

I snatch a moment at the end of the afternoon while I wait
for a Professor of American Studies from Minnesota who is here to work
on Hart Crane, and because I helped him early in his career to get fellowships
I really have to ask him to the house. He is pleasant, but alas from the
point of view of time!

Alas for time otherwise today also. For I spent from two o'clock
until after four at the house with the young woman who puts on exhibitions
at the Peabody Museum. She wanted a preliminary look at the eskimo things
for the show in March, so I spent last night after dinner dutifully laying
out everything on the dining room table. Tonight after dinner, even with
the guest there, I shall make him sit by me while I repack all. One difficulty
is naturally that she knows nothing about eskimos, and yet envisages the show
on a somewhat quaint basis of "what was the eskimo thinking when he was carving
this or that?" Vide, "I am think of a seal I will hunt." "I am thinking of
my wife." Etc. But it will work out all right I am sure, and she seems
excited at the prospect.

After writing you last I spoke with Ingholt on the phone about
some Connecticut Academy matters (he is the President), and he said it would
certainly be possible to get a lecture for Michael Gough at Yale. Ingholt knows
his work and has the book on early Christianity. Ingholt will also see if anything
can be done with an Institute at Princeton which specializes in that period. Of
course I have no idea how much the Yale fee would be. Not much, alas, but it
will look well on the record, and naturally he will stay with us. Ingholt is
now busy working on Carus versus Karus, but says the index of the book you
cited to him uses the C in the index. I don't know that it matters that much,
but we can change to a C in the galleys if you want us to.

As it now stands omitting the bracketed phrase, the subject is simply
the simplest dish and the verb is singular. We are omitting that it is also the
smallest. But this can be changed as you wish. I did not get the basis for
familiarity of Sybilla, and have a hunch that she was always a Dame to Zonas.
Why not motions of change, if you want it? I simply took it as a typo, which
was stupid; although I felt better when Harcourt's reader said he probably
would have reacted as I did. We changed it back to motions. Once I realized
that this was technical philosophy I could hardly object. I am sure you are
right in saying that those who read much in classics will know.

I'll try to check on the novel about Red Indians. We may have it here,
and you could read sometime when you are over.

Did you know that Olivia Shakspere (Dorothy's mother) had written six or
eight novels? Mary de Rachewiltz told me about them this noon, said I should
read them, the whole period of Dorothy's girlhood is there. They sound interesting
as period piece, and maybe as a slice of attitudes if not of life.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

It is cold here, but inside the houses we keep wonderfully warm. It is at moments like these that you might like the States even in the winter with snow around.

I had the enclosed letter from Marya, and have paid the bill which was for xray therapy. I'm not sure which smaller bills she may have paid, since I paid a number and thought they were all. But I have asked her to send them to me, or tell me the amount. As well as any bills for telephones etc which may be forwarded to Palisades from Gaylord. The last institutional bill from Gaylord I paid yesterday. But I am not offering to pay Patrick's share of medicine bills for Horace and Marya, or to pay for other similar expenses while at Palisades. I had a slight feeling that Marya was hinting that it would be nice if I did. But I did send you the income statement that I worked out with Horace, and all things considered this is not really too bad. At any rate I can discuss the matter with them at the end of a year, when I come back from Japan, and adjust if necessary. I had the feeling that Horace felt the amount we agreed on was insufficient, and tacitly admitted that it might be otherwise spent, by preferring to have my contribution given them in the middle of the year. Marya is, as one might say, a squirrel; and it is only natural that having been born in extreme poverty, she fears ending that way. There is a stronger native peasantry in her than in the aristocracy which she has taken on.

My guest is here now, and I must fly.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

Another day gone, but not quite the week. Tomorrow afternoon is the midyear examination for the 350 students in my undergraduate lecture course. It is three hours long. They would do better to stay home and write a book to assign to next year's students of twentieth-century American literature.

No letter from you yesterday or today, but there was a nice and plump yellowback to keep me in touch last night. Poor Islay to suffer not only from his disease but from the disability of his blender. I really wonder if it wouldn't be simpler for him to start out all over again with an American Waring such as we have. At any event there is absolutely no use in his writing to the shop where he bought it, as they no longer carry it. He can only obtain it from the factory, to which as you may remember I went by long-distance cab. Elsie might do this too, but will get nowhere by a phone call to EWZ. Islay has simply forgotten my saga.

Sorry that Miss Maishman has had no success with the Henty research. Does she intend to pursue this further after her retirement, or shall I try to make other arrangements for you when I am in London. I can at least find someone to go through the Public Records Office. # A nice letter as always from Saillet. I gather that Holly is being difficult. I suspect she feels she has inherited a gold mine and wants to treat the flat appropriately. #I was most curious to find the query about Hilda's *Murex*. It was obviously sent in by Swann. I must ask him sometime if he ever had an answer. Shortly after his query appeared, the New York Times itself disappeared. # Was amused but not surprised to read that Rita felt Miss Fell "got too severe a sentence" for falling in love with a Rumanian. But since a judge in court is the one who passes the sentence, how can the severity be the result of "some internal departmental jealousy is suspected." Perhaps Rita believes in *Romance oblige*.

Mary de Rachewiltz reports a pleasant overnight with Pup and John in New York, although she went to see the opening of the new Tennessee Williams play while they went to something else. Mary had asked for accommodations. She reported the children all very well.

At that moment I phoned (that moment of this letter) Pup to ask if it would be all right for me to stop in a 5:30 on Monday to see them, not having been in town at an appropriate hour before. This time I have a seven o'clock dinner. She was about to write me. George arrived with bronchial pneumonia and was immediately hospitalized by Prutting at the Madison Hospital, with round the clock nurses. Pup says he was afraid he would lose George. She has taken over the expenses since the Pittsburg money has come, but I told her I would compensate and arrange for the finances on Monday. I shall go to see him. I really feel I must, and there is no problem about this. I won't need anything. He will have to be there a week.

Pup is writing you of course.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

19 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

I was sorry to have broken off so abruptly in last night's letter, but it was long after six and I was considerably distressed about the news of George. How can one be surprised, knowing both the frailty of his health and the intolerable weather he had endured in England in that little unheated house! And yet what an ill omen it will seem to him to mark for his return to the States, especially after a similar attack last winter. And even though he will be over the worst of it when he is at last able to go to Carlisle, nevertheless he will feel a burden on his sister and I suppose he will be. Still it is lucky that he can go there rather than return from the hospital to his own cottage.

Perdita really did seem to have handled everything very well indeed, and had spent part of the afternoon with him even though she had to take Elizabeth to a birthday party. And now a groan from her about guaranteeing the expenses, although I will take that over from her, and see that she is given whatever she has spent thus far. With her brood of children she needs all she has for household costs. But obviously you have trained her well for this emergency as well as for what she is doing for her Doolittle aunt.

I have a dinner in New York Monday evening at seven, and so will see Pup about half-past five for a drink. I will try to get to George sometime in the afternoon, and asked to have Pup arrange with the hospital authorities for me to be admitted. I go to New York at noon and will call Prutting from New Haven that morning to see how things how and drop you a note before I leave. I should not go down so early except for my desire to set Horace's medical insurance straight. I simply have had no answer whatsoever to the letter I wrote the Insurance Company on December 21st. The next premium is due on February 3rd, and it would be just like them (the company I mean) to permit the policy to lapse. I am also not sure why all claims for Marya were rejected, but it may take a lawyer to find that out. Once this is finished I shall pretty well be through with the Gregories for the moment. Marya's surgeon's bill came yesterday and has been paid. There will be one more telephone bill, and perhaps a few of those she wrote about. But that will be that.

I took Susan to a dance last night, which was pleasant enough. We left early not because she was tired but so that she would not become so. Just as I was leaving however I was told that the English wife of the assistant headmaster at the Choate School in Washington (who was at Oxford with me, and whom I used to see a great deal of and am godfather to their oldest daughter) has been brought back from the hospital to die of stomach cancer. Oh dear!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

One pleasant bit of news yesterday, however, came by a telephone
call from Washington to say that everything had been straightened out
about Mary De Rachewiltz's passport, and that the New York passport
office would be authorized to expunge the restriction which gave her
permission only to enter America but not to leave it. Now she can
travel freely anywhere or everywhere, like all American citizens, or
insofar as all can. Apparently there was a mistake, for Washington had
cabled or sent the consulate in Venice an authorization on December 18th
to issue an unrestricted passport, but on the 21st she was issued one
withonestrictions. Perhaps it was never decoded in time, but I hope and
rather gather that some one will get hell. I was lucky to be able to
help, but after Hilda's case and Mary's I will be classified among the
nettles. When I told the lawyer to send the bill to me, helaughed and
said there would be no charge, that it was a pleasure to have been of
help. Which I thought was very decent, since he had given at least parts
of several days to straightening things out.

So much for today. I broke off after the last paragraph to go to
the Law School auditorium where the 350 students in my undergraduate lecture
course were finishing their mid-year examination. Three and half hours
pent writing on a lap board. How can they do it? But I suppose more
importantly one will have to ask whether they had anything to say. Fortu-
nately the readers will not be myself. So I shall continue to work at
my desk and correct the pile of graduate seminar reports which have been
in my hands for too long. Also the several long manuscripts I have to
read for you and others.

All love as always,

Also grateful for separate envelope of miscellaneous clippings. And for the book on Sir William Stephenson. But can I ever stop thanking you for practically everything. You make my life constantly happy too.

20 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

I begin Sunday with you. Not that there is any news to pass on. It is simply a report on a number of items that I have forgotten. At least I think I have forgotten.

For example, did my very great thanks for the Swiss PaperMate ever get put into words? The gratitude, at any rate, has been to you ever since I opened the package. You must have remembered that I lost the one you had given me several years ago. Somehow the Swiss models seem sturdier than ours. I really am grateful.

Also I don't think I told you that the six copies of *Gate* from Collins have now arrived. I will write a note of acknowledgement to the man who queried me after your jogging.

Thanks also for the page proofs of *Four Studies* which I am delighted to have. What a really beautiful piece of bookmaking they accomplished. Quite apart from the contents, it is a joy simply to open the book. I have been sending some copies out, not lavishly, since it would take away if it were too common. I gave Horace and Marya a copy at Christmas, and on the phone he told Susan he thought you had chosen well. Perhaps he has written you. He didn't mention the book to me, but of course I didn't see him until after New Year's, and all their attention was focussed on getting home.

A nice yellowback came on Friday and again on Saturday, and they were almost as good as letters from you. You should be very satisfied at the happiness you brought to so many at Christmas. What a bore it would have been to have relied on a foundation as we once thought of doing. Without the personality of the giver the gifts mean little. I was pleased that Consie seems so well settled and her husband so much better. # Agnes' comments on Edith's book were good. It can't really be her cup of history but she has a nice quality of liking things for what they do accomplish. # Your Ann Foster obviously adores the Pippit; what the latter would do without her I can't imagine. # I had not realised that Sylva was back in California. I thought her letter about the British situation and her relation to it an excellent one. I enclose a clipping of the sort of thing on this side that appeals to her. It is in relation to the new mathematics for children that is being taught in the school and bewilders parents. Such meetings are a fine idea, and the response indicates that not every adult has lost his curiosity. # Much interested in the Russian interest in the discovery of North America. But surely some mention should have been made of the Vikings. I am now supposed to be permitted to see the greatest discovery in centuries in the way of original maps. It is one from the early 15th century which shows Greenland and the North American continent. It is all hush-hush while a book on it is being prepared, with an introduction by the mapman at the BM; but the map itself is on deposit for the moment anyhow at Yale, the purchase of Paul Mellon who is a Yale graduate. # Most grateful for the various addenda of clippings on Sylvia Beach.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN . CONN

21 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

Three letters in this morning's mail from you, which
makes it a saint's day for me.

I called Prutting this morning on the phone, before his
first appointment and was lucky enough to get him immediately. He
reported that George had had a very rough crossing, with shortness of
breath and heavy coughing. He had dinner that night with Jean Untermeyer
who called a chiropracter in at 10.00 p.m. to work on him (I suppose this
was George's idea, but it sounds incredible) and the next morning the
chiropracter had a doctor for him who took chest x-rays etc. At this
point George informed them that Prutting was really his doctor, and the
poor darling dutifully appeared at Prutting's for his regular appointment
for an examination. Prutting was aghast, discovered that George was
suffering from heart failure, pulmonary edema, and double bronchial
pneumonia with fluid in his lungs. It was a bad day for hospitals (Monday
always is, because it is when new surgery cases report) so Prutting kept
him in his office until 3 that afternoon when they were able to get him
a small private room at The Madison Avenue Hospital, 30 East 76th Street.
This is a private hospital, but, Prutting assures me, a good one. He
said the first day was rather touch and go, but that George now seemed
to be better and would be able to see me for fifteen minutes this afternoon.
However, Prutting is still worried about George and said he would certainly
be in the hospital for a fortnight longer. By good luck, Prutting was able
to get a good nurse for him. George's heart condition has quieted down a
little, and the fluid in the lungs is being reduced. I am to call Prutting
this afternoon from New York to get his today's report. I said that I would
take care of the expenses and will arrange for that at the hospital when I
go there. How fortunate it is that the collapse came in New York where
Prutting already new him and his medical history! This all comes as a
casualty from England's incredible weather. Prutting said that George had
been out in it, shoveling snow.

I shall really feel like a pastor this afternoon, trying to
take care of Horace's medical insurance first and then George. At least
I am glad Horace is again at home, for I shall have to keep an eye on
George now. That is, for the moment.

Now to your letters, tho I should be correcting graduate
school papers: I am sure George's sister will forward your letter to
him at the hospital. But he might enjoy a card from you direct. He will
be there long enough to receive it. # Thanks to DeGaule's anti-British
attitude it looks as though you wouldn't have to worry about the U.K.
going into the Common Market. Naturally deG doesn't want any rivalry to
his control of the Continent, and once Adenauer is out he will be the
one Grand Old Man and the strong ruler. # For some reason, after that one
bitter cold spell I wrote you of, New Haven seems to have escaped the
worst of these terrible storms in the States. When others get blizzards,
we get rain. Yesterday when it was freezing everywhere else, even in
Massachusetts, the temperature here was 50. But last night when we went to

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

bed it was 40; this morning when we woke it had dropped to 20. But the
sun shines, and I rather like it. # I am sorry the Christmas packages
went so slowly, and by air too. It is really shocking. But Saturday
I had a surface catalogue from a London dealer mailed on December 14th.
I particularly liked the stamped slogan by the British Post Office: "Mail
early for Christmas." My Times Literary Supplements have now reached
only so far as early December. # I shall be curious to know what you
think about the Morley Callaghan volume. The Gregories were very anti,
and called it name-dropping as they did the memoirs of Alice Toklas.
It will be interesting to see if Horace can avoid mentioning names himself
when he writes his memoirs. # I am delighted with your discoveries of
gold in the Revue Hist. Vaudois. But alas I shall have to wait until my
next visit to Kenwin, since I don't believe the Yale Library has a set.
# Eric White sent a duplicate of the list of Hilda's letters, and I only
wanted you to see the dates and extent of what he has. I am pleased that
you think we ought to get them, and especially to know that one shouldn't
accept them as a gift. I think I told you that a large bundle from George
of letters to him arrived. I spent an hour at the office yesterday reading
a sample so I could mention them today. There are some 30 from Marianne,
very nice, mostly about Pangolin. And a wonderful one from Marianne's
mother full of what a tight little family they were and how every hour
together was precious. Marianne and her mother left Carlisle to live
with the brother when he took a church in New York State, and then went
to New York on a temporary basis during World War I when he entered the
Navy. Actually the move to be with him was probably necessary, since it
is difficult for a minister not to have a hostess, and parishes usually
object to the idea of a mistress. # Absolutely no hurry about getting off
any copies of *Four Studies*. My only haste was to get the list off my desk.
In several spots now one can catch glimpses of wood on the desk top. It
is exhilarating as a token of progress in cleaning up. Mrs Dingle says I
slog as though I were getting ready to leave for Japan. So I am. # With
the collection of Hilda's books, my intention was only to see that Yale
had a complete working set at this time, retaining of course your copies
and also the ones she presented to me. I already had a nearly complete
set (no, complete) so there is no problem, and your wish to retain your
own copies was also mine. # With the McAlmon collection, there is no
particular advantage in my giving them as my gift except the tax deduction
I should claim. This may be a little sly. What do you think? # I am glad
you agree to the Aldington transfer. I will have a list drawn up of what
Yale already has in its rare book collection, and, naturally, a list of
what goes from Hilda's library. Then, anything that Catha might be willing
to sell to extend it would be easy to spot for her. I do think she might
like the idea of there being an Aldington Collection in the States, especially
next to Hilda's. Oddly enough, the British libraries don't seem interested
in this sort of thing. One wonders what British scholars fifty years from
now will do. # I have waited to hand over the Nadegine mss until after the
curator of the rare book room came back from the West Indies. He was due
to return yesterday. # Oh dear, I didn't really mean to have you chide
Elsie for not writing about the gift. It doesn't matter in the slightest,
so long as the package reached her. That was my only concern. # No, don't
send over the Clarke book. I'll read it sometime at Kenwin; and your
collection ought to be kept together. In Washington, I learned that
Harvard has a collection of 2000 science fiction volumes given it by a

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

collector. It certainly sounds inclusive. # Your plan for an en masse tea in London is an excellent one. I remember how well it worked before when you had one for me at Lowndes on my first return after the war. I met Agnes then. # Don't worry about the Henty-Ballantyne-Fenn et al collection, especially now when you have so many demands on you. The two big Ballantyne mss were my gift to you. I am not sure how far away Brimmell's place is from London. # I know what you mean about the scientific uses of a zoo. My friend Ripley, the ornithologist, says this is why he keeps his bird place, the largest for ducks anywhere. But I suspect the main reason for most owners is really fun plus a little status. Fine if their own funds are such as to support it. # Much interested in what you have to say about Grimond. Labor is in for a rough time because of the death of Gaitskil, but I can't say I care much. The Conservatives are in for an equally rough time trying to get rid of Macmillan. # This morning I traced through the Yale Treasurer's office to see if any notification had been received of Hodgson's bequest of his books and manuscripts to Yale. You will recall that Aurelia followed me out of the house after the 90th birthday to say that Ralph was leaving all of these to Yale and, at least I was sure she said so, that he had just made out his will to that effect. But since he apparently didn't, this relieves the pressure of my going out just now, so I will wait until after England. I had urged her to make no decisions. I can quite believe that she seems happier, for the last years must have been hell for her. If the papers are actually her property, my Puritan instincts will make me advise her to see where she can get the most money for them. That will certainly be Texas. Even though Ralph wanted them to go to Yale, the money they would bring would be his one legacy to her except for his devotion.

I will write you tomorrow after my visit with George and P up.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

22 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

The trip to New York went off very well. I taxied down to 80 Lexington Avenue to the Associated Hospital Services and was shown into an immense waiting room where I was given a numbered ticket and told to sit and wait my turn. In the room must have been a hundred women at small desks consulting with policy holders. As I waited, a colored woman went by with a huaghty aside to the receptionist by whom I sat: "I hope I never have to come here again," she said. I felt smaller than ever, and scared. Then another woman went out. "Everything's fine," she said with delight. I felt better, or at least in equilibrium. "Go to Desk 4," the receptionist told me, and I went. The woman was telephoning. At the next desk a man whose wife had just died was arguing as to whether his premium could be cut down. He was very angry because they said no, not so long as his two children still made up a family policy. "You'll have to speak to someone else, I guess, if you won't believe me," his consultant said. Then it was my turn with desk 4. Everything went smoothly. Horace's policy card was so old that it had a different number than it should have had. This was why Marya's hospitalization was not allowed a partial claim. It is being put in order now. She also told me to claim for some of Marya's consultant fees, and gave me a half-dozen envelopes to have filled out at the hospital and then signed by Marya. It will take a couple of day's work on my part but will, I hope, eventually be a return of some money. I found out the new basis on which the policy was to be continued after February 5th, and paid the first premium which holds for three months. After that I said the bills were to go to the Gregories directly. I think it is better that way. So they are straightened out for the moment at least.

Then I went up town to 73rd Street to the hospital to see
George. I went first to a florist across the street and got a little
bunch of anemones for him. Then I called Prutting but Prutting had not
yet been able to see him that day, although he assured me the reports of
the nurses were better. Then to the hospital. He has a nice small
room with a beautifully-spoken colored nurse from Trinidad. George was
asleep, and I left my telephone numbers (as Prutting had directed) in
case of an emergency. She offered to wake him up, and did so. He was
very pleased, wondered how I knew, and sat up to greet me. The hospital
bed was impressive, and worked like the seat in my Oldsmobile, tilting
up and down and in every direction as the seat does when one pushes an
electric projection. "So much nicer than when I was in training," she
said. I agreed. So did George. He coughed a good deal but otherwise
looked much better. "How long must I stay," he asked me. "Until you
are really strong so as not to be a burden on Ady," was my response. He
accepted it with pleasure on the basis of Ady. He wanted me to write you
and tell you not to worry. "Send her my dearest love." I told him I
would arrange about the bills. I stayed ten minutes as directed to do by
Prutting and then left.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

It was early to go to Perdita's, so I killed a half hour by going again across the street to Klejman's antiquariat where I could sit. I was shown a little bone carved mask from Angmassalik, and feeling I deserved to give myself a little present after a good afternoon's work, I bought it. I think you will like it. Then I taxied to Perdita's. John was there, and we all had a drink. Perdita took coffee. I was too tired, and so had a weak whiskey. It was a very pleasant and congenial meeting. I saw Timothy for the first time since he was a very fat monster of a baby. He is a real boy now, with fine and happy manners, and very friendly. I am amazed that he still takes the bottle, but one would never guess it from looking at him. He must be like the French Canadian children who sometimes feed from their mother's breast until the age of eleven. Valentine was friendly but reserved. Nicholas was demonstrative and politely cadged pennies and a quarter with which to go out to buy an inking pad. Elizabeth in trousers was busy playing in Nicholas's room. "I don't know you," she said, but politely. That was that.

I liked the result of their refurbishing, and as a result the public rooms and all except Nicholas's were very tidy. "My room is a mess," Nicholas said. "You can say that again!" Valentine emphasized. But I think they can really live now, and Perdita really looked very handsome with a careful hair-do. She had been to see George after my visit and while I was at the antiquariat, so I was glad not to have gone directly to her. She was relieved when I said, as I forgot to tell you earlier in the letter, that after seeing George I had gone to the business office, paid his bills up to that moment and arranged that all future bills should come to me. Perdita said this took her off the hook with Jean Untermeyer who keeps moaning over the phone as to how the bills could be paid. Jean had already sold a $500.00 bond so that she could pay, altho in fact nothing had been paid by anyone until I did. Perdita says that Jean chided her for saying that Prutting was not to be called at night when the chiropracter came, but Pup says she was never consulted and cer- tainly would never have said any such thing. Anyhow, everything should now be straight and I have promised to write Jean and say not to worry.

Your letter of the 19th and the sheet of wonderful "personals" were in this morning's mail. For which all thanks. A letter from Eric White came with the typescript of The Mystery. He says, "As for Hilda's letters, I have kept most of them; and when I have a spare moment, I will try to make a list. Although a bit of extra cash is always welcome, I am not too anxious to sell them. Most of them are typewritten." Then he asks if Hilda kept carbon copies, so he could send dates and I could see contents. I'm not sure I know just what he means by making out a list. He may have forgotten that he already has. I will handle as seems indicated.

All love,
Norman

Elsie's letter came yesterday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

Not much to report since yesterday, but the weatherman predicts snow starting tonight and ending early tomorrow afternoon. Probably there will be none, since I go home tonight with a briefcase full of work in case we are snowed in. Such precautions almost guarantee that the sun will shine.

But you and Elsie, poor things, freezing:

"Dear love, these fingers that had known your touch,
And tied our separate forces first together,
Were ten poor idiot fingers not worth much,
Ten frozen parsnips hanging in the weather."

No wonder you have a mind and disposition capable of little more than sorting your files. The new volume of memoirs will go all the better for the winter's hibernation. But meanwhile I don't envy you.

I thought I had arranged all in New York for George, but Pup rang last night as from Jean Starr to remind me that I had not arranged for paying for his day nurse and his night nurse. They had to be paid this morning, but no one had bothered to find out how much. So although it was six p.m. I called the hospital and found out, God be thankit, that they did not need their money until Thursday for one and Friday for the other. So I think this is all straightened out. I have heard nothing in the way of a bulletin, and so suppose all is well. This has been an infernally disrupted day or I should have tried to write him. I will tomorrow.

A yellowback came yesterday for which thanks. I was much interested in Joanna's report on Grgeory's grades. Somehow I had thought he was rated as a genius. He well may be, to although to the in the top quarter of a class is good, and I should be pleased if my grandson one day did as well; but, college-entrance-wise, I doubt that there are many freshmen admitted to Yale who are not in a higher percentile. He certainly bould not be guaranteed the college of his choice, as educators like to put it. The British scheme may unconsciously be a device for avoiding an American refusal. But probably not, since he still has another two years of secondary schooling unless he goes to a British public school.

Ingholt has inquired at Princeton about a lecture for Gough, especially for a good lecture. Princeton is anxious to know if he lectures well, since their fingers have been burned by several Britishers who were able but not good on the platform. Do you know where in England he has lectured so that I might inquire. It sounds silly, but it does make a little sense.

Your letter of the 21st was in today's mail. Very speedy all things considered.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

Your letters of the 21st and 22nd were in this morning's mail. I had called Prutting this morning just before 9 in order to have some word to report to you. Prutting thought he was coming along well. The pneumonia is diminishing, and he is coming out of heart failure (an expression I had never heard used before; failure was always used as complete failure). They have him out of bed and force him to do a little walking in the room. Prutting however seemed a little non-committal about his departure for Carlisle. One difficulty is that his kidneys are not so good, although they have been excellent when he was here the last time. A second problem is the dosage of digitalis which was prescribed for George in England. On the earlier examination Prutting found nothing to indicate the need for digitalis, but something must have happened since he is being given what under any circumstances would be a very large dosage. Moreover he doesn't seem to need it here. This may have something to do with the heart failure. Prutting is anxious to know the doctor's name so that he can write to inquire as to the other's findings. When asked the doctor's name George could not remember, only that he was a fine Harley Street man. Do you by any chance know? I can read through George's letters to you to see if he mentions him. And of course Prutting says that George may later remember as his mind clears.

As you will know from my letters, everything is in order about the expenses and these are being sent to me. Not knowing that you had told Prutting you would pay half of his bill, I just this morning told him to send the entire bill from himself to me. I see now why Prutting hesitated before saying yes. He probably thought these were your orders. But it doesn't matter and I am glad to do it especially at this time and for this reason. My thought had been that a large bill from Prutting might make him turn elsewhere in the future in order to save money; and I think it's important to have Prutting keep an eye on him. So think no more about it. As to the story of what really happened at Jean's, I think my outline was correct. Two doctors, but one of them was a chiropracter.

Horace called just a few minutes ago, and I was both amused and pleased that he kept strictly within the three-minute limit. He has almost finished his Ovid. The Negro helper asked too much money so they have dispensed with him, and this is probably good for Horace too. One can check up. He has a male therapist three times a week and says he likes him better than those at Gaylord. The therapist has found him second-hand chairs for the bath etc. They sent you their love. I was able to tell them about my visit to the Associated Medical Care Association in New York, and everything seems straight in that regard.

I shall be writing Aurelia this weekend to say I'll be out in the spring after England. It was lucky I didn't go this past weekend, as originally planned, for Susan noticed in the paper that the temperature at nearby Akron was -22°. It is about 6 above here, but the sun is shining at the moment, and we did not have the threatened snow yesterday.

I was delighted that Elsie was successful in getting the missing

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

part for the boy's blender. They are wedded to it, and if they actually
can get parts there is no reason why they should change.

Heavens! Why bother about changing Karus to Carus in the American
edition either. I couldn't care less, neither would Harcourt. And I should
be relieved <u>not</u> to try to change it in proof and have to worry about whether
we had caught each appearance. So Karus it will be on both sides of the
Atlantic.

As for the two passages of gold, again there is no reason for
changing the description, only perhaps the simile to the gold coin of
Hannibal which has turned now to silver. A little wriggle can keep the
gold in the landscape.

No, one will let Olivia Shakspeare's novels rest. Mary, by the way,
tells me that Wyndham Lewis was not Omar's father. His father is still
alive, but she doesn't know whether the two have ever met. I have had two
long talks with her about her own situation since she feels I know all and
she must let it out. What an unhappiness there is, and what curious but
understandable ramifications. She wants, really, to have Omar publicly
disavowed and herself crowned. I warn her against the attraction of
revenge, even though I understand it. She says no of course it isn't
revenge. Are you sure, I ask. After a little: maybe you're right, maybe
it is. And I ask if she wants to deny her father his act of "gallantry"
is giving Omar a name. Or, since the real father is not an American, whether
she wishes Omar's American citizenship taken away from him, and that of his
two children. It is all rather difficult, but I think important for her to
try to understand the overall picture. In my next incarnation I shall emerge
as a therapist.

I forgot to thank you for sending the clipping about the need to
write a novel and seek after new forms. It was well put. In recompense
I enclose a clipping about the British search for a new officer image. I
am glad to see the confidence that officers "compare favorably with other
professions." Poor Kenneth Leader would howl like a banshee if he saw this.

I have now used up the air mail envelopes you left behind
in the States. It seems to me that they belonged to you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

No letter to you yesterday. For Saturday night it began to snow and there were some three to four inches before it ceased, enough at any rate (thanks to the pitch of the roofs by the garage to make drifts big enough to seal me in. However, about noon the man came to plough us out and I was able to get to the office after all. I wanted to finish correcting the graduate student papers on hand, and this took the afternoon. Today it is still very cold and the snow will apparently be with us for some time.

Yours of the 25th and two of the 24th were in the mail. No today's news about George, but I did have a letter from Pup. As of the 25th: "Report: have just returned from 'Planky's bedside --but he wasn't in bed, he was sitting up in a chair, looking quite pink. He hopes to be sprung at the end of next week -- though Dr. P. may have different views, I haven't talked to him -- and I have promised to shepherd him through Penn Station and onto the right train. The business side seems to be running smoothly. Thank you so much for your prompt administration. And Mrs. U. has subsided, at least temporarily.... oh dear, I do have a stubborn built-in resistance towards people who Yammer."

I enclose a letter from Mrs. U. Yammer or no, she is most grateful and her tribute to you is only a fresh demonstration of her affection. I have told both Pup and her that the money comes from a little royalty fund, etc. As indeed it does come ultimately from you. I did this to save argument with either of them, and especially to make it easier for George to accept. Security-wise is seems sensiblest in every angle. But as I told you this comes from what I have on hand. This has been a ghastly year of burdens on you, leaving no margin. One wonders how it can go on, but no doubt it will. I doubt that a flu shot would have helped George's pneumonia. A shot of common sense about electricity at Marvels would be much better. I fear we will be in for this sort of emergency again until he eventually moves permanently to Carlisle. I do think we ought to get to Marvels if he is back. The more we can persuade him to clear away his things, the easier the move will be for him. Susan hopes to see him tomorrow when she goes to New York for her hairdresser. I will send off the money for his second week of nursing this afternoon.

Kenneth and Islay have every reason to be distressed. The trouble is, as it has often been with me, that I want so much to write them, and have so much to say, that I don't seem to find the sustained time for both letters at once. And of course I must write them both at the same time. I really will try to do so this week. My desk looks a little better all the time. As for the pictures by Islay they are of course superb! And no matter what luck I have with other people's opinions of Kenneth's novel, I think it is first-rate.

I hope Beney's trip works out well and fills you with new stimulus to go to Israel. I still can't quite be persuaded that Trudie is right in her warnings against Turkey. Susan is determined to go to Istanbul on our way back from Japan, and I hope we can. One can't flutter at every danger sign.

To see Philip during the English trip would be fun. And probably a good

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

idea, although I don't know that there is any business to go over unless you want to do something, as you spoke of doing after your recent trouble with Hilda's will, about the books.

Maybe he'll tell me the answer to the mystery.

As to the mass tea, I leave the selection of the group to you. They all sound interesting, and I agree perhaps it would be a good idea to ask Eric White. The only problems are (a) too many for the room, and (b) their congeniality with each other if not talking to you or to Susan or to me.

I enclose also a copy of the brief explanation that Dorothy Yorke made of the painting by Lawrence. Do not return as I have two copies already as well as the original.

All love and sunshine to warm you,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

My notes to you are always at the day's tag end. It
is now almost six, I have just come from a departmental meeting,
and must hurry home and dress to go to a farewell dinner which Donald
Gallup is giving for Mary de R. Fortunately the Washington lawyer
called me this afternoon to say that directions had gone from the
State Department to the Passport Office in New York. I am much re-
lieved that my help could actually work out. It would have been so
futile to have had it come to nothing at the end.

Your letter of the 27th was in this morning's mail. You
were kind to send the check, but I'm not sure I ought to cash it.
There have been such demands on you this past year that it is not
fair. I have already paid the nurses' fees, and have enough to pay
the hospital bills when they come. We will see what Prutting does
with his bill, but it may be less if he bills me than if he does to
you. Unfortunately the hospital is not cheap, as you would guess
from its being in the area of Prutting's office. But it did mean he
could get in conveniently if anything went wrong.

Perdita's letter to you was a nice one. Fortunately I
have been spared phone calls from Jean. Actually this is one reason
I have kept away from her in the past, for I should rather dread
having to nurse her too.

Susan will have a report from George when I return.

2 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

This has been one of those ghastly days in which I keep working at letters, and the pile on my desk never seems to be the slightest bit lower. But I must not let another day go by without a word to you.

I had a phone call last evening from Harcourt, to say that the galleys for Sikelia had arrived. My set arrived this morning by special delivery even before I was dressed. I will start at them this weekend, I hope. The absolute deadline for going to the printers is on the 18th. Your set of galleys was supposed to go out airmail last night to you. The plan is that you should send all your corrections to me and I will relay on to them when I take the final corrections down. The chiefly important changes, if you wish to make them, are the little ones so that the gold in the landscape is retained but not as a simile to the silver coin which Hannibal gave. I hope there will not be too many of the other settings that are in error. Do not worry about the number of them, but simply send all and every change you wish of no matter what kind and we will see that they are incorporated. In going over the final copy I even eliminated hyphens when in the same combination you had sometimes used one and sometimes not. And on the whole tried to forward your drive to push them out of English and American usage. It may really work! Seriously, I do mean for you to mark all presence or a absence of commas that upset you. Anything.

I am a little vague about when George is leaving the hospital, whether tomorrow or Tuesday. I think tomorrow, with his nephew coming up at Prutting's request to take him the car. Jean is, I gather campaigning against this, but I told Perdita not to worry if Prutting advised the contrary. Obviously it means having a companion, not having to have porters, etc. I am also a little confused about the nursing bills, but will straighten all this out after his departure. He only had the day nurse during the first week. The night nurse is still on, perhaps because of his deafness and wandering. So far as Prutting's bill is concerned, I will pay what he sends me and you pay what he sends you. I won't try to confuse him further.

Horace's final telephone bill came in and has been paid, I am glad to say. I suspect that is the last.

I imagine you must be very pleased about DeGaulle's decision not to admit the British into the Common Market. It is only too bad that the English themselves couldn't have come independently to the same conclusion instead of being ordered to. DeGaulle may be right in thinking that France ought to control the continent, and he control France, but I wish I liked him better. All this has nothing of course to do with whether or not England should make its alliances there. I doubt it, although it would be good for Europe if she did.

It is always hard to say how much it costs to send a boy from

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

abroad to an American undergraduate college. Especially because of the
costs of vacations, which are normally met by having the boy return home.
So, counting in summer and other holidays, I imagine the practical answer
would be about 4,000 dollars a year. In any event no matter whether the
boy comes in on a visa or not, he ought to finish his undergraduate work
in England. Then he has a basis for admission.

There have been nice yellowbacks lately. Lethbridge's letter
about the male and female sexual elements in paint etc left me bewildered.
It does smack a little of mumbo-jumbo, which is only to say that it may all
be true but beyond my senses. How exciting it really would be if he is on
the right track. I might even want to live a little longer just to catch
up on history. # Herring's letter sounded more like the communications
of a long time ago. But I'm not sure what this signifies. # I shall be glad
to read Margery's manuscript when we get to the Scillies. # Glad that
Lotte Reiniger has her British citizenship at last. It is much securer for
her. # Much interested in Durrell's letter about the Zoo. All I can say
is don't.

You asked what Pound is doing. He is now living in Venice with
Olga Rudge, while Dorothy stays on at Rapallo, glad, I feel sure, to have a
long vacation. Pound is apparently much better. I even had a note from
him the other day.

I trot off now to pick up a bicycle birthday present for Justus
who will be five a week from Monday. It is his first two-wheeler, even tho
in fact this has extra practise wheels on the reer, so it is more properly
a four-wheeler. These come off when he can balance. It is practical too,
because it is a girl's bike to which a cross bar has been added so it is
indistinguishable from a boy's. But because the bike is built like a girl's,
all we have to do is to remove the top bar when Justus outgrows the bike,
and presto it is a girl's bike for his younger sister. One cannot simply
remove the ordinary cross bar on a man's bike, without having it fall to
pieces. I hope this one has a long life for both of them.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

This is the end of another Sunday at the office, slogging still
at trying to clear my desk of unanswered mail. Almost as many letters must
come in to me daily as come to you. I think my daily average must be about
fifteen, though sometimes there are more. Many I can dictate answers to,
but they are the purely business ones.

As a result I haven't begun the galley proofs yet, but perhaps
can do tonight at home. We go to small Susan's for a farewell dinner before
the bigger Susan goes to Eforida on Wednesday. I almost feel like cabling
you to hurry over to a warm house and the chance to go over the galleys
together.

Among other business today has been paying bills and settling
accounts. At last I have had the check from Pantheon in settlement of
their mistake in remaindering the copies of the Ghandaran book and the
Freud. Including a few dollars of royalties on the sale of both, the check
came to 5,492.73, which I shall deposit in your savings account. This will
make a total there of 9,871.73. However, from this will come the 136.36 for the
second filing cabinet which is now installed; 56.14 for copies of Artemis to
have on hand for the elect; the cost of typing Artemis, when I reckon what I
have paid Mrs Dingle; the cost of the Ghandaran copies for Ingholt and Islay;
and the tax money. The tax for example on the new check will take about a third
of it or a little more. What I do each year is in general to pay all taxes to the
government each quarter out of my own money, plus items like Dingle etc; and then
when the tax is officially computed at the end of the year (as for April 15th)
I withdraw the equivalent of what I have paid. This gives your account the
advantage of the interest throughout the year, although a tax has to be paid on
that also. Anyhow it does mean, even with all these, that you have a nice
little sum tucked away for you to draw on whenever you want to.

I have written Aurelia this morning, and a number of others on the
assistance list, so feel somewhat cleaner on that score. Having had this
little respite with you, I shall now write Eric White to thank him for the
receipt of the manuscript and continue the discussion about the letters. And
then to two last letters of recommendation.

It is bitter cold outside.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

4 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

Have not got very far as yet with your galleys,
but at least have read the foreword and Chapter One with
delight. There are a few slips, but comparatively few. An
exclamation point has been omitted on galley 1; and for some
unknown reason the printer has put it "a week before Formiae"
instead of a "week beyond Formiae." This was not changed by
Harcourt. I am only sorry because you may be worried by the
latter.

Your letter of the 31st was in the morning's mail,
plus a yellowback. I don't know what to say about your feeling
you should pay for the Gregories and for George's hospital
expenses. I have, as I wrote you, not cashed the check for 500
you sent as on New York. If you do want to shift money over,
wouldn't it be better for me to return that to you, and let you
send out more from Switzerland. Let me know. In any event I must
wait until I have paid George's hospital bills as well as straightened
out the cost of the nurses. If you want, I can let you know the
total amount then. I sent Aurelia 500 at Christmas, as I told you,
but that at least should come as by the original agreement.

Much amused by Agnes and the Chicago realistic
novelist of the first decade of the century, Robert Herrick. I
know the author of the book, which was referred to always as
"his book on Herrick." Which shows how I too am oriented, since
I simply assumed for a long time that he was writing about the
poet.

The Untermeyer clipping can be destroyed. A little book
of his letters from Pound is to be published this spring; I saw it
in typescript and thought the letters were trivia. But I suppose
Louis doesn't want to be forgotten.

You must have wanted to test me by sending the clipping
about Churchill. I loved the idea of the plenty of polar bears who
come down to the garbage cans of Fort Churchill, and make a great
mess. How could a man make as many errors as this author does, even
if he was only there for a few hours.

Will take the proofs home tonight and slog away.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am always saying this is the end of the day. But at this moment it literally is. I have just come back to the office at a few minutes before midnight after having dinner at the home of friends, in order to pick up my desk a little in preparation for the rush of tomorrow when, after my lecture, and an appointment or two I take a mid-day train for New York, have a meeting of the National Book Awards Committee in the afternoon, then take a shuttle plane to Washington in order to be there for a meeting starting early Friday morning, and then because I must give an oral examination here for the doctorate on Saturday night, will take the earliest shuttle plane I can catch on Friday night back to Idlewild, and by bus from there to New Haven.

However I was delighted to have three letters from you in the mail today, and so must put this in the box tonight lest too many hours pass without a letter from me.

I put Susan on the bus this morning for Idlewild and Florida. As I said in my last letter, it seems strange not to welcome you on the next bus from Idlewild. If only you were here we could race through the galleys. I have promised to deliver them, with whatever corrections you have, before the 18th of February. I have been so delayed that only 50 galleys so far have been read by me, but having the weekend to myself I hope to have finished at least a first reading by Monday. Aside from the usual (but unusually few) typos, the only query in actual text that comes to my mind (and surely you will find this an example of my usual pedantry) is on galley 47, line 5, where I wonder if you would let me change "sent her to live with Zonas" to "sent Melanie to live with Zonas." There are so many "she's" and "her's" preceding it that the first instinct is to think that it is the girl who is referred to, and it is not until the end of the paragraph that melania becomes the obvious reference." I leave entirely to you.

Sorry to hear that new demands for money have been put on you. Miss Butker I can understand, but hope the retired porter will not have to be your worry also. Member that for a person of your generosity and resources there will never be a stop to the good you can do, or will be asked to do. And you must save your emotional energy for your writing. Otherwise you will have a worse whale than Yale to swallow you up.

I am pleased that George will consider heat, and you may be right about gas and oil. The only problem with gas for George is that it is difficult to have plants or flowers with oil. And electricity does have one advantage in providing both heat and light, even to an electric blanket. Perhaps the answer (not so expensive as one would think) is a small electric supplementary generator such as we have here. These were not available to you during the war.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

9 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

You are a very good dog indeed to have gotten so swiftly to the
galley sheets of *Sikelia*. Perhaps it is the one blessing from the bitter
cold that freezes your creative energy. Yet there was some creativity too in
the changes you have suggested, and I am grateful for them. Most of the
typographical errors I have caught myself, but there were some I didn't, so
you have saved face for me. I only rejected a few: the comma in the Foreword;
the "perhaps" on page 29; the shift to stater whenever it seemed to me to refer
to what Hannibal had given him. The rest went as you suggested.

I have really swotted away at the galleys, and now at Sunday noon
have finished them. A good part of yesterday, including Saturday night since
Susan was away, and there was no necessity of being social. Actually I have
enjoyed it. For the last few months it has been bits and pieces rather than a
novel as a whole. So in a sense I have been reading the finished work for the
first time. (I'll read it through once more without reference to a line by
line comparison with the typescript, which dizzies me always.) It does come
off very well indeed; it is one of your best. I really marvel at you for the
way you have brought it off, as you did with *Ruan*. There were times when I
thought they would be among your unpublished fragments, but you always know
when to wait and then when the right moment comes. This is the mark of a real
artist, and the results show it.

I did have three or four queries which I should have asked you had
we been together again as I read the proof. These are:

Galley 47. Change to "Domina Sybilla had sent Melania to live with Zonas." (?)
I think I queried this in my last letter to you.

Galley 113, line 12. I was startled to find the sudden reference to "Mago", as
though, perhaps because it was "the farmer" instead of "a farmer" which made it
seem as though I ought to know the incident from an earlier reference. I may have
missed it, but in searching back I could not find the incident. In which case
there is no problem, and the reference is not obscure. Ifhtho? should it read
something like "What had a farmer once said? 'Let them....'" (?) I leave this to
you. Or is it Dasius?

Galley 121, line 41. I don't understand how Dasius, escaping with Orbius as he
id under duress and in a hurry, had been able to return to Italy with enough stores
to sell in the period after the war etc. Should this be changed somehow?

Galley 146, line 3. Although you changed it so that it reads as in the proof, I do
not quite understand "for a meadow or a yoke of oxen that was around them." I mean
that I don't understand it visually. Would it be better simply to omit "that was
a round them, so that it reads "for a meadow or a yoke of oxen, and who know into
what hands it might fall?"

Because the galleys have to go back to the printer on the 18th, I ought to take

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

them into New York on this Friday or next Monday morning early, at the latest. Because it is hard to change on page proof, would it not be a good idea for you to send me a collect cable to the office

Norman Pearson
Yale, New Haven, Connecticut

in which you say something like: one no two no; three a-onc;-four (giving change if neeessary; four yes. Or something like that. A night letter would do. I hate to ask you to look at it again, but it would help me immensely.

Do you want to bother with page proof, to see that your changes are made; or shall we simply skip that task on your part? You can write me me the answer to this. I shall go over it anyhow.

Now to go back to your letters at last, before I have to go on to another
day and night's work at my desk.

I expected to hear from the nursing registry about the final accounting on
George's bill in New York, but nothing came while I was away. Since they made
a miscalculation, to their benefit, probably nothing will come until I jog them.
I'll write today or tomorrow. And then will let you know. I'll cash the New
York check you sent, meanwhile.

Yes, really Jean was very good to George while he was in the hospital, and
she is a kind person. Pup's distress was, I should imagine, only that Jean was
upset and there was nothing that Perdita could do, knowing that I was the one to
see that things went well. But I myself am most grateful to her, at the time of
being reminded that I had slipped in not arranging for the payment of the nurses.

To return to the Sesame party, I leave entirely to you. I shall be writing
to straighten out details about the trip, but once we are in Cornwall you are the
best possible boss in deciding who we should see, how long we should stay anywhere,
and how long we have in London on the way back. The only fixed date is that we must
fly back on March 31st by a plane that leaves, I think, at noon. On Sunday the 31st,
in order to save by using winter rates. I have my reservations, but will not pick
up my tickets until the beginning of March in order to use what money for them comes
in at the beginning of the month. I see no reason why I should lose my interest in
the savings bank in order to let the airlines have the use of it for several months
in advance. To return to the pack, the only possibility is Jocelyn Brooke, and
I imagine he had better be saved for another time, since I have no real connection
with him, and he would have to come to town. It would be great fun to visit Lethbridge,
and Susan would enjoy that too. The only thing is that if George is back, I really
ought to see him and go over his things, especially the Gordon Craig Collection.

Robert Herrick (1668-1938) a graduate from Harvard who taught English at Chicago
and wrote many socially conscious novels, especially about slums, anti-capitalist from
a socialist point of view, anti business-run universities. "Herrick frequently
reveals the working of industrialism, graft, and the disorders of modern civilization,
but he rises above muckraking through his capacious humane and critical attitude. He
treats literary structure much as he does social structure, denying and rejecting it,
yet he fails to create an adequate substitute, so that his books generally lack unity."
So at least the *Oxford Companion* describes him.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

You ask why I have not written my reaction to the spy case clippings. The odd thing is that I have not so far received any of them. Naturally I could not be more eager, and my tongue pants every time you mention you have sent off another. Yellowbacks come regularly but are apparently way behind. Like all surface mail. For example, I have not yet received the mid-December Times Literay Supplements.

I had a nice letter, very nice indeed, from the Brigadier, lamenting that Doris and Ethel had so completely planned out what I was to do that he hardly dared hope to catch a glimpse of me. But perhaps he and I can slip out for a drink at his White Horse pub while the rest of you do something else. I am delighted that he gets so much fun out of the Henty search. He is obviously far too energetic to enjoy retirement completely. Miashman's good collection of letters vis-a-vis Henty have been very interesting and are a good example of her thoroughness. I still have a hunch that the likeliest results will come from Henty's will, which may well mention Griffeth by first name, and this in turn lead us to Griffeth's will, and so on.

The letter from John Phillips was amusing. He is obviously still very much of a puppy, and a complete romantic. I hope Ambridge will settle him down, although it doesn't always. I gather he is in a religious phase, with his "God has come to give point and purpose to our lives." I imagine he is putting on a little to impress you, just as Patrick's too-literary letters are far less attractive than Patrick himself is.

I notice huge advance advertisements for Rosemary Sutcliffe's book in Publisher's Weekly. They compare her to big names, and, I gather, hope to make a killing. She is on the cover of the latest issue, with a two-page ad inside. I will send to her directly.

The Washington trip was exhausting. I had my morning lecture until eleven on Thursday, then appointments until 12:30 when I took a train to New York, eating on board to save time. I got to the meeting of the National Book Award Committee which lasted until 5, whereupon I went to La Guardia, had dinner at a lunchcart there and caught the shuttle plane to Washington. These leave every hour all day, and people hop aboard for a day's business at the capital and then catch another shuttle back. The meeting on Fulbright scholars lasted until five the next day, after which I caught another shuttle back to New York, and spent the time on the plane going over the candidates for foreign scholars to be given by the American Council of Learned Societies whose representative had been at the meeting and was with me. Then the bus to Grand Central where I had dinner in time to catch the nine o'clock train back to New Haven. But alas, the train was an hour and a half late into New Haven and I was not home until midnight. Then at 9:30 on Saturday morning I had to give a two hour oral examination for the doctorate, so it was not until afternoon that I could get at the proof. Alas, my glasses broke in Washington and I have not yet had time to have a new lens made. Fortunately it was my distance glasses, not my reading ones, so your proofs did not suffer as a consequence.

All love,
Norman

9 February 1963

(2nd letter)

Dearest Fido,

I rather rushed through the letter this noon (early afternoon) and then took it to the post office in the hope that it would go out earlier to you. Now, with the galleys out of the way, except for my second pure reading, I have been at work on my desk, trying to clear it a little against tomorrow and next week, neither of which I look forward to.

I find little things which I forgot to mention. First, Gretchen Baker has sent along another little batch of eight cards and letters to her from Hilda, which I suppose she has run across as she breaks up her house. How nice of her it is, and the letters are interesting in showing her close she felt to her Bethlehem relations. I think I told you that a Mrs Gillispie, of Bethlehem, wrote to ask what poems I had read at the burial. She is gathering together a paper of memoiries of H.D. there, probably for some women's club. I shall ask her for a copy.

Also uncovered a little selection from recent yellowbacks I had forgotten to mention. The Kenshaw letters about Aldington's estate are very revealing of the confusion. Bless you for putting Philip on to it. If anyone can bring order it will be you and he. Obviously Aldington let his affairs become pretty slipshod. But then why should he have been both a business man and an artist?

But I thought Martin was going to go to school to study hotel keeping, and that your gift would make this possible. Now I gather he is at work, but is this only until next year when school starts, or is the money being used otherwise than you planned? For Barbara Delgano, for instance? They are both very foolish not to give him the training in management or bookkeeping.

You must have been right about Chris Frederiksen's father having had a jolt of some sort. But I must say he makes a good impression through his letters. I'm sorry I couldn't have seen him when I was in Copenhagen.

Am curious to see what sort of an amber colored ceiling lamp Patrick has designed for Palisades. I do wish he wouldn't use the dollar symbol on the typewriter for deletions. It gives a very commercial air. I was interested that Joanna's son intends to make his life in the States. Here they would say that archaeology is always a part of something (classics, anthropology, or the like) and needs a broad background rather than too early a specialized one. Otherwise one doesn't do more than describe artifacts, not put them together.

I gave your memoirs to a friend in Detroit who expressed interest in it at the Washington meeting in December. He is Charles Reinberg, an East End Londoner who came to Canada and then to States to make a small fortune in heating oil. Now he has collected the best collection of Whitman and some others in private hands. Is entirely self-educated after the sixth grade. He has just written: "I don't remember whether I thanked you for sending me the copy of Bryher's book, which I enjoyed very much. I was born in London in 1899 and the world that I remember was so different than the one that she describes. But, of course, the East End of London was somewhat

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

different than Worthing. I like the way she looks at the world with open, clear ye
eyes."

Have just been making a rough check of the balance sheet for Churchill, which
looks like a fine overall testimony to M. Benay's shrewdness. I did not stop to
reckon it up properly. Would it be a good idea for you to ask him to prepare an
up-to-date one for you to bring over with you to England, or isn't that a good
idea? I suppose there is no reason why he couldn't mail it directly to me on this
side. The mails are perfectly secure. I leave entirely to his judgment and
yours.

I have finally gotten around to having some of last summer's photographs
developed, chiefly to send little groups of people to the members of the cruise.
Both Susan and I liked the one of Elsie at Avenches, and I thought she might like
a copy for her memory book. Do give it to her, but it certainly doesn't require
a letter of thanks.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

11 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

You must have thought me slightly mad for writing you yesterday, with exultation, that I had finished all the corrections you had for Sikelia. I knew there were no comments on later pages, but was too tired to think clearly. At any rate the bright-eyes for the remaining galleys, and tonight (back in my office after dinner) I have entered them. And awfully good that you did read so closely, since again you uncovered a number of important errors I had missed. But again not all that I had found, so we work well as a team. I inserted all the commas you suggested except on 121, line 47 where it seemed clear enough without. And I put in the question mark on 107, line 43, though I myself wouldn't have. Was overjoyed to see that we each independently suggested the omission on the last galley. I have made one change in the next to the last line of the book, without your permission but I will readily change it back in page proof. I have altered to O Hermes, to avoid a parallel to Oh, you don't say so! My book of British usage says O Hermes, but you must do as you feel best expressed what you mean. I took it for the vocative, not the exclamation.

I am most grateful for the pure gift to me of this free night, since I had expected to have dinner with the Warden of All Souls, or rather be at a dinner for him. John Sparrow, by name, a bibliophile etc., as well as a whilom lawyer. But I was phoned yesterday by his host to say that Swallow had slipped the night before on the ice after giving a lecture at the Morgan Library, and broken his knee cap. Taken to Presbyterian Hospital in New York, they wanted to operate at once. He refused, wanting to go back to England where it could be done for free. So broken knee cap and all, back he went. It must have been painful, but judging from George's bills, and the length of time he would have required, he may at least have been sensibly thrifty.

This morning was maddening, with so much work to be done. But the woman came (not until after ten) to choose the things for the eskimo show, and did not finish her selections until noon. I gave her a key and told her to come back this afternoon and pack them and make out her lists. She did, as I found out when I go back before dinner to turn on the lights. This afternoon another oral examination for the doctorate, again the man passed, and after the lights were turned on I went to the Lawn Club. They all ask after you.

Your three letters of the 7th and 8th however made the day pleasant even with all the corrections. Sorry about Collins. But let them have their own lawyer check for libel. Most publishers do, and then make the author sign an agreement to bear the brunt. The brunt would be worth it perhaps. Anyhow it ought to come out in England, I think.

Still waiting for the spy clippings. O my dear.

Will meet O.B. anywhere he wants me to, except in bed. But do

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

do you honestly think Edith would want to see me, or us? I seem to have
been on her blacklist ever since asking her to ask for a review, as Helen
asked me to do. And now I have been waiting some five weeks for permission
to quote "Still Falls the Rain" in the publication of my Dallas talk. The
New York publishers said it had to be referred to England, and since then
nothing but silence. I think I will tell them to publish it with the
statement that at this point I read etc. It should have been out with their
annual report in February. BUT DON'T YOU DARE MENTION THIS TO HER. It is
probably only the publishers.

I am enchanted by the idea of the British Colony in tight breeches,
and would seriously consider coming over with camera to immortalize it.
And I think Elsie has been so long with you that she should be required
to dress similarly.

Have cashed, or rather deposited, the Hanover check.

Your plans for experimental prose sounds like fun, and as you sketch
your intentions running words and sentences together, you have good tradition
behind you in the similar devices of J oyce, Cummings, Dos Passos, Stein,
and Faulkner.

If Philip can't break the trust why not make it a part of what
Kenneth is to have, since, after all, he is still a British citizen?

It grows late, and I must on to the next tasks.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

16 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

It is now nearly eleven at night, at the office, but I do
not want to let the day pass without a letter to you. I was frightfully
tired yesterday when I wrote, but I slept a little later this morning
and although it cost me some hours at my desk, I worked the better because
of the sleep. Today, alas, was Alumni Day, so old graduates kept stopping
in. One father telephoned to ask if I knew his son well enough for me to
discuss his strengths and weaknesses. Since the boy is one of a class of
350, I had to admit I didn't. Parents love to discuss their children,
especially with the children present. Another couple (the man had been in
a similar lecture course) came with their son who is still at school and
wanted to talk about him and his future. Finally I sent them away and did
talk with the boy. But the parents had good taste at least, for the mother
noticed a copy of one of your books on my shelf and said they had all read
most of them. "Isn't she good!" I said I had met you, and I thought you
were good too.

Tonight I took Justus to Mory's for dinner, just the two of
us and a room crammed with an audience with whom Justus exchanged mutual
interest. It was rather fun, and the waitors made much of him. As a
particular treat he had an entire bottle of coke while I had my cocktail,
and was allowed not to order milk.

I was pleased today to have in the mail a note from Silvia Hay,
the friend of George, who knew Hodgson when they were young. She wanted to
know if I would like to have her leave me her correspondence from Hodgson in
her will. About 34 letters, beginning in World War I when he was stationed
at Norwich. This is awfully generous I think. "I think America was very
good to him, & America should have his letters."

No word from george himself yet since he went to his sister's,
but I am not surprised, and have not been able to write myself. A letter
from the N.Y. Hospital sent a rebate, since in figuring out the second bill
they had not credited me with the payment I made there on the spot for the
first few days. But no word from the nursing service who really did miscalculate
seriously, so I have written them about it. I cannot tell you the total until
this matter is settled.

A letter in from the publisher who seemed to want to alter Oread
for the Catholic edition of an anthology. The alteration, it now appears, had
nothing to do with the poem but only with accompanying matter to fit Catholic
teaching methods. I can't imagine what these methods can be, but so long
as they don't substitute a cross for the pine I don't really care.

A fascinating group of Ballantyne material has now arrived, which
I ordered from Brimmell. The designs for the title pages of Dusty Diamonds
and Red Rooney, and the spine of Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands. Plus an
illustration to Over the Rocky Mountains. Ballantyne was an illustrator as
well as an author. Also the mss of a family journals published (that is written

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

for home consultation. Also the 24 page ms of a journal written to his sister on a voyage to South Africa, another 11 page letter to the sister, the comparative statement of sales of his books during 1890-02, and at last a copy of the first edition of The Young Fur Traders. This makes a really fine addition to your collection of Ballantyne. However, before we finish with it, the ensemble will be outstanding.

You had spoken of our driving out to Hampton Hill to see his shop when we are over, and I wrote to ask him whether he had any other Ballantyne correspondence for me to look at if he brought them to the hotel. One really needs to see letters to know what they contain. He doesn't, but gave a list of further Ballantyne mss he has. I really don't know what to say. That is, whether we are interested or not. He names no price. Of course with all of them one would corner the market. But does one want to? We have two good ones, and they may well illustrate sufficiently. I was going to copy the list but will have a photo made of it on Monday and send it in my next. Perhaps there will be a favorite novel among them.

I think I did not tell you that I spoke on WEDnesday night to the Columbia Graduate English Club on Hilda. It seemed to me, since I could not for various reasons refuse, that it was time to start trying to think of her work as a whole. People seemed to enjoy it, and I hope a few will have gone out to buy her works. Pup and John were there, and Perdita seemed most moved. I mean quite honestly moved. I got the latest possible train back (the earliest possible was the latest possible) and got up tired to prepare my 10 o'clock lecture the next morning. Then I buckled down all day to finish the galleys which I sent off by registered mail that might. (I had asked to Mr Muller on the phone, and he said there was no need to come down in person. Then Thursday night I had to give a two hour conversation to an undergraduate senior society. When that was over, I had had it.)

Many thanks for the cable whose instructions I telephoned in the next morning, the galleys having arrived there bright and early. I gave as you instructed and then they phoned back not being able to understand thechnage in Galley 113, line 12. Your "then" confused them. Finally I said to put in "once" as I suggested to you, and if you were not agreeable to this we could substitute "then" in the page proof, the two words having the same number of letters.

Just for my own information, if you can bear to look at it: p.19, 5 lines from the bottom. "The innkeeper's warning rang in his ears, 'throw the thing away or you'll never come back to Formiae. Well the lump had brought him no luck till this moment but now...'" Did the innkeeper mean "if you throw it away you'll never come back" or did he mean it was too dangerous? I suppose I do get it, really, Despite the warning he had kept it, etc.

It is most exciting what the Brigadier has been turning up. He should have been in intelligence. I don't think one needs to do anything for him; what he is happy about is having something to do and interest him. He is too active in his mind to enjoy sitting around the house.

Edith's trip sounds like an excellent idea, and will give her something to think and write about. The permission came finally, yesterday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

Does cautious research work restrict the imagination, you ask? I don't think so; because it is the stimulus which just such data gives which sets the imagination going with confidence. Even Icarus was better off starting from Land. And my work in the war was due to my work on the jawbone of the Whale. Think of what good use the esmimos made of whales.

So glad that the Hebrew lessons are starting. But I am annoyed that the books took so long to arrive. Still notning at all about the spy cases has arrived here. Horace sent the Callisher to us at Christmas. It seems she is a Palisades neighbor. Susan rather liked the book.

Wednesday night, Perdita told me that Melvin had died that morning, and that you had been cabled. It is a blessing, and all things considered he got a lot out of his last days in terms of trips, being able to work so long and the rest. One wonders about how they are fixed. I think Harold feels she is a little spendthrift, to judge from my conversations with him at the time of Hilda's funeral. But I am in no position to judge.

Let us solve the tea problem by not having a mammoth one, but treating individually. I will write in detail about the whole trip after I finish writing the lecture (no three talks) I must give at Central Connecticut State College on Monday. What a fool I was to agree to go there. It was so long ago, and who could have guessed so much would intervene.

I will get the Callaghan and read here. Actually, that is, I have a copy and will read it.

Don't worry about returning the galleys of Sikelia. They are much more sensible for you to consult, if you can bear to read it again, than the typescript.

Had an interesting dinner with Bundy, and he was very good afterwards in an open meeting with the undergraduates at Jonathan Edwards College, answering questions. Press not allowed. Chiefly, as one might imagine: Cuba, Canada, and France.

I will try to check on Leslie and Baldwin. Also ask Prouty. One never hears hair nor hide of the Hotson's. I am astonished that he can actually go on so long working on the mystery, and don't know whether it means he is losing confidence or discovering new things. I sent them a copy of Four Studies, but have heard nothing. But of course no reason why I should.

I am having the Russian dame here, who was in it all, read Annie's husband's book. Then can try a trained Russian historian. One has to work slowly. I had hoped to be able to read it myself first, so as to know how to act; but I simply can't cope at the moment.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

I realize why I never could sit down before to write
Kenneth and Islay. Naturally I had to write them this time at least
so that the letters Would go by the same mail. It has taken most of
the day, because when you are fond of people as I am fond of them,
one can't write the same sort of shortish notes that one can to people
so intimate as to understand shorthand, or to those to whom one need
be only perfunctory.

But they are written, and now I shall go home to change
my clothes and go to the Lawn Club for supper ( had a sandwich for
lunch) and then come back to the office to write the lecture I have
to give tomorrow afternoon to the college in Willimantic, plus the
half hour talk I also have to give their on reasons for studying
history, and the half hour talk on reasons for reading Emily Dickinson.
They really did slip one over on me, and I am a little peaved. I
agreed to go there to give the main lecture, and then somehow they
fixed it so, that for various reasons, I could not refuse these
extra and consecutive assignments. They are fools, I shall be fatigued
and hoarse by the time the big one comes along, and certainly bushed
later. I do not think I will be up to coming to the office tomorrow
night when I get back.

I phoned Horace today, not having been able to write him.
He said he was a little stiff from the cold (it has never gotten above
freezing during the day for the last few days) and near zero at night.
Their is after all only a frame house and an old one. They had received
the new ticket for medical care which I arranged for in New York, and he
seemed grateful. He gets on with only the therapist. Marya is still very
weak, he says. One is not surprised; these operations catch up on one
after the first lift. And of course one never knows, though I say nothing
of this to him. His chief delight is that he has sent off his Ovid
translation, and is now working on his Collected Poems. He hopes to get
at the Dorothy Richardson by April, he says. Why wouldn't it be a good
idea, once Horace is well into it, and knows what questions to ask, and
where he is going, to send Rose Odle over here for a few weeks. This is
fully as sensible as having the Gregories go there. I could send her
the necessary out of the royalties account or simply out of my own. It is
important that they should talk to each other.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

18 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

Just a few minutes before six in the evening, and I am equally
just back from my lecture at Central Connecticut College in Willimantic.
Your three letters were like a cocktail to me, though I shall have another
one when I go home shortly to put on the lights, lower the temperature in
the greenhouse and then go to the Lawn Club for dinner. I take with me there
a copy of *Gate* for the old waitress who keeps lamenting you are not there
to dine with me. "I've never read any of her books," she said plaintively,
so I said I would give her one. "You won't forget your promise, will you?"
she asked the last time. So there it goes. "I'll lend it to the other girls
to read," she said. So at last you will be famous.

Many thanks for recapping the answers to the last queries. I
think everything is in order for the moment anyhow. I did put Melanie. I
like the new French writers but I do like names too. I thought I must have
missed the earlier reference to the farmers, as I see I did. I was getting
a little groggy. As I told you the reference still holds because of the "the
farmer". I put in "once" but I don't know that it matters whether it is "once"
or "then." Shall I change back in the page proof? # It would have been most
complicated anyhow to change the Dasius economics. I just wanted to see if it
alarmed you. Glad it doesn't. # My sense of my triumph was in having discovered
"that was around them." You had asked to have it inserted in the last group of
changes you sent over.

I leave the details about the trip to an end of the week letter,
when I will restudy everything and Susan will be home to confirm her wishes.
I am a little too tired to straighten everything out, and must come back to the
office tonight to write up some letters of recommendation after studying the
appropriate dossiers.

Yes, it is much better that Melvin died. I am firm about such things.
My suggestion would be to wait before doing anything for his wife until one can
consult with Harold. He is sensible and almost inevitably will be the executor of
the estate.

Do tell Elsie firmly she is not to write about either the book or the
photograph. I had only been worried lest the Christmas present had not arrived.
One could see that it was agony for her to write the letter, and one knew she
would be pleased anyhow.

Maishman: you were right to get a copy of the will. I am really
surprised he left nothing to his secretary. These late marriages to housekeepers
always make for trouble in the family. Almost as with the Gregories in Milwaukee
when papa married the governess or homemaker for the two children he already had,
and then proceeded to have two more--one of whom was Horace. There is an older
sister to whom neither Horace nor his brother really speak. Fortunately she had
a girl friend with whom she lived, who left her comfortably off.

Annie Reich: the Russian woman is reading the manuscript. I had
hoped to read it first, but when I opened it saw that it only went up to the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

year 1600. This puts it into competition with the work of the several
professional historians of old Russia. Somehow I had gotten it into my
head that he was writing about modern Russian history, with the insights
of his own experience. Mrs B can screen it, and if she thinks it worth
while I will get a Russian historian to go over it. I can pay her some
thing but wouldn't want to have so long a ms read on a purely blind deed
of friendship.

Kenneth: As I wrote you last night, I wrote him about it yesterday.
So you needn't bother. It is now in the hands of Viking Press. The Chilmark
Press which was my original inclination tells me --I saw the owner at last
just before the trip to Washington--that he is only importing sheets from
Faber for the moment. Pretty stupid. Pantheon, in the person of Andre
Schiffrin, their new head, a former student of mine, said they weren't
going to do that type of book. He has just published Gunter Grass. I have
some others to try after Viking, if that doesn't work. Pat Covici said he
was interested.

Glad you prefer O Hermes. So do I. In quoting Barbara Jordan's
"looks like it was" you hit on the sorest spot for most purists these
days, in the confusion of like for as. I'm afraid it's a losing battle,
but I keep fighting against it. As you say, it is basically a usage of the
Mrs Ash world. The fight to retain the subjunctive is also probably a
losing one.

Don't talk to me about understanding this new mathematics! I can't
fathom a problem of it. But I thought you should know. An old fashioned
teacher of mathematics to small children simply must restudy, or she is out
in the cold. It all has to do with the units for computing machines.

Poor Melitta!

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

20 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

No letter, alas, today or yesterday from you; but I had had
such a blossoming for the weekend that I am still sustained by them. So
I register my brief report without having anything to answer from your
questions, except, of course, for the outline of the holiday. But that
will have to wait for the weekend.

I enclose a copy of the letter from Brimmell to see if there
is a sentimental jewel you want me to ask about I have no idea what his
price would be, or whether he would set a reasonable fee for the whole
lot of them. Nor if he would, whether you want them? But let me know.
You had better let me handle it as from here. I think it will be cheaper
that way if you should want anything.

I had a letter from George today, although you have probably
had several. The hand is pitifully week, "writing is almost impossible for
I am in bed day after day, week after week, after week." He does not
speak of seeing us in England, although he mentioned you and I being together
on the Islands. I wonder if he will ever go back. Chiefly he wrote to
ask me if I would send the Shakespeare drawings to Jean, who wanted to show
them to a great friend of hers. A letter came also from Prutting with his
bill, asking me whether he should follow his regular practise of sending
most to you and a little to George as usual. Since his letter came first,
I had thought to tell Prutting to do it as usual, but I fear there may be
extra expenses for his illness at Carlisle, and that even the little might
be a drain. I might as well pay the bill this time, and tell him in the future
do as before now that I understand.

Yesterday was a sudden return of winter. It had been springlike
the day before, then at midafternoon it started snowing and by six had put
down four inches. I had to go to the Peabody Museum to talk about the
exhibition of eskimo things, where I was at 5. The streets were jammed with
stuck cars, since people suddenly drive like fools whenever a snowflake
appears. I gave up my plan of going home to put on the lights, feeling that
thieves would be stuck in traffic jams too, and so after a tiresome wait
managed to get back to the office and to Mory's for dinner. I was to go to
a reading by Brother Atoninus of his poems, and slosh to it I did. For a
fantastic program. He is a Dominican lay brother who was associated with the
beat movement in San Francisco. It must have been a spectacle to see him in
a pad. There he was at the reading in his party robes, pacing back and forth
across the stage like a monk in a cloister, apparently meditating out loud,
although he mumbled in so low a voice that I could not hear a word. Only
occasionally when he was looking out the window I caught something about the
beauty of the snow. He read a few poems with immensely long intervals between
stanzas which gave them the appearance of unexpected verbal ejaculations. "This
verbal meditation is as much for my own good as it is for the audience," he
said afterwards. I hope so, for I don't think the audience was much benefited.
After I got home I read some of the poems, and they did (many of them) have
a surprising power. One of them, at least, stood my hair on end, being a
meditation (lustful dream?) on the text "I am black but beautiful" from the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Canticles. "Call Him the Lover and call me the Bride," was the way the poem opened, and when he had gotten to his last lines

"When His great Godhead peels its stripping strength
In my red earth"!

I realized what it really meant to be a lay brother (or "with the Dominicans in Greenland.") His gestures and performance on the stage almost seemed like a parody, the persona of a priest to parallel Euston's persona of a Yankee. I thought at first when Brother Antoninus paced back and forth without saying anything that he was chewing gum, his jaw worked so; later I realized that he was only hotting up.

But I lunched with him and several others this noon, and I must say he was much better off the stage; and once he had a whiskey he settled into some good talk about poetry and had sensible things to say, including his admiration for Hilda for whose *Helen* and *Selected Poems* he owned.

Am busy at work on applications of new graduate students for next year (when, thank God, I shall be absent) and requests for fellowship aid for present students who are continuing.

Susan returns tonight, so the orchids will have their favorite waterer from now on.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

24 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

This has been a frightful weekend so far as work has been concerned. I have been slogging like a charwoman trying to clear up the recommendations for fellowship grants to current graduate students as well as admissions and grants to the ten new students we can take from fifty applications. Thank heavens, except for a few details, these are now done. I have also read long sections from two dissertations being done under my direction, as well as the last half of a completed dissertation done by a Pakistani who is allied to Yale this year. Then I have been writing innumerable letters of recommendation, and have the worst still to do. For the promotion of a professor at Pennsylvania, which requires my reading all his articles as an outside expert.

Alas, the worst is to read a child's book on Mark Twain about which I have promised to do a t.v. show tomorrow at Hartford. CBS is sending up their equipment to take the Memorial, and for the sake of the advertisement for the 'emorial (in terms of attracting tourists) I said I would be the commentator on the book. What a fool I am! Younger Susan and her family come to dinner tonight which crowds things even more.

I have just paid Prutting's bill, but said in the future to go back to the earlier arrangement for splitting between you and him. I hate to make him re-do the bill this time, and suspect that if George stays longer, and because he must be getting medical help in Carlisle, he needs it now. I had a very sad note from him, as I wrote you, and then on Friday came the gift of a first edition of *Winesburg*, *Ohio* with two letters to George from Anderson in it, written when Anderson was *The Roof-Fix Man* in business. He wanted a copy of George's *Butterfly*.

Julian Muller wrote from Harcourt to confirm that the galleys had gone back to the printer and that everything had been in order. I am glad you had the extra time (if warmth went with it) by not having to go to Locarno, but am sorry that you couldn't, for Helen's sake. She is so sensitive, and I am afraid may have been hurt by not quite understanding. She is so devoted and so admiring of you that of course she wanted to help. It had to be the way it was, but there may be a little pain for the moment.

Rosemary Sutcliffe wrote a charming letter of thanks for the advertisements for her new book. She does want it to be a financial success and I hope it will. Fortunately it did not come out during the continued newspaper strike when everything has been in the dark. I am told that the book business has been much hurt. One does not know when it will be settled. A new bookreview has appeared as a stopgap, and I am sending you a copy airmail tomorrow so that it will reach you before you leave for England. I like it very much, and only wish it would continue. The level of reviewing however make wake up the Times and Tribune to raise their standrads when they appear again.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

Pantheon has written to say that they found the printing copy for *Ruan* among their papers, and asked if I wanted it back again. I have asked to have it sent to me, and they write again to say it has. There is no particular value to it, but I see no point in having it drift around and perhaps be sold.

Four letters up to the 20th have arrived from you, for which as always thanks. Did I tell you that the book on Chinese painting has arrived? It has. But still nothing about the spy story, which is most mysterious.

Glad you liked *The American Writer and the Feeling for Community*. It is worked up a little better than when I gave it in Munich.

No harm to say whatever you like to Mrs Gibbons. I hadn't realised she was still working on Hilda. If you think to, you might put in a carbon and send the copy to me. Then I will know if she claims information you didn't give, or interprets it too much in her own way. Basically, the more written about Hilda, the more interest there will be in her.

It looks as though I still would not be able to go through your past letters to be sure I know all questions to ask or answer. I am waiting to get my ticket after March 1st, so as to have the interest on the money for the first quarter of the year in the savings bank. I will write or cable you the flight number and time. It is, alas, early in the morning, when we arrive. I shall try to get the Normandie to reserve the room for the night before also, so Susan can wash up and take a nap. Do not worry about money for London. I shall take enough along, and covert as necessary. I am quite serious about this, so don't send registered or otherwise to me at the Normandie. Comically, I still have some traveller's checks from my visit to you last summer. I did not convert here in order to save the cost of buying them in the first place.

Susan says, again alas, that she has only the one set of luggage, but since this will be ruined eventually on our trip to Japan a few dents won't hurt it now.

I will write to inquire the price in pounds of the entire *Ballantyne* lot. We can discuss when I see you, and if we decide to get them we can arrange for a bank check so that the dealer won't know you're in on it. He might jack prices if he did know.

I had forgotten that Leslie was planning to wait for the 400th Shakespeare anniversary. It makes sense. Mrs Cleanth Brooks called me the other day to say that Mary was anxious to have Leslie invited (with fee) toby Yale to give a 400th anniversary lecture. That Yale had never asked him, etc. Mary also said that Leslie had been asked to go to California to give three lectures on Shakespeare next year, for the celebration, but had refused. He had only ten more good writing years, and felt an obligation to concentrate on his own writing. I am actually a little sorry, and feel it would have helped the reception of his new book. But

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

he does have the dedication of an artist. This morning I talked to the Chairman of English about the 'ale lecture by Leslie, and I am glad to say that he agrees it would be a good idea and is sure it can be arranged. Perhaps the lecture by Yale, and then the Elizabethan Club could publish the lecture as a pamphlet for its members. This ought to please Leslie, I hope so anyhow. Dedication to art does require a number of men of good will around one to work out one's ambitions.

Have just looked through the foreword and first chapter of
*Out With Garibaldi*. In the former he says: "For the leading incidents in
the campaign I have relied chiefly upon Garibaldi's Autobiography and the pers
onal narrative of the campaign by Captain Forbes, R.N." He does not
directly mention his own experiences, but the hero is an Englishman named
Leonard who got to know Garibaldi in the struggle of Rio Grande for separation
from Brazil. Then married an Italian girl, who fortunately looked quite
English, and sending his wife and child to England decided to fight at
Garibaldi's side for the Italy he loved. I can send the book back to you,
or try to read it through. If you ever do your book, I think you must
spend a month or more with the collection here. I hope you will. Your
book should be a fascinating one.

One question do you want me actually to get some sort of paper
that will guarantee me an archaelogist so that we can visit the excavations
on Nor? Or can Dorothy Dudley do this for us? It would be fascinating
to see, and the better I get to know the Scillies the happier I shall be.
What better guide could I have than you and Doris?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

26 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

I really am exhausted. I was up until one o'clock Sunday
night reading the book for the t.v. show. Last night it was two before
I got to bed. I had an hour and a half at the dentist the first thing
in the morning, yesterday. And then left for Hartford at 11. I had
been told to be there a little after noon, so that we could talk over
what I was to say at lunch. It should take about 2 1/2 hrs to tape the
whole show, I was told too. When I got there I was pretty much alone
except for a half dozen men laying out cables. The rest had gone to
lunch. The caretaker of the Memorial warmed up a chicken casserole for
me, and I ate it. Then the others came back and I disovered it had only
been a coffee break. There were 23 men from New York in all, with two
huge mobile trucks. Pretty soon they began to walk through the scenes
by which the house was visited. They would film and then refilm the
scene. I could only think of your descriptions of Hollywood. It was
endless. Men ran around reaaranging lighting. They would work out a
new script. They would run the results through the monitor and then
reject it. The director was always running out to the mobile units,
and talking by intercom with the assistant director. The headphones were
called cans: I was in cans so I couldn't. At 4:30 they went out for
lunch, assuring me that it would all soon be over. So I ate very little
in order not to spoil dinner at home. My ten minutes, which comes at the
end of the half hour program finally was put on at ten o'clock that
evening. Fortunately mine was OK the first time, and so only the signing
off had to be re-done, this was what the leading man did. But it was
after ten thirty when I got away, dinnerless. I took the director and
leading man back to the Hotel Taft with my car, so they could get an early
train this morning. Along the highway we looked for a place to eat, but
the restaurants were closed at ten-thirty. We reached finally a place
called the Wonder Bar. The bar was open, but the restaurant closed. The
director said he had to have a drink and I couldn't blame him: he had
been steadily at work since morning. It was a pleasant dimply lighted
little place, with a number of couples at tables and a line of men and
one blowsy waitress at the bar. There was a small orchestra and a Negro
man who crooned like Sinatra. I suppose he hoped he was on the way "up."
We had ordered a second drink when the door to the reastaurant opened
and a long nosed rather swarthy and smiling man came in and stood facing
the room. In a flash the orchestra was playing "Happy Days are Here Again,"
and everyone at the bar was applauding the entrance. He must be some
customer, I thought, with a wad to spend which he spends. He shook
hands with everyone at the bar and hugged the waitress. Pretty soon the
waitress brought our drinks. "Deal me in," I said, why all the excitement?
She was very nice and smiling too. "He just got out of jail today!" It
was a real reunion for everyone except us. They complimented him on
having lost weight, and he exclaimed on how fit he was (from breaking
rocks?) It was as though he had been for two months in Florida. Being
very tired, we all envied him.

The biography of Lafcadio Hearn came today, and will make
good reading for Japan. Than you. Also the book on the augmented Roman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

alphabet. With one of the clipping s on the spy case in it. Plus two
more envelopes with more clippins in it. They seem to have taken about
a month to arrive by surface. There were two other yellowbacks also, but
I have not opened them. Maybe I will tonight. At 4:30 I have to
introduce Donald Hall to the audience at a public reading of his poetry.
And afterwards give a small dinner party for him. Then maybe I can get
home.

I was interested in John's letters. I hope the comparison of Hilda's
poetry with Marianne's does not reach Marianne's ears. It was meant
chiefly to wake up the audience. It seems to have. One professor wrote:
"Everyone, needless to say, enjoyed your talk on H.D.--enjoyed it so much,
in fact, that the college bookstore sold out its stock of the selected
poems."

I liked very much the picture of the Stables caravan. I always
wished I owned one.

Your letter of the 22nd was in this morning's mail. Will winter
ever end for you. I begin to think we should take our March holiday in
the Alps instead of in Cornwall.

We can try to work out something for Rose Odle, but better to wait
for her actually to come until Horace has really gone through the material
here and knows what questions to ask. It will be curious to know how they
will hit it off, especially Rose and Marya. It might click, but again it
might not.

I must try to think what I shall say in introducing Hall.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 February 1963

Dearest Fido,

This is indeed just a note, for I must fly home (it is now
ten minutes from 1 a.m.) (having given my lecture this morning to the
undergraduates) and change clothes and set off to see my mother and then
to Gardner where I am giving the Greenland slides at the church tonight as
a gesture to my sister so that the church can raise a little money. Then
tomorrow morning at 8 I am repeating it at the local high school in the
auditorium named for my father.

Three letters came this morning but I will have to wait until
Saturday to acknowledge them. This is really simply to say that we are
crossing by Pan-Am--Flight #2, which arrives at London 7.40 a.m. (British
time) on March 15th.

I should be most grateful if you could engage a car for us
through your knowledge.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 March 1963

Dearest Fido,

Oh Lord, what a week!

We drove to Gardner Thursday afternoon, after my morning lecture,

and stopped to see my mother in Princeton. She seemed to be in very good spirits indeed, was dressed in our of her best robes to receive us, and for a half hour kept up her end of the conversation very well. We went on to Gardner for supper with my sister, where we spent the night, and in the evening I gave my Greenland slides before the church audience so that they could raise a little money for parish expenses. There was a party at my sister's afterwards, with many old friends from my boyhood, which was pleasant although by this time I was well tired. The next morning I went to the high school to give the same talk, but alas for this time I had gotten no farther than four slides along when the bulb on the projector went out and could not be fixed. So there I was with no illustrations for what I had to say about the Vikings. I kept on talking but it was an immense disappointment to me at any rate. We started back to New Haven about eleven, and returned in mid-afternoon just at the beginning of a snow storm which by morning had left over four inches. So there I was stuck at home with my desk filled on Saturday morning. I barely got down before noon, and then had to spend all afternoon and all evening too at the Peabody Museum doing labels for the eskimo show. I went home at eleven and wrote the two descriptive sheets for the wall, one on older eskimo art and another on contemporary carvings. I have just delivered these, after having to go unexpectedly to a funeral this afternoon in Wallingford (where Gaylord is). Only this morning in the paper I saw that the English wife of the assistant headmaster there had died of cancer. He was a close friend at Oxford and for several years afterwards here when we both returned. I knew her longer than anyone in this country except himself. Now Susan has just called to say that we must go early to the Addiss's, where his mother is, for dinner, as the mother must take an early train back to New York. I shall come back to the office and finish this then.

Checks have come in from Random House for the six months of royalties ending last Oct 31s.

Gate to the Sea: 204 copies.
Ruan: 374 copies
Gandhara: 12 copies
Roman Wall: 368 copies
Players Boy: 78 copies
October: 256 copies
Deowulf: 75 copies
Freud: 2 copies

(total of checks: $1123.17)

This will go in your savings account.

I have also at last been able to total up the costs for George, since I have also at last received the debates for nursing and also for hospital costs.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Since they had overcharged me a little over $300.00 I am glad I was careful to check. The figures are:

hospital: 945.30
nursing: 648.40
Prutting: 380.00
---
1,973.70

I also have the total figures for Horace and Marya except for a recent telephone charge which I think must be a mistake and will have checked tomorrow. Including the amount I had still payed out before (which included the 500 check you sent from Chemical, the totals now are:

balance owed me: 54.39
15 Jan. Marya's x-ray therapy 400.00
14 Jan. Horace-Gaylord 518.24
18 Jan. Marya's operation 150.00
21 Jan. 1st payment Med. Ins. 47.05
telephone as of 1 Feb 64.30
---
$1233.98

The sum of the two together comes to $3,207.68. Obviously you will not have time to arrange for this until after your return from England, but I am glad to have the account figured up.

I am back now, at nine, but I must try to answer some of the things I have skipped in recent notes. Annie Reich's manuscript: The Mme B finally returned the history saying she was not competent to judge, and I have now done what I should have done in the first place, given it to a younger Russian historian for his opinion, explaining the problem. He is Ivo Ledered who is supposed to be very good indeed. He is happy to read it and advise me, but is going to go to Moscow for the spring vacation, to work on archives there, and so will not be able to do the job until into April. We should know what the situation is long before Annie R goes to Maine in June.

I wrote you about the car, which we will be delighted to have meet us at the plane. We arrive Pan-Am Flight #2, arriving at London March 15th at 7.40 a.m.

I am writing Brimmell I hope tonight, but will ask him to write me c/o the Normandie so that we can discuss together in England. One becomes alarmed when seeing a new American catalogue to find the ms of Ballantyne's *The Lonely Island* listed at $1500. Of course this is the "Bounty" story, but still it looks as though I got two bargains with the two we did add to the collection. I was pleased to be able to buy a little pamphlet by B on "The Great Eastern and Lesser Craft," apparently a rare item.

I was sorry to hear that Martin Delgano had failed his exams. You will have to make some other arrangements with the banker for his education.

This is a very good idea indeed to dig up the early Henty despatches. Whether or not they should be republished one would have to wait to decide after reading them. There are Henty collectors, but whether there is a Henty public I am not sure. In any event it would be the making of your book on Henty to have copies of the despatches to study and relate to his novels. There would be no copyright

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

on them now. Have the despatches xeroxed; it is cheaper and better than
photostats.

Susan will try to cope with the seeds, and if you have good ideas for
other gifts do drop me a quick line from the Sesame.

Sorry about the Quest, unless it is you who are the one really to want
it. But you know all the risks of weather etc, so it is really your decision.

I am a little uncertain about precisely the right time for Rose to come out. I had not guessed that you would get at it so quickly without sounding out Horace as to his time schedule. I only gave the sequence of his program, but the calendar. If he is stuck with the proofs for his Ovid and his Collected Poems and has not had a chance to begin his re-study of D.R., he may simply not have his mind on it and hence disappoint her. I had thought of it in terms of his studying the various corespondences, re-reading Pilgrimage, and formulating the questions which he would like or need to ask her. I simply don't know when that would be, although when I see him after my return from England I will probably know a good deal more. May of course with the examination period, graduation, and the close of the school year is perhaps the worst time for me to entertain her as I shall have to do and want to do, but that doesn't matter really. At any event I am glad that she likes the idea of coming out, and hope that what is a convenient time for her will be the best time for Horace and his book.

I do look forward immensely to seeing you, there will be so much to discuss. I do not dare risk this to Switzerland with the post having been so slow, and so send direct to Sesame. Forgive me for the long interval you will have had since my last letter to Kenwin.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 March 1963

Dearest Fido,

There should be an interval of seven hours between
the salutation and the opening of this sentence. Filled of
course by my lecture to undergraduates, telephone calls to
Georgia in search of the date of death of the Massachusetts
girl who wandered there, and then wrote the letter I am editing
desperately in these last days for Smith College. And an after-
noon of appointments one after the other.

Yours of the 2nd of March was in today's mail, and
yours of the 27th and 1st came yesterday. You speak of Shakespeare
celebrations, and I am reminded that I ran in to Mary Hotson on the
sidewalk this noon, she looking very well and hearty in spirit.
She told me with pride that Leslie had been offered two appointments
on the West Coast next year because of the anniversary, one of them
to be Distinguished Professor (as they call it) at the University of
California for three months at $1500 a month. "But he refused them.
I said, that's right; you stick to your guns, I said; dear Leslie
does so want to get his book finished by next year, and it's going
so well; I said, thanks to darling Bryher, you don't have to work
and you shouldn't. There now!" And off she went down the street,
full of beans and dedication.

Susan is reading the Lafcadio Hearn and liking it immensely.
She has always preferred fiction, but I think we may turn her into a
non-fiction reader still. I see, by the way, that Man Ray's memoirs are
to be out at the beginning of April. I'll arrange to send to you when
I get back. Meanwhile I gather you have enough to keep busy.

That was a good letter you wrote to the Gibbons. I am delighted
to have a copy. I pity you on the day I myself start asking you questions.
But I shall wait until after the next volume of memoirs, which should have
much of her in it.

Who was my Henty? I always used to say Dostoievsky's _The Idiot_.
It seemed somehow so admirably to chart the way!

Love to Doris when you see her. I am risking this last one
to the Sesame.

7 March 1963

Dearest Fido,

In about ten minutes I shall lift my weary frame
from the chair and go home to dress for the vernissage of the
eskimo show. I went out after lunch to check the labels (a few
were wrong and are being retyped) and to pose for a picture
with my head as a companion mask to the wooden horror with human
teeth which you have seen. This is for the Sunday paper, and I
shall bring a copy with me for your delectation. I must say I
thought the show was nicely mounted (the poor girl did not go
to bed at all last night) and I hope people will enjoy it. It
will be up for a couple of months.

This afternoon I was visited by the deputy cultural
attache from the embassy in London, and when he asked "when are
you coming to England" it gave me a certain smug satisfaction to
say in an offhand way, "Oh I'll be there next Friday." He seemed
properly impressed.

But I wonder if my body will hold out long enough. I
still have my income tax to do, the pamphlet to write for Smith
College, and this afternoon the page proofs for _Sikelia_ arrived.
I will try to do the latter tonight and then go on to the pamphlet.
First things first. I still have to pick up my ticket and a little
money, but will try to do that tomorrow. Oh yes, I have a speach to
give on Saturday morning, but it will simply be reading an old one.

As I have said, I long to be on the other side. But
will I ever get there?

Love to Doris and yourself,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 March 1963

Dearest Fido,

It is all perfectly hopeless, and I shall be well out of
it when we fly on Thursday. I have been swotting away all weekend:
after the opening of the eskimo show on Thursday, and the speech I
had to give on Saturday morning to the regional meeting of the John
Hay Fellows, and luncheon for four from Massachusetts on Saturday to
see the show (after I had dutifully watched myself on television. I
did manage to finish the Smith College pamphlet last night, and revised
it this morning, and since then have been reading typescript. Oh yes,
I forgot that on Friday I read the page proofs of *Sikelia*. So I have
not, as it were, been idle.

I enclose a note on the t.v. show as affidavit, and a little
clipping from the Sunday paper on the eskimo show. The deathl I can
give when I see you a week from today. What bliss that will be. I
shall come half-prepared and half-clad but happy to be shivering.

I had written ahead to the Normandie to be sure we had a
room on arrival early on Thursday morning, and today had a confirmation
from them. Most agreeably. Our plans for the day are still unfirmed,
except that we are to go to the U.S. Ambassador's at four that afternoon,
and are expecting to have dinner with a long-ago friend of Susan's with
whom she exchanges annual greetings and wishes to see again. Saturday
we tea with my Mrs Ash and in the evening go to the theatre to see something
a former student of mine is, I gather connected with, wants me to see, and
is leaving tickets for at the box office.

A note today from Maggs saying the book was being shipped out.
For which thanks. And I had a letter from Brimmell about the 'allantynes,
but we can discuss that when we meet,

Our love to Doris.

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

1 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

It is "April, Avril, April" as my Swiss calender says now that I
have torn March away. The accumulation of the last fortnight piles ominously
on my desk but I feel so much refreshened by the glorious holiday in England
that I don't even need a tranquilizer as I face it. Horace called this morning
to find the date and place of Aldington's death (he is writing the biographical
entry on him for the Encyclopedia Americana), and excalimed immediately that the
sound of my voice was that of a new man, so fresh it seemed with refound strength.
I do owe you an immense gratitude for having seduced me away from the Whale. So
do we both, Susan and I, for it was one of the happiest holidays we have ever had.
I never wanted to see the Scilly Islands and Cornwall without you as a guide to
them both, and now you have been just that.

Our trip back was pleasant, although because of heavy headwinds we
stopped at Shannon to refuel, and so were almost two hours late in landing at
Idlewild. Even so, we had only fifteen or twenty minutes at Shannon, just long
enough for Susan to buy some perfume with the English money I had left, and for
me to buy two large and colorful postcards to mail from there to my mother. She
will have a formidable array of them to show me when I go up on the 18th for her
90th birthday, but there is no telling just who it is she thinks sent them to her.
Our friends the Osbornes were on board, and sat across the aisle from us. But we
could not do much more than keep to our seats, for the plane was so full that
extra passengers sat in the lounge. The most distinguished traveller was undoubtedly
Gregory Peck, the American movie star whose horse had ingloriously come in seventh
in the Grand Nationals the day before. He had flown over with his wife for the
weekend to see the race. I could hardly congratulate him on not having come in
nineth, so only gazed at him in awe rather than asking him to sign my menu. Instead
I read busily in the book of essays on Cornwall you gave me, and mused comfortably
about all we had seen with you.

This is no more than the beginning of thank-you, but I think you understand
how very much indeed not only the trip meant, but especially seeing you and being with
you. Now I shall be eager for the beginning of August and your visit then.

Thank you and thank you again, as Gertude used to like to write. And
love and love again, as I like to write.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 1st arrived this afternoon, and I think of you
now in Paris at work on Sylvia's books. I only hope it is as warm there as it
is for us here. The temperature has been as high as the 70's, though when the
sun goes down it is barely spring. (What madness has happened to my

7 April

Well, it was a madness; and although Mrs Dingle claimed to have fixed the immobile
ribbon, it was not long the next day, on an office chore, when it went bad again.
Now I must wait until Monday for the repair man to come to fix it. I am now using
her machine. It has been a busy week, and you must forgive me for not writing to
you. Still, I have managed to clear away so much that the immediate future ought
to be a little better.

Our flight back, as I wrote you in my note to Paris, was not very
eventful although not tiring either, thanks to the first-class accomodations. The
plane was packed to the last inch, but I was able to take my package of breakables--
the things from the warehouse and the two watercolors by O.B. into the cabin with
me and have them stored at the back. We had no excess baggage fees to pay, and were
well under even the two hundred dollar allowance for both of us that we had nothing
to pay the customs either. They accepted the ibis as antique without a question.
The almost two hours delay, because of headwinds and the stop in Shannon kept us
from catching any bus earlier than the four o'clock to New Haven, and we were at the
house a little after six-thirty. We went to the Lawn Club for supper, unpacked and
tumbled into bed early but still aglow with the wonderful time you had given us in
England. I cannot begin to tell you how much it meant to me to be in Cornwall and
the Scillies with you, and to fill the outlines of so much that you had always spoken
of. It was like a historical pilgrimage to see Doris's house, and Hilda Quick's,
and Marjorie's, and Phyllis', and Hilda's haunt, and Ethel and Kenneth's, and
Lethbridge. In only beginning to write them down I am impressed by the scope of all
that managed to be crowded in both in the earlier week on the islands and then later
ashore and in London. I felt wantonly carefree during the entire holiday. Everyone
says my voice sounds stronger and my face rested. I bow down in thanks.

There was naturally a formidable pile of mail waiting on my desk, but
there had been no emergencies while I was away; and when I have done a dozen letters
more the pressure will be off. A good deal of Monday I spent in correcting the
galley proofs of my pamhlet for Smith College, and making such revisions of the text
as David Horne thought advisable because of unclearness. An English Professor and
his wife from Leeds had written that they would be arriving on Tuesday with a letter
of introduction and would like to be taken to lunch or dinner. But unfortunately
Susan and I had tickets to a "comedy" at the Shubert, written by the novelist Irwin
Shaw, and so although I gave them an hour's time that afternoon and took them to lunch
the next day that was all I could manage. There were my classes and a long string of
student appointments. On Thursday night was the Yale News banquet, where the Secretary
of the Treasury gave a dull banker's speech, and on Friday night I addressed the 700
high school teachers of English who had come here for a two-day convocation. I did

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

only to help out the Director of the teacher training program here, and because he was willing to have me give the same talk I had delivered last fall at Dallas. It went all right, I guess, but three times are too often to give the same talk. I felt as though I were listening to a recording by myself. The thing is to be published in four different places: by the group here, by the John Hay Foundation, by the Southern Independent Schools, and by the National Association of Independent Schools. It sounds a little repetetive. It will bore you as old stuff, but I will send along which ever appearance comes along first. I have two, as a matter of fact now, but will send an immense batch soon: of the Smith pamphlet, a German book with another, and this spiel of the role of poetry in the classroom.

But I involve myself in none of these without feeling they are a little outside of the true focus, and again thanks to you I feel eager for the fall and to be out of the jaws of Yale the Whale. (I ought to have added that part of the week went to the choice of students for the summer session in American Studies, which is another task I shall be glad to be rid of; and to gathering together the material for my income tax report, which I handed over to the accountant on Friday.). At the moment my relief comes through the memories of the holiday. Two of the three rolls of film I took have come back; and despite the rain in which I took them, I am delighted at the choice I have so far. There are some nice views of the daffodil fields and the Scillonian landscape, some pleasant ones of you and Doris, and some really fine ones of Nor-Nour. I will have a little selection printed up for you, so that Elsie and the others in Switzerland can have a foretaste of your June dig. I have passed on to Ingholt, Miss Dudley's original letter with the drawing of the little jars, and he promises to study it on the faint chance that he may have or suggest a clue. I talked to him also about Gough and the British Academy, and he will see what can be done about that. He brought me a photocopy of an excellent review of the Gandharan book, particularly nice because of its praise of Islay's photographs. He will send you a copy, and I will send mine to Rome--so you need not.

I was sorry that the entry forGE wasnt more immediately successful, although negative results do have a sort of positive value. I think your plan of involving the grandchildren by questioning them is the only possible and sensible one.

And of course salaams and a rub of noses for rescuing your correspondence with Sylvia. The fact that it goes back to the 1920's will make it invaluable for the muniment room, although you probably will want to run over it yourself as a kind of refresher for volume II of the memoirs. But be a good historian and don't cast anything aside as naughty or irrelevant. That will not do at all.

I am eager to hear more in detail about her books and the new Robbes Grillet film, even to knowing its name. Letters from you will perhaps begin to come in next week.

I enclose a preview of Sikelia from the Publisher's Weekly, in case Helen does not send you hers. Perhaps her copy will not even yet have arrived. These seem small, but they are what all the bookdealers read, and are carefully written. Praise is real praise.

I ought to have said that New York was so glad that Susan and I were returning, that they settled the newspaper strike, and on the Monday morning after our Sunday return a New York Times was delivered at our door. The first one. Today we have had the Sunday papers, but it was so immense, and I had so much to do at the office

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

that I have not yet begun to read it. We have to go to the Widdisses for dinner but perhaps I can sneak in a section or two before or after.

Packages of yellowbacks have been coming in or were here, and even those have now been read and are reading for the Dingle to file. Poor Kenneth, with the death-in-waiting of his friend Burckhardt to attend him. Death haunts him anyhow, and this will make matters worse. At least I am glad that Islay was able to get such good pictures. And all this matter of a new staff! It is sometimes easier for people like us who lead simple lives, or at least simpler.

Did you want us to entertain Mollie Dobson when she comes over? I should be happy to, if you think she would like it, or even a glimpse of New Haven.

Many thanks for the lovely copy of the Arctic voyage of Capt James which has arrived safely from Maggs, and which I am eager to read. And also for the Henri Thomas volume with, of all things, its essay on Auden's and my anthology. You were always intended for intelligence work, so keenly do you run things down.

No word from Horace as to whether the Aldington obituary copy reached him safely, but he is no doubt busy. I did have a letter from Aurelia, who seems happy, and is now visiting her sister, but of that more in my next. Gaylord called --that is, Horace's doctor--to ask how he was. They (he, rather) had hoped to hear from him, but not a peep.

All love and all thanks, world without end,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

9 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

I had hoped to write you at the end of this afternoon. But the last appointment was with a Yale College classmate, teaching at Harrford and living in New Haven, who wanted to say he was getting a divorce and so wanted a job elsewhere. He liked staying on at the office too much, and talking. Thus no writing to you.

But I am glad the Paris trip went off so well. And you did pick up contact again. You may want to do it occasionally. It would mean much both to Rinette and to Saillet. And keep your contacts in terms of what is being written in France. I envy you the meal with Rinette. If she is half as good a cook as Adrienne was, you had a dish for the gods. And worth India.

Sorry that the letters didn't go back as far as you thought. But they are important nevertheless. I will see what can be done about copies of Adrienne's letters to you. I should think they could be xeroxed. It will be expensive, but under the circumstances worth it.

And many thanks for the Mary Butts letter. These are scarce, I gather. But worth preserving.

The accountant brought back my income tax report last night, and it is duly signed and sent off to the proper authorities. At least it was done before the 15th, when it was due. I should have gotten it done before I left for England, but felt I preferred to cope after my return when I was rested. It worked best that way.

I only wish there had been a letter waiting for you at Kenwin.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

10 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

A good discovery for you. At least I think so. At least I thought so enough to send it back to have some extra copies made. It is Henty's obituary from the _London Times_, which I said I would look up for you. It gives a good deal of dope that I think will be new, especially about the Italian experience. It seems he went along with George Meredith on much of the expedition. So perhaps by my following down the Meredith trail, one can begin toe fill in the gaps. I wanted to keep a copy here, and send you an extra copy to use for Kenneth or Maishman. And I wonder if the _Standard_ records won't give us something. From the office, I mean; although somewhere along the line one will have to go through the files of the paper for many many years. Anyhow I should get the copies back tomorrow or the next day, and will send on to you immediately.

Your letter of the 6th was in the mail today. Don't bother about correcting the Mr to Prof on the envelope. Who cares? Professors aren't even the lowest category of angels.

I repeat how pleased I am that you enjoyed Paris. I think this new relationship with Saillet and Rinette may be just the right thing for you, and, as I said, keep you in touch with the vital French movements at closer range than just through the novels. An occasional fresh breath of air. And Saillet sounds nice. He always did. I suspect you may be right, that Sylvia did not entirely approve, and being a woman's righter she would not allow to men what she would accept in women.

You are right too about the French being freer with experimentations. At least they have usually been, in certain circles which hardly exist elsewhere. As to the commas, hyphens etc., I think the lesson learned is the basis on which to present your point of view. Put it to the Helens that yours is an organic means to present what you want to say. For those like her, the difficulty comes when you argue not from artistry but, as you frequently do, from accepted usage in England or in the States (the argument that you would be laughed at by the average person if you did this or that. Then they go to equivalent "authorities" in defence, and find them. For England as well as for the States. So keep to artistry. But actually I think this is now a dead issue, yesterday's misunderstanding. And who wants to live in yesterday?

You must keep me up to date on the search for the typhoid carrier. Because not many Americans are involved, I have seen absolutely nothing in the papers here about it since I returned. It must be hell for everyone in Switzerland, but I suspect your best reports will come from the British papers.

I went last night to the Elizabethan Club to hear James Purdy read, and much to my surprise he read very well. Two of his stories. Then he answered questions about his writing. I'm not sure whether or not I'll be able to see him again while he is here. Things have piled up too much on my desk, and I want to be free to prepare my lecture for Smith College next week

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

I still haven't been able to go to get my common-cold shots, and am paying for it. My nose is like a Swiss mountain stream and as tainted. I am in misery, all the more so because the fault is mine. Yet Susan has had the same, and she did have her shots. Not guilt but my runny nose haunts me and hag-rides me.

I spent the morning making up a list for alumni in American Studies of books since 1960 by our faculty. Something Yale wants to send out. Now I must get back to reading dissertations, after having been blasted over the telephone by a member of the faculty whose course was not listed in our curriculum. I had been treacherous, unfair, ignorant, usw usw. God help us!

Your letter of the 8th was in the morning's mail. So sorry about your hausarzt, whom I take to be your chickenpox man who called when I was with you last summer. One does like to keep on with what is familiar, and a family doctor ought to be familiar.

I agree with you about the wall and Niehans. After all, you could have a boy's school there, and then they would take pot shots at Elsie's cat.

Did I tell you that the third roll of film has been returned. Too much rain spoiled a few, especially at Lady V's, but that hardly matters. What matters to me is that I got a splendid series of Hilda's haunt, taken from every possible angle so that I could get the surroundings. I really ought to have tried to make my way inside. But I can fantasy what went on there rather better than I can the landscape. I am deeply grateful that you took me. Also a couple of good pictures of Ethel's house, and a nice one of Kenneth by the entrance to their garden. I will show them all to you in the summer when you come over.

12 April 1963

It all ended there. I didn't go to a cocktail party I was supposed to attend. My nose was too red. Instead I went to the steam room and for a massage, both of which helped so that I could go to the Fellows dinner and afterwards to the American Studies Club meeting. This morning fortunately I feel much better, but will repeat the treatment and try to go to the doctor's for my shots tomorrow. A good birthday gesture.

I now enclose the two copies of the Henty obituary. I hope they will help a little. The New York Times obit was much briefer, so I can quote it to you:

"...From Cambridge he went to take part in the Crimean war in the Purveyor's Department, and, returning invalided, was promoted to be Purveyor of the Forces, and sent to Italy to organize the hospitals for the Italian legion. After the war he had charge first of the Belfast and then of the Portsmouth districts until he resigned his commission.

"For several years Mr. Henty was occupied in mining in Wales, and then became a

member of thr staff of The Standard, acting as special correspondent in the war
between Austria and Italy and accompanying Garibaldi in his campaigns in the Tyrol.
He was with the Abyssinian expedition, and saw the Franco-Prussian war, the Paris
Commune, and the Carlist insurrection on Spain.

"For the Standard Mr. Henry also visited Russia and the mining regions of the United States, and later he accompanied the Prince of Wales on his tour of India and was with the Turkish Army in the war with Service.

"Mr Henry's name is associated with a vast number of books for boys founded upon history and upon the author's own observation of people and places."

Perhaps these two don't really straighten things out for you in terms of sequence, but they make it clearer for me anyway.

This is good Friday and all the staff are on holiday. As I think I told you before, I have been so little attuned to this particular religious holiday because of my Congregational boyhood that I somehow resent it as an imposition not of a religious fervor overall, but rather of the atholic groups who want a free day. The worst is that just at this moment the undergraduates are expected to fill out their schedules for next year, and so I have to answer the phone, jump to the door and otherwise waste valubale time.

A letter from Lizzie simply states that she is moving back to New Haven in June. I think a young divorced man is vaguely connected with her desire to be back here, and I realize that it was a good deal due to her loneliness in Florida that she got into her difficulties in the fall, but I must say I don't look forward to her return and consequent proximity. I am sure the old rubs will come back, but what can one do about it. At least she says she plans to live in an apartment of her own, and I think this is a minimal necessity. This, plus finding her a new psychiatrist in whom she can confide and on whose shoulders she can continue to weep. I am a little sorry for her sister, however, since young Susan has to take too much of the confiding and weeping. Perhaps it will be a sti milus to them to move away after next year when Jim finishes his architectural apprenticeship. As for us, I am glad we will be in Japan in the fall, and we shall look forward all the more to our trip to Maine with you in the summer.

There were no afternoon mails because of the Passion, and hence no letter from you today. I will write again tomorrow on my birthday.

I have the copies of Adrienne's letters back, and will send them to Saillet on Monday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

When I woke this morning, my little ibis said "Happy
Birthday" as from you, and I was again thankful for his gaity and
antiquity. You should not have done it. But then of course there
are so many things you should not have done for me, but yet for
which I am infinitely grateful and happy.

Then in the morning's mail was your letter of the 10th
with its Easter greetings. So they did come in time. The sun is
out, the temperature is in the 50's, and they say tomorrow (when we
go to the shore for a picnic) will be sunny and mild too. There are
even a few flowering shrubs out, and blossoms in Susan's daffodil
beds. Perhaps Spring is really here.

I work at oddments on my desk, not quite able to burden
myself with reading sixty pages from a dissertation as I should do.
I think I will celebrate the day by letters. The first is of course
to you. Then to Kenneth and to slay, to Doris and as many as I can
get to from then on.

The week will be a frantic one, but since I am giving no
undergraduate lectures I shall try to get long-postponed things done.
Monday noon I go to New York, taking my huge traveling bag with me (since
Pan-Am tore the locks off one side in bringing it back from London),
then go to see the revival of the famous Armory Show of paintings, then
go on to pay a long-promised (and much reminded of by her) visit to
Djuna Barnes who wants me to take care of her literary papers after her
death, and then put on my dinner jacket for the annual meeting of the
Trustees of the Yale Library Associates, at the Century Club. This will
bring me back by a late train. After listening to one of my assistants
lecture to the undergraduates in my place I take the train for Boston at
noon, to go over some papers (for Saturday's talk at Smith College) at
the Boston Public Library, have dinner with the widow and daughter of a
woman who want to give the father's papers to Yale, spend the night at
some hotel and work on Wednesday at Harvard Library on the same Smith
Project, and come home that night. Thursday after listening to the
assistant's second lecture, Susan and I will drive to Princeton for my
mother's 90th birthday, and hope to be back in New Haven in time for a
dinner in honor of the retiring curator of the Garvan Collection of
American silver and furniture (on whose committee I serve). Friday, if
I recall correctly, there is nothing, although I did refuse a dinner
invitation from the Ingholts to meet a Gandharan expert from Pakistan.
Saturday morning early we drive to Smith, in Northampton, Mass., for
luncheon with the college president, after which I address the Smith
alumnae on the subject of the pamlet which I shall be sending you at
the end of the week. I expect my funeral will be held on Sunday. But
much will have been gotten out of the way, especially the visits to the
two dames which I have promised all winter to make. I want to clear the
way for going out to see Aurelia.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

You did have a day at the telephone. I think Helen does feel
that there was more than the dream of a fight, and is very upset. As
you say, she cannot really separate other relationships from commas;
and that the dispute over punctuation and its "rules" (rather than its
art) stems from something deeper.

I was interested about Heydt, and fear there will be no way out
from the situation for him unless it is either death or separation. She
is obviously, for one reason or another, in a deeply psychotic state. He
probably needs treatment himself as a result.

You have the same feeling for writing in another language that I
do, when you speak of not worrying about the grammatical mistakes in your
letters to Adrienne. I find that it goes down much better with the
recipient, whether one speaks or writes, if one just keeps on in a natural
even if incorrect flow. The result is *not*, as you say, stiff.

I am so sorry about the intermission in letters, but know that you
understand. This week may not be much better, but I will at least try
for notes. And then fill these in after next Sunday's funeral.

Thank you and thank you again for my birthday ibis. And all love
as always.

Oh yes, one last thing. I spent part of last night getting together
a complete set of Hilda's publications so that they could be in the Yale
Library. Not giving any copies of your books from her, or with your bookplate
in them (even when there were as in some cases duplicate books plated with
your name). Nor any of her presentations to me, with one exception. In
addition to *The Usual Star* and *Kora and Ka* which she gave me years ago, she
also much later presented me, with inscriptions, with additional copies of
these two and of *Nights*, in which she made all the corrections she wanted
for a later publication of the three. These are of course invaluable and
of great importance to later generations. So I did give these, to go along
with several other books by her in which she had made similar corrections.
I can always consult them in the library. One of the books with your bookplate
in it was the bound proofs of *Palimpsest* with her corrections of the typographical errors. Do you think this should go now to the Library, or would
you rather keep it back with the rest. I do have other copies of the same
book of course, in case you ever needed it. The one important book I seem
to be missing is her own corrected copy of *Hedylus*. I have my own copy in
which, once at Kusnacht, I copied all of her notations. But the original I
do not seem to have. Is it by any chance with you. I ask only for the
sake of knowing, not asking for it.

18 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am back at the office for an hour and a half this morning before setting out for Princeton to pay my respect to my mother on her 90th birthday. I got back to New Haven last night about eight, came to the office for an hour while I went over my mail, but was too tired to write you a second letter on the 17th.

My Boston trip was at least successful in terms of tranquilizing my conscience about the data for my Smith pamphlet. As I wrote you, I did the Boston Public Library part on Tuesday afternoon until late. An ascription of one tribute to Miss Peabody had been made incorrectly (at least ambiguously) by the SPL to me, but fortunately I left it ambiguous in terms of letter-of-the-law so am not completely trapped. (This shows how easy my conscience has become.) Then yesterday at Harvard I read all day in letters to and from Sarah Clarke (this will be clearer when the pamphlet reaches you) and found a few tidbits to use in my Saturday's speech at Northampton. But again, nothing I really needed to use in the pamphlet itself. I even had time to look in their manuscript catalogue to see what they had of Hilda's, finding the long correspondence to John Cournos, three letters to Braithwaite, and (to my surprise a letter to the librarian from Cournos giving the identifications of the characters in *Bid Me to Live*, which he had the nerve to call a "whitewash". But the term will take care of itself, and the identifications were an open secret anyhow. So it hardly matters. I took as gifts to the Rare Book Room at Harvard copies of the three 100-copy books, *What Do I Love?*, the pamphlet on *Borderline*, and each of the three British publications of the war poems. They were delighted, and will send me a list of what else they have so that I can fill in a little more. As I once told you it seems to me to be a good idea to have good collections of her printed work at strategic libraries throughout the country. Perhaps I ought to do the same for the British Museum. What do you think? I also checked on Henty and found they had no ms letters, although the curator said they were eventually to have a superb collection of his works, especially strong in the early three-volume publications which at one time went for over a thousand dollars apiece (according to the librarian, although he felt the price to have been outrageous. Two collections had been joined to make their eventual one. But give us time, and yours will be better. He was immensely jealous when I told him about the typescripts.

I have just seen advertised a copy of *The Young Carthaginian* with an autographed Henty letter in it, which I have just ordered and hope I get. We have the book, but I thought it better to get for the sake of the letter. It was listed at $20.00. Of course it may already be sold.

Your two letters of the 13th and 15th were in the mail waiting for me last night. What rotten luck about your cold. Exactly what Susan and I seem to have had, but hers still hangs on. Shots did nothing to prevent, alas.

The ibis still sings happy birthday to me, and was as cheery as any cable could have been. I did not really expect one and so was not disappointed.

I quite agree about Easter cards as an invention of the devil. America may be at fault, although we try to shift the blame because of the invention of greeting cards by the British.

I must be off for today's jaunt, and the dinner here tonight in honor

of the curator of the 'Harvan Collection. "Pray for me now and in the hour of my death".

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

What a glorious half-hour I have had, throwing away now useless
notes for the Smith pamhlet and for my talk there yesterday, and putting the
others into two neat folders to be filed away against next year's final editing
of the Hawthorne Italian Journals! Now I think I am free of all speaking
engagements until mid-June when I have a series of three to give in Iowa. I
had another feeling of elation on Friday when the Secretary of the University
asked me to address the gigantic assembly of parents of Yale undergraduates
next October. "But I shall be in Japan," I exclaimed. "Oh," he murmured,
and I couldn't have cared less.

Your letter of the 16th arrived Friday morning, but I simply
couldn't even try to respond with a note, still having to put together what
I needed for yesterday's talk and at the same time see the appointments which
couldn't or shouldn't be put off until next week. As it was, I had to come
back to the office after dinner Friday night to finish up the job, and for
an hour Saturday morning before we set out for Northampton. We were given a
luncheon at the home of the President of Smith, who was a classmate of mine
at Andover and at Yale, and afterwards I talked to the Friends of the Smith
Library about how one went about doing the research necessary for writing
their pamhlet. For reasons quite beyond me the old ladies and husbands who
chiefly made up the audience seemed wildly pleased with what I said informally,
and afterwards my hand was tired from autographing the pamhlet for them. We
were then taken for a tour of the new library additions, and to a cocktail
party given for me by the head of the Sophia Smith Collection. We stayed until
about seven, and I gather had been expected to remain for a casserole, but I
was completely fatigued and we still had a two hour drive back. I can't tell
you how glad I am to have the week over, even though this afternoon my brother
is stopping by to see the eskimo exhibition, we have to go to a cocktail party
(another one) for the retiring head of the Garvan Collection of American furniture
and silver, and then take Susan's mother to the Lawn Club for dinner: she having
returned from Florida on Thursday night, and Susan starting out tomorrow for
Washington to be gone until Thursday night judging the national flower show there.

Our trip to Princeton on Thursday for my mother's 90th birthday was
a pleasant one and she appeared extremely happy at the event and at our coming to
see her. She was seated with all her birthday cards set up before her, and
wearing a gold pin my brother had brought her that morning, with her initials
and a "90" on it. We took her a little souvenir I had bought for her in the
Scillies, and a new robe for her to wear. Yet she tired after a quarter of an
hour, wondered where the new robe had come from, said she had not seen my brother
for a long time although she herself had first told us he had been there that
morning. We stayed a little longer and then drove back in time to go to a dinner
for the Garvan curator where I had to make a little speech of appreciation,
and went exhausted to bed.

Tomorrow I must go to the funeral of Yale's President who died of
cancer Friday night, a two year's illness which fortunately at last came to an
end. I knew him well, since he had been director of the graduate program in
American Studies before becoming President, and he was the corrector of my exams

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

when in my senior year as an undergraduate I took the first course in American Studies given at Yale. We usually disagreed about policy matters, and I saw much less of him after he assumed office, but he was certainly an effective president. We hardly are in a position to have a new president at this moment, and I am glad that I shall be away on leave during most of the discussion of who is to be his successor. Not that I should have been asked--although I was phoned about the death by the family shortly after it took place,--but the rumbles and adjustments are certain to shake the floors of the chairmen of departments.

I shall look forward to the flow of your letters to Sylvia, and why not send the *Georgette Henri* volume for the collection, at least when you have finished with it. It is good to be as complete as possible in theseanthers, and one never knows in which direction the future will look. My own experience in editing the Sarah Clarke letter from Smith is an example; for I found my best material in the side remarks of apparently trivial correspondence.

I do hope you will be able to see Helen before she leaves for the States, knowing that this will relieve her of much worry about her personal relationship to you. She says she will phone me immediately upon arrival, so that we can meet together. No word as yet from *Sikelia*, but bound copies should be along soon. I leave entirely to you the decision about the paperback of *October*. At least the book is well enough established by now so that I suppose in one way it doesn't matter who reads it so long as it continues to be read. I assume the hardcover edition will still continue.

The typhoid epidemic seems pretty well to be hushed up. Some time I must get one of the world health medicos at Yale's famous school of world health to tell me the final outcome. But one will have to wait some time for the complete report to be on hand. I see nothing more about the Kim Philbee case, and that too seems to be hushed. Unless questions have been asked in Parliament about it. I assume you saw the longish account in *Kime* magazine which appeared while we were with you in England.

All love. I hope the spirit begins to flow along with the spring sap.

N o r m a n

partly this which threw her off base before. I gather that her analysts says it is OK for her to come North,
but whobis to know, or to know what he knows.
All love,
Zionist

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am just back from the funeral of the President of Yale. Susan had had to leave this noon for Washington, where she is to judge the national flower show, so I took younger Susan --she being a close friend of Griswold's daughter. The whole affair had a somewhat regal air, not unlike the memorial service to Franklin Roosevelt at St Paul's. For reasons not entirely clear to me, I was given reserved seats while the vast majority sat shivering in the cold wind outside the chapel on the old campus. Afterwards students formed columns on the campus through which the coffin passed in state. Presumably precedents were established galore, for no Yale president has died in office since the 18th century, and no Harvard or Princeton president ever has. The affair was impressive, but funerals are not really my cup of tea.

I finished 160 pages of the first draft of a rather dreary dissertation on women's rights in the 19th century, this morning, and now will make each golden moment count by going on to a completed dissertation on the symbolism of Melville. This is dissertation season, and they are blossoming on every hand for me to cut and bundle and send to the academic marketplace.

Your letters of the 18th and the 19th were in today's mail, for which my thanks. And one from Islay about his finished pictures which arrived actually on Saturday. His bill seemed moderate to me, considering the quality of his work and the number of prints I ordered to use for publicity (as I wrote you I was going to do). But my thanks again to you for these definitions of my phiz.

Poor Susan went off to Washington, still hacking with her cold. It comes back at unexpected moments and sets her into paroxysms. Mine seems to be pretty well gone, as I hope yours is.

Apropos of Henty, is the present *Standard* a descendent of the paper that Henty worked for? If it is, I wonder what research in its records might prove, and especially whether his obituary there might not prove to be the best of all. I have no idea how fully newspaper records are kept. One might not find much about the waribaldi period, but it might be possible to trace much later. This at any rate might justify a long period of looking through years and years, although who would do it and still have enough knowledge to "sense" what was being looked for.

I am much interested in what you report about the typhoid investigation, but not very much enlightened from any scientific point of view.

Will see that Heymann gets a *Sikelia*. Your "fan mail" was obviously the work of a crank.

Last night when I took Mrs Bennett home I asked about Liz whom she thought was doing well but pretty much frightened of the prospect of loneliness in Florida during the summer and until after Christmas when Mrs B returns. It

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

A cold day, with the temperature back in the 40's, and almost but not quite a drizzle. If only it really would rain. We have been without rain for nearly three weeks, and there have been forest fires everywhere and no water for the bulbs; which should be putting on their next year's growth.

Your letter of the 20th was in this morning's mail. A speedy transit. And I sympathize with your annoyance about the request for Hilda's certificates. It is hard to know what they need them for in Aldington's case, unless possibly to dilly-dally for time.

Do go to Helen if you can now, rather than wait for their return from the States. I think she might try to interpret the postponement.

Will send along the extra copies of *Bid Me to Live*. Have still not arranged for your charge account at the Yale Co-op but will do so tonight when I have dinner with Roysce Smith the manager. Alas, I had already accepted for Jonathan Edwards College's dinner for sophomores; but now having asked Smith (who is about to set out for two months in Europe) I can't back out of the more personal engagement. I think I must be a little tired.

I am normally so bored by the *Saturday Review* that I didn't try to read it even during the blackout of the New York papers. But will go to the Library to read the article on the Scillies.

I suspect you are right about Martin's examinations in English, and that he is weak on grammar etc--the sort of examination done better with by those who have had Latin and foreign languages. But it is very good news indeed that he has been accepted otherwise, for he with coaching he can make it up. However it might be literature too, for I doubt he has read much.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

Did Susan leave one of her germs behind her when she went to Washington? Did you send one by letter? Did one hide away inside me, suddenly to emerge? At any rate, here I am again, my nose full, coughing and wheezing and miserable. I really shouldn't be back at the office again after dinner, but Mrs Dingle is to be away on Friday and I must clear my desk and get a few things prepared for her to do tomorrow before she leaves. But I write you first.

Your letter of the 22nd was, unbelievably, in this afternoon's mail. Delightfully. Your Elsieittagessen sounded like fun, and it is interesting how the types re-emerge from the shadows of the past. Cultural lags, I presume. You might find the same thing happening in Canada, possibly in Australia.

The Sarah Clarke item went off to you yesterday, along with some other things, and I wonder how many weeks it will take to reach you by surface. It certainly won't thrill you, but you can at least rejoice that it is off my shoulders.

Oh no, I give away none of your Henty volumes. They will always be the central shrine of the collection, the very proof of the way in which he affected people over several generations.

The envelope of letters between Sylvia and Rita also arrived today and make a useful documentary of Sylvia's travels. I read them over in between appointments, not feeling up to much more.

This was midweek watering day for the greenhouse, and I faithfully wetted the every-day plants, the every-other-day plants, and the twice-a-week plants, and then soaked down the coke under the counters. The nursery men also appeared to plant some shrubbery at the bottom of the back lot, a Christmas present from me since Susan had long wanted to clean up the mess there. I think Elsie would approve the new neatness. But still no rain, yesterday's cold drizzle yielding only .06 inches. And today the temperature has been in the low 40's. No wonder I and everyone have colds.

25 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

Susan will have a big laugh tonight when she comes back

from Washington to find me with a cold, I having been so superior to her before for having shed mine when she could not shed hers. I feel very stuffed and out of sorts, and wish to God that I had not committed myself to go to an undergraduate club tonight for dinner and to make a talk afterwards. But of course I can't back out of it at this late date.

Yesterday at last I got to the Co-op and arranged for your charge account. Everything is in order. The two copies of the psychiatry book will go out, and I have had four copies of _Bid Me to Live_ sent to you. For anything you want, you have one of two alternatives:

(1) Write directly to the Yale Co-operative Corp.
New Haven 11, Conn.

Attention Miss Polly Clarke

or

(2) Save the extra postage by including any requests you have in your letters to N. H. Pearson at Yale University. I have arranged it so that I can also charge to your account, and in fact am keeping your membership card here with me for the moment in order to facilitate this. In making your orders you should mention your Membership Account Number, which is 8380. I also arranged for the renewal of your membership to be automatic each September (the cost is one dollar), and this will be charged to your account. Your bills will be sent to you in care of my office, since they insisted on an American address, and in any event I had to guarantee the bills.

Your royalty statement from Harcourt Brace came this morning for the six months ended on December 31st, 1962, with a check for 239.49 less 32.85 for books purchased on 25 June 1962 but not previously charged; the net being 206.64 which will be deposited in the savings account. This is for 382 copies of regular sales, 56 of Special sales (whatever that is), and 36 copies of export sales. Not world shattering statistically, but the book will keep on selling, and _Sikelia_ will again call attention to it.

No letter from you today to answer, and no accomplishments on my part except for nose-blowing to report.

And so the emphasis is on

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

I have just finished reading a 300-page dissertation on Melville's symbology (what a word!), and so now feel free to write you. But not on symbology, unless you prefer me to. Actually, not having been able to write you yesterday I thought there might be a letter in today's mail. There was none, but having had your two of the 24th yesterday I am in no position to whine.

I am sad about the *Quest*, but agree with you that few would be willing so lavishly to refit a boat only to have its maidenhood ravished by some charterer. Actually if you could get an ordinary open boat which you could join at St. Mary's, it might well prove the best solution, and certainly even more useful to Miss Dudley. Elsie is, as you say, the one chiefly concerned. In any event we are looking forward to your visit on this side and will be despondent if you don't come. Why don't you write to Copenhagen and see what their schedule for weekend visits to the Eriksfjord will be?

All is in order about your list of author's copies of Sikelia, and Miss Dingle will type it up on Monday and send it off. You were right. Petrie was down both on your list for Ireland and for England. This has been changed. You did not mention Saillet, but I presume this is because he does not read English. Chester Page is on the list. When does he go. I have a curious feeling that he will find some sailor friend on the passage over and will have his protection once they are around the old harbor at Copenhagen.

I am being a true friend and enclosing the *Time* account of Kim Philby. I think I told you that the American Ambassador in London told us that Kim had been under suspicion for a long time. There was no present danger, he assured me, but for Philby to have been in such a position once.... It sends shivers simply to think of it.

I have had a wire from Aurelia, and am to fly to Canton this next Thursday evening, leaving here at 4 and being there about 9. Fortunately there is now a limousine directly to Newark, which is a godsend. It begins only on May 1st, so I am lucky to have waited. A drive-it-yourself will be at the airport for me. Without a car one is helpless in that country, as you know. I plan to return Sunday afternoon, which should give me more than enough time to get through Hodgson's things and have the necessary discussions with her.

The Many Ray memoirs have now been published and will be shipped to you on Monday by surface. Since it is expensive I have read it first, and hope you will not mind. Actually it has not yet actually been published, this is an advance copy. I wonder what you will think of it, having known him or met him. I found it disappointing and somehow do not like the personality which emerges from his narration. He was a good photographer, but somehow one feels one is reading about a second-rate painter and a sexual goat who somehow cheapened even his art with the camera. He never really tells you anything about anyone else, only their dada escapades together. And these escapades date. Yet the book belongs on the shelf with the memoirs of Paris, so do not throw it away.

The copy of *The Young Carthaginian* did come, the full leather binding

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

Back at the office this Sunday morning, though it is now
nearly noon (we lost an hour however by daylight saving time coming in).
Sometimes I think I achieve my tidyness only by shoving things under the
rug. Nevertheless, I am making a little headway, and must do so since I
begin lecturing again this Tuesday and of course will be spending the
weekend doing our missionary work.

Last night I spent chiefly reading the verbatim reports of
the International Writers Conference in Edinburgh, about which you may
have read in the press. I ale wants to buy the tape recordings of it all.
I must say I don't know what to advise, and anyhow think their minds are
made up to get it. As a curiosity of our age I suppose it is invaluable.
At any rate, verbatim reports (spelled out by ignorant typists) are always
hilarious. I am enchanted by references to the excellence of such writers
as

Falconer
Sol Bello
Truman Capodi
Sellinger
Yudal Weldi

B. Skalliwak (who can be be?)
and Burroughs (The Naked Lunch Man) "who does deal with

herpine ediction."

It is full of profound statements like Hugh McDiarmid, "I am
a Communist" (because of World War I); Alexander Trocchi, a Scot, "I am a
homosexual.... I am pro the American criminal, the American writer...." Etc.
I must say I learned nothing. Burroughs gave, however, a long defence of
experimentalism in writing which you may like, and I shall have Mrs Dingle
copy it tomorrow and send along. It is a little foolish, but better reading
than almost anything else that was said. Durrell and Miller were of course
there, but too wise to speak much.

I think I wrote you that tomorrow I will mail out the Man Ray memoirs,
and with it a copy of a magazine in which David Horne (whom you once helped) will
be writing a column of the work of editors in presses. It might interest you.

Love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

Yours of the 26th was in this morning's mail. For which my thanks. No, your letters never depress me, although they sometimes over- whelm me with my sense of negligence. I have not yet been able to drive to Palisades to see Horace and confer about Rose's visit. It will take a weekend, for Pat should be there. He will have to carry much of the responsibility for shuttling her in and out from Palisades, and show her about New York. As I wrote you, this weekend is to be devoted to our duties to the memory of Hodgson. Perhaps I can manage the Gregories next weekend. I shall be glad when the year is over and I can collapse. (This is a sultry day, and I was put in the position of having to drink champagne this noon. In ten minutes I must go to a lecture on Soviet Studies in American History; and at five-thirty to a party, dinner, and reading by Eudorah Welty. I still have my lecture to prepare for tomorrow. I think I am a little tired.)

The Saturday Review has an odd position. It is much read and believed in, in the countryside. My brother, for example, subscribes. So does my sister. Somehow, being a magazine, it seems more authoritative than the Sunday New York Times.

Your new plans for writing sound exciting, especially since it comes completely as a surprise to me and I had not known of it as part of your master plan. I should certainly trust instinct in these matters, and if you feel the urge to do the novel instead of the second part of the memoirs, more power to you. It should be fun to write, and wonderful to read. Only don't suddenly shift back into a defense of what you write on the basis of "good business" to get it out at such or such a time. You sound as though, like a Sylvia, you were defending yourself to your father on the grounds of being a good business woman. You are a good business woman, but as you say this has nothing to do with art. The thing to do is to write for the sake of what you write, and any year is a good year for a good book.

I enclose an item from Sunday's Times on Zermatt, so that you can see how quickly they are putting the car back on the road. It all sounds rather blithe. Especially the total of 32 carriers. This must be a new record.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

30 April 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am back from my noon and afternoon trip to New York for the Book Awards Committee, and am at the office while Susan goes to a concert with her mother who is using my ticket. This seems to be an arrangement on which Mrs Bennett depends while she is in New Haven, a little to Susan's annoyance since she feels her mother might get her own season ticket. At least it helps me to gain an extra hour or two at my desk, especially useful since I will have to be away from Thursday afternoon until Sunday night with Aurelia.

I have had a letter from Owlacres confirming my coming. She wants me to use Ralph's downstairs room nights, but I shall stick to my reservations with a motel. I do not mind the absence of bathrooms, but I do think a twelve hour day with her will be enough for each day.

Susan was in a happy mood when we joined them for dinner at the Lawn Club. It has rained all day, after a complete drought for almost a month. And unless it has rained an inch today this April will have been the dryest in the history of the weather station here. She was happy too because the local flower show took place; she entered a line of daffodils and the like and received a blue ribbon for every entry but one. And best of all she got an unheard of award for one of Doris' bulbs: "Special Distinction." She will be writing Doris while I am away.

I shall try to write Doris myself tonight, having heard from a manuscript dealer that he will pay her $300.00 for the two T.E. Lawrence letters if she wishes to sell them. I should think that was a good price, but leave the decision to her. I also took the folder of Hilda's letters to Eric White in to New York to be evaluated, and will see what estimate the dealer (another one) would put on them. He is a friend, and I suppose I should be willing to pay whatever he would pay White for them; this would of course not be his sale price if he did buy them. I will see. Perhaps the money could come from Hilda's royalties. I will let you know what price.

I shall also have to write Lizzie tonight and send her her monthly allowance, since Mrs Bennett had had a letter from her (we have not) saying she was moving back at the middle of the month. So that is that. I hope it works out all right, without too much new tension.

I am sorry about Doris' eyes and heart, and suppose you must really go not only for Elsie's sake but for Doris'. Both would be disappointed. Poor Elsie has so little to fall back on, and as you say will not really try to fit in. I suspect her problem basically is wanting to be your chief interest in life (but on her petit bourgeois Swiss terms). In a sense she is above her station, knows it, and reacts defensively. What one must say, however, is that she is genuinely devoted to and does keep Kenwin going in a way that few could.

I was interested in the computer scheme, but would think this was something for an American foundation to take care of with a lump sum. They are always talking about this sort of indexing, on this side, but my impression is that it works better

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

when applied to languages with a stricter grammar than English has. Also with
one which, as in the case of classical Greek or Hebrew a much more limited corpus
to index. English is so loose in structure, with a good deal of its particular
beauty coming from the freedom and variety of syntactical arrangement, that one
could be much less sure of the results in the case of an author like Shakespeare.
In the first place the textual situation with him is such that we cannot completely
be sure that we have his precise text for any play, and if we did then this would
have to be compared to a more or less extensive correspondence with all of Elizabethan
writing. Work such as the Rev Morton describes depends too of course on the
actual indexing and programming being done. Yet the theory of probabilities, on
which the calculations depend, certainly does have some relevance to stylistic
matters and, as he says, has been done for generations on a laxer basis by
individuals.

The real event of the day for me was the arrival by mail of the
first copy of *Sikelia*. Your own will probably reach you by airmail before this
letter does. It looks handsome, and the statements on the back of the jacket,
about the memoirs, are correctly flattering. I hope you will be pleased. I
doubt very much, however, if I will sit myself down to read it once again just
now. I am too eager to begin reading your new novel. It is an excellent idea
to show the scheme to Helen. I shall be eager to get her reaction when I see
her in New York.

You will probably also receive Jovanovich's pamhlet on the new
building for Harcourt Brace. It makes a rationale of publishing, but is a
little frightening. I was especially frightened by the idea that H B & World
could be hired for a fee to correct examinations for schools. Alas, someone
ought to have checked his literary history, when he speaks of American writing
beginning to experiment not only in style but in experience, "beginning with Robert Fro
Sherwood Anderson, and Eugene O'Neill." He should be introduced to the work of
Gertrude, Pound, James and some others.

Anyhow, as I have written him, your book being scheduled to be published
on May 29th will be the youngest baby to move to the new home on June 1st.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am off to Minerva in 20 minutes, but want to send at least a last minute note. It is cold and like March rather than May. I shall probably shiver in the twigs of Owlacres. But at least this will be one more of the things accomplished. Next, I shall have to check up on the Gregories.

I run back over the recent letters, trying to remember what I have not commented on. Jocelyn's book of essays is one. You will remember that he talked about it when we were together. This looks most difficult to place on this side, especially without a prior British publication. God knows there are enough collections of critical essays published on this side, but usually either by "names" or by local faculty members whose university press feeds an obligation. I do hope eventually that I can help it, but with several manuscripts now on hand to be sent around it would only imperil theirs to add one more at the moment. Perhaps when I get back from Japan. I only wish he had the kind of literary stamina that 07%, and get back into the game by trying a travel book or something of that sort that the British market would take.

Your account of the fire, and shifting the burden to Clarens was frighteneing. Alas, the same sort of thing happens on this side. The fault, I guess, is a human rather than a national one. Meanwhile we may all burn to cinders.

The letter of the 29th was in this morning's mail, and I was glad to have a word of godspeed from you (tho I doubt that you actually knew I was going to Ohio). The main thing is that you will be seeing Helen, for which I am glad. You must have felt the full creative fire to have gotten along so well with the new novel. Maybe it will be done so that we can go over it together when you come this summer. In that case we may need more than a week, however. We can see. Meanwhile, type ahead. Helen will bring the intimations of it when I see her. I shall hold my breath in anticipation.

Perdita's visit sounds sensible, and I rather think that Elise will enjoy having Nicky. He is lively and responsive. When I saw him last he was mad about different foreign moneys, and if you want to peppare for him you might dig up some oddments of this sort. Yet a child's whim changes with the wind, and he may no longer feel the same attraction.

I will check on the Malamud's when I come back. Yet, he is one of the ones you should read.

I shall bear your greetings to Aurelia, knowing you would have sent them.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

A rather hectic return to my desk by way of Ohio, begun this early morning at 8 by a visit to the dentist. On Friday morning in Canton I had brushed a gold inlay out of my tooth, but fortunately rescued it since he could reinsert it at a substantial saving to me. Once at the office I discovered that Mrs Dingle was confined to her bed by migraine. Alas there was nothing to insert in her place, so I have spent the day answering phone calls, living with no defense against visitors, and being generally so demoralized that I have done little but pay bills, go through the accumulated mail, and other tasks which didn't mind constant interruption. The lady professor from the Philippines who suddenly appeared on the day I left, to be kept happy until the 15th, of course reappeared just as I was preparing to leave for the Dean's office. She must feel that Yale is less than hospitable. I have only a few minutes now before I must leave for the annual dinner for the seniors in Jonathan Edwards College, but must not let the day pass without at least thanking you for the three letters, two waiting for me and one in today's mail, which have been the bright spots in the day.

Your adventure on the train was in your usual fashion of magnetism for the waifs, but what a sad waif this one was and how lucky that you could have been there for her to overflow on. I suppose it could have happened in any country, but one would have thought that even for a stolid race like the Swiss, someone would have had sympathy on her. Of course some one did, but still.

I am delighted your visit with Helen went off well, and especially that she likes the idea of the new novel. So do I. I see it now sperming up from all your winter-weather digging into the local records. You have it in your bones too. It will be fresh and fine. Since Mrs Dingle is not here I cannot actually ask her if she is willing to do the typing as before, but I see no reason why she should not. She is trying to earn extra money against her daughter's marriage a year from now. I daresay they intend a wedding splurge, within their bounds and a little beyond. I should think it would work better with her at the keyboard than Miss Maishman. At least it did so before. And I always pay her extra for this, taking it out of the royalty account. So airmail what you have over, and it will go back to you similarly.

How terrible that the Wolves should have thought I was less than appreciative of the printer's contribution to *Four Studies*. It is what makes the book, and I have said so to everyone to whom I have sent it. If I did not stress it to them, but said more about what they themselves had done for the book, it was by way of emphasizing their own part in the project. I can make this clear when I see them in New York, as undoubtedly I will.

I am so sorry about Doris's condition, and fear this may be a pull downward for her. I do think, if you can bear it, that you ought to make an effort to see her this summer, with a perhaps every-other-day nor-Nor to break the monotony. If the eyes really go, then perhaps it will be a blessing if the heart goes too. Yet if anyone could stand up under the strain, Doris certainly is that one.

I enclose a little clipping about the newest leak in the defense H.Q.
Still, this is not quite the way to put it, for obviously the same source is
responsible for both bits of publicity.

Downes, who is now a London hospital to have a tumor removed, writes
about the Vassall Case, saying, "the report is the most lurid and unashamed
job of self whitewashing by the jolly old Etsbalishment, so jolly a fact that
even nurses, taxi drivers, and labour politicians see through it and wouldn't
upset the boat or even rock it for anything. I am sending you a copy for your
delectation as an ex-English security official (part time) and former U.S. security
officer. Perhaps the library would like it afterwards--it would be hard to know where
to put it; beside Alice in Wonderfand or with the Florence Nightingale Collection."

This is most kind, and what is apparently the copy he mentions rather than the
one from you (or is it?) arrived by airmail this afternoon, on the heels of his
own letter. But you must interpret as to why the airmail copy carries a card on
it:

With the compliments of Mr. M. A. Pelham

Abitibi Bathurst (UK) Ltd
195 Knightsbridge London SW7

Knightsbridge 9148/9

Now who is Mr Pelham, and why does he have a card printed to accompany copies of
this particular report? It sounds more than just a whim of Downes to ask a friend
to send me a copy.

I expect your analysis.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

A dreadful day of appointments and I am tired of sitting by 5:45 when I begin this note to you. Mrs Dingle did come in a little after nine this morning, having visited her doctor who told her to use her own judgment about spending the day at the office. Telling me this of course meant my using my own judgment, and since she looked so woe-begone I asked her if she didn't want to go home. No, she said, she really ought to do the letters I had dictated last Thursday morning. Anyway she did go home at noon, and I have spent from two o'clock until now answering the phone and being my own receptionist as well as host. I gather from the secretary next door that I am rather tooblame, --one presumes by driving her too hard etc. and, I think, by unfortunately being so busy that I have not really been able to ask daily about her daughter at college, her son at school here, and how things are going at the Baptist Church. I am sure that I must seem preoccupied and aloof, and in a cold way critical when things cannot be located by her. But knowing this doesn't make me any more rested, or remove the dissertation that I must begin to read tonight after I have finished reviewing the book I teach tomorrow and arrange for guests to have lunch with Lawrence Ferlinghetti whose poetry reading I shall have to introduce tomorrow afternoon.

Will I ever be glad when the term is ended! And my leave of absence begins. And am I grateful for your making it possible for me to get the hell out to Japan!

Your two letters of the 4th were in today's mail, but I will not try to comment until tomorrow.

I have had a report from the N.Y. dealers on Hilda's letters to Eric White (32 letters and postcards). "With three or four exceptions," the report reads, "this strikes us as a relatively dull and insignificant correspondence. If Seven Gables Bookshop were asked to make an offer on this lot as a purchase for stock, we think we would try to buy it at about $250.00 and $300 on the theory that the retail value is about $450.00." This seems pretty much to confirm my own opinion of the significance of the correspondence, but because we wanted to help White out a little, I suggest that I take $300.00 from Hilda's royalties and, quoting the dealer, off it to Eric. It would in effect be a little legacy from her to him, and his letters and the poems gave her a mild sort of pleasure during her life. What do you think?

My mind is a little too foggy for much more than this.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

Wretched days, these last ones of the term. And I struggle
to keep my head above the water, especially having lost last weekend and a little more
by my trip to Aurelia. This morning when I might b otherwise have been correcting papers
OR WRITING YOU, I spent delivering a so-called humorous talk before the undergraduates
of Timothy Dwight College and Benjamin Silliman College, as a prelude to a beer-drinking
contest between the two held on one of the campuses. It sounds absurd, and it is absurd,
but I was asked to do so by the students to whom my name had been suggested by one of the
college masters. So I bent my head.

Your letter of the 7th was in today's mail to delight me by the
news about Kenneth's manuscript. This will be wonderful indeed, and only goes as a
further demonstration of how unpredictable publishers can be. I do hope with all my heart
that it really works out this way. And if it does I am glad I did not continue to
circulate the manuscript to two publishers at the same time.

Various yellowbacks of your letters to Silvia have been coming
in, as well as the Michaux which of course I am delighted to add to the collection. I
have finally steeled myself and delivered the various Mary Butts books to the Yale Library,
and made a little shelf space that way. I will finish by seeing whether I have any more
of Dorothy Richardson's books to send. I want as much as possible to be in order before
I leave for Japan.

A letter came from the London warehouse saying that the two
packing cases of goods are now on the high seas. We will be as delighted as Margery
was with her glass.

Tomorrow should be undisturbed at the office, so that I can write
a truer letter than this note is.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

I sudden to look at my desk and ungraded graduate student papers,
but this morning I write you first. The coming week will probably bring you
only scraps of everything except love.

But I begin by scraps, all the same, since the little pile of your
things beside my typewriter is so confused that I should never have time to write
at all if I tried to put it into some sort of preliminary order.

Dorothy Doolittle's letter seemed agreeable and understanding. I am
still completely sure you did the right thing in saying no to her request for
money. She has, I think, visions of a bottomless well, and her only real chance
to get back to a true reality in all things is for her not to depend on such a
well. I was much interested in Melvinkle Doolittle's picture in his company
journal, since one can see immediately from it how he stood a little apart from
Hilda by his open "salesman"s face, and apart even a little from Harold who has
underneath him a stronger personal character. You of course knew them both,
but I should think that Harold understood Hilda (at least to a degree) better
than Melvinklever could.

I think I had told you I had a letter from Islay thanking for my
cheque for the photographs. He says that Donald Downes is now back in Rome after
his operation. "Filial comportamento is not productive of gossip," he says, "so
I have nothing spicy for you." And so I have little really to relate. I was much
interested in the Gandharan piece he bought from London. He really begins to have
a fine collection of what I imagine are the right sort of Gandharan objects. Susan
and I went obediently last night to a meeting of some Yale faculty club where
Ingolt lectured on the Yale Gandharan Buddha and another piece belong to a young
faculty member, Michael Coe, who had dinner with us beforehand. It was an excellent
summary of the problems of dating and authenticity (he speaks well), but one could
see clearly enough that what interests him and the others is not single figures
(as objects of art) but the panels which tell stories and are connected with the
Buddha story and the development of styles in that connection. I myself, I suspect,
lean more towards the Buddha head you gave me and which I truly cherish.

I do thank you for passing along Rosemary's comment on Michael's
lecturing. It brings up always that difficult problem of the expert in a field
not necessarily being a talented performer on the platform stage. There is room
for both of course, but they are seldom combined. However, since Michael would
presumably be speaking chiefly to experts here, and since I did tell Ingolt about
the appearances before the British Academy in Rome, I think inquiries should be
made by princeton from them. As you say, he may well have been worried because his
wife was not along; or he may simply have been bored by an audience of sheer
beginners.

As to Rosemary, she does seem to have enjoyed her trip and it is wonder-
ful that she could have made it. It will always be with her in memory. I enclose
the first review I have seen of her new book, by Richard Winston in today's Herald
Tribune. I should have sent it directly to her (you may want to send it on while
it is fresh) had I not thought you would like to read it because of Winston. It is
a nice review, and the publishers will like it. Yet, am I right in feeling he
holds back slightly? Perhaps it is only in comparison with his much greater

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

enthusiasm for your own book. I hope he will be given Sikelia to review.

I was delighted that Jocelyn seems to have enjoyed our visit with him, and it was particularly pleasant to have met him at last. He worries me a little, however, in terms of the future. Much as I envy the so-called cottage life in little villages, away from it all, I sometimes suspect that the consequence is that of being out of touch. I understand his dislike of Sartre, Joyce, Stein, Miller, and the like; and, as he does, I admire Denton Welch, Ronald Firbank and that group. Yet between these two groups there is no real choice as to which is the more important. And I do not feel that he feels anything really to set against them. There is a little of Herring in him (not drink of course), in the danger that he will somewhat aimlessly begin to putter with writing when he might do so much bravely on his own. I suspect however that I simply do not understand what he stands for, although liking him immensely. I miss, for the moment, a kind of vitality that Kenneth, for example, retains.

Melitta continues to appear derangee, and I feel sorry for her without quite forgetting my Puritan conscience which tells me that she would be happier if she actually would settle down to work somewhere. Or, paradoxically, if she would settle down in Austria not to work. At the moment she has nothing either to fight for, or fight against, and could so easily become a burden to anyone on whom she fastened for strength. The worst is, in her case, that she does have very real abilities.

I continue to be astonished at the sudden maturity that Catha shows in the style of her letters. Marriage was for her certainly the best possible solution, for she was daddy's little girl almost too long. Although it may seem harsh for me to say so, and I am speaking only in reference to herself, it was perhaps lucky for her that Aldington did not live until ninety.

I see that Rose now prefers not to come over until early fall, and this will simplify matters in regard to the Gregories and especially Pat (in terms of his Irish holiday). New York can be unbearably hot in summer, and with Pat away there would be no one to take her to Harlem and the other spots in New York she would like to visit. We can arrange all this now, when I go to see Horace. It must be on a weekend when Pat is to be there, and so far there have simply been no weekends. Classes, however, end next Wednesday, and if I can finish the administrative business soon, as well as correct papers, as I shall be doing this afternoon, I will be able to go to them. I feel guilty in not having gone, but have simply had no choice.

Pat's own letter was interesting, although I continue to find him better and more natural as a person than as a correspondent. Somehow in his letters one senses an effort to be "literary." I wonder if he has the drive to write his own things at night in his flat, and I wonder where he will end up. For him too the problem of parental need (and loyalty on his part) is a serious barrier to being on his own. But this is a problem which they and he will have to solve themselves.

Now to return to your own recent letters which I have done little more than mention in my recent notes. I do have your two of the 4th, and the 6th and the 7th which fall into that category.

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HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

My idea was that you might properly, while I am in Japan, continue
to send the yellowbacks of correspondence or anything else which turns up, to
me in my name at the office. Mrs Dingle can simply make a pile of them (there
is plenty of room) for me to go through when I return. It does seem to me that
in this way they will not clutter up your own shelves; and it does seem to me
also (and has proved to be true) that I keep in touch better with your affairs
and responsibilities and friendships by the chance to read the letters. I can
do selective reading on evenings next February when I come back.

She is, by this way, well over her fatigue and migraine (at least I
hope so), and I have been careful to ask her about church and family. She says
she would be delighted to type drafts of the new novel, except that in August
she will be on holiday and would prefer not to do so then. I can get someone
else during that period, and this will in any event get you through (I hope)
the first draft of the new novel. Certainly it will get you through whatever
you have written before your summer visits to the States and our chance to go
over together what you have written up to that time. As you say, you are the
authority on Vaud, so there is nothing to worry about on that score.

Jovanovitch has told me from the beginning about his plans for the
new Harcourt bookstore, and you should be able to visit it when you are here.
We have had several conversations about its use, since we agree completely that
publishers, editors, and salesmen on the road ought to have the experience of
selling. I told him that it was a similar suggestion of mine that persuaded
Ginsberg, the owner of Viking, to have his son (a student of mine and now president
there) take training with both printers and bookstores before entering the business.

Maggs sent me the list of Greenland books in their possession, and I
have checked against what is already in our collection. As you remembered, we
do have a copy of the Crantz, and although it is not in as good condition out-
wardly as the one they offer, the text is sound and it seems to me a waste to
buy the one they have. Similarly we already have O'Reilly. The rest we do not
have, and I enclose the list for you to order whatever you think we should add.
If you decide on the Greenland Commission publication, I suspect it would be
worth the little extra to get the bound volumes rather than the ones in original
wrappers. I leave this to you.

The Vassal report has arrived, for which many thanks. I cannot read
it for a few days but will report promptly when the chance comes. I noticed in a
recent TLS a history of British counter-espionage and will order directly for
myself unless you have already done so. There are one or two other things I shall
probably order at the same time, like the new edition of the letters of WYndham
Lewis.

I will check on the date of Swiss Family, and several other matters,
and let you know. Including the books you wanted, and a check on Kent's Greenland
Summer. I enclose the first accounting from the yale Co-op; you still have a
good balance.

I was delighted to read in a recent *New Yorker*, Louise Bogan's (April 27th)
 inclusion of Hilda as an important writer. Delighted because she was a hard nut
to crack, and it took me years of sending her personal copies of Hilda's books
even though I knew she would get review copies of them. I know you do not always

4

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

have time for the *New Yorker* and so quote a part of her article. I can send on the whole, if you are interested. Or show it to you when you come. Louise writes:

"The old untruth that female writers imitate male masters has been pretty well demolished. Since the early nineteenth century, women writers in English as well as in other tongues, have freed themselves for good from damming and debasing eighteenth-century labels. Miss Austen, in Regecy times, managed to put together one perfect kind of novel from the bits and pieces--journals and letters--scattered through earlier centuries by literate Englishwomen. Mater women began to appear in every true literary vanguard, often so far in front that the rank and file did not know of their existence. In this way, Emily Brontë and Emily Dickinson broke out of the binding confines of the personal over into broad regions of human complexity, and, more recently, Marianne Moore, Gertrude Stein (at her least compulsive), and the late Hilda Doolittle extended poetry's limits while reforming poetry's means."

It is just this sort of statement that I have been trying to stimulate on Hilda's path towards the reputation she so richly earned.

I also enclose in what will certainly be a far overweight letter, an account of The Vicar, of which I had not heard until you wrote me that Helen had given it to you. I wish they would publish it, but suppose Helen's religious convictions will bar her. I shall try to urge her to do it, nevertheless. I think that Hochhuth is right, and remember very well how my friend Dixon Wecter who has joined Rome as a convert, withdrew from the Church at the beginning of the war. No, long before it, after the Nazis had come into power. He pointed out, and argued with many inside the Faith, that the 30's were the great moment of challenge to Rome. That this was the one time when the Catholic Church might make a bold stand against what Nazidom stood for. By keeping silent they were on its side, speaking only when Catholic power in Avaria was itself threatened; being so anti-Russian that they would ally themselves on the side of the devil; losing their chance when Russia and Germany allied with each other. What one had was the mouthing of pious sentiments in a world that needed a more martial tone on the side of morality. One senses this even now with the new Pope in his being given this immense Balsan Peace Prize. One cannot say that the Vatican did not know what was going on, for they have one of the finest intelligence services in the world. Reports come in regularly and are of the finest quality, as they were during the thirties also. I know because at one time one of my men in Italy developed a pipe-line to their service. And then of course, general Donovan, a pious Catholic himself, insisted on telling the Pope and closing the channel.

The last week has been filled with these end-of-the-year meetings, whose pace will continue to increase for a fortnight longer. The chief distraction for me was having to entertain Lawrence Erlinghetti, doyen of the Beats, from his City Lights publishing house in San Francisco. He came to read his poems and brought with him another Beat, Gregory Corso who had been married the day before and brought his trembling bride along for a honeymoon. Erlinghetti is really only a second class poet, but he is so well known that even on a warm spring afternoon he drew more attendance than anyone except Frost this year. He read badly, the undergraduate Beats applauded loudly, and the newspapers were satisfactorily appalled by the subjects of his verse and the appearance of the audience.

5

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

At the end of the last page I had to quit and go home for lunch. On my way back I stopped at the Peabody Museum for a last look at the eskimo show. It comes down on Wednesday. Alas, one casualty, but fortunately not to anything of mine. The great tusked walrus head of the Museum's, which they put on the far wall to liven up the space (there was a whale-jaw, driftwood, and other bones used as materials by the eskimos) had had a chocolate bar put in its mouth and all of the whiskers pulled. So it was taken down. But the rest looked better than ever and I realize I have not really been able to see or enjoy it until it could be spread out and properly lighted. I feel now that I know much better what I need to add, if the chance ever comes, as well as what I have. And, if I do say it, I suspect that there are not many better private collections. I am told that Mrs. Bliss, in Washington, has a number of truly great pieces --and I have few of those, if any-- yet by the goodness of my collection I mean the spread of it in terms of objects. How I wish you might have come over to see the show, but perhaps someone else will put it up sometime somewhere, and if so I shall insist on your popping across. Considering the comparatively small amounts I have paid for the objects I was considerably startled at the evaluation the Museum place on it for insurance during the show. Perhaps I ought to put it in the bank while I am away.

Susan having read the local morning paper by the time I came home, I can now also include a clipping by Roysce Smith, of the Co-op, on his visits to London bookshops.

Now as for the visit to Aurelia. My plane was a half hour late out of Newark, but I managed to find my way in the dark, eventually, from the Canton-Akron airport to my motel in Canton where I spent the nights. Although I dined with her each evening, I came home early on Friday after meat loaf (rather burned) at Owlacres--she is, as she says, rather a haphazard housekeeper--and on Saturday night when I took her to a Minerva restaurant for supper which lasted until ten but that was late enough. I did not drive to Minerva on Sunday, because she had her Sunday School class from 9:30 until 10:30, with church afterwards. The combination would have given me no time to talk, and indeed there was little left to be done by that time.

I drove out from Canton Friday morning and except for going to the cemetery in the late afternoon, spend the day going over some of his things and her affairs. She seems happy and adjusted, although anxious to move into town as soon as she can find the right kind of house. I told her not to hurry even if it meant hiring rooms this winter. In any event not to spend the winter there alone. She is frightened of it, and so are her friends. I had been wrong about Owlacres. They bought it, the house and 80 acres of pasture and woodland. The house, you know. There was an extra room behind Ralph's on the ground floor, making three in all in addition to the little pantry with the sink. But everywhere the wall paper is tattered and faded and dirty. There is no hallway connecting the rooms, and it can hardly be said to be appealing to the average person. Upstairs there are three rooms at the head of the steep narrow stairway which opens into the largest--one supposes the master bedroom. But the other two rooms again open only onto the master bedroom, there is no toilet or water upstairs, and if children occupied the other two smaller rooms they must always pass through the large bedroom to get anywhere. Privacy would be impossible. Aurelia was bitterly disappointed because the real estate man, friendly though he was, said that the most that could be gotten for the farm would be $5,500, and even so

6

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HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

there were already four farms for sale in the immediate neighborhood which had been on the market for some long time.

Yet she is very plucky about finances, and frank about them. Counting the value of the house and a legacy from her mother a couple of a years ago she has a total of a little over $25,000. Counting the income from that and her old age pension she will have $140.00 a month which she feels is sufficient except for emergencies. But I could not be sure about the sum required for taxes, and of course is she buys a house in town it will probably cost about $10,000. She was worried about the money to buy draperies for this eventual new house, and I told her I would help her to get settled. I did not say anything about chipping in on the house, although I suppose if I had to I could give her a second mortgage to make it possible. I thinks she feels independent, except for the pressure of emergencies. Fortunately she has now taken out health insurance and hospitalization.

I realized with renewed astonishment that for all intents and purposes she has been nowhere and down nothing since they settled at Owlacres in 1938. Ralph made one trip back to England then, without her; she spent her time at the factory or in caring for him. She spoke of going to Cleveland and said she understood they had a fine museum there. She had never been even that 60 miles. She has been asked to go to New York. She thought perhaps she could someday. She dreamed of perhaps once again going back to England, but did not want to return to Japan. She is a combination of innocence and a kind of human shrewdness. Booming up as a girl in Wisconsin she has a background of middlewestern populist liberalism. She brought out newspaper clippings to ask me what I thought about the churches attitude to premarital intercourse and homosexuality, being on the modern side in that regard. She wants to run for the schoolboard. One can see the feathers sprouting on the wings even though she does not want to fly very far.

She had been spending hours and days and weeks cataloguing all the books: back copies of Punch, annual stud books for bulldogs, anthologies which contained poems by Shelley, and the like. Best of all, I think, to her satisfaction she had begun going over letters to herself and Ralph which had been saved in suitcases and cardboard boxes as a squirrel saves nuts. Perhaps she had read the letters once, but many she had not. Hodgson obviously kept himself to himself. When she would ask why a group of books were kept together on top of the piano, he would say "there's a reason" but not give it. Now I think she feels he is hers. But what to do with him? She does not mind Fenton doing a biography but told him she would not help him. The letters were obviously saved because of their value; she does not want anyone to read them. Yet, anyhow. And I understand. Yet she is afraid of fire, and she should be. (I said I would get her a metal filing cabinet, and gave her a few lessons in how to sort them economically.) Everything was left to her by his will, so I do not know what became of the wish expressed to me as a fact on his 90th that the things were to go to Yale. I think perhaps in the end they may do so. But because of her financial situation I cannot really urge her to give them. I did say that she could deposit them in some library, retaining ownership, if ever she wanted them safe from fire; but that she should keep them as a kind of insurance against sudden need. In addition to the letters, Hodgson had also made several collections of Books which he wrapped up carefully so as to keep them pristine. Oddly, there was a complete run of Gertrude Stein, less oddly many many from Eliot inscribed to him. And a phenomenal collection of Siegfried Sassoon who must have been his closest friend: books,

7

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

manuscripts, and the like. Sassoon was obviously fond of him, although as
with most of his friends the association had broken off when Hodgson stopped
writing. There were Masefields, de la Mare's etc. All packed in wicker
suitcases which had never been opened since they arrived from Japan. But
almost nothing of his own manuscripts, even the missing sections of the
Mastiff poem, sections which Aurelia said had been coded. It is all most
mysterious. And there were packing cases of clippins from newspapers. We
went over some, but Aurelia would throw nothing away. The house was like
a squirrel's nest, all higgledy piggledy with objects, picked up at every
conceivable point. Yet we did get together a group of textbooks of English
literature and gave them to a nearby college when the widow of the late head
of the English department came. They were valueless but I got the widow
aside, while Aurelia was making tea, and told her she must take them away.
She understood and did. Aurelia does have wonderfully loyal friends in the
community.

The visit I think did do her good, and she enjoyed talking and I
hope will continue to ask for advice. I told her things she must take care of
when she remakes her will, and this was usefyl for her. She wanted me to see
the cemetary and I was glad to go there with her. It could not be more beautiful
nor more fitting as his burial place: a small country cemetary on the top of a
hill looking out over the landscape he loved, with his own farm just over the
next brim. There are perhaps a hundred graves, two or three new ones a year.
She has a crowded 10'x10' lot for them both, but there are no divisions between
lots. People simply lie there in the country soil. On Saturday morning at
her urgent request we drove to Canton, or rather she met me there, and we went
to a tombstone carver, she not having liked her visit to the Minerva equivalent.
She had thought of an obelisk but didn't know how the inscription could be put
on it. I suggested the possibility of a flat tombstone like Hilda's Moravian
one, with some of Hodgson's own poetry on it in order that later generations would
know what a poet had lived and died there. A kind of social spark to some possible
child of another generation. She liked that, but when we discussed it with the
tombstone dealer he expressed horror at the irreverence of a horizontal memorial.
"You say he is well known?" he asked. "Then it must be monumental. One might
step on it otherwise. We do not follow the Mormon custom here (I could never
persuade him that Moravians were not Mormons). Why," he said, I have done stones
for many great heroes of war, even colonels (at which I doubled up inside in laughter,
and have never done a horizontal tomb." He did finally have a better agument on
the basis of its cracking in the winter on a hilltop, and I imagine she will
settle for an upright plain stone with poetry carved on it. I urged her not to
make her mind up at the moment, but again said that I would help her with the cost
so that she could have what really pleased her. We could do it together (I wanted
her to feel her share). Actually I think it was a help to have me there, for I
could beat off the man's preposterous ideas without losing sight of the intention
she had for an obelisk. And the man was basically nice, so she should eventually
have what she wants.

She wants to go slowly, to linger and savor each decision. For example,
many people brought Ralph tobacco in brands he did not care for. She has a small
closet full of unopened tins. She took two tins to the poorhouse for the old men
there, and was happy that they liked it. Perhaps this summer she would take over
two more tins, she said. My own instinct would have been to clear it all out and
let the old men smoke themselves to death in a delerium of tobacco joy. Ralph's

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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

13 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

After yesterday's tidal wave I feel as though there was
little news left in me. But your letters of the 9th and 10th came to
welcome in the week for me. I was sorry Michael had not been well, and
am glad I said nothing to Ingholt about Rosemary's misgivings.

As to the summer I have always assumed end of July or
beginning of August so as not to crowd either end for you, or come too
close to when I shall be leaving for the East. On the whole the first
days in August are probably best, since Mrs Dingle will be here until
the end of July and this permits me to make the most of her time. We
have promised the Addisses to take the small children for a week in
July (if he can get a vacation) so that they can get away from the care
of the young ones and have a holiday of their own. They are much excited
at the project. We (you and I, that is) can work here, or combine that
perhaps with a drive to the Hotsons in Maine, so that once and for all
you will have accomplished that chore. I would like you to see Maine,
which is more important than to see them. I have said nothing to them,
since I never see them or hear from them unless casually on the street.
I had thought I would hear after sending them *Four Studies*. But never a
peep. Still, I know how busy he must be on his book or books. They
are quite hermits so far as Yale is concerned, although they are both
active in their little church.

I am always troubled about Doris's heart as well as her eyes.
Still, she will probably go on for a long time yet, and few have her capacity
for enjoying life. I shall only be sorry when Pamela is married. It will be
difficult for Doris to find another young one so apparently congenial. How
glad I am that we could make our visit this spring.

Sorry that I misunderstood the second Spies for Peace by confusing
them with the first incident, or rather confusing the first incident with the
second.

I went to the Co-op and had three more Malamud paperbacks sent out
to you. They did not seem to know about the reissue of Rockwell's, and so
will inquire again later. Have just had a new batch of Ballantyne come in:
Coral Island, Erling the Dane, The Pirate City, Under the Waves, and Freaks on
the Fells (end Why I Did Not Become a Sailor). I think he must have written
more than even Henty did. Did I write you that manuscripts have arrived, but
I shall not open until after the term ends, lest they are improperly filed.

I wrote to Eric this morning and offered him the $300.00 for his
letters from Hilda.

I play the fife and drums so that you can keep on marching to *Colors* of Vaud.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

No letter from you today, and so no questions to answer.
And not much of excitement, either, to report on.

Chiefly the day is memorable because I gave my last large
lecture in the undergraduate course, and it will be a long time befor
I have to do it again. The longer interval the better. Still there
was a sense of nostalgia in going back during the year on the platform,
and a little pride too in knowing that I had not altogether lost the
touch. The boys were very generous, and when I had finished they
applauded loudly and stood while I walked off the platform and up the
long aisle and out of the room.

Tomorrow I have my last graduate seminar, and then that too
will be over. But not the papers to be corrected, and the undergraduate
honors theses, and the various reports. They will go on and on and on.

I forgot to tell you that Harold Doolittle called on Sunday
night when we were at dinner. Mostly I should think simply to talk,
but stimulated by Melvin's burial which I gathered was to take place
this week. He too will be buried at Bethlehem. Harold said that
Hilda's stone was now in place, and this being so perhaps you would
like me to drive you there when you come over.

I had also a letter from the National Book Awards Advisory
Committee accepting my retirement from it after a four-year term. I
had said at the last meeting that I should be away and felt I would not
be of much use to them. So I am rid of another obligation. One really
cannot go on with these things forever, and I have no regrets.

I was astonished to read a letter to Donald Gallup from Flossie
Williams about "a very disagreeable affair concerning Norman Pearson." She
went on, "You of course know that Norman is Bryher's agent? --advisor or
what have you.---Norman O.K.'d a passage in Bryher's book concerning Bill
which is 100% false--and how Norman could do such a thing is beyond us.
Bill was so incensed--when he read it that he said he never wanted to see
or have anything further to do with Norman.... So when you plan to come here
to collect the material you are entitled to--please remember that Norman
Pearson is not to come with you." So your arrow must have hit.

Tonight I have to go to the annual dinner of an honorary society
for undergraduates, of which I am an honorary honorary. Another last event.
But as Eliot says, "In my end is my beginning."

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

16 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

I write as some 350 boys are finishing their final exam
in my lecture course. "It was terrible," one of them said when I met
him leaving the exam early. I hope it won't have been for all of them.
Soon I shall have to go to the Lawn Club to meet Susan for dinner and
then to the annual meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences,
of which I am a vice-president. Ingbotlt is president.

Your letters of the 12th and 13th came today after a period
of no letters, for which thanks. Elisabeth Borgese's mystique has caused
some lifted eyebrows here as well. She was Thomas Mann's daughter. Delighted
if you have succeeded in getting a fishing boat for Nor-Nour. I remember
Lady Vyvyan telling about her friend. I believe she was teaching at the
girls' school near you.

I enclose a letter from Jovanovich. It should please you
to be first among the publications from Harcourt's new building. Newsweek
phoned me this afternoon saying they wanted a different picture of you from
the one on the jacket to go go with the review they were running. This
will be a good break for the book, or at least it usually proves to be so.
I sent them the last two fresh ones from Islay, so it looks as though you
ought to run down to let him take a fresh lot. One has to have these on
hand, and as I told you when I was over last summer, and again in the Scillies,
it is time for a new batch.

The astronaut appears to be whirling about successfully. I hope
he manages the landing, or watering, well.

A yellowback in with this extraordinary letter of Lethbridge
with all its miraculous detail of daily living.

A professor Kuma of Osmania University in Hyderabad-Dn came to
see me this morning and showed me a book he had done on stream of consciousness
in the English novel. A long section on Dorothy Richardson, and he said
he had a number of letters from her in which she discussed her fiction,
preferring to think of it as fountain of consciousness rather than stream.
Etc. He offered to send me copies for me to have and Horace to use. They
could be very interesting indeed, for she speaks very little about her art
in the ones we have.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

18 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am a little groggy, having spent the day grading graduate school papers. Five more sets to do of those already handed in, but alas there are too many second term papers still to come, which will need correcting in a rush because of the deadline for grades. I am sustained only by the thought that it will be a long long time after this set before I have to do another. By then I trust I shall be reborn.

So groovy am I that I do not know whether I have written in answer to your letters of the 12th and 13th. I think I did, but hurriedly. Yes, I did; for I remember telling you that Elisabeth Borgese was Thomas Mann's daughter. If I remember correctly she married Borgese (in his 60's) when she was barely in her teens, and made him happy by bringing him his slippers as though he were papa. Now presumably she is beginning to live. I know she has done a book of short stories and some translations.

Your first chapter has arrived, and I hope Mrs Dingle can begin on it next week. Like a dutiful one, I did not read it, although I was bursting with eagerness to do so. And then this morning's post brought the letter of the 15th, your father's birthday, with its account of Oenone's actual visit. No doubt she will come again when Lady V appears. I do agree with you about these polyglot schools which go under the pretence of giving youngsters a foreign education, usually with the implication that they will speak French like a native of Vaud by graduation. There are a number of boys schools like this --Rosey, for example-- and they always seem to end up by having the students speak nothing but English. I am so glad that you liked "The American Writer and the Feeling for Community." I rather like it myself, and so have the various audiences when I have given it. Perhaps someday I can get Schnack to do a translations of several and make a German publication of them. You have not spoken of the Munich speech in its longer German version. Did yours never arrive. You had seen it once, of course, already, and used a shorter version in *Four Studies*. The "Two Engagements" of course was a different keettle of fish, really done for Smith's sake, but still attractively published I thought.

As to the dialogue in your book, your own instinct will serve you best, but mine would be not to try to archaize the way in which characters talk. It is tricky to emulate a period piece as though it came from the past. What you want is the spirit of the past, and this you always do wonderfully well.

The Butts things are, as you say, in the Library with the exception of her letters to you and hers to Hilda. It seems to me these belong more properly with your own papers and with Hilda's. The Maggs list has long since gone to you. I hope it will have reached you. Tell Rose that I am giving her ms to Horace, whose advice is always good. It will also serve to introduce her to him in a useful preliminary to their meeting.

I think I told you that I had run into an Indian (Prof. Kumar) who said he had four or five literary letters from D.R., of which he will send me copies once he is back at Osmania again.

2

I forgot to enclose Jovanovitch's letter in my last, but do so now. No
word as yet from Helen, but no doubt I shall be hearing shortly.

I was interested in Pup's letter about her trip with Nicholas. I think it
makes good sense, and am sure Elsie will take to him. Actually he is perfectly
capable of taking care of himself, and with Pup keeping an eye on him you will
still have a moment or two to yourself.

I repeat that you really must supply me with some fresh photographs of
yourself. I know how boring all this can be. Still it is important. I shall
rush you a copy of the *Newsweek* review which I suspect will be good or they would
not want a photograph to accompany it.

And now for various oddments. I was offered by Brimmell a copy of Volume
One of The Captain(1899), which we fortunately already had. Actually I think I
bought it from him. But it has an interview with 'enty in is, "When I Was a Boy,"
and I wonder if you saw it when you were here. It contains a certain amount about
Italy, for example: Knee- he tells that his despatches for the Standard about the
battle of Lisa, which he says ran to fourteen columns. I think that if I had
time and access to the Standard as well as to the Advertiser ("During my experiences
in the Crimea") I could pretty well track down what he wrote. Shall I have the
article copied, or will you wait to see it when you come over? You may already
have read it here, of course.

A letter this morning from Brother Volant, and at last I know that the "J"
stands for Jacques. He is visiting his family and then goes to Paris and from
there to Switzerland and back to Paris again with a few days when he can go to
Copenhagen. The trip costs, he says, back and forth, about $180.00, and he is
obviously panting to go. I did promise him this, and so will send him a draft
for $200.00. I suspect he would have difficulty cashing my check, so will arrange
through the bank. It really will be helpful to him to see the things in the Danish
National Museum, and I shall try to write Melgaard about him. It is a kind of
donation too to the Churchill Museum and a memorial to our visit there.

I picked up a science fiction paperback at the Coop and sent it to you on pure
spec, not having read it first. But not charged to your account since I cannot
guarantee it. Am also sending a copy of the second issue of a new literary journal
which will begin publication in the fall, really a new book of current reviewing.
The cost for a subscription, surface, abroad, however, is $14.00, so let me know
whether you want me to subscribe to it for you.

A letter from Aurelia thanking for my visit and saying she has started sorting
Ralph's letters according to the scheme I gave her, having bought some manila
folders to keep them alphabetical. I think I shall give her the money for a filing
cabinet so that they will not be all over the floor. I had thought to wait until
she moved into town, but since she is already at work it is better to have it done
properly and then properly housed.

Yesterday afternoon I had a surprise telephone call from Dr Goldenberg, the
surgeon who operated on Marya for her cancer. She seems to have seen him regularly,
despite (as he said) the difficulty in getting here. She has to go into New York
and then entrain, and return in the same painful fashion. He said their tests

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NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

indicated that there had been no spread of the malignancy, which was a good
sign (tho perhaps with a frightening undertone) but he did say that she seemed
dangerously exhausted and was full of complaints about the difficulties of taking
care of Horace, doing the chores, and I suppose keeping up her own writing.
Horace is making improvement and Dr Goldenberg said he had been asked to give
the commencement oration at the college where he had taught (Sarah Lawrence) and
he gathered that Horace was going to try to do so. That would be a compliment
and please him, and I hope he can. Dr Goldenberg wondered if there was any way
that Marya could be given help in the house, saying she would not naturally come
to me for aid (by which I suppose perhaps she subconsciously hoped that he would
act as intermediary). I can see that I ought to have made regular trips of
inspection after February, although I really don't know when I could have gotten
them in, and perhaps, equally subconsciously, I became a little exhausted at
the responsibility of running the Gregories' household too as well as my own.
(Lizzie arrives back in New Haven on Monday, I think, and since she has taken an
apartment which seems a little expensive to me, and shipped her car back by
rail, which is also expensive, I suppose I will have to step in further there.)
But I will try to go down in ten days or so, and see what can be done. Dr
Goldenberg spoke of help for Horace, but since this is only for dressing him,
I gather, which means two visits of a man a day, I myself (and Susan agrees)
think that some cleaning woman and perhaps occasional cook would actually do
more to help out in general. The present situation is that they have as non-
taxable income $3000 annually from you and $2000 annually from me in addition
to about the same from other sources. Marya told him they were too poor to have
help, and I suppose this is so, although I hope this is not partially due to her
saving up for a trip abroad. I will have to talk it over with them, and perhaps
raise my contribution so that it equals yours (which is certainly more than fair
on your part) or even a little more. It depends on what sort of help they can
get. It is certainly true that Marya has no reserve strength, either physical
or psychological (as Dr Goldenberg agrees) and this is still partly because of
the drain caused by her operation. Perhaps I can give the increase on a somewhat
temporary basis. Somehow I feel guilty both in not having gone there regularly,
and in not having given them a larger pension. Still, it is only natural to
make mistakes. The thing to do is to correct them. I certainly do not want to
have Patrick give up his vacation.

Oh yes, the Georgette Henry *Permis de séjour* has arrived, and also the Denton Welch selections with Jocelyn's introduction. For which, as always, thanks.

All love,
Jocelyn

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

A late Sunday afternoon missive, but this time before I settle in to do a few more graduate school papers. From yesterday evening until just now we have been grandparents, taking the two children while their parents went overnight to New York to see Jim's halfbrother (from Hollywood) who is en route to Europe. I fear the stay was rather exhausting for Susan, and even I felt it. Yesterday afternoon was raining so the two had to stay indoors. Today fortunately was fair and warm, so this morning I took them all to the shore where they could run, and this afternoon (after lunch) I left Susan to collapse and recover while I ran herd over both at the Nature Center. It is actually a very fine woody park, taken care of by the children of New Haven, where there are cages with foxes, hawks, possums, porcupine and other animals and birds native to this area. After that I took them to a piding stable where they could have pony rides, and so the afternoon went until 4:30 when we arrived at Goodrich Street just in time to welcome their parents.

Now we sit around and wait for Lizzie to arrive. Complications (perhaps financial) arose about shipping her car north so she drove it alone, telephoning last night from Newport News in Virginia saying she would be here for supper. This may be early, or it may be late. So I shall make hay.

Otherwise I think I reported pretty fully to you in yesterday's letter.

But one thing I did forget to ask you. In sending the collection of Hilda's books to the Library, they discovered and I have now later confirmed that in every copy she had of *Hedylus* either the top third with the dedication to Kenneth had been torn out, or else the whole page had been removed. So there is no perfect copy of the English edition of that book. For my own ears only, what happened? Did she suddenly turn on him for a moment and want to obliterate the tribute. I can't remember whether or not this was the period of his affair in the south of France of which you told me and she wrote in her private aide memoire: it certainly will be able to buy sometime a perfect English copy, so am not worried on that score.

I look for a hard week ahead.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

This has been a mad week of trying to get graduate school
papers corrected and grades in for those seeking degrees, the grades
for undergraduates etc etc., including more of the end of the year
"festivities." I have hardly caught my breath, but I think I shall spend
the weekend not on more papers (for which I have a breather) but in trying
to restore order to my desk. I write now at the end of the afternoon so
that this letter at least can go out in the early evening mail.

One more yellowback of Silvia's letters from you and Hilda
has come. And two of your own mail. I am glad to think that George is
now back at Marvels again, and Pup wrote me that he seemed like a new
man. I always shiver a little when I read in his letters of his faith
in osteopaths, but I am not sure it matters very much where one puts his
faith so long as he has it to give. I was interested to read in Viola's
Barbara's letter that she seemed to have seen less of Williams in the later
years. I suppose you and I might include a visit to them and to the Gregories
as a part of our trip to Bethlehem. It is all more or less in the same
direction. Barbara's jollity somehow frightens me, but I could sit in the
car and knit while you talked with Viola. I was pleased to learn from
Pat's letter that Horace had been into New York. Little changes of scene
like this will be important for him. On Monday night when I went to dinner
at the Graduates Club, for the New Haven Colony Historic Society, there was
a dinner being given in honor of Dr Germain the surgeon who did so wonderfully
well for Horace at the hospital. I had never met him and so introduced myself
in order to thank him. Fortunately he knew of my interest. He had heard
nothing from Horace since the hospital and was was anxious to know if I could
persuade him to return to the hospital for a checkup so that it could be
written up with the case history and Horace exhibited to the students who had
seen him before and been in on the operation. I said I would try to drive
down in July and bring him up for a night or so and then drive him back. This
will be one more interruption but an important one. I know that Gaylord also
hoped to make a checkup, and it occurred to me that perhaps the two could be
combined and that Marya might have a little vacation with Joanna at the same
time. Perhaps if it were even mid-July while Patrick was away it would be
still easier for them. In a letter which arrived this afternoon you spoke of
sending them another $1,000. My own hunch is that it would be better to wait
until after I have seen them, soon after next week, so that it would seem to
come as if for a particular purpose and to fit a particular need. I remember
when one of your thousand dollar checks went to them at the beginning of
Horace's hospitalization, Marya said joyfully how she was banking it against
a trip to Europe or a holiday of some sort. One of their difficulties is that
they do not seem to be able to plan any sort of consistent budget. And if
more than a thousand is needed for maid's help, one can't as easily plan how
it is regularly to come. I feel strongly that I should carry at least the burden
up to three thousand dollars a year. I was interested that Pat liked the
Wyndham Lewis letters. I think I shall order the books, especially since some
that I own are included (to McAlmon). One presumes Pat was looking at them for
Knopf. I can hardly believe they would make a good publishing risk, and I

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NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

gather from reports that Knopf desperately needs some selling books. Mrs Knopf is completely out of touch with what is going on abroad and so blind she can read almost nothing for herself. Knopf (MR.) is interested only in history. Pat, at any rate, to judge from his comments on books he has talked about, is really drawn towards books of taste rather than appeal. The latter is fine, but doesn't pay dividends to stockholders. If only he could work in concert with a real roughneck! Melitta, as you say, does hop. I do feel sorry for her restlessness and her fear of life.

I have had a sad note from Harold Doolittle written after Melvin's funeral: "I just was present in the laying of Melvin's remains to rest just along side of Hilda."

"I snapped a couple of photos of Hilda's tablet--enclosed herewith which I know you will be interested in receiving. Being yours and only yours suggestion I advise you send one copy to Bryher. A beautiful piece of work and a beautiful thought of yours and yours only."

"The burial service was of course a replica of Hilda's and to the point and sanctimonious. Dorothy was deeply affected and I must say as the only surviving member of the Doolittle family was too."

"John and Nicholas were there. John was really nice, this time."

Even Susan remarked on the tremble of the script, "it doesn't look like Harold's writing." Nor were the missing words for the sake of grammar. It must have been an unhappy experience for him. I enclose the better of the two snapshots.

I am behind on your letters because of my silence. Yours of the 18th and 20th were here before today. Posterity will be angry at you. You fold and envelope your letters so soon after gluing on the gobbets from the *Times* that I have to tear them open, with great holes in the paper where it would not separate. Mrs Dingle was able to start today on typing the first chapter. I am not sure how far she will have gotten by five o'clock. Two sets of pages from Two are already here, and once next week is on she can be more prompt. I suggest returning to you chapter by finished chapter, if that is agreeable.

I continue to be fascinated by your amount of research. Helen seems to be enthusiastic about the book, and I am sure I shall be also once I am in on the secret. It should have just the right touch. It is exciting to think of Kenneth and his new car. He kept the other like a race horse and could have won any point to point with it. No wonder they gave him extra on his trade-in. Whoever gets it will be lucky. Kenneth will positively prance the next time he goes to the White Hart.

I spoke to Helen about the reference to you as Ellerman, not quite understanding what you meant by saying they addressed you as such. I had visions of letters in the mail. She explained that you meant the reference on the jacket to the fact that you took the pen name from the Scillies. As I gather she explained, this was an old jacket material which they adapted without showing to me. I will certainly see that the next time it is made clear that Bryher is now your legal name. But since it was in fact a pen name when you took it, was it so awful for them to say so after the memoirs? They didn't say you were Ellerman now. Anyhow we'll try to avoid any future

3

irritation.

This midafternoon's mail brought your note of the 20th with the two
pages of text, and your letter of the 21st. No, I do see why you break
off to catch the iright squint at the shoreline. I only marvel that you
are able to keep so relentlessly at it. It is what in slang used to be
called "cooking with gas."

As to the Borghese book you have satisfied me that there is no point
in my spending hours over it. After your discussion and those in the published
reviews I feel this belongs in the category of books in a witz I have just
heard:

"Have you read the book?"

"Yes. But not personally."

No Volant is all right, and I gave Frere Jacques some twenty dollars
extra. He says the Oblates will serve him communion whilst in Copenhagen.
I do think this is an important trip for him. Ingholt has just loaned to
me a spectacularly beautiful book on Greenland by Birket-Smith, with many
colored illustrations. Alas it is in Danish, and costs some $35.00. Melgaard
who has many photographs included showed it to me when I was there, but it
seemed too wasteful since my Danish is minimal. I will re-borrow and show to
you when you come over. Many thanks for the additions to the Greenland Collection
otherwise. I shall be eager to see them. Have bought a few more books for the
general Bryher-Archive but will report on them tomorrow.

Also on the H.D. request. It is getting near post-time now and I want
this if possible to go out tonight.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

A reasonably good day at the office so far, and I have managed to tidy up my desk rather more than I expected to do. Papers to correct still come in, but I am so confused by the disarray of papers already here that I resolved to play at least one day's hookey. So I write you now in scraps as a kind of parallel to the sequence of my tasks. Do not try to make any logical progression from topic to topic. The letter is a kind of avant-garde coherence.

I was interested in reading tomorrow's Herald Tribune Book Section (to which as you know I subscribe), to see that the leading American authors in terms of foreign translations are Pearl Buck with 71 and Steinbeck with 50. This may perhaps explain to you why the Nobel Prize once went to her and has just gone to him despite their comparatively lower critical ranking by Americans themselves. The Steinbeck translations I understand rather better than I do those of Pearl Buck whom I have never admired. (With that comment the Book Section can be tossed into the waste basket, as it now has been.)

Today's mail although it brought nothing from you did have a letter from Kenneth who was purring like a cat with his mouth in a bowl of cream. Yours and his news is the happiest event of many many months. I cannot tell you how pleased I am. And how it confirms what I have always known of the vagaries of publishing. Pat saying that no one would take a novelist of Rover's age. Covici saying he felt it was slow. Helen saying it was too European, but not really liking it, one knows. Pantheon saying no novels about Italy just now. I should have kept on and on, but who knows how long if ever it would take. The letter from Collins to Kenneth arrived on the same day as my somewhat toned down version of Covici's refusal, and of course he rightly could not resist quoting the entire reader's report from England. Since his American-born friend who recommended that he send it to Farrar is a Collins reader, perhaps he was the one. It doesn't matter because the report is the right one. As you know, I was completely enthusiastic about it, and a little surprised that Kenneth could do so well. Susan could not put it down. All this will be better than crocodiles or than goat glands to Kenneth. I think if we were together, you and I, I could even persuade you to drink a toast to the book's success. And I drink too to your own influence, direct or indirect, for that certainly pplayed a part in Collins' interest.

I have had a letter from someone named Eric Quayle in Sutton Coldfield who sends me his bookplate as a Valentine, and says he hopes some day to do a bibliography of Ballantyne, and is a collector of early children's books. He asks me to visit him and says "we" can put you up. And speaks of wanting to correspond with me about "him" (Ballantyne). As an inducement for me to visit him he says he lives near Edgar Osborne Esq. "he, as you know, donated his collection to Toronto Library." I didn't know. You and I will have to go to Toronto some time to see it. And to Indiana to see the great Henty collection said to be there. It's rather a nice idea to explore the

in pursuit of Henty and Ballantyne.

Thursday when I went home I found a bookpackage from G.P.Putnam's,
with the following enclosed in the book:

"Quite probably you know of John Cleland's MEMOIRS OF A WOMAN OF PLEASURE, possibly by one of several different titles under which editions have appeared in the course of the past two centuries. There are those who will welcome the appearance of the present edition; there are those who will deplore it. We would most greatly appreciate a reaction from you.

Well, my reaction is that I hardly expected to see the day when <u>Fanny Hill</u>
would be on the open market, and that in a way it's a little sad that
nothing is left to put in fake jackets or smuggle in from Mexico. All
living demands something that is outlawed yet attainable. It's easy to
see where my testimony for <u>The Tropic of Cancer</u> places me, as well as my
more recent involvement in the attempt to prevent students in Hamden from
reading Salinger's <u>Catcher in the Rye</u> as outside reading in the high schools.
In any event I shall not give Putnam's a blurb. For the moment I've had
it. Have you ever read the Cleland? It's beautiful 18th century prose
and a kind of Hogarthian picture of the age. But unless you want it per-
manently, or for Elsie, you might as well wait to look at it when you come
here.

I sent off the first chapter of VAUD in this morning's mail, by air.
I hope it reaches you safely.

I don't know what to advise about your reading Arendt's <u>On Revolution</u>.
She is of course much admired, and I am sure you would find some interest
in it. But why not wait, and if you direct, I will have a library copy for
you to glance at when you come.

When I spoke of Herring in relation to Jocelyn I didn't really mean drink.
I have no reason to think that Jocelyn does overdrink. I thought more of the
way that Herring dabbled at writing now without much sense of either being
avant garde or sensing what the public would take, as O&H has done with first
his travel books, then his little quasi-Greenlandic novellas, and now hiw more
overt experimentalism. Did I thank you for sending Jocelyn's anthology of
Denton Welch? I do now, if not before. I had to go into a local rare book
store the other day to thank the dealer for evaluating the Marianne Moore books
(my own) which I gave to Yale at the time of the exhibition in her honor, for
which he would take no fee. And noticed that he had several of Jocelyn's
books for sale at $3.00 and $5.00 a copy. So as part of the scheme I have of
presenting Yale with collections of the writings of your friends (together
they will make an interesting circle or en large group) I took what I did not
already have of the combination of yours, Hilda's and my own. These were
Image of a Drawn Sword (a presentation to Peggy Kirkaldy @ 5.00), The Scapegoat,
and A Mine of Serpents. There are still several early ones, particularly his
poetry) which we do not have. I may try to buy them from him if he still has
extra copies.

In the same shop I splurged a little and bought an amusing water color

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

by Bernard Shaw of himself, bearded, on a donkey looking more or less like
Don Quixotte. But not quite like a cartoon. I had never seen a Shaw
painting and thought the chance was too good to miss. I also took a casual
drawing by Cocteau, although Cocteau is of course really an artist and
perhaps some day I should get a good one of him. So that collection is
growing too, of art for the wrong reason.

I am so sorry for Heydt and his necessity for loans. It must agonize
him, not at all like the earlier days with Hilda as an unengaged male. I am
glad that you are making these early days of Catha's marriage easier for her
with a better allowance. I think I told you that I gave Hilda's books from
him to Yale which already had a substantial Aldington collection with which
this fitted. I called this group The 'H.D.' Aldington Collection, and will
try to add to it so that this can be reasonably complete. Only I suppose there
must be endless and hopeless small pamhlets. Perhaps eventually Catha may
have extra copies of some which she would sell. Naturally I'd love to get
my hands on Hilda's letters to him, if only to read them for notes. But that
can wait. This is not the time certainly, and in any event nothing could be
done until the estate is settled.

I meant to write you today about Kurt and Helen's visit here on Thursday
when I had a chat with her in the office and then both dined with Susan and
myself at the Lawn Club. But I want to catch the 5 o'clock pickup by the postman,
and so will wait for that until tomorrow.

All love,

Norman

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

26 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

I worked at the office this morning at letters, and
then lunched en famille with Susan's mother at noon. Now I am
back again for a few hours before we entertain for dinner the man
next door whose wife has just had an operation.

The visit with Kurt and Helen was a pleasant one, and
meant most I think to him. I am not quite sure just why he was
going through some of the 10,000 papers of his now at Yale -- but
perhaps it was chiefly nostalgia. I had rigged a little business
visit at the office with Helen so that Kurt's hussar friend von
Faber du Faur could have a moment alone, with him. von Faber said
Helen would not permit it if she could, but to the contrary Helen
ate lunch alone precisely so they could have their male conversation
about old times. Kurt was feeling a little triumphant because Faber,
four years younger, looked so much older than he did. Faber had
married a wealthy American widow some 17 years older than he, and
Kurt babbled on about how Faber had asked if he should make such a
marriage, Kurt had told him one always had to pay, and now, according
to Kurt he had. Of course Kurt did much the same thing, in best
hussar fashion, with his first wife, but, Kurt said, one must be the
same age, or the man older. The latter remark took care of himself,
I suppose. But Kurt did seem immensely to be enjoying himself, and
both (especially Helen) liked the idea of living in an apartment
such as they had borrowed in New York. Helen was immensely happy
about your visit with them and felt that all was right with the world
once more. So you did a splendid job, and I am glad. And she agreed
with the next book to channel all commas through me. I did say that
I saw no reason why you should be battered and banged from every
direction, especially since so many of the queries she made had already
been gone over by us and the typists' errors corrected. There was
much talk about the Lindbergs and gossip about the publishing world
in New York and London. I told them about Kenneth's books will ill-
concealed glee, and they were pleased but I think a little surprised.
When I asked if they were going to do *The Vicar*, they passed it off by
saying they were sure it must already be spoken for. Of course Helen
would not touch it with a ten-foot pole. I think they were a little
annoyed at themselves for having not gotten *The Tin Drum* which is the
only best seller Random House now has. But I was glad to know that
all was peace and love between them and the present management of
Pantheon, whose chief editor you know was the son of their friends
and a former student of mine.

When I talked on Hilda's poetry at Columbia, Vincent
Quinn (an instructor at Brooklyn) introduced himself and told me he
was writing a book for the series on her. He seemed a nice person and
genuinely fond of her work and serious about what he was doing. I
wouldn't feel that I wanted to open the papers to him, but see no

2

why he shouldn't be helped. It is important that people like him shouldn't feel that she is forbidden territory if we want her public reception to increase. My suggestion would be to write him saying you are sorry you can't answer at great length because your mind is so completely on the new novel you are writing, and then answer briefly but not curtly. As to the Egyptian books she studied, or at least owned, a few you can cite are: all of Budge (and most importantly); Weigall's Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt; Houston and Hornblower, Egyptian Costume; Spence, Myths of Anicent Egypt; M.A. Murray, Egyptian Sculpture; and Brian Brown, Wisdom of the Egyptians. But aside from Budge I doubt that she deeply studied anything, it was all too much a part of her blood stream.

Once you get over the novel and the memoirs I'll have a string of questions, so don't exhaust yourself too soon.

All love,

Norman

30 May 1963

Dearest Fido,

This is the American holiday, Memorial Day, and soldiers and sailors have been marching in parade outside my office window. But fortunately, students have not been marching in through my office door, and I have been able to clean up a little further. I shudder however to think how much still remains to be done, and of course I leave in a half hour for the station and a train to Washington. So there will be no letter from me tomorrow. I return late tomorrow night by plane and bus.

Yours of the 26th and 27th. I have handed over the new sheets of typescript to Mrs Dingle who can work on them next week. Being tired, she takes tomorrow off as well as today. Am glad you are not sending extra to the Gregories until some channel for its use can be defined. And I do the first extra thousand anyhow, as by our original agreement. I was phoned by Horace on Tuesday during the day-long English department meeting, and I could not talk with him. He said he "was a bit worried about me" when the operator cut him off. I have written to say I hope to get down next week, or certainly the week after. (I must try to pay a visit to my mother too. I have not been since her birthday.) In talking about medical insurance with some one holding a policy in the same company as the Gregories do, I was suddenly reminded that I had heard nothing about the rebate on Marya's fees. Several hundred dollars, I gathered, when I arranged with the company. The check of course went to her, or will, and I had thought she would send it along to me. I will ask her about it so that I can push the company if they haven't come through, but let her keep it as part of the extra. Otherwise she will silently squirrel it away as though it had never been a gift. This is the sort of thing one has to watch out for. She often decieves herself.

Many thanks for telling me about the letters to you from Harcourt, as to Miss Winifred Ellerman. This is precisely what I asked Helen if it had happened. She denied it, and said it was simply the jacket. I write her this morning so that it will not happen again. If it does, please let me know.

I am so pleased that Jean likes Sikelia. So do I! I gather from the enclosed review by Prescott that he does not like it so much as the others. There is a curious undercutting tone to what he writes, and he doesn't really seem to know what the book is about. But he's not really very clever. I had thought that the Newsweek review would be this week, but there was none. But there really wasn't time enough after there phone call to me for a picture, and it will surely come later.

Yale would certainly be widely happy to have the Vaud collection. There would be nothing comparable I am sure anywhere in the States.

I was sorry to learn of the Woolford's death, but as you say, her life had really ended some time ago.

The air fares? The American lines were really squeezed by the British and were helpless. The British airports were to be closed to all American

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

commercial planes if they refused to hike up the fares.

I had neither of the additional two Greenland books which Maggs quoted, and have written telling them to send these along. Fortunately they were not very expensive.

Have at last read the Vassall report and, more importantly, the newspaper clippings of the subsequent discussions in Parliament. I really am grateful to you for being such a good watchdog for me. Naturally I would never have seen them. As for the Report itself, it was couched (as one would expect it to be) in such a fashion as not to upset a government by it, nor to venture to specify what inadequacies in vetting and security might be met by specific reforms. I really mean did not specify the reforms. I suppose the political aspects of the case were a little too apparent in the report. Anyone going at the document as an analyst would, however, conclude that it was judiciously and even morally unfair to seem to put all of the onus on Penell who was dead and could not defend himself. In this respect the invesitigating committee did precisely what they accused the press of doing: building up implications from insubstantial evidence. There was also far too much reliance on the Vassall case in vacuum. That is, all of the errors of judgment about Vassall were natural and the implication was, in consequence, inevitable. This might well be true, but where the vetting and security measures have failed so very many times as they seem to have, this climate ought also to enter into definition of what happened regarding Vassall.

In other words, if the government, behind the curtain of a mild report of this sort, were actually to do something in the way of correction, nothing would very much matter.

BUT -- and here is why I was so grateful for the additional clippings -- it is quite obvious that nothing is to be done at all. I have never been as anti-Macmillan as you. Not that I liked him particularly, but rather that I had no great occasion for disliking him. Now, after reading his suave and complacent address to the House about the Report, I despise him. It is enough to make one a revolutionary because of his shallowness and lack of perspectuity. It is this sort of thing that makes me sympathize with Downes in calling the whole affair one of the most shicking cases of whitewashing in history. "These defects [in security] had been remedied" before Vassall was arrested, with the "final improvements delayed in order to assist those concerned in tracking the spy." Instead of Ministerial cheers, I should have cried "Rubbish." And the mock martyrdom of saying that men in public positions should expect to suffer some wounding blows. "We may be wounded, but should not be hounded. (Ministerial cheers)." Will you take me to the House sometime so that I can hear what a Ministerial cheer actually is like? When Macmillan replied to the Member from Dudley who asked about the leak in the Mail of the day before, that "It is just one of those things. (Laughter)," the situation is clear. My own fancy began to play:

Mr. Macmillan -- ".... It is just one of those things."

Mr Vassall -- "My dear Mr Prime Minister, you couldn't say a sweeter thing, I mean, really. And now (whispering), would you like to see 'just one of those things'? I have a flat that I think you'd love."

All love
Mr Vassall

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

Now 12:30 at noon at the office, after an hour and half
given to an Andrew Turnbull (who published a biography of Fitzgerald)
who wanted to interview me on Thomas Wolfe for a biography of him. I
thought it rather nervy of him to ask me to do this on a Sunday morning,
but no doubt I would have done the same had I been in his shoes. But
now I have only a half hour at my desk before going home to lunch, and
then to a reception in honor of the engagement of a local boy (a former
doting student of mine) to the daughter of a rabbi in Louisiana. I like
both the boy and his parents, and am glad to go, but still .... I simply
hate the sight and thought of what is to be done.

Yesterday afternoon's wedding was pleasant, and fortunately
not too large. The marriage itself was in a small country Congregational
Church in Redding (near Mark Twain's last home) and the reception at the
bride's home, with a large lawn and a warm spring day. The only surprise
was, having heard a young man and girl sing a Bach number at the wedding,
clad in choir robes, to see them later barefooted on the lawn singing
ballads to a guitar. Very good ballads too, and eventually they had to
hurry back to New York where they perform at something known as The Blue
Angel, in Greenwich Village. They were friends of my nephew. Lizzie
drove back with us in the car to New Haven, and we stopped en route for
dinner. She seemed happy and stable and even thinks she has a job lined
up.

I write this in driblets as I work at the desk answering with
short notes what I can, and relaying them to you so I can file the papers
away. The first batch: A Two anthologies are in with Hilda's poems in
them, and a letter from E.P.Dutton & Co. (publishers of Fanny Hill) agreeing
to use six poems of Hilda's in an anthology The Imagist Poem. So I do what
I can to keep her things going.

b. I had had a letter from Pantheon
asking for permission for a new printing of October, but suggesting that the
price be increased. They wanted a printing of 1,000 copies; I suggested more
and tried to explain why the old price of $3.00 ought to be held. So they
are keeping the same price, and printing 1,500 copies which they feel is about
a two year supply, and a number which "will not burden anyone in the event
that it is decided to bring out the book in another format before the new
supply is sold. Andre keeps having so many good ideas and one never knows
when he will come up with a thought that will increase even these sales figures.

c: Maggs writes as of the 28th, saying a copy has gone to you, in which
they quote a 65 page account of the Moravian missions in Greenland. @55.
This sounds rather interesting to me, because of what we saw and the tie to
Hilda. If you approve will you drop them a note and say to send? It is a
little too expensive for me to write automatically and say to charge to you.

2

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

Time out for the afternoon reception, which we attended faithfully and were glad we had gone to. The father of the bride-to-be is a Rabbi from Louisiana, and the parents of the boy are a prominent New Haven Jewish family whom we like very much.

I am glad the first chapter reached you safely. I will wait to send the next until I have it all. "letter, chapter by chapter I think. I am distressed about Edith's trip and her illness. I agree that Miss Salter probably pushed her into it; the important thing will be whether it proved distracting and in that way stimulating to Edith. I fear you will have to include a visit to the Dame when you go through London. I think it would be good for her to see you, even if not allowed Sachie. I too had a good letter from Pup, explaining among other things her reason for not going to Bethlehem to Melvin's funeral. Said she wanted her first visit afterwards not to be another funeral, but to go to see the stone and all while wearing a gay dress. There is something in what she says, though I suspect she still fears it. I was bowled over by the report from Harold as to the final size of Hilda's estate as from his investments. It is a triumph, and the interest rate is even higher than B provides. But this is no criticism; as you know I told B that I was more interested in improving the capital situation, and I gather he has done well in this. As B said to me, Kenneth wants the highest possible income, but this is quite natural. As to the source however he is wise in trusting B (who follows philosophical orders). Kenneth has basic good sense, a kind of Scots cannyness. Islay I should not trust on judgment in investments, and certainly he ought to keep out of Eastern investments unless he devotes his whole time to it on a hit and run basis.

Delighted to hear that Harcourt is in order about your name. People are funny on occasion, and want to seem to be "in the know." Here it is being in the No No. I will jog as to your copy of the book. The American copies of course went earlier, or rather arrived earlier. With the memoirs, the opposite was true.

I enclose the reviews from today's *Times* and *Tribune*. You are "in" when notices appear in the first possible issue. I thought both were excellent, and infinitely more understanding that Prescott's rather offhand review. His having to do two a day, as the practise now appears to be, must rush him.

As for the last yellowback, Harold does seem lonely. I have already written but will try to keep in touch. Silvia D seems content in California, I think it is made for her. Heydt-- well, he is on edge, but keeping good control of himself. Islay's letters about his friend's house describes one that Donald urged him to see when I was there. But odd how he equates "grandeur" with the cost of a residence or flat. I think the estate sounds like more fun than a three bedroom flat in Rome. Doris --we had a good letter from her --but a little sad. I am saddened by each letter, but she is a queen of courage.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

3 June 1953

Dearest Fido,

The end of a day, -- or almost. What accomplished? Several essays read and a prize awarded. A conference on last week's Washington conference. Two make-up final examinations picked up and graded. Hours of adding and averaging for recommendation for honors for those who deserved it in the standard and honors program. A series of office appointments this afternoon. Etc etc. Now I have still one last duty: to have a bottle of beer with two undergraduates who have fastened on me with psychiatric determination. They wanted me to have dinner with them--they don't believe that faculty members have lives of their own; I settled for one glass bier. But I honestly don't want it.

The great event was a perfect flood of letters from you, five in all, including yours of the 31st. I really only note their arrival now, but they delighted me. I love to think of Lady Vyvyan in her pullover and indjacket. She is, as you say, the indomitable 19th century dame. How does the new book go? and does she still keep to the garden and the house. You were once going to lend me her account of the house written some years ago. I should return it promptly.

I am delighted about the Gough's engagement. I am sure we can arrange a lecture at Yale; and the invitation to him actually came through Ingholt's suggestion. It was also helped by Frank Brown who spoke to me about it, an archaeologist who was formerly master of Jonathan Edwards College. I am not really up on how to go about getting engagements for Mary, but perhaps ideas will come. I am glad it will not be until spring, since in this way we can probably meet them and entertain them if they come to Yale.

Yes, I am glad you gave Mary V the book, though it can hardly be her cup of tea. She really should open the gardens for hire. At least the receipts could go into putting in new plants etc. And gardening. You might put it to her that way.

So sorry about silence from the Normandie. It must be the new management. They were most meticulous in acknowledging reservations both when I was still on this side, and later to St Mary's when I shifted the day of our return. Letters to me must have gone in the next mail after mine had been received.

As to reviews of *eowulf*, yes do clip out the reviews themselves. No point in saving the entire paper or sheet on which they appear. And the empty envelopes might just as well be tossed unless some one wants the stamps. One has to be practical, and I have never seen the envelope is vital.

At this time of day I wonder if anything at all is really vital. Certainly not me.

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

5 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

Do not keel over with surprise at a letter which begins
otherwise than with "the end of a day." But Mrs Dingle has been able
to finish your fine tribute to Sylvia, and I am anxious to have it go
off to you. I liked every word and every comma and absence of semi-
colons. There is nothing to change. Send it is it is, and thank the
gods for standing over you as you wrote it.

I am also enclosing a copy of the talk (very popular) I
gave on the teaching of poetry at the Dallas convention last November.
I have given it several times since, and it has been printed by the
Master of Assts in Teaching Program at Yale, and by the John Hay Foundation,
but this appearance is I think the most easily readable. I did not send
the others for your collection, altho I can if you want me to. But this
one I wanted you to be able to file and forget before you and Elsie left
for England.

Last evening Susan and I went to a nearby town to see a 90-year
old woman who, as a girl, had been my father's father's housekeeper between
the death of my grandmother and my grandfather's remarriage. My father had
known her well, and she was in fact his cousin and therefore mine as well.
Her sister had heard me on television and called to ask if my father were
her girlhood friend. It was pleasant visit, filled with stories about the
past, and news about the present which she wanted to hear from me.

I will try to read the first chapter of Vaud this weekend. I
simply do not want it interrupted by the phone. I know I shall like it.
I have searched and cannot find that I have your presentation copy of
Hedylus from Hilda. I did have your copy of Palimpsest -- not a presentation
one, the proof sheets in fact -- which I gave the library with your permission.
Byt my impression was that you had, quite properly, kept your own set of books
as from her. I do not think I have any. I am also troubled about a question
you once asked about the first English and first French (Swiss) edition of
The Swiss Ramily Robinson. I do have two English editions and one in French,
which came with the children's books. But they are not the first editions of
either. Are you sure you sent them, or had them sent by Maggs? Maggs did send
the three I have, but they are not what you describe. Do let me know.

I wrote Helen to see that you got sent a copy of *Carthage*. I ordered
extra copies for you, but naturally assumed that one would go at once to you.
What a nice feeling Marianne has for your book. But then she always does.

Yes, I do have one volume of Jocelyn's Poems. But he has two books
of them. I do not have the second title immediately at hand. I will simply
keep my eyes open. Sorry that Elsie disapproves of sending out the books. I
suppose she fears the snipping of links. But you are in my position, of having
to make room. At the moment I am gathering together whatever I have in the
way of translations of American literature into German, Japanese etc., to see
if the Library wants. I hardly consult the Japanese works often.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

I do like the idea of the bookmaker writing you. Obviously you have arrived as a successful writer. Unless, of course, it is ESP because of Doris and Ethel.

I have had a letter from Quinn who wants to interview me next week. I said I could give him an hour some morning. But I cannot really write his book. Yet, as I told you, she is helped by everyone who writes about her, in the sense of the impression given that she is worth writing about. So I help.

I enclose an absolutely maddening letter from Grove about Hilda's *Selected Poems*. "Maddening", because I do not think it proper to let a book go out of print without informing me as owner of the copyright. I should not have known if, in trying to check *Paperbacks in Print* I had found the book missing from the lists, and thought it was an oversight. You may remember that Grove wanted not to reprint even a second printing two months after it was first published. Rossett apparently thought he could lie back and collect permission fees for 28 years without any justification on his part. Individual volumes by a poet are one thing: these naturally do eventually go out of print. But not, I feel, an overall selection. Yet I think there is nothing for me to do but to put up the thousand, for it is extremely important for Hilda's reputation that her poetry be available even if only for 225 new purchasers a year. And when Quinn's book comes out, there may be more. I will use my own money for this, and may eventually make a little. I do want to consult with Melville Cane however before signing anything.

I keep busy.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

6 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

There is nothing for today's letter like the goodies I
could send yesterday, but at least there is a letter from you for me
to answer. Two letters actually in this morning's mail: one of the 1st
and another of the 2nd. I have given over the sheets from the next
chapter to Mrs Dingle to type, and with only a page or so still to come
from you, I will wait until I have both chapters before reading.

I was much amused by hearing of Mary Hotson's patriotic procession. What a splendid organiser she would have made for children's crusades! I have not seen or heard of them for several months. It is only by chance, on the street, when I do. I only hope that his book progresses well for its next year's appearance. I shall try to remind the Yale English Department, before I leave, that they agreed to ask Leslie to give a Shakespeare talk next year. You will recall that Mrs Cleanth Brooks reported that Mary had wanted this. I only hope however that he will not refuse, once asked, as he did for his invitations from the West Coast.

I told Ingholt yesterday that Michael had been given the
American invitation. As I told you, it was Ingholt who suggested the
invitation and gave the necessary preliminary boosts. Naturally, however,
Michael would not have been asked had he not been good in his own right.

Am still annoyed about your not having received Carthage. It
is too much like my last year's experience. I have written Helen but have
not heard from her. I fear she thinks I chivvy her too much. But their side
of the Harcourt office still seems a little casual. Any other way would, I
suppose, really be too expensive. I enclose an ad for Carthage from this
morning's *Times*.

I shall check on the Robbe Grillet book, but can't at this moment
as I am off to Hartford for a special meeting of the Mark Twain Memorial.

Will do as you say about the Greenland books from Maggs, but let
you take care of the one mentioned in my last or recent letter.

Certainly no hurry about the new photographs by 'slay, and certainly
no reason for rushing to Milano so that you can be photographed as a late guest
at the Last Supper. But before the next book I shall need a new lot.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

7 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 4th, with the end of chapter 2, arrived
in this morning's mail, and I enclose the chapter here with. So do not
say that your New Haven office is anything but efficient. In this respect
it is, in other respects we cannot lay a very proud claim.

I really am sorry about O.B. and John O'London, even though I
remember he half expected this. But he has resilience.

You say wet and chilly at your end. The last few days have been
sultry, with rain always on the edge but never arriving. Today rain is still
at the edge, but it is suddenly chilly. I am not a little enervated by the
climate.

No, not necessary to give anything to the English Institute.
You are a lifetime honorary member because of your generosity to them,
because it was your two gifts which (a) permitted them to continue their
publication at a time when a break would have ruined them, and (b) took
them out of debt after they proved their serious intentions. Now they
are even prosperous, the series of publications sets well, and quite
seriously have more money than they need. Much better to give a tidbit to
an old dame.

A letter this afternoon from Helen. She says of Orville Prescott
that he "deans over backwards not to be influenced by otherwise friendly
relations. Orville is INCORRUPTIBLE [her capitals]." Well, I suppose so.
She said my letter was the first intimation that letters to you from the staff
at Harcourt had gone out to Miss Winifred Ellerman. "I don't know what
started this, but have sent out memoranda to stop it." She quite properly
explains that it was my fault that you did not recieve a copy of Carthage
airmail, and I cannot apologize adequately to you. I really am sorry for
my stupidity and slipshoddity. "A copy of the book has gone to her airmail--
but, dear Norman, one has to keep in mind that in an ofganization as big as
Harcourt's it cannot be expected that they remember the subtleties of the
arrangement: since you are the signatory of the agreement and the official
recipient of review copies, they automatically go to you as representative
of the author and the holder of the copyright. Normally, when I am in Europe
I send my own copy to Bryher, but this time I was away." Again I apologize
to you.

I did the Mark Twain house in Hartford yesterday afternoon, returning
home at a quarter to eleven. Now I must run to a meeting of the Graduate
School faculty, then to a cocktail party, and afterwards to Lizzie's for dinner
with her. Susan will join me there.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

A quiet day at the office, and, believe it or not, not a single person has knocked to disturb me. The freedom gave me the chance at long last to read the 225 pages so far written by Robert Duncan and his almost forgotten book on Hilda. Most of it came while I was in Cornwall with you, and although I have made several attempts to read it, I have not had the consecutive time that any manuscript demands.

It is a peculiar book, and I shall be curious to see what you think of it when you are here. It is hard to know whether it will get a publisher; if it does this will probably because of Duncan's reputation as a poet. And actually it is precisely because he is a poet that the book has interest. It is a little about her and a great deal about himself. That is, he says what draws him and women like Levertov to her work, what her work means for them as poets. This sort of treatment keeps her alive to a younger generation; when professors write they seem like flower judges pinning ribbons.

It raised only one question for me to put to you in its connection. He speaks of a book which Hilda says she and all the rest of you were very keen on, a society book. He says only that she says that E. Nesbit Trilby was the author's name. Do you know the name of the book she refers to? Just curiosity on my part.

All three packages of Greenland books from Maggs have arrived safely, and the contents look interesting. I note what you say about orders in the future, but assume you will have written about the last query I made of you in a letter sent before your instructions arrived for the future.

A letter arrived today from Frere Jacques, after his visit to Copenhagen. I gather he was much interested in the museum and paid it several visits. but I gather he was a little disappointed by not having been given more time by Helge Larsen, and Melgaard was in Iran. Unfortunately my letter to him about Vibaek did not arrive in time so there was no connection that way. But it might not have worked anyhow, since Vibaek as you know is rather anti-Oblate (a good phrase I think). I had been afraid that Volant might have trouble cashing a New Haven check and so sent a bank draft to him separately. He had already gone to Switzerland when it came (as I knew he would be going), but he had said he would return to Paris. Instead, the head of the Order opened the letter and bought him his ticket from Switzerland to Denmark and back to Paris. It saved him time of course, and saved them the return fare to France. My only fear is that the extra spending money above the cost of the ticket will have gone into the Oblate treasury rather than buy Frere Jacques a night in Tivoli. Larsen is now a big shot, and he too is rather superior to Oblates with the exception of Father Rousselau. But much was gained from the trip all the same, and he is certainly most deeply grateful. I think the effect will be felt in the Churchill Museum, and he will certainly feel less provincial.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

We had a nice dinner with Lizzie last night, and she seems still better adjusted than I have seen her. She was easy in her conversation and did not try to put on any intellectual pretensions about her reading or activities. This is good for sometimes it has trapped her in corners. Nor did she seem to talk against anybody, which is a good sign of her own stability. Susan tells me that Lizzie has asked one only and not particularly desirable beau not to call again on her; and this too is good, since she always needs company. Her apartment is an attractive one, rather better than she absolutely needs, but not preposterously so. And this too may give her some confidence. Alas, she still has no job. But that I hope will come, and she has not, after all, had very much time.

Your two letters of the 5th came this morning, but I will answer more tomorrow. It has taken most of the day to read Duncan's work and write to him. BUT: by now I trust the Sylvia tribute will have reached you. And of course you did absolutely right about telling them to use Hilda's letter. It is a little gem, just right. If you want to be technically correct, Saillet can put a note that the letter is published by permission of NHP, owner of the copyrights of H.D. But the only advantage of this would be to make the publication seem more thoughtful and not simply a filler picked from Sylvia's bag.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

9 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

Up too late last night for a wedding anniversary party of one of Susan's sisters, combined with a birthday party for their son who is back from California with their first grandchild. So the morning at the office has been a little shorter than I should have liked, but I have managed to do a few more odd chores always clearing the desk a little more to make room for what will come in tomorrow.

Many thanks for the M.I.5 volume which has arrived and will make good summer reading. That is, unless the first volume of memoirs by the osteopath in the Profumo case is published. What a field day his trial will be for the London press. And for our own too, who are reveling in it--even the New York Times.

I have just catalogued four more titles for the historical novel collection. One day I hope the Bryher Collection of Henty and his Friends will be the best in the world except for the B.M. which must have everything except manuscripts and letters in that field. I did have a little surprise in unwrapping Shireen and Her Friends by Gordon Stables M.D. (why did the M.D. help?). I thought Shireen must be an Indian squaw from the Far West, but she appeared to be a Persian Cat. I was glad however of Kingston's The Cruise of the Frolic (1860) in two volumes, Fenn's To the West (1891), and a good copy of Ballantyne's Hudson's Bay (a second edition, but the first published one; the original edition was privately printed). I asked Brimmell to keep his eyes open for Henty's book of poems. He says he has never laid eyes on one, but if he ever does we can have it.

To go back to your yesterday's letters. As for Jean, I don't really see how you can refuse. But what to say? I don't really know her poems. But surely, "Jean Starr Untermeyer writes with the feeling and grace of a true poet. She has established her own voice with continued growth and depth of understanding. Her collected poems are the rewards of a lifetime of dedication." The really important thing is not so much what you say as it is the gift of your name. But I really wonder whether any publisher can take the book on -- it must be a large one -- without a subsidy. And it is not always easy to find the publisher who will do that.

I am startled by what you write of Coutts. It is simply astonishing. Banks can be as foolish as ordinary human beings. Susan's family is still irritated by what a local bank did with an extraordinary "black sheep trust" set up her grandparents, maybe great granduncles, which was to exist over two or three generations to take care of any member of the family in trouble. One had been. It was in Winchester Arms stock, and Susan's father begged the bank to diversify it (about a million dollars). They refused out of apparently coy loyalty to the firm. Susan's father was president. Then Winchester's went bankrupt and there was almost nothing left. It seems to be the bankers were the true black sheep in the story.

I'll introduce you to someone at the Library about the Vaud Collection,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

and I do think it would be rather fun over the years for you to build it up. One way of explaining, which would be fun indeed, would be for you to write out your explanation, some day, for publication in the Library Gazette. This would call attention to the collection as well as define it.

I don't think there is any point in sending the Wolfenden Report. There have been so many references to it and reviews of it that one feels he knows what it contains. It is a good example of the joke:

"Have you read the book?"

"Yes, but not personally."

It is published on this side and I picked it up one day at the Co-op and leafed some of the pages.

As to Zermatt, I do agree with you that so far as one can judge from the printed reports the canton seems to gloss over the matter for the future as well as for the past. That there should be thirty carriers quite stuns me.

I had a nice letter from Jocelyn, although it was delayed by being delivered to the wrong person here. He is sending me a copy of _The Crisis_ in Bulgaria which is out of print. The book of poems I referred to was _The Element of Death_ published as a pamphlet by the Hand and Flower Press, but he has only his own copy. As a student he says he printed a little book of six poems but destroyed most of them. He has sold three copies recently to Bertram Rota, and I shall write Rota and try to get one if all have not been sold.

Do you want me to save the American clippings in case, as with the *Time* article when we were over, the libel laws keep the press still from expressing any overall reporting of British opinion? I should not send but hold until your arrival.

10 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

This has been a cold rainy and not-quite-raining day. Graduation Day, with some 8000 people here to see favorite sons and daughters in triumph (or at least off their hands). It was drizzling at 9:30 a.m. when the faculty were supposed to assemble in robes and march in the academic procession. Since only one member of a student's family can have a seat inside (the exercises are hopefully held on the campus) if it rains, the powers pretended that it wasn't raining and held the ceremony in the open air. God must have been pleased at their boldness, for the rain stopped and people only had to shiver. But the drizzle was enough for me, and I didn't bother to go. I simply left my robes in the car and worked at my desk. I have suffered from a sense of guilt all day, but at least I have been dry.

I was delighted to have yours of the 6th in this morning's mail, and especially glad that *Carthage* had arrived and that you liked the looks of it. Glad too that *Elsie's* has come. Do not forget that you are supposed to inscribe a copy of the book for each of the Henty girls and send on to them. Because of the necessary inscription they will not recieve one by post direct from New York. Don't howl, this is good army etiquette.

No, do as you feel best about *Time*. Obviously they meant the gesture as a compliment, and perhaps even as amends for their review of the memoirs. They need to do both, certainly. By the way, I saw an excellent photograph by 'slay of Graham Greene used by Viking in their ad in this week's book issue of the New York Times.

I am fine as with Pantheon. If they charge, I will simply take from the saving's account. But with the last book I gather they simply adjusted with royalties, which is better tax-wise for me. I should be curious to know about the weaving sentence that Marjorie objects to, but in this case they are reprinting simply by using photo-offset rather than resetting type.

Oenone (glorious name) sounds like material for one of your contemporary Beowulfian Swiss novels of the English colony. Some day, I hope you will do these.

This must have been a blue Monday for Macmillan on his return from Scotland. Quite obviously the Conservatives would like to see him out. His own answer no doubt would be "just one of those things." But Macmillan has asked for it, after standing at Profumo's side in Parliament when he denied any implication with the girl. And then making that unbelievable address vis-a-vis Vassall and the poor cabinet ministers whom the press be-deviled. There is not only ineptness but decay in such conduct. The press will take revenge, and the common people revolt in revulsão.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

Welcome to London, even if I couldn't wish you bon voyage from
Kenwin. I have been working nights and days this week trying to finish
correcting papers before the deadline this morning, and getting in reports
and seeing people "who were passing through town and just wanted to say
hello." It is maddening, but since I have to leave tomorrow noon for Iowa
I had to use every minute of Mrs Dingle's time as well as my own. At
least the now-due reports are in, and so are the grades. There is much to
be done still, but at least I will enter on a new phase when I come back
to the office next Saturday.

1952 and 1954 of Silvia's letters arrived, and I will leave
for Mrs Dingle to file along with the others. A letter from Maggs offers
a French book on Greenland by a Charcot. It is 1936 and more recent than I
have lately been getting but I said to send along, since John Maggs bought
it especially, he said, on a recent trip to Paris.

Also a letter from Anthony Rota in London saying he still had
one of Jocelyn's privately printed poems when he was an undergraduate. He
naturally did not send this to you, so I am ordering it. He did do two other
books of poems, but when I went to put something on the shelves last night
I found the second one out of place. It was inscribed to you. I think this
gives pretty much everything. Rota it seems is a great admirer of Jocelyn's
work to which he was introduced by his wife, and has compiled a checklist of
them which he sending to me.

I lunched yesterday with Ingholt who had given me a superb book
on Greenland by Birket-Smith (alas in Danish) filled with the most beautiful
illustrations in color. I put aside for you to see. He also gave me a
catalogue of a sale of primitive art at Sotheby's on the 10th, which I am happy
I did not see in time. For the last two illustrated eskimo objects were such
as to make my mouth water.

Other books from you have arrived, as follows: Essays and Studies
which I am delighted to have for several items in it. Many thanks. R.A.'s
Latin Poems; Hilda's Choruses; her Sea Garden and Hymen; and the Havelock Ellis
Sonnets. For all of these salaams.

I wrote Aurelia last night after work, and this morning came a letter
from her. "Rejoice with me--a house is found and preliminary papers signed."
This is good news. As you know I promised her some money to help with the
decoration of it, but imagine she will want to wait a little until she knows
what she needs. We can discuss when you come over. Her new address is 217 Hart
Avenue, Minerva. She was as happy as a child with a new kitten.

I do not think I have answered your query about Bryan. I do absolutely
agree with you that an extra year of preliminary schooling before Reading is
advisable. A year matters very little as against a degree attached to the name
of a good university. Whether Australia or elsewhere, if he is going to the
trouble of getting special training he might as well do so with all possible
cachet. Even if, in the end, he did not go to leading, he would still know

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

that no chances were lost. Take me as example, even I have heard of Reading but not of Seal Hayle. If you offered the money for the extra year it might help them to decide.

Sorry not to have given you advance notice of Maine, but if we go you can be equipped out of our wardrobes. Not worth paying the cost by air. Actually Susan is a little frightened of difficulties in getting overnight lodgings in Maine at the height of their tourist season. It is like Cornwall in July and August. We can see. I had thought of you and I driving two or three days to Bethlehem for Hilda, stopping off en route to see Viola Jordan and of course and importantly Horace and Marya. Then perhaps the three of us might make an overnight trip up to Vermont and back, since this will be new territory for you. I think Maine in October might be a good idea. If you come over next spring, we thought of a trip to Virginia and perhaps Charleston. The best season for going there.

I know people sniff at traveling first-class anywhere, and when I go to Iowa for example, as to Texas last November, I usually go tourist. But when we go around the world we shall go first. It is certainly far more comfortable when one is not jambed three at elbows. AND in a pinch one can always get on a plane first class, whereas tourist is often another matter.

I suspect the break with the Vaud book comes just at the right time. The important thing is that you have made a good solid beginning. From that point on the book can turn over in your mind as you fill out its possibilities.

Feel badly about taking your Lady V and Sachie's book on Japan. But this is certainly the time to read both. My thanks for them.

I am completely preoccupied by the Profumo Affair. England has known nothing like this since Parnell. In my mind it is no longer a question if Macmillan will resign but when he will resign. For political reasons the Conservatives cannot permit him to stay, and their only hope is to have a long enough time before the General Elections in 1964 for a new Prime Minister and Cabinet to win confidence. People are asserting that the issue should not be pushed over from security issues to moral issues -- I mean many Americans-- but it seems to me that the true importance of the case is precisely on the moral level. Let me say first that I think the security issue is enough in itself to be extremely serious as a culmination to a long series of gaucheries. Even if Profumo did not actually say anything he was in a situation to, and the Russians are obviously as ready to take advantage of heterosexual diversions as of homo-sexual vagaries. This is so orthodox in espionage rationale as to make it surprising only because anyone is put in a trap of this kind. Macmillan was of course desperate in having a one-man security investigation by a political officer, and I suppose it was only a stalling measure. BUT it is just this kind of political intention that corrupts the belief of the people in their elected officers. My father used to try to drill into me that elected officials and people in responsible positions had to be responsible trebly on this account. The moral issue has to do with Macmillan's conduct, in his speach to Commons ("just one of those things") with all its condescensions, its surly assertion that public officials ought not to be hounded, that the government had things

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

well in hand before Vassall's arrest, that the only one to be blamed was a dead man. And then this series of events with the new disclosures of each day making the situation worse and the lies greater.

To repeat: obviously the Russian was a spy and tried to use the situation to his advantage whether or not he was successful; obviously he was withdrawn by the Russians when they, rather than the British, knew the pot was steaming; possibly Ward, I mean quite possibly, received money from the Russians (directly or indirectly) as well as from those for whom he pimped (money, again directly or indirectly. That his establishment was the nearest thing to the Hellfire Club of the 18th century we have had, and involved men whose energies would have been better used on the tennis courts or the floor of Commons. In other words, the establishment was really involved. Secondly, that morally the affair is properly an issue, when a government at the top feels it can lie and sponsor lying (wittingly or carelessly). For on what basis then can one have confidence in any statements of the government on any issues. If Profumo had simply said yes in the first place the matter would be otherwise. But he did what he did because he was in a climate of opinion which led him to think as he did. If a government does not deserve to fall on such a basis and issue as this, if the people cannot force out a government but must wait until after another year of the same group, then one begins to understand the revolutionary feeling.

Quite an editorial! Forgive me.

I rather dread the week in Iowa, but perhaps it will be a change and good for me. I fly out Sunday afternoon to Des Moisnes and then by car to the nearby Simpson College. I lecture Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, and fly back Friday afternoon. My old Munich lectures, but they know it so no one is being cheated. In between lectures I gather I am suppose to be available to drink coca-colas with the students. My Iowa State Guide Book sounds a little forbidding: "Indianola (where Simpson College is located) is often referred to as the 'Holy City,' because even before prohibition days there were no saloons in the town, and until very recently no cigarettes were sold there."

Most of today has been spent at Gaylord for their annual meeting and award of this year's Gold Medal. You may recall that I was given it last year, and I felt I should be present. Many asked after Horace, and the doctors, I fear, are a little hurt that he has not written a line to any of them, about himself or his health, after he left. I suppose they look at it in a friendly way; while he regards them as purely professional; in the sense one would not write to a plumber after a pipe has been fixed, to say it was doing well. But perhaps I can persuade him to. I sympathize with him a little, the year was a nightmare, and he wants to forget it.

Distribute my greetings. I am not sure how my time will be for writing while in Indiana. So let me know your calendar as you can.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

16 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

Am now packed and ready to go, but have come down to the
office to leave a last message or two for Mrs Dingle for the week,
pick up my desk so that it will look as though more had been accomplished
than actually has,

In doing so I found a little nest of three letters from you
that I had read but not put with the others to be commented on. Or maybe
I have. It's just one of those things!

Hope you had time to send off the copies to the Henty girls.
If you didn't have time, you can inscribe them here and post as from the
States. After all the time element doesn't matter, only the personal
inscriptions.

Felt a little solaced by the fact that you knew nothing of
E. Nesbit Trilby. I wonder if she meant, as a meaningful joke, that she
liked E. Nesbit _and_ Trilby. I will show you the passage when you come.

Horace wrote a nice letter, but I can't imagine a book improving
because three "yells" stop appearing on three pages. You might possibly have
altered if one had noticed; but the mere fact that one didn't notice is evidence
of some sort.

Don't know _The Birdcage_. Should I read it?

Pulse. Susan says the word is common one here and used by all
herbalists. She never heard of anyone using legume, nor have I. The average
person doesn't use pulse, but it certainly is not an error for you to. I did
think, by the way, that Barbara Jordan's last letter to you seemed somehow much
more mature and appealing. She obviously depends a good deal on having an outlet
with you. She has had a rough time of it, and not much fun out of life recently
or perhaps ever. It comes through.

Am saving the Sunday _Times_ for the plane, and so noticed only that
the cabinet has rallied, as for tomorrow's debate in Commons. There are rumors
that Powell is staying in on condition that Macmillan resign within the next
month or two. Also rumors that a member of the royal family was in the _Watch &
Ward Society_. My mind tries to guess. There are several possibilities,
naturally.

Will try to write at least once from Iowa, but think I had better not
risk the Sesame because of the distance. So will send to you in care of Doris.
Give her our love.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

I too wish you were here to talk, for it is difficult to know
how I shall ever catch up after all these days. But perhaps there will be
a little free time tomorrow to continue with, although on Thursday I have
told the Gregories I will at last go to them. My mother must wait until
the week after, although I have not seen her since her birthday in April.

I had an eerie experience this afternoon, in going to the funeral
of Mrs "ennett's chauffeur. He has worked for the family for 44 years, and
was very much a part of it, although for the last few years he has devoted his
main attention to his wife who has had a series of strokes, and cannot really
talk nor take care of herself. He was a light colored Negro, as was she (although
she liked, as so many Negroes do, to assert that she was chiefly Indian). He
lay in his coffin in the funeral parlor, among the flowers, looking very handsome;
and by the coffin she sat in her wheelchair, weeping, holding his hand, smoothing
down his hair or patting his cheek, lifting up her own hand in occasional
supplication, and alternating these movements with a fixed stair at the minister
while he conducted the service. It was pathetic but rather moving. Mrs Bennett
will miss his arbitrariness, her little quarrels with him as to who was right,
and his devoted attention to her much as a pre-Civil-war contented slave might
have done. Fortunately a daughter who is married to a doctor in Detroit is
taking her mother there with her to live. A niece who lives here and was really
much closer is married to a lawyer. It is an American story.

The visit to Iowa ended Friday night a little after eleven, when I
finally got to New Haven, taxied to the house for my car, and drove to the shore
where Susan had moved while I was away.

26 June 1963

(So you see nothing has changed very much.) There was a series of office appointments, followed by a meeting of the university lecture committee, and then a reception for all of the summer school students in the various programs. Our particular American Studies party had come on Monday afternoon. The thermometer was in the 90's yesterday and is said to be going to repeat today. This morning before coming to the office I took a back seat full of winter clothes to the cleaner, most of them finally to be stored away until February. Yesterday morning (most of it in fact) I spent in one way or another with the local customs office clearing the two boxes of books and Hilda's things, including the table. I was finally charged fifteen dollars in duty which didn't seem to me to be too bad.

The Iowa week was a change and an interesting opportunity to learn a little
more about the Middle West. This was a six weeks program for 25 high school
teachers, with courses in American literature and American history. One course
was in common for all, but a highly miscellaneous one. Each week a guest appeared
who gave one public and two class lectures, had three coffee hours with the students
to answer questions, ate his meals with them, and was otherwise left alone. For
which I was paid $500.00 plus first-class air travel and all expenses en route and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

at Indianola. One really was left alone for long periods, since breakfast was at 7 a.m., lunch at noon, and supper at 5;15 p.m. After supper I usually sat on the grass outside the dormitory with a few of the teachers and we talked about various books or about teaching (one evening I showed them how to read Cummings whose poetry had puzzled them). I did have to be careful not to seem to take over from their regular teacher, however, because I don't think he knew how to read modern poetry either, although he taught it. Anyhow at 7 o'clock the teachers went to their studies, and I usually went to my room. It was actually a little suite, with french furniture and a general "decorator's" touch not quite in keeping with Iowa. There was nothing to drink in the town, but forewarned by hunch, I took a bottle of whiskey with me so that I could have my usual nightcap. (I was so overhwlemed by the Methodist milieu that I did not even dare put the whiskey paper wrapper in the wastebasket, and carried it and the empty bottle back to New Haven where it could be thrown away without causing a scandal. By good foresight also I had taken 150 pages of a graduate student's dissertation with me to read, as well as a full length manuscript on American culture being considered for possible inclusion in our American Studies series. So I managed to get both out of the way, as I listened to the giggling of the girls in the corridor outside my door (I never dared open it for fear of dismaying them.) I was asked out to breakfast one morning by the Director of the session but otherwise had no entertainment. So it was a rest. Still, I had unlimited opportunity to get the feel of the teacher's ways of life and their attitudes, and although I was overwhelmed by the difference between their formal knowledge and that of the average Yale undergraduate, I was wonderfully impressed by their sense of vocation and their desire always to improve.

The usual amount of mail had accumulated during my absence, as well as a new accumulation of appointments and chores, chiefly related to the opening of our own summer program for high school teachers which we give each summer in American Studies here. Both teachers in it had come from away, and Monday was completely taken up in getting them started. We have only 20 students, who come with all expenses paid, but the formula, or (better) the goal, is the same as at Iowa.

You have been the one to suffer through having no letters from me meanwhile, although at least I know you have most of the time been busy on your trip with Phyllis.

You yourself have been wonderful in writing however, and the letters have been a blessing. There was an exciting stack of them waiting for me, and your notes en route have continued to come. For which my deepest thanks.

I so much like your idea of a new House in Common, filled with Fannie Hills, to keep British politicians in touch with what comes in to town from the rural districts. All this incidentally to tie in with what now seems to be a fortunate silence in the Profumo affair. I was interested that the Daily Mail came out with a semi-official denial that Prince Philip was involved. I had thought perhaps that it was Prince Charles' (after his cherry brandy). My own guess now is that the report will, more or less, graywash the whole matter, after which, on a note of high dignity and exhaustion, Macmillan will retire and recieve his earldom next year before the general elections. It is interesting that you comment on Profumo's Italian background as being sufficient explanation in itself to the average British mind. That this would be so immediately occurred to me as

3

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

well (by which I mean not the validity but the pervasiveness of the reasoning),
but I did not think to go on record to you. Don't worry, you have been a
superb tutor for me in getting to understand the UNK of the UK.

You were kind to like Poetry in the Classroom, and I have had a goodly
number of letters about it from strangers. I used Williams because his
particular poems talked about poetry more directly than many others, which is
to say I could make my points more quickly with them in regard to language.
Perhaps not all people re-experience language through poetry, but because
poetry is so economical it does put a greater burden on diction than prose
does. And I suspect, perhaps without your fully realizing it, that your
meticulous care for the right word comes as much from poetry as from a
Flaubert.

Thank you too for re-reading the Amerikanischen Dichter, although I
know you did read it immediately after Munich.

As to the new book review, I think you are probably right in not adding
it to your mail. I am not even sure that I shall subscribe. At the moment I
seem to want to cut down rather than add to my reading "about" things.

I spoke particularly to Susan about Lady V's *The Old House* and she confirmed that you did not send it along originally. When I asked you about it after our visit to her, you said you had it at Kenwin and that it would be impossible to get a copy of it now, so would send it along. But it does not matter. I was only curious to see what it said about her home, and whether it precluded the type of book I suggested she now do. I don't think it will, since the approach was quite different. I think she did not, either.

Many thanks for sending along the *Carthage* to the Henty girls. I enclose
the *Time* review, copies of which you have surely seen by now. But you can pass
it around. I was pleased; it may be a kind of amends for the review of *Artemis*.
I am sure it will help sell the book. The review in *Newsweek* has not yet appeared.
I keep looking each week, but I suppose it is the sort of thing they feel can
appear any time during the summer. In some ways this may be good, since it keeps
interest from flagging.

I look forward to seeing the photographs by Chris. The weather is so hot
here, that even a photograph of ice and snow will be welcome.

The bundle of books by Jocelyn have arrived, and when the college publication
arrives from Bertram Rota, appear we will be complete. With the exception of his
books on a few contemporary British authors. After I return from Japan I will
see what I can do to complete Margiad Evans. I think I am already complete with
Herring and with Kenneth. The very beautiful edition of Hesse also arrived by
registered mail. What a lovely piece of bookmaking it is!

I am lifting your letters in reverse order as I write you now, and come to
your visit with Heydt. What a tragedy this is turning out to be. I fear it will
do real harm to his career just at a time when he should be establishing himself
and his practise. If he would take a quick visit to the States I should think
it would be a good thing to give him a quick round trip ticket.

Glad you found the Simon quote.

4

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

Your plans for the visit to the States sound orderly and in good fashion. Because Pup will be sailing before you do, and because she will be busy in the last days before her departure in getting ready, you may want to make your visit with her earlier than you might otherwise have done. But I should still think it would be easiest if you came directly to New Haven from Idlewild on arrival. When the time comes and your plans are completely firm I shall reserve a place for you on the limousine to the Hotel Taft. It leaves on the hour from Idlewild, and if one missed it there is an automatic reservation for the next bus. I will meet you at the Taft and we can go immediately to the shore, where you can have the room by the garage with its own private bath. A typewriter will be there waiting you.

There have been four yellowbacks in, which I have gone through in order to catch up on various activities. I had forgotten to tell you that Leslie's Shakespeare lecture at Yale had been arranged. The path was circuitous. Mary had told Mrs Brooks that Leslie wanted to be asked to give the Yale Shakespeare anniversary lecture, and oughtoto be asked. Because he had refused the financially rewarding offers from the West Coast I might have imagine he would refuse Yale as well, so was glad when Mrs Brooks called me to ask if I could arrange it. So I spoke to the Chairman of English who carried on from there. I hope I will be back from Japan before he gives it, for I should be greatly interested. I was also glad they moved without waiting for the hay to take effect on Mary. I offered several years ago to pay for having the hay cut -- they let it grow to fodder all around the house as well as in the field. But they prefer to sell it to a farmer, and suffer. Or at least have in the past.

Have been interested in reading George's letters, and am glad he is settled. If he doesn't put in heat or electricity, I agree with Ady that he ought to come over earlier than he did this year. On the other hand, it is his life and I see no reason why he should not do as he likes with it. I had not realised until I read Logan Pearsall Smith's letters to George, that he had settled a small annuity on George. This was in American stocks and may well be in the American Funds that Ady speaks of.

I go to the Gregories tomorrow, so will not write until Friday to report. Susan joins in love to Doris and greetings in general. Poor Susan is in agony with bursitis, and the doctor does not come back from his vacation until the 1st. All other doctors are too busy to see her.

P>S. I was delighted when a 90-year old alumnus of Yale returned this year for his 70th reunion, bringing with him an essay he had published as an undergraduate on "The Role of the Bicycle in War."

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

28 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

For the last three days the temperature has been 95° and higher, and we are all suffering. Whether it is worse to be cold as you were when you had to put on your sweater, I don't know. I think I prefer the arctic at this moment.

It was 97° yesterday when I went to Palisades, and as a result I did everything wrong on my way there and back. I am glad you did not have to suffer with me, and I know my way now for taking you again. I had no sooner crossed the Hudson on my way down, than somehow I found myself situated so I had to drive back across the river in order to pay fifty cents to enable me to pay the fifty cents to repeat my western trip of a few minutes before. On my way back, I went 28 miles out of my way at one time and 20 miles out at another. And I usually think of myself as a highway leatherstocking.

Both Horace and Marya looked well and sent you their love. They are eager for your visit. Gregory, the grandson, was with them for a fortnight to help Marya in dressing Horace and with the dishes. As a result she seemed more rested than I had expected. He is a nice boy, attractive looking and neither too shy nor too forward. He has a faintly British accent but not really noticeable. He went off swimming once the luncheon dishes were done. Horace manages to walk on his walker, but I thought did so with difficulty. However he has been upstairs once or twice and feels he is making progress. He wants a second pair of braces so that he can change his shoes occasionally. I should think that makes sense. He agrees to come to New Haven sometime in July to be examined by Dr Germain if I will arrange it and come to fetch him and then bring him back the next day. Marya would presumably come for her own examination, and, I guess, stay with us at the shore. I told him how disappointed both Dr German and Dr Anderson had been not to hear from him, and he promised to write. Actually I think he was pleased that they had wanted to hear. I discussed with Horace the problem of Marya's fatigue, and he thought that a part-time maid would be best (she has trouble, because of her arm, with dishwashing etc.). She protested that she needed no help, but of course Dr Goldenberg told me she felt the opposite. Her difficulty seems to be that she has no inspiration for writing. This worries her and Horace who says we must work hard to get her a publisher. (Everyone, I guess, needs a publisher). Anyhow I left it that they would find if they could get a part-time girl and how much it would cost. And that then I would help, but it must be for the girl. Marya talks mostly about getting a vacation, or of travel; but I did sympathise with her. She has not been away since Horace got back, and feels trapped. Yet she does not want to go without him, and does not want to visit Joanna, because (as she says) she has to work harder there than at home). It really is a trap, for they love company but are so remote that no one comes to see them. They talked of going into town for a month in winter, and I said I thought it would be a good idea.

I asked about the rebate from the Blue Cross for the surgeon's fee we paid for, and they said oh yes it had come. Marya laughed and said she had thought it was a bill and so hadn't opened it for two or three months. Then she

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

did and found it was a sizeable check. That was the end of that discussion, and I felt a little robbed of the gesture by which, in response to their saying it should come to me since it was not their original repayment, I could say gallantly that perhaps they should keep it for a little spree. But at any rate I was glad that my trip to New York to discuss the matter with Blue Cross had had its reward.

Horace had liked Rose Odle's manuscript a great deal. He feels it needs about fifty more pages of transitions -- a thing which you originally remarked on -- and is not absolutely sure whether it should first be an English or an American publication. On this side it would be marginal, but he feels it might even be a best seller in England. He asked me to have it retyped so that Patrick can show it to Knopf/ They are pleased that Rose is coming over, and says that just after September 15th would be best, since that it is the deadline for handing in the manuscript of his collected poems. They had wanted to have her stay for a few days at their own home, but since the only ground floor bedroom is Horace's own it was lucky she had warned me against this. Now they will try to find something in the neighborhood. Pat they assured me would be glad to show her around New York and take her to Harlem as she wants.

Horace has finished his Ovid, but wants to touch up the introduction a little, following some suggestions of Dudley Fitts. Holt is also bringing out a separate volume of his alphabet poem for Joanna (published in one of the early books) with illustrations by some professional. This should bring him a little. This will appear this fall, and the Ovid in February. The Collected Poems, I gather, is for the spring or fall. Holt has also asked him to edit a volume of Edward Thomas's poems with letters between Frost and Edwards, and he says they will pay well. I know that Fitts has been instrumental in getting Stanley Burnshaw of Holts interested in helping Horace as much as possible. After turning in the CP, Horace wants to settle down to Dorothy Richardson and hopes to have the early years done by Christmas. This seems a little fast, but I daresay will be possible. He tells me he can now type three or four pages a day, which was his old speed. For the introduction to his Collected Poems he is using the talk he gave at Sarah Lawrence this spring. Apparently it went well, and the audience gave him a standing ovation when he finished. I am sure this was deserved, and it must have taken a good deal of courage for Horace to appear.

Everything seems quiet in the papers about Macmillan, although I was astonished to read in this morning's Times that Lord Denning's brother was in charge of naval intelligence. Since the Denning task is to investigate all branches of intelligence, surely this must be one of the first times in history that a brother has been invited to investigate a brother! It sounded like "just one of those things" when Macmillan "dismissed the question as irrelevant." I suspect that Mac must be what boxers call punch-drunk by now.

Tell Miss Dudley that Ingholt, to whom I showed the drawings of the little vials from Nor-Nour, did not know of any immediate parallels there. But of course he was not in a poistion really to judge. I do hope you take your camera along, or Elsie does, so that Susan and I can see what progress has been made since our visit with you and Miss D in March. We envy you your dig.

And love to Elsie and Doris from us both.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

29 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

You have an unfailing instinct for being at the right
place at the right time. I cannot imagine anywhere else for you to
be at this moment than in England at the time of the Profumo scandal,
for what in the end may be more important than any revelations is
the response of the British to them. I have been reading Part II
of Miss Keller's memoirs this morning, as well as the somewhat brief
notices of the testimony at the first day of Ward's trial. The whole
affair has a very high finish, although I sometimes suspect that
behind the whole episode is a very shrewd matter of policy. Cliveden
is a National Trust building, I am told, and the upkeep will have to
be born eventually (if not already) by the government. It is fun to
speculate that everything is being revealed so that in the future
thousands and thousands of tourists will flock there to see the
swimming pool, and say 'this is where she met Profumo,' 'this is where
she thought, You may be a Russian but what a lovely huggy bear you are, '
and 'this is where the President of Pakistan, in the 'heat of a game'
grabbed me by the legs--and down I went.' This is far better income
producing than the Duke of Norfolk's letting people photograph him with
anyone for three shillings.

I am not surprised that the Brigadier takes it all very
seriously and with dignity since he belongs to his own sort of establishment,
and he does not want to talk about the "wound" he himself feels. His reaction
might be expected, but it is significant of the way many feel and will
continue to feel.

Your undated letter of the 26th arrived this morning, and I
am happy you are safely at St Mary's. Delighted too that Doris is doing
well, and that you have Ethel with you. But sorry that Elsie does not
have a more satisfactory lodging, and hope she does not feel she is being
put upon as at her Swiss sanatorium. I long for a report on Nor-Nour.

Perhaps the best news, really, was that of Catha's success.
This is really splendid. She feels mature now, and that makes all the
difference. With R.A.alive, she was a little girl wanting to be a woman,
and subconsciously rebelled against school.

We do have *Battles of the Nineteenth Century*, with the Henty
articles in it. Actually there are four volumes (we have them all) rather
than two.

I am so sorry about Helen's arthritis. I have wondered at
her increasing lameness, and worry about her taking care of it and of Kurt
at the same time.

Curious that you should write about Annie Reich's manuscript
in today's letter, since yesterday afternoon Ivo Lederer, the professor of

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

Russian history here, came at long last to report on it. In its favor
is that it is well written and done with an idea of its being read
by a public rather than serving as a vehicle for historical learning
as Vernadsky and others do in arguing out each point as they come to it.
Against it is its length, some 8-900 typescript pages which means it
would be difficult to find a press which could finance it. Against
it also is the fact that it quotes repeatedly and at great length from
other books, perhaps manuscripts and the like, but never gives a source
for any quotation. Lederer discussed the matter with the editors of the
Yale Press who said that no university press, at any rate, could publish
a book without the scholarly apparatus necessary to verify the material.
And since the book is a lengthy one and would in itself have to serve as
a reference, this would stand in its way with any commercial publisher.

The approach is sound and mature but not strikingly original in
the sense that it gives a "new" approach to early Russian history; and
by limiting itself to such early history it limits its audience.

Lederer's suggestion was that "just possibly" some scholar might
be hired to track down all references. But this seems to me unwise, in
(a) that one could get perhaps 2/3 and still miss locating a good deal;
and (b) a smart scholar would prefer to write his own book after doing
so much research. A second possibility was that all quotations could
be omitted, and a scholar thereby compress it into, say, a short history
of 200-250 pages. But then it will be in competition with already
established and available histories. This type of book would not be for
the university pressed, but for some publisher who was willing to do a
marginally profitable (if at all) book for a small audience.

He is to write a report to me embodying these points and any others,
and return to me with the manuscript on the week of the 8th when he comes
back from Maine. I had told him there was no hurry since I had thought we
would discuss when you come back here. But when does Annie go to Switzerland,
and how should it be presented to her. By me? Any decision would
of course have to be up to her. My impression is that it is not publishable
as it now stands.

All this is a little outside my own personal expertise as well as out
of yours, so I have had to depend on others.

Susan will be delighted at the first St Mary's letter, and join me
in love to Ethel, Doris, and Elsie. And to yourself.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

30 June 1963

Dearest Fido,

Oh, I do hope your sake it is cool on St Mary's
and at Nor-Nour. It is miserable here. We went to the wedding
yesterday afternoon in heat about 90° with rain at the same time.
The church was reasonably cool, but the reception was like a
Finnish bath and after we had paid our respects and had a token
glass of champagne we left. Last night it poured without turning
much cooler, and we were wakened during the night the night by
intermittent claps of thunder so loud from near-by strikes, that
one felt at war at least with the elements. It is not raining
now, but my office is steaming.

Last night I finally read the two tributes to Sylvia
by Bonnefoy and by Chamson. What a pity it is we cannot return
to earth to read tributes about ourselves like these. They
caught the spirit of Sylvia beautifully, and I especially liked
what Chamson had to say. Then I read the rest of the papers. If
only we had their equivalent in the States!

Then I read your Queenswood volume, which came with the
things from London. It was great fun to see the pictures of the
dining room and great hall, to read the announcement of Dori's
and your arrival at the school, to wonder what you felt like when
your father gave his peach and your mother awarded the prizes, to
wish I could have heard you in your series of debates (how many of
your immediate circle took part in them), and to wish I might have
applauded at the very end when Ethel received her special awards
as Queen of them all. It was, as a matter of fact, interesting to
me to read your father's statement that years after graduation the
more fortunate of the graduates would help the others. He would be
pleased at the way you have carried out the commission.

I must run to the shore now, and then return for a cocktail
party. I shall have a drink mixed with my own sweat.

All love to all,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

This has been another sweltering day, and I have let Mrs Dingle go home early. I still have too many things to do before she goes on a week's vacation, for me to let myself go back to Johnson's Point.

I was the victim of the heat yesterday afternoon when I came back in town to bet some rich dirt from the compost heap to put in the little rock garden by the kitchen door at the shore. Just as I was turning off Route 1 on the way back, and had slowed down to let a woman cut unduly deep in rounding the corner towards me when I was suddenly hit in the rear by the car behind me. Fortunately he acknowledged that it was completely his fault, for this morning the garage informs me that he did $197.00 of damage His insurance company tells me they will pay, but what a nuisance it is, for I shall have to give the car up several days while it is being repaired, and must wait until next week for that. I hope that Kenneth does not have such bad luck with his new car.

Your letter of the 26th was in this morning's mail, and I only hope that it has been cool while you dig ditches on Nor-Nour. Out of this experience you will be able to write the life of an Egyptian slave dedicated to building the pyramids. Still, I envy you. I have always wanted to be on a dig and feel an excavation as an archaeologist does.

I was grateful for your newest Profumery. I can only add a few notes from Drew Pearson in the issue of the Gardner News I received this morning. It seems "Profumo's father was an aristocrat of Italian birth, famous for wearing an orchid boutonniere when he rode to the hounds....his son carried on quite an affair with a widowed member of the royal family until he finally met actress Valerie Hobson and married her.... the naked man with the mask who served dinner at one of Dr. Ward's sex orgies is a former Hollywood movie star with a very famous name, who has now adopted the life of England. He is an amateur photographer of parties, paid quite a bit to get his photos kept out of the Duke of Argyle divorce case." I assume this latter bit accounts for the mentions of Douglas 'airbanks, Jr.'s name from time to time. (Don't say that I never give you anything for tea table conversation.)

I will ask Susan about Susan Pearson tonight when I go home, and try to write in the morning in order to reach you before the 9th. There were two good yellowbacks in the mail today also. Did you want me to send a copy of Carthage to Masefield? In getting John Carter of Sotheby's to handle Sylvia's books and papers, Holly is certainly going to the top. He is the Wise forgery man, and a top person in the auction field. I am sure Sylvia was right in feeling that monetary values were what would impress her kinsmen most. Silvia Dobson continues to amaze me with her studies. She is like an enthusiastic undergraduate. California is the right spot in the whole world for her. # How meticulous and nice it was of the old dame to return your 20 francs. But you did her a world of moral good on the train, and it is nice that she has feelings of propriety. # Poor Gavin de Beer. perhaps you pught to visit him and talk

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

about the new novel before he has another attack. He might have just the
right hint, and I think it would please him to be consulted in person rather
than have to write any letters. I am serious about this. # Much interested
in Hilda Quick's account of her trip. I shall take the letter home for Susan
to see tonight. # As to the photographs by Kenneth, there is no hurry, and
if you go down in the fall to see the boys he can take them then. We only
need them against the next book. On the other hand if he happened to be in
Kenwin and could use that as background they would have extra interest.
Anticoli has been rather used up now, and the results tie you too closely
with Italy. # I feel a certain sadness in George's letters, as though he
felt the Marvels chapter coming to an end, "even though unwilling to admit
it. I suppose there is no time for you to see him on this visit, but I
know it would please him if you could.

I must dash now to put this in the outside mailbox so it will
go off at five. Otherwise it doesn't go until tomorrow morning.

Happing digging, and all love,

NORMAN

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

2 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

Another day with the thermometer at 95º, and the world wilted.
Mrs Dingle held out until I came back from the doctor's at three, but this
morning and early afternoon I was filled with guilt because she looked so
unhappy and so obviously wanted to go. People who are being "brave" are
disconcerting. The humidity of course makes the temperature far worse,
and we have humidity. Poor Susan went to New York for her hair, and it
must have been worse there.

I have spent the last two nights at the shore, and today at
the office trying to put Rose Odle's manuscript into decent enough shape
for it to go to a typist. Unfortunately she has changed the names of most
of her family as well as the Odles and some others, but done this only
haphazardly, perhaps once or twice on every few pages, leaving the rest
in a most confused state. So I made out a new list of dramatis personae
and went over the whole thing twice to be as sure as I could. Perhaps in
copying inserts she sometimes leaves out words -- not for stylistic effect.
At any rate, Knopf will at least find consistency, and Rose can re-cortect
before anything is done with it. There are really some very fine things
in her memoirs, and it is far better in freedom of feeling now that she
is no longer trying to cover up for her -establishment conscious son. There
are still, however, a number of needless repetitions (especially about the
step-father), the transitions are often meaninglessly abrupt, and there is
no real ending, too rounding of off the book. My own suspicion is that she
will have to make one more re-write, or polishing job, even if it is accepted
in principle.

I talked with Susan about the Susan Pearson bulbs, and although
they would arrive here too late for her to plant -- or more accurately we
would leave before the right time to plant, we both think it would be nice
if she would permit us to buy a dozen bulbs to be sent to us in Japan. If
she could put these aside, and send me the bill, I would be most grateful.
In a letter to you she spoke of £2/-/- a bulb, but of course I cannot mention
this to her, so any price above that will be fine. I insist on paying her
however, so you must not do so. It would be unwise to have them arrive in
Japan before we do, so I will send an address there when I know it. They
should not in any event arrive before October, so there is plenty of time.

I was delighted with your Nor-Nour letter of this morning, and
congratulate you on your own bit of pottery, and Miss Dudley on her half a
pot. Your own feeling of having learned from actually being on a dig confirms
what I wrote you in my last letter.

I see by this morning's *Times* that the Kim Philby story is finally
acknowledged, but wonder if the average person can truly understand the enormity
of having the head of British counter-espionage in the employment of the Russians.
It is breath-taking, and of course catches me particularly since we were
opposite numbers not only on the Inberian desks but as chiefs. This is one of

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

This may or may not catch you at St Mary's, but it is
worth a try. At any rate there is little to report, so that little
will be lost if it has to be sent on either to London or to Kenwin.
The weather fortunately has been better today. Last night, about ten,
we began to have thunder storms and gales-- the wind driving the rain
under doors and picking up porch furniture and tossing it across the
lawn. One bolt must have hit very close, so quickly was the thunder
and so electric the air. But the storm dropped the temperature some
fifteen degrees, and today there has been a fine breeze. This being
Mrs Dingle's last appearance for ten days I have been working her all
the harder for the good weather, and she has managed to get a good
deal done. It is now after five, and she is still typing. But certain
letters do need the professional touch to make them seem official.

I did the dentist this morning as another of the checkups
which I want accomplished in time enough to do something about anything
which develops. He found four small cavities to be worked on, so I go
back next week. My doctor phoned to say that blood tests, chest x-ray,
etc were all fine; but I had one taken today of my hip just to be sure.
Yesterday the doctor gave me the typhoid booster and a few others, and
in the intense heat I did feel the consequences.

Your letter of the 29th came this morning, for which my thanks.
I am sorry that the weather has been bad (or typical?), but know how pleasant
it has been all the same to be with Doris. I am glad Elsie has like Holgates,
but Susan and I were so pleased with the special atmosphere of our little
hotel that I think we would like to go back there again. I suspect, however,
it is perhaps not for Elsie.

A letter in from Pantheon asking permission to print another 1500
copies of Roman Wall. I have said to go ahead, although there is some discussion
as to what new list price should be asked. I prefer to keep it as low as
possible. But we will go over all this when you come over.

Do give our love to Ethel, Doris, and Elsie, and our greetings
generally to Doris's farmer and her helper in the house. My next letter on
Friday--tomorrow is the 4th--will be to Sesame.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

Because of the 4th and not coming in to the office,
I cannot quite get the idea out of my head that this is a Monday.
Yet for the extra day, and for tomorrow too, I am grateful. For I
have just finished reading a 33-page manuscript for a publisher,
and even managed a series of notes so that another manila folder can
be out into the dead file. My ambition just now is to kill off as
much and as many as possible.

However I seem to be hearty enough, for the doctor called
this morning to say that the x-rays of my hip (taken as a purely pre-
cautionary matter) show no moth holes eaten in the bone. And the
appraiser of the damage to my car (sent to check the estimate of costs
by the insuring company of the man who hit me) congratulated me on
not having myself been hurt by the whip-lash after the collision. He
was a pleasant person, talkative to such a degree that it turned out
that he had been a classmate of a second cousin of mine in Arlington
Mass., when they were in high school. I count on that to make him
decide the estimate was a fair one.

I forgot, I think, to tell you in my last letter that
Pantheon was doing a new printing of 1500 copies of Roman Wall.

Two letters from you were in this afternoon's mail: that
of the 30th and of the 1st. My thanks for sharing the tip on not
buying shares in factories that make prams. Actually Noprams would
make an excellent trade name for the new oral contraceptives. I had
forgotten about Barbara Delgano, but will be curious to know whether
in the end you did discover anything. Dorrien Smith's remark about
not running a hotel to make people happy was certainly ominous.
"Alumnus"? We are very meticulous about alumnus, alumna, alumnae, etc.,
and it is the only Latin known by the man in the street. I should agree
with you about St Agnes, even though I know it only in the rain. One
had definitely the feeling of things as they were, and I should not for
anything have missed our visit. Susan I know was delighted with her
tour of it. I was only sorry not to have had a day on Bryher, which
might also be attractive, although perhaps too exposed on the outer side.
I shall be delighted to see Ambit and especially O.B.'s article on SEED.

Yesterday was amazingly cool after our long spell of heat.
The temperature stayed in the 70's, and the only drawback was that the
wind blew so hard no one dared go out in boats, and the kites the children
tried to fly were all snapped once they mounted into the air. We had our
vast inter-family, or clan, gathering on the night of the 3rd, and except
for going to Mrs Bennett's in the morning for kites there was no special
activity planned. The Addisses have his mother and honorary aunt up for the
long weekend, and Lizzie spent the night of the 3rd with us but went back
to her apartment after dinner last might. She seems to have a nice young
man who is beauing her at the moment, which let her participate in things
without feeling lonely.

G愛, and all love to yourself, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

6 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

I plug on and on at my desk, and the pile of duties-to-be-done never seems to grow smaller. Yet yesterday and today, with Mrs Dingle away, have at least meant uninterrupted toil. Not quite so bad as for you on Nor-Nour, but I sometimes think that archeological spadework best describes what I am at the moment doing.

I was sorry that your spade or trowel never hit upon a cup or an idol. I should like to think of one layer of culture being known as the Dryher Period. Was not altogether surprised at the attitude of the men who were working for Miss Dudley. I am told this is always the problem with a dig, to get the workmen who are strong enough and interested enough. Ingholt, I believe, is very good at getting them to work, and this was one reason he was always in demand as a leader. Mrs Vebaek, too, I was told was much better than her husband at this, although in her case it was because she was a Greenlander in a racial sense.

It is good news that you will be seeing Edith in London. And also George. I have owed him a letter for many months; and if I have not written him when you see him, give him my pledges of undying love. Perhaps when you see Philip he can answer the question a friend put to me about Willie Maugham and his daughter's suit. Rather, I mean, his, to disown her. Is he required by law to leave her or her grandchildren a legacy, or may he simply leave it wherever he wishes to? I was interested that by British law any child born out of wedlock is legitimate if his parents wed later. By this rule it would, I should think, be improper to say that you were anything but a legitimate child even though born out of wedlock. French law appears to be different.

Am most grateful especially for the Times clippings on the Ward trial. This straightforward reporting of the evidence and testimony is far better than our way of writing it up. What a mess. As to the Philby case, I doubt that either the British or the American general public will realize its significance, especially if true as was stated in Commons that he had been working for the Russians since 1943. The British would inevitably play down his official status--who would not!--but the truth is that this was one of the greatest feats of intelligence in world history. I really shudder, but do not expect others to.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

I waited to write today until the afternoon mail came, in the
hope there might be a letter from you in it. There was, as of the 3rd,
for which as always my thanks. This has been another humid day, with dark
clouds and rain off andoon, and almost certain to be "on" again soon. I
must leave early today, shortly after four, since I am kindly being taken
vack to the shore, having left my car at the garage this morning for three
or more days of being fixed after the accident. At least it should be in
good shape again by the time you come.

Yesterday at the shore I spent chiefly reading, at very long
last, the remaining letters to George. This time those from Sylvia Warner
which George had so especially recommended. He was right, they are captivating.
She writes fluently and with great graphic wit. Perdita has the same flare.
Miss Warner's ought someday to be published, but I suspect that time is still
a little distant. I have had half a mind to save them for you to read, before
turning over to the Library (with restrictions of course). But there are so
many, and there will be so much else for you to look at and study, that I think
I won't wait. I can always get for you if you want.

I am so sorry that this trip didn't quite turn out for Elsie. But
I don't see how you could have done otherwise than as you did. Her real diffi-
culty, as you know, is not wanting to be left out, -- an act which she interprets
as marking her as inferior. It is that incredible middle-class or lower middle
pride (and ambition) which does not know how sometimes to capytaize on its own
real strengths.

I am glad Nor-Nour had its inspection turn out well. One could be
sure that with Miss Dudley all would be ship-shape. I do hope you were able to
get a picture or two for Susan and me to see what had newly come out of the dirt.

I can't imagine what the *Time* immorality was about Profumo, everything
having been printed in the *Times*. But it will be saved for you. My only guess
is the quotation of Ward's statement to Miss X about the double mirror, when she
said she wouldn't want to look through it. "My dear, I didn't want you to look,
I wanted you to perform." This all goes with the enclosed clipping about the
banned skit in Mexico, which I thought might amuse you as a British export.

But when I started to tear the notice out, my eye was struck by the
neighboring article on the Giraffe in Cincinnati. This must be "my" giraffe, the
one I saw in Pennsylvania at the motel on my way back from Ohio. He must be a
terror, and how unwittingly correct I was to ask that night if he was a "nice"
giraffe. "Yes," they said, 'but we liked the one that went to Florida better."
I'm sure now they must have. Still, to me he was nice; and it's not always easy
for a giraffe to meet complete strangers in a Pennsylvania Turnpike motel.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

This is truly a brief one, but probably the last I dare to
Sesame, and I must wish you bon voyage to Kenwin. The weather has been
cold with us as with you at St Mary's; probably there will be more of
it here, as wafted across the Atlantic from us.

I am just back from the library where, after months of waiting
on their part, I finally gave the necessary OK's etc for the various gifts
of Butts, more Richardson, Nadejine, and Aldington. And also arranged for
Horace to have the Dorothy Richardson papers at Palisades: irregular, but
they understand the situation.

Otherwise I spent the first part of the morning at the dentist's,
but have to return on Thursday morning for more. This afternoon I went to
the doctor's for more innoculations, one on each arm, and at the moment they
ache. Then to the repairer's to pick up my desk chair on which I have sat so
long and so hard that the upholstery burst. I feel like a dying man setting
his house in order.

A registered yellowback arrived also today, from Clarens, sent
surface on the 17th of June, but I have not yet seen what was in it. And an
ordinary envelope of mail from England, but have not yet opened that either.
And yours of the 5th came, to please me by your better day at the dig. Maybe
you should buy a small boat to keep at St Mary's and have your fisherman run
her for the trade when you are not there. I should say definitely, but, alas,
one does not know about Doris. And afterwards it might be different.

Your London visit is overwhelming in all you plan to do. But
all are necessary, and I shall be keen to get the reports.

There will be a letter or letters waiting for you from me at
Kenwin.

All best to Elsie and all love to you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

11 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

This has been a day of sixes and sevens -- although seven being a lucky number, I think there have been many more sixes. Now unfortunately I must rush through with this letter if it is to catch the 5:15 post. Otherwise it must wait until tomorrow. I can write again then, but I am anxious there should be at least one note waiting for you on your return to Kenwin.

I seem to have done nothing but run to doctors for shots and to dentists for fillings. To travel agencies and to the bank. Fetching my now-repaired automobile. All these errands are no doubt worthwhile, but they snip into the day, and no matter how I work it, I do not seem to be able to do them in an orderly fashion. As a result my desk seems fuller than ever, and part of Hansen's dissertation has now arrived to fill me with dismay at having to read it. The Provost's office of the university have been acting meanly, and it will take hours to straighten this out, if it can be straightened out: a matter of payment to tutors for next year. There are great problems about whether a Japanese student ought to be allowed to continue for her doctorate in American Studies: tears on her part, and to make it worse her mother has just arrived for a visit from home. Quickly, Susan and I will take them out to dinner tonight. She is an attractive and intelligent girl to whom I have loaned a little money to be repaid in yen in Japan. Her father was Finance Minister of the country, and one of his political party leaders. I believe the mother speaks no English, so dinner should be jplly.

Your letter of the 7th and the first undated from the Sesame were in this afternoon's mail. Come whenever you can and stay as long as you can. We will find things to do, and we have the Bethlehem trip in any event. We might even try Salem, if nothing more. We now have our reservations to leave for Honolulu on September 10th, so perhaps the earlier in the month of August you come, the less crowded the end would be. And if you do shift from your earlier reservation, I should think you would shift to first class. Why not, and be less tired. As to clothes, summer things plus a sweater to throw over your shoulder. Perhaps one pair of walking shoes, if we try the woods--we've never shown you Susan's woodlot which she dearly loves. And we should try Sturbridge Village which you ought to glimpse as well as a return to Mystic which is much increased. No ballroom gowns please; the most we might do is to see King Lear at Stratford to give you and idea of what goes on at our Avon. I leave the Perdita visit entirely up to you, but imagine she would be happy enough to come into New York to see you. I will arrange to have a boy go with the station wagon to pick it up beforehand. It will kill us to make the drive in that car, it now seems to clumsy to handle.

I must rush now, and pick up my Japanese.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

One isn't allowed to use the word nigger any more, but I have been working like what the word meant. Actually some 22 letters, --real ones, not notes -- stand in a neat pile on my desk as affidavits to the fact I have not been idle. My desk is still not empty, but for the moment it looks a little better. Actually I had hoped to accomplish more during the last week, but my time went chiefly into reading portions of dissertations. The last 150 pages were by Hansen who promises the rest of it shortly. I have never found anything so hard to pull, as this from him. And of course his English is such that I have to edit almost every sentence; and his footnoting is so inconsistent that I shall simply have to hire someone to check this as well as his quotations. I wonder if he realizes how lucky he is. Somehow he has managed to have Elsa as support, with me pushing him for the last five or six years. He is a nice person, but I am afraid he is not really first-class as a mind. I overbet on him, but I might as well see it through.

I start with a little pile of things beside me at the typewriter that I wanted to comment on, so they could be put away and out of my sight. Not under the carpet, but into filing cabinets. I begin then with them. First of all many thanks for the book on Japan by Sachy, which is a truly beautiful one. The handsomest of those I have seen, and you call it one of his best in itself. Also the copy of Edith's anthology, which goes to the house. And Hilda's copy of Adrienne's Dernière Gazette. (Incidentally, what an impressive table of contents for the Salut to Sylvia. If Saillet could send an extra one to me, I would like to give it to Gallup because of the Eliot item. I was pleased he puts you near the top.)

In today's mail I had returned the two photographs of you I sent to Newsweek. I presume this means the review is now made up and will appear next week or shortly. I am glad to have them back, as requested, for the truth is I hardly have one of you from having to send so many to publishers.

I have had a letter from an H. Allen Clodd, in London, who asks about a bibliographical puzzle connected with Civilians. He has two copies. one with your name spelled correctly on the cover and title page, the other with it spelled BRYER. He wants to know the story, and how come, and which the order is. One knows the latter of course, but were copies of the misprint actually released?

Rota has now sent me Jocelyn's Six Poems published while he was a student at Oxford. It came to $10.12 but is, of course, a rarity and under the circumstances worth it.

I had my quarterly check from Benay with a note of greetings in the corner of the accompanying receipt. Will you thank him for me, please? And give him my greetings in return. Perhaps when you come over it might be a good idea to bring along an up-to-date account of the holdings and current market values. You might ask him what he thinks of shares of Controlled Data.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

It has had a rather spectacular rise in the last months, and has just slipped off a few points because of some heavy unloading. But I am not sure what the basis for unloading was; this sometimes happens when a man needs money for something else, and so depresses the market unnecessarily. I am told by younger men in IBM that Control Data is the one real competitor they now feel in the cimputor industry, and indeed IBM has been slower for this very reason (I am thinking of Islay's wail). What with the various outlays I have had to make lately, I do not have any free cash at the moment, but if Benay feels wise I would not object to having him put some in if available. As you know, like IBM, the interest return is small; but there is still a marked chance for a substantial capital gain over a mediumly long pull. I leave it to him, unless he feels I ought to plough in from this side also.

I had a letter back from Pantheon saying they would go ahead with the new printing for Roman Wall. I am glad to say they took my advice and are holding the price at $3.00. I will explain my reasons for not wanting it jacked up, when I see you.

I have my Oldsmobile back now, although I must return it next week for buffing. It is heaven to be driving it again.

Am not altogether surprised that (a) the British public did not react strongly to the Philby case, and (b) have grown tired of the Ward-Profumeur Philby's took place seven years ago, and for the public that is enough. Then it is quite clear that although Kim's actual position was mentioned once in the British papers, or an AP despatch, this is actually being hushed up. From my point of view however it is indelibly serious. We can discuss when you are here. As to Ward and Profumo, there was almost too much to read about, and the public wants a new rape or rugger match to discuss. Macmillan may be smarter than we think in being able to wait it out. It takes gall, but he has it. Now he has new gestures towards the common market; the U.S. government made him a present of a Russian spy so that the British and ourselves can appear as smart as the Russians (and as attractive); there is no activity, because of China, in an atom bomb control and in peace with the Reds. Stranger things have happened than that he should have stayed in. Yet it is still possible with this betterment of the situation that he can now retire in a cloud of "glory." (Cheers from the Majority'). Amd therefore still will retire.

I am so pleased that Nor Nour turned out well in the end, and especially that Elsie seemed finally to have enjoyed herself. She always can if she wants to. Susan has at last been able to send off the variously promised magic salt shakers. They had kept promising her the cooky jars, but at last said they were no longer being manufactured. She is sorry for the delay. But they have gone to Doris, to Dean, to Phyllis, and to Ethel. I will send Doris the address for thebulbs when I know what it is.

I actually have Annie Eich's manuscript back in my hands now, with the report on it. But don't you think it would be better for me to wait to send it to her New York address until she is back from abroad? It is precious to her and I should not want it to go astray. I will do as you say on this.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I will check with Ingholt on the archaeological meeting, and let you know. When you are here, I know they want to see you and we can ask them to the shore.

By the way, my friend Dillon Ripley, the bird man whom you met, will leave Yale after next year to be head of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. We will miss him, but this is the biggest job in the country.

I do hope all has gone well with you in London. I think as I write; but of course London will be in the past tense when you read this.

I wrote you about the dates for your coming. The chief thing is to do it as is most convenient to you. Otherwise I think the earlier in the month the better, and for as long as you can stay. As I said, it is likely to be muggy weather here, and we can always lend you a sweater. I will have a typewriter ready for you. And you can have your own room and bath by yourself in your own wing at the shore. By the garage. Most days I should think you would like to come in town with me, where we can work, and you can explore Swiss travelers in America in the books at the Library. We will do Bethlehem and at least one other trip, not counting Sturbridge Village and Mystic. There is much, much to see; and much, much to talk about. We might take a quickie to Montreal? Why not get a glimpse of it?

I have missed the post outside the office and so will swing around by the postoffice before I go back to the shore. I shall not come in tomorrow (Sunday) since we are baby-sitting for the grandchildren while their parents have a much-needed week's vacation.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

14 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

I did come in to the office this morning after all. Justus was taken on a motor boat ride, and Lizzie came down early to help in taking care of little Susan. Mrs Dingle comes back tomorrow, and there were several letters (including one to Washington) that I needed to get written. But especially I wanted to write to George, to whom I have owed a long letter for a long time. And his are not the sort one wants to write when the telephone interrupts or the office door is knocked.

The children have been very good so far, and want to be. But they also, naturally, want to play; and it is a mark of their affection that they want you to play with them. The result is exhausting, and by the time next Sunday night is here, I suspect that my Susan and I will be exhausted and be lucky still to be on speaking terms.

Especially if the clouds continue as black as they are now, so that the youngsters cannot be out of doors.

This morning as I looked in my desk drawer, I saw that I had not asked Ingholt about the convention, and so have written him to ask. He should reply promptly. Also that I had not telephoned Prutting. I will do that tomorrow so that I can have an answer to send to you.

I said the clouds were black. Suddenly they became midnight, and I interrupted your letter to run to close my car, gathering some books I wanted to put in it. But too late! The heavens opened in a downpour, and I am coatless. I only hope Justus is back from his boatride.

I just called Susan. He was. Every boat on the water hrried for cover.

When you come, would you like to see *King Lear* at Stratford, out of curiosity to see the theatre? We have been waiting to go, on the likelihood that you might. It is supposed to be a reasonably good production, and is easy to get to from the shore. We simply drive down the Turnpike to it, after supper.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

I got the paper into the machine this morning, but not even the date typed. Mrs Dingle was here after I returned from the dentist--my last visit I hope--and we spent some time going over the accumulated work I had done while she was away. Then suddenly she became sick, and so has gone home for the day. And it is now late afternoon with not much having been accomplished.

However I did call Dr Prutting this morning. His last day at the office will be August 2nd, and he does not have any idea when the two or three days will come in August, of which his secretary wrote you, when he pays a fleeting visit to the office. If you could be here before the 2nd he says he would be eager to see you, the earlier before that date the better. Otherwise he will not be back until early September. So do come earlier if you can. And do shift to first class, which will make your travel arrangements easier.

A check from Random House for your royalties came today, the total being $956.82, but include $12.36 for Hilda's *Tribute to Freud*. I will deposit the balance in your account at the bank, plus Hilda's to hers. I will save the specific accounting to show you when you come.

Three letters were in this morning's mail, to my delight. For the 10th, 11th, and 12th. I was happy to know about the flight to Exeter. The quid cost may be steep for some but will make it much easier for you. Much delighted by your story of the Sesame, and the old lady showing her nephew. It is a good way to die. Curious, I did not remember when I read about the demonstrations against the Greek monarchs that this would be just around the corner from you. It must have been exciting.

A yellowback came today also with two letters from George in it. I wrote him at great length yesterday. He is obviously failing, and knows it (which makes it all the sadder). Yes, he must certainly come over, and it is a very good idea indeed about going to visit Ady. Much more important than Viola, though there is no reason why we cannot do both. Carlisle is an attractive little town, and you ought to see it anyway. For Marianne's sake as well as George's. This will be easy to arrange.

I am sorry about Elsie's poor service at the Normandie, but wonder if Doris would not actually fare better than Elsie. Doris has an assured air about her, and an easy manner which always goes down well with staff.

I do hope you were able to visit Edith. Her note showed how much your visit would have meant. I only hope we are not in for another year of sadness.

You can read The Gingerbread Man when you come over. A lively style, although I do not go all the way out for Irish talk --very Irish, I mean. And this is based on it, and emphasized by being written by an American

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Aurelia had not written me that she had sold Owlacres. In fact I have heard nothing since before I went to Iowa. I will send her out $500.00 for curtains and outfitting the house, and we can see about the rest, or if necessary, later. I will try to prod her, but one has to be careful. She has great pride, and does not want to lose her new-found independence. Especially to be trapped by obligation.

Rose had nice things to say about Coin, which pleased me. Helen's letter was brave but frightening. One does not know what to advise. Mrs Macpherson's letter was astonishing. How calm she is; imagine putting out the fire without panic-ing. Clara's letter about Coin was most thoughtful. She obviously has a good mind.

Martelli obviously puts up a good show though hardly a believable one. He has the gall of a true professional. I only hope the law does not let him slip through. The Philby case becomes increasingly per-plexing, at least so far as the government's attitude. The £3,000 compensation given him on resignation sounds difficult. But then the whole thing is such a fog of covering up. This morning's New York Times says that it was *Newsweek*'s forthcoming announcement of Philby's role as Third Man which caused the government to speak of it in advance. This must have been the disclosure you heard of. But how did Newsweek hear of it, if the government hadn't. Now they are saying that the name of the Russian defector (I mean, some British are saying) was released by the American intelligence agencies to discredit British security. It is a neat gambit but sounds implausible in view of the British press releases. And then request not to print the name already given. Here the reports were that the CIA was furious the name had been given, so which kettle is calling the other black. At any rate I don't see that the name was of much consequence whatever its origin. For one could hardly expect the Russians to be unaware after a year that a prominent member of their service was missing. And if he was know to be missing, then they knew his name.

Oh, one thing I gleaned from Sunday's paper was that a Russian freighter had left for the Black Sea on the night Philbee disappeared.

The Sicilian Puppet show, all in Italian, yesterday afternoon was splendid. They did the Song of Roland, and many early 19th century things. Much blood and gore, and Justus instead of being frightened by the fighting knights in armor was completely delighted. And when in another play the dragon, and the giant, and the serpents were all slain by Roland, he applauded lustily. Afterwards he went backstage to inspect the blood.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

17 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

What would I do without you! Your letters of the 13th and 14th were in this morning's mail (not so long ago), and I opened to Graham Greene's article first. What an extraordinary thing for him to have written. It must, as you say, have an element of revenge in it, as well as a kind of "establishment" courtesy in permitting him to speak kindly of Kim Philby. As you know, Greene did at one time have strong Communistic sympathies, and one presumes that the two shared this view. Yet perhaps, since Greene has always been a shrewd and not altogether scrupulous person, so far as his own advantage was concerned, one reason for writing this may have been to indicate how very "secure" he himself was in jot letting even American allies see his papers (so how could one believe he might have let others see them?), and what a gentleman he was in not even looking at the American papers which he took out from the steel cabinet, given us by the British, which he forced open.

His only lapse of memory is what stimulated him to force the case open (a true story). Col. Ferguson, the British security officer, and I had been much concerned about carelessness in security matters in terms of office papers and memoranda, and Ferguson asked me to do the security checking one night of the British desks. Naively, I followed the rules, and when papers had been left exposed or available to charwomen I took them to the colonel. Graham was the worst offender, and among other papers (which again naively I did not read or copy) in an open desk drawer was a list of all the agents working for the British in Portugal, with their code names. Ferguson put him on the mat, and when Graham's turn came to make security inspection on night duty he went to town in the way he describes. One's duty period lasted for two or three nights and he repeated the jimmying each night until Ferguson and I asked him to desist, since nothing better than the British cabinet was available.

At any rate I roared with laughter at his article, and it will be one of my proudest possessions. Imagine being immortalized by Graham Greene! What I can only imagine happened is that, as a joke, I slay told him the story I've just told you, which I related to him and Donald Downes at Anticoli. (I remember I slay writing you that I had entertained him, and Donald us, by funny stories about intelligence work.) It is barely possible that I might have been pressed by I slay to repeat the story to Noel Coward and Kenneth at S. Tiodoro; and if so I daresay Coward might have told it as a joke to Greene since they are at least outwardly friends, though I detected an undercurrent of Coward's dislike for Graham in the really brutal stories he told of Greene's treatment of his wife. Obviously Graham seemed a little silly in my story, and it must have irked him. I hope Kenneth and I slay will have seen the *Times*. I think it would have amused them as it did me.

Your visit to Edith must have been shattering, and your visit to

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Osbert not altogether a happy one. Somehow with George and Edith and the others, I fear this may be another bad winter. At any rate I am glad that Osbert has an attractive flat; he has superb taste.

The visit to de Beer however sounded like fun. And I wonder if you got on the subject at all of your Swiss novel. Now I see that you did mention at the end that he had given you some names of books, but on early history.

I was obviously wrong about the attitude of the jury in regard to Martelli. I am not up on the laws of evidence, but I should have been inclined to find him guilty. Does this mean now that he can return to his atomic work? I suppose it does, since he was judged innocent.

By chance last night I read the new book on Burgess and Maclean which arrived yesterday, and was just right for my flagging energy after putting the grandchildren to bed. It is not long, and I think you should take a look at it when you come over. There were a good many items that were new to me, perhaps because I had never really seen them all together before.

This week's Newsweek still did not carry the review of Coin. But I inclose a review from the New Yorker which you have probably already laid eyes on, and another from the Saturday Review, which by luck I picked up in the drugstore yesterday afternoon. I have copies of both so don't bother to return.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

18 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday afternoon's mail brought two more copies of Graham Green's article, sent by English friends; and this morning there was still another. I daresay they will continue to come, to prove that newspapers are still read. I have gone over it again. One wonders about the motives behind it, but he hardly ridiculed me. In fact he made me seem more highly professional than I deserved to be called. Don't chide Islay for telling him my story about him; it is only more slightly public a game of tit for tat.

Your letter of the 16th was in this afternoon's mail. I
am surprised that mine of the 11th took so long to reach you. Mail
from Switzeeland is always remarkably rapid to this side.

I leave for you to decide when you come, after knowing
Prutting's plans. But if still on the same plane on the 7th (isn't
that the opening of the grouse season?), I will reserve a place for you
on the 5 o'clock bus from Idlewild, and meet you at the Taft at 7.
We can have dinner at the Lawn Club and then go to the shore. If you
miss the 5 o'clock bus, another leaves at 6, and I will meet you at
8.

Harald had called to tell me the impossible dates for the
archaeological congress, but your letter yesterday had already arrived.
He looks forward to seeing you while you are here.

You did send Saillet's list, but it is in the pile for
filing. It may well have been alphabetical, in which case I am glad B
is early in the alphabet.

There will be no letter tomorrow, and very likely no NHP at
the end of it. I told you that Horace's surgeon had wanted to make a
checkup of him before he went on his vacation in August. September would
have been possible, but of course that will be within a very few days of
our leaving for Japan. The only possible day was tomorrow. And since
the Gregories have no means of transportation, I shall have to drive down
bright and early tomorrow morning, bring him and Marya (who wants to come
to talk about who has been left out of recent anthologies of poetry, or
so she says) and possibly Joanna who is there on a visit, to the hospital.
The visit will take until about 4 o'clock, after which I will have to
drive them back to Palisades and then drive back to New Haven again--several
hundred miles in all, but for a good cause. I tried to hire a graduate
student to drive them at least back, but all of them are planning weekend
trips, and, besides, as they say, it is very hot. My chief regret is that
Susan will have no relief with the grandchildren at dinner time--since
they are with us this week--but she understands and is being very good about
it. Mrs Dingle is glad too, since she will not have to work very much
and can go home early (with my blessing) if I am not here to give her and

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

myself more work on the office. They have made arrangements for a
woman to come in two extra days a week to do the housework, so that
Marya will have freer time in which to do her own writing. I will
give them a check to take care of that, plus Horace's mid-year
check.

I am much struck by the announcement in this morning's paper
that Wilson has agreed with Macmillan not to mention Philbee's name
in Commons from now on. "It would not be in the national interest,"
Macmillan states, "for members to inquire further into the past
history of the case." If it is so serious that it transcends politics,
there must have been quite a story. Now for the first time, I should
like to live to be a hundred in order to know what actually happened.

This has been a mean muggy maddening day, and I think I will
quit and go to Goodrich Street to weed for an hour in the garden
before going to the shore. We are taking the grandchildren to the
Lawn Club tonight for dinner, to save Susan's having to cook. Last
night after dinner we went to Lighthouse Point where they could
have a ride on the miniature train and on the carousel. They have
really been very good.

How nice it would be to have such a person.
Somebody to love.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

20 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

Another sweltering day, with the humidity close to 100. I have been slogging away as usual at the office, tying to answer long overdue letters and the more immediately important of those which come in. They do come in. One from a member of the Yale Corporation (its governing board) asking me to define the requirements for the new president; another asking me to suggest professors for the new British University of Keel; another asking me to suggest names for a professorship of American Art, at Detroit. And so on and so on.

But first I finished proof-reading, or at least sight-reading Rose Odle's manuscript for errors made by the typist. I had wanted to hand it over to Horace yesterday, but the night before when I was separating the first copy from the carbon (I had thought the typist--not Mrs Dingle would do that) I saw so many slips that I knew it would annoy both Rose and Alfred Knopf when the latter was reading it. There was only time for 50 pages Thursday night; but I managed another 100 yesterday while waiting for Horace's visit with the doctor; gave him what I had done to save the postage; and finished the rest this morning. I will send the rest to Horace, and the carbon and manuscript back to Rose. I do hope Knopf will like it. Anyhow it will be useful to have a clean copy. I'm glad this step is over, however.

I must say I was exhausted by the time I got home at 10:30 last night. The distance is almost exactly 100 miles each way, and 400 miles in 95 degree heat is tiring. Horace however stood it very well, and when I talked with them on the phone today both he and Marya thought it had exhilarated him by the change. I drove directly down from Branford in the morning, and we started back a little after 11. I got them sandwiches and cold drinks en route and left him at the hospital before 2. They kept him busy with x-rays and the like until 4:30 when I picked him up and drove him back, stopping at one spot so he could see a building designed by a girl in whom Pat has or had interest. (It was not very good, a hot dog stand.) We neared Palisades about seven, and then I discovered that Marya had not done her weekend shopping, expected the Baltimore family for late supper, and wanted me to take her to Tappan while she got her things and (as she said) did some extra shopping against future needs. I almost wished she had thought to do this the day before, but of course she has no car so it was obviously a great convenience. Only this meant I couldn't leave until nearly half past eight, without my own supper since I wanted to drive as much as possible by daylight or evening light. We fortunately got Horace in the house while it was fair, for soon after I started there was an immense storm which last most of the night here and there also. Alas, I had no raincoat and so had to run through the deluge for my sandwich on the way back. But it was worth it. The doctor found him improved and does not need to see him again until next spring. I gave

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Horace his thousand dollars allowance, and five hundred for a twice-a-week maid for ten months. Marya had forgotten to bring her health insurance to the doctor, and couldn't find it for me when I took them back. Fortunately she did find it this morning, so perhaps some of the bills this visit will be paid by the insurance. x-rays and any laboratory tests, at least.

Your letter of the 17th was in this morning's mail. I am delighted by the discovery of my namesake. You have eagle eyes. No wonder I am ubiquitous and always "yours faithfully."

Sorry about Kenneth's illness. I haven't tried my hand at portmaiture for a long time, although Helen would still like to use the one I did on the Disco. We might try it. But some from 'slay anyhow.

I do quite agree about a little holiday for Elsie. And the more she can learn to be self sufficient the better.

Poor Mrs MeP.

And poor stateless you. What do you think about the closing of the Geneva American consulate. I'm afraid I don't quite understand, especially with all of the international affairs there as well as the business. It doesn't make much sense.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

23 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

I cabled this you this morning with New York data, and again
this afternoon for address which I had forgotten to include with the first.
I did not quite dare in either case to trust that this letter would reach
you, and know that you would need the address long before the absolute last
minute.

I did not speak with Prutting but with his secretary, who says
that he can devote as long that afternoon of the 31st as is necessary. The
only hitch is that he cannot go over the reports with you the next day since
he will be en route for his vacation. But I daresay he can phone, or other-
wise arrange. I said to load you up with all possible shots.

The Stanhope (at Fifth Avenue and 81st St.) will be expecting
you on the 30th. I said you might be a late arrival, because of the plane,
so they will hold the room. I booked only for that night, but I feel sure
at this season you could keep for an extra day if you think it advisable to
see Pup first thing in order to avoid feelings. I think she would certainly
come in town for dinner on the 30th, but perhaps you prefer later. My advice
would be to write her you are coming; otherwise she will take it out on me as
your bad angel.

I forgot to say that Prutting's secretary said that if you wanted
to go in a little before one, they could start you off before he returned. I
have no idea how long it will take, but suggest you call my office when you know
what train you will take. I will send a time-table to you at the Stanhope.
Then you come up as of 4 o'clock, or more likely the 5 or the 6. I will meet
you at the station and either help you with bags, or if lucky have snagged a
porter. We will simply go out to dinner, or have a cold supper already prepared
at the shore so it won't matter what train you take.

I'm not sure you will absolutely need a pair of trousers, but if you
feel comfortable with them and have weight, why not bring one pair. In case we
try a boat, or you help me weed. Or we walk in the country.

Your interview sounded ghastly, but I loved your report of it. And
you are right not to avoid the press; that is when they are really beastly.
Besides, why emulate your brother by refusing so flamboyantly.

I have written you about Rose, and also written her directly.

Fair Gods is stocked at the Co-op. I suggest we look at it there. Alas,
summer stocks of books are very low. But there may be some things. I have fall
catalogues so you can plan ahead. You can read *Lear* here. r not. I shalln't.

If you are still seeing Benay, tell him I trust his judgment better
than my own on Control. Data. It certainly hasn't been doing too well these
last days. On a long pull I think it will pick up. But he is a professional

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

such matters. I am not.

Copies of the Greene article keep coming in. The most recent two being
from Jocelyn and from Islay.

Have not really had a chance to look at the reports of the first day of
Ward's trial, but will wallow this evening. I suspect however that we already
know most of it, and my glance seemed like a re-run of an old movie. However
I send you the latest Keeler joke. On being asked what London newspapers she
preferred, her answer was: One Daily Mail, one Mirror; two Observers, and
as many Times as she could get. A very male joke, as you can see.

Will probably not risk another letter to you, and will save all until
you come. The shore phone is New Haven HUbbard8-0237; and my office number
is STate 7-3131, extension 2572. If you call Wednesday night, better try
at the shore. It is just possible I might come in town on Thursday to get
my yellow fever shot. In which case we could come back on the train together
if you come Wednesday.

We are eager for your arrival.

I think the final definition has a classical touch. I adore it. I looked too the misprint in the New York paper this morning, when the judge asked, in terms of the offered body, what the girl thought the quip pro quo was to be. I like that too.

I know to write "all love" has you think it "purely social". Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

I said no more letters to Switzerland, but with the chance of the Glockenhof it is worth the chance. And no harm done if this never reaches you until your return. I trust my two cables reached you safely, and (though I am less certain) my letter of yesterday. Perhaps I should repeat: Your appointment with Prutting is at 1 p.m., but the secretary said if you came a little early they could get you ready. I told them to prepare all possible shots. You have a reservation at the Stanhope (Fifth Ave at 81st Street) which will be held for you even if a late arrival is necessary. I specified the latter in case your plane was delayed. We will expect you Wednesday evening, the 31st, on the next train after you have finished with Prutting. You can phone me from there, or we can arrange when we speak on the phone. I will meet you at station, hopefully with a porter; anyhow, with two strong arms for your bags.

Your letter of the 21st was in this afternoon's mail, or I should not have thought of Zurich. I am shocked by the accident to the plane on St. Mary's. As for the Express article, I thought it came out much better than I feared. Of course you are right. It did come out much better because you kept your temper. And one does feel sorry for the newspaper reporters, because they do have to earn a living and one can't altogether blame them for wanting to trap people into interesting and sensational statements.

By the way, you spoke in your recent letter as though Philby had not been a trained reporter before he went to the Middle East. Actually he was a very successful reporter for the *Times* before he went to work for M.I.5, and was, if I remember correctly, their correspondent in Spain at the time of the Civil War.

Copies of the Graham Greene article still come in. One today came from the Viking Press. They propose to use the praise of the anthology as a blurb. I said of course. It is a hilarious idea, and one I hope will be appreciated by Greene.

The New York Times has suddenly become sedate about the Ward trial, and I am buying the tabloids to fill me in until you arrive. Fanny Hill will have nothing to offer you or anyone in the way of pornography. I liked this (both as porno and contemporary sociology) from today's report:

Another witness, Margaret Ricardo, admitted one conviction for prostitution. She said she and a girl friend and Ward and another man all had sex relations in the room.

Q. All four together? (asked by Judge Marshall.) A. Yes.

Q. All four of you taking part? A. Yes.

Q. What happened in the room with the four of you together? anything beyond sexual intercourse? Miss Ricardo, 23, former night club dancer, shook her head affirmatively.)

Q. Did you get paid anything? (asked by Prosecutor Griffith-Jones.) A. No, it was purely social.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

27 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

This is only briefly to welcome you to New York and

to hope that all is well at the Stanhope. It is so swelteringly
hot at the moment that I can only hope you have brought a wardrobe
of bikinis with you. You will certainly never want to come in to
New Haven to work at the office, if the weather stays as it is. The
shore however is sure to be cool. I came in this morning and stripped
myself down sufficiently to be worthy of a two-way mirror. But I
wanted solitude in which to write at least a draft of my annual report
to the President (of Yale) and at least I had my uninterrupted time.
One little portion remains to be done on Monday when I can call a
few people to see what they have published during the year. But the
rest is as good as I can make it for the moment. I may add a semicolon
or a hyphen on Monday, just to make myself angry.

There is not much to report to you, but much to talk about,
obviously, when we see each other at last. I am delighted you have come
over, and we ought to be able to put a good deal in order before you
have to go back.

I never did get around to having the young man drive the
station wagon to Long Island to pick up the clock, and so why don't
you and Susan and I make a day of it from here. We have never seen
their place, and this would settle that obligation and you could
discharge your country visit to them at the same time. I say this,
because, this being so, you might want to call her up from New York,
saying you had suddenly had to advance your date because of Prutting,
and telling her of the visit by car. But of course I leave to you.

On the night of the 30th Susan and I have to go to a dinner
for the high school teachers who are taking the summer American Studies
seminars, and will have to leave the shore by six in order to be in town
on time. We ought to be back in Branford by nine, if you want to call
then. Otherwise at the usual time in the morning. The shore number,
under New Haven, is HUbbard 8-0237; and the Yale number is 787-3131,
extension 2572, although a person to person call at the office is often
wise in case I am out.

I enclose a time table between New York and New Haven for your
use. It is convenient.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

31 July 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am weeping small tears that you will not be dining with us tonight, yet I insist to myself that I am glad they found what did exist and will be doing something about it while Prutting is still here. His nurse led me to believe that he intended to go exactly as of the 1st August, and would be sorry not to be able to go over your tests with you. Perhaps that accounts for my relief that he can be here to watch the results of the x-ray.

I had my own little share of treatment, for an ache in my lower jaw, which refused to go away, became so intense on Sunday night that I insisted the dentist see me at the earliest possible moment on Tuesday. So yesterday morning I spent with four whopping injections of novocaine in my jaw while he took out inlays and then proceeded to remove a live nerve. I shall have to have treatment for a while before a new inlay can be put in; but at least I have the consolation of knowing that I won't have to cope with this in Japan with a strange and non-English speaking dentist.

I heard over the radio this morning that Dr Ward had attempted suicide. I suspect a psychiatrist would say he had had a prolongued adolescence: the enlarged ego, the extravagant sexual impulses and exhibitionism, the desire to be accepted among the socially-grown-ups, and now this wail.

And the papers tell that Kim Philby has been granted Soviet citizenship. I suppose this will really be a good thing for him, for not only will he be reasonably certain of a good job and status with the Russians, but now that he is actually a Soviet citizen he will naturally be allowed to have his British income regularly shipped out to him, as Burgess and MacLean have had.

If you have finished early on Friday, do come up by whatever early train you want to. I have two appointments in the early morning (one with the dentist) but will be free by eleven if you take the ten o'clock. I long to see you of course, and the earlier the better.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 August 1963

Dearest Fido,

It seems only natural to be writing to you again,
but infinitely sad that you are not still in the next room so
that I could show you the morning mail and moan with you about
the latest interruption. There have been plenty of the latter
today; the office has been a perfect shambles of visitors: with
one from the Argentine for lunch, Malcolm Cowley afterwards,
Miss Mizuta and MR Yokazawa for interviews, and Professor Lewis
for instuction which he never got. However this morning I had my
new tooth pounded into place at the dentist, and then went to the
travel agency to pick up my plane tickets. They are lovely in
spirit of course, for they promise freedom. But they are lovely in
body as well for each comes enclosed in a case of silk brocade.

We found your letter at the shore when we returned,
and read your farewell with sadness on both Susan's part as well
as my own. That you are the perfect friend, and more we always
know; but it is wonderful each time you come to be reminded that
you are also the perfect guest. We miss you. This morning I put
the extra table mat sadly back in the closet after setting the
breakfast table for three.

Yesterday morning we set out on the 9 o'clock train
for New York. Susan spent the morning shopping; I spent it at the
Japanese Consulate trying to get our visas. Their tourist visas
are for only two months and not renewable. Did I have my return
ticket? Could I prove that I could pay my expenses while in the
East? Would I earn any money? They were all kind but the process
was endless, and finally I was given an electric typewriter and told
to write a letter to the Consul General and explicate the questions.
I did so, and the letter was turned over to his excellency or a suitable
minor servant. After a long long wait (the whole thing took a couple
of hours) a man appeared and apologized for having my letter retyped,
and said that after due consideration the Emperor graciously agreed to
waive tradition and permit me to stay four months if on the morrow (they
agreed to Friday) I could come, or Susan who will, with extra photographs
and the tickets -in-fact.

Then we had lunch at the Yale Club and taxied downtown for
another wait before we could be innoculated against yellow fever. But
the needles were sharp, and there was no charge, and soon we were back
uptown where I bought some washable shirts and some shoes, and Susan
bought a few more things, and we then went to the Museum of Primitive
Art to see a few eskimo things owned by a British collector (two of
them were superb), and so back to New Haven on the 5 o'clock.

I do hope your flight back was reasonably calm, and if
eventful then interestingly so. We miss you, but I am sure Elsie is
happy to have you safely at home again.

All love, as always, I, NORMAN.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 August 1963

Dearest Fido,

A sweltering humid day, and you are well out of this office and nicely back in your Swiss mountains, I hope with an hour on your roof. This morning I spent chiefly at the bank in conversations with the Trust Department about handling my bills while I am away. It all seems comparatively simple so long as one can supply them with money. But they do seem awfully competent about such matters.

The mail seems to come in faster than I can send answers out, and I shall spend Saturday and Sunday at my desk in a desperate effort to get ahead. However if the weather is good tomorrow afternoon I shall take Justus up in a small plane for his first defiance of space.

No sign of your package yet, but this morning came a letter from Catha which I enclose. She seems to be doing well and to be extremely happy. A letter came also from Hilda Quick thanking for my letter to her. She had favored a large firm of publishers, she said, because she thought they could absorb the loss better. It is perhaps true, and certainly novel. And a surprise package also arrived yesterday from Sylvia Townsend Warner: an installment of her letters from George. "You shall have the rest in time," she writes, "but I can't bring myself to part from them just yet. Indeed, if it were not for George's radiant spring cleaning example I doubt if I would be parting with these. But I like to think of George & myself setting up house together at Yale." How kind it is of her!

For your amusement I enclose two clippins on the Fanny Hill trial, and am only sorry you were not here to testify yourself now that you can qualify as an expert. The shifty endorsements set me into howls of laughter. I am well out of it.

I finished McCarthy's *The Group* hardly knowing what the book was really about. It shifts too much, and is a lazy book in that whenever a climactic situation occurs involving people she simply has other characters tell about it in resume. As though she were afraid to handle it dramatically herself, being unsure of her characters and their deepest responses. That is, if they had any. I don't recommend it to you.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 August 1963

Dearest Fido,

I had expected to take Justus up in a plane this afternoon but his father wanted to take the chance of better weather next weekend. So although I went back to the shore for lunch, I turned around after my sandwich to come back. I plug, I plug, I plug. Later I shall go the Goodrich Street house and weed and weed and weed. That is, for about an hour which is as long as I can take it. I still haven't been able to do the *Newsletter* or begin editing the Hawthorne book of essays, but one prays of course. At least a few letters get done, and a good many papers thrown away. Perhaps tomorrow I shall lug things back to Goodrich Street and the office will seem even cleaner. The great pleasure is, every once in a while, turning up something I had thought completely lost. The second great pleasure comes from looking at a clipping I cut out months ago and thought would be invaluable. Now it seems trivial, so into the wastebasket it goes.

I wrote George a long letter this morning, and Ady a short one. Then my brother a long one of instructions for my absence. And finally paid checks and brought order into that area, so I would know where I stand. Fortunately, I do seem to stand.

Last night I finished *Cat and Mouse*, which I liked. Really very much liked. It has a freshness of feeling for the scene and character, and is unwilling to put up with stereotypes. I am not sure I can explicate it entirely into a metaphor of modern Germany, if that is what I am supposed to do. Still, I find it curious that Harcourt-Wolffs in their full page spread on it in *Publishers Weekly* quote only *The Saturday Review*, to say: "Cat and Mouse is every bit as uproarious as The Tin Drum to which it is a Worthy companion." A funny book? Is that what Helen feels it is? Still, I don't blame her if it helps her to sell more copies.

You will pleased, I hope, that the University of Texas Press seemed delighted with my statement on *Bottom on Shakespeare*, or was it *Shakespeare from the Bottom*. They will use it on their advance flier.

*Fanny Hill* has passed the Court and been cleared, but I will send you the clipping tomorrow of the judge's decision. After Susan has had her chance at the *Times*.

I hope your homecoming has not been too strenuous. And that the dishwasher works.

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

25 August 1963

Dearest Fido,

Today turned out to be crystal clear; some wind and
a nip in the air made it seem like September, but it was a wonder-
ful day to take Justus on his first flight. He went, and his father
and little Susan and I; I had the two children on the back seat with
me so that Jim could really enjoy the view from the air. It was the
same small plane that took you and me across to Idlewild en route to
Winnepeg, and it is seemed to me that this was far better for one's
initiation than a giant transport would be. Justus was drunk with
enthusiasm and excitement, and may well give up all ideas of being
a sailor in order to become a pilot and stay constantly aloft. We
went from the airport to the Point and circled around several times
while his mother and grandmother waved. It was the first time I
had seen the coastline here from close to in the air, and I am
determined to take you over it the next time you come. Actually it
would even be better before the leaves were out.

Otherwise I have spent the day at correspondence. I
wrapped Horace's books yesterday, and wrote him today. Also Rose
Odle. And typed out the revisions in my will against my visit with
the lawyer early in the week. So that will be in order.

I think a letter from Margery Margery had come before
you left, but I forgot to ask you who Bernard is. He lives in Hong
Kong and is a "DARLING" she says. I remember her talking about him but
forget the details.

The Times review of the McCarthy book seemed also a little
puzzled. But I gather she explained it all in the book of Paris Review
interviews you were reading. And it is supposed to be a comedy and show
the hollowness of these people. Perhaps, rather, a satire. But one can
write a satire without being superior, and I don't think she has accomplished
this feat. At least not to my taste.

I must run to drop this in the mailbox for the 5:15 pickup.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

29 August 1963

Dearest Fido,

Each day I have waited to write you at the end, and
after each afternoon this week spent with my replacement as chair-
man, while I try to brief him in his multiple responsibilities
and drills, it has been so late and I have been so tired that I
have merely driven back to the shore at six. I meant to come
back in the evenings but didn't; I have meant to do more weeding,
but haven't. My textbook, my newsletter, my introduction to the
volume of Korean poetry all remain undone. But I see lawyers
and bankers and dentists and doctors, so at least something is
accomplished. And of course the tutorial afternoons have to be,
so that is an accomplishment of sorts also.

I did manage to finish looking through George's letters
to Miss Warner, and have decided to turn both sides of the corres-
pondence over now. It is too much of a job to have them copied,
and it will be too long before they can be published. The Anne
who brought George and Sylvia together was the American writer
Anne Parrish, and it was she who apparently left him the legacy
which comprises his cache in arlisle. His letters are splendid,
although for long periods deal mostly with the condition of his
bowels.

So are always yours, and fortunately they don't. You
have been good to write so frequently. Last night I went through
the various Ward clippings which I was pleased to have; there were
a few tidbits I hadn't gleaned, especially Lazzlo's pleasure in
photographing the two girls nude with their arms around each other.
An interesting taste in photography.

I have just got back my film from the Bethlehem trip,
the pictures coming out better than I expected. Also the black and
white roll in which I tried to Islay you for posterity. A number
of them are good, and two or three are really good. Using the
stucco wall of the garage as background turned out to be a triumph
in ingenuity. I think even you will like them when you see them
next spring. I wait until then, since I need the supervise the
cropping of one or two before they are enlarged. This does not
mean that I don't want more really good ones from Islay. It simply
means that we have more to ship around for the ones who wish something
unique.

I think I wrote--but how can I remember what I have or
haven't--that I had a fine letter from the bank. I am most grateful
for your fine doggy nature in taking care of that at once, when you
had so much else to do and on your mind.

The dishwasher sounds like a triumph, and if only you
did New Yorker things (which artistically I'm glad you don't), an

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

account of the machine's deflation and initiation would be a
superb monument to Swiss anthropology.

Will write Romaine Brooke this weekend. Labor Day comes
Monday which should give me three days of peace in the office.
Blessed peace.

I did think Edith's letter was sad. I suppose the suburban
apartment is less dear than one in town, and no doubt it is better
for her not to hold court always. Still, she must be frightfully
lonesome, and she does depend upon courtiers.

Congratulate Maishman on her find. I think you'll really
end up with something for your little book. And of course although
the point of it will be what you say about Henty, nevertheless
there's an additional harvest if you can give more data than we've
known before. It's a goal worth working towards. When I get back
I'll try to help with hints.

A nice letter from Elsie in today's mail, with yours. Do
thank her. She needn't have written.

And an equally nice letter from Miss Dudley thanking me for
your gift. She did seem pleased, although I hate masquerading under
false colors.

Your package from Abercrombie's has not yet turned up, and I
should think it wouldn't. Susan will inquite there next week when
she goes in for her final hair-do.

We move back into town on Tuesday, our tenants having
agreeably found a place to stay until we leave on the 10th. This is
much better for Susan; it is a nuisance, or would be, to have another
couple sharing the house and breakfast table.

There must be much I haven't written. But the day's work stares
me in the face. This time I have made your letter my first occupation
of the day.

All love as always,

also trying to read the biography of Lafcadio Hearn as preparation for Japan. I know about him of course, and have read him but not his biography. I should not be ignorant if the Japanese speak about him. Letters continue to come in from academics there, welcoming me in advance.

1 September 1963

Dearest Fido,

This is Labor Day weekend, and although technically a holiday for most I am truly living up to its title. I even brought a sandwich in this Sunday morning, since all the restaurants will be closed for the day. And closed tomorrow also, so I shall do the same. But today I shall pay homage to the holiday by leaving early. With the Hoblitzelles we are giving a large buffet supper for the various members of the clan, including the Footes who arrived back late last night from the Arran Isles. Yet it has been blessedly quiet, and I have shut the door, taken off my shirt and buckled down. I did manage to finish the personal notes (some 34 pages worth) for the *Newsletter*; have gone through another large pile of accumulated debris, most of which has gone into the wastebasket; and answered a number of short notes, making good use of the early Christmas cards. I will never get through what I hoped to, and am sure I shall have to renege on the book and the article. Still, better to have a guilt complex about two or three things than about twenty or thirty. I still have an immense number of letters of recommendation to write, but will get at those tomorrow.

I thanked Marianne for her poem, and had a charming letter back (tho I had asked her not to write). She is in Maine, and seemed rested and jolly. She wants to send me a copy of your book, which is most kind of her.

Your letters of the 26th, 27th, and 28th have been unanswered in days when I ran about busily doing errands in the morning, and spent the afternoons explaining next year's duties to my successor, R.W.B.Lewis. Fortunately, altho bewilderingly, he seems to look forward to being chairman next year. I wish him joy of it, and only extend the wish by praying that he might like to continue. In fact he will continue with the graduate students, and this is, as I told you, the most time-consuming chore.

I was interested to read in this morning's paper the notice of Burgess's death. I should think it was a kind of indirect suicide, for they spoke of his dearest wish to come back on a visit to England. There is a real lack of maturity in this, as in his continuing to wear his Eton tie as an employee of the Russian Communists. There is nothing, I think, very subtle involved.

I enclose a few clippings for you to read and toss aside, except for the music review which I send because of Christian Wolff's piece. Helen might possibly not have seen it.

I was much delighted with the miracle of Coigny's meeting with the Ormond brothers, and can imagine the chortling as you relayed the information to Doris and to Ethel. You did have even more of an adventure with the Quest than you realized.

Evenings I scribble away at the countless Christmas cards, but am

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 September 1963

Dearest Fido,

Labor Day, so I labor. But it is cool and appropriately September so it is not uncomfortable. The cocktail and supper party last night went off to everyone's apparent satisfaction. The weather was good for the 41 members of theennett clan and guests who were at our house for drinks, and the food was good for the same number who went next-door to the Hoblitzelles for food. Fortunately they have a living room able to take that number; equally fortunately, we do not.

Today I hope to write the introduction to the Korean boy's volume of translations from his country's poetry. I swear I do not know quite what to say. It seems to be the translator's idea that I do this, and the publisher agreed with me over the phone that it might be better as a note on the jacket. We shall see.

I shall clip a notice or two out of the paper to send you tomorrow. Well no, it is hardly worth it. Only the *Times* saying (a) that the Conservatives are increasingly irked that Macmillan won't step aside, and (b) that there seems to be a sub rosa understanding that the report on Profumo and the stink of affairs in general by His Lordship has turned up and includes (at least privately, tho surely it must already privately be known) a, politically unsatisfactory, discussion of the sexual habits of several members of the Cabinet. So Downes may be right.

Also that Burgess is said to have been visited in the hospital by Kim Philby, but Philby may simply be the inevitable conjecture of any "mysterious Englishman." I wonder what will happen to Burgess's Russian boyfriend now that this tour of duty is finished. Will he be sent to Siberia, or saved for the next one?

I forgot yesterday to send you the most important news: which is that the grandfather's clock is now safely at Goodrich Street. On Thursday I sent the graduate student down (he went in his own Wolkswagon) who delivered it to me the next morning. Pup had sent foolproof directions, and he reported that the little government could not have been more helpful. So that is done, and Pup will have every reason to feel relieved that her living room is no longer a warehouse. Will you tell her and thank her when she arrives at Kenwin? I had a nice card from her written on the boat, but will probably not have time to write her until from Japan.

All love as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 September 1963

Dearest Fido,

I am afraid there have been gaps in my correspondence,
but you are well aware why. We moved into town today. At least
Susan has, and I will take the station wagon tonight after dinner
and drive to the shore to pick up at least most of my things. The
trunk is now down from the attic. I expect tomorrow night we must
pack it. Time quickens.

A heavy mail today after the long holiday weekend, and
your three letters of the 29th and 30th (two from the first) gladdened
me. Your Miss Etter delighted me. If she does write it up you will
have to squander stamps and send me a copy to Japan. I shall not want
to wait until spring to read it. She sounds intelligent, and possibly
might be interesting to know. She obviously has a sound slant on things.
The Express sounds inane, but I like reading inanity too even when I
growl at it. You do keep busy!

There was a charming letter from George, very happy because
"Yale" wanted his Craig collection. I think it was a wise move to
have it come here where he so very much wanted it to go. The Vogue
cover was his first, and got him his contract. That is why he so much
wanted it too to be at Yale. It is there now. A letter also from
Brother Volant with a picture of the new museum at Churchill. He has
been back a month and is busy with tourists. Most grateful for his
travel money, and wants to send along some small pieces. A letter
from Aurelia enclosing pictures of Ralph's tombstone. She is delighted
with it; I fear it is not quite as I would have done it. From my
point of view it is a slightly tasteless adaptation of my design for
Hilda's. But there are several of the cemetery itself, with a cornfield
in the background. The Japanese will be delighted to see it. A couple
of letters from Japan with people wanting to meet the plane; a letter
from Honolulu wanting us for cocktails on the 11th, and so on and so on.
Aurelia enclosed a copy of the Graham Greene article!

I went to the dentist this morning to have the new capped
tooth tested, and he made one last filling. I do hope that is now finished
with. I go tomorrow for a last common cold shot and flu booster. Poor
Susan last week had her cholera shot and was in agony, having to go to
bed immediately after dinner (as per your orders) and retaining a golf-
ball lump for the rest of the week.

I still have my money and last orders to straighten out. But
Mrs Dingle was in a day earlier than I expected, so I was able to go
over with her the proper filing of my month's accomplishment of office
chores. I finished the foreword on Korean poetry yesterday and sent it
off with the manuscript today. I hope it will do; at any rate it is the
best I can do. Korean poetry is not really my forte.

So it goes. But so also goes my love to you,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

5 September 1963

Dearest Fido,

And there was no cable for your birthday! But there was love--

beforehand and then and now after. I have been sliding through things. This
morning I picked up some pictures reframed for the house in the upstairs hallway,
then fetched trousers from the cleaners, and this afternoon had my frames for
my glasses straightened, shifted a savings account to the bank where I draw
checks, to be there as reserve, and signed endless traveller's checks so that
I could cash anything from a ten dollar one (as you suggested in airports) to
larger ones for hotel bills. I need a little something on hand besides the
letter of credit; and who knows, I may not need to cash all of that. I certainly
hope so. Yesterday afternoon I went home early to help Susan pack the trunk to
be sent to Japan. After a half hour of chosing her things it was obvious we
didn't need to send a trunk at all. So that was a triumph, and travel will be
much simpler.

I didn't write yesterday, and so guess I did not mention the news
item about you in the *Times*. Surely there ought to be some curiosity sales,
if Collins will only advertise and hold on; and once people read for curiosity
they will stay on for pleasure and profit. Why not catch the rats that way too?

I did write Romaine on Sunday as I told you (I think). Your letter of
the 1st was in today's mail, as sweet a bon voyage as anyone could ask for. Susan's
came to her yesterday, and she will write after her trip today to New York where
she was to stop at Abercrombie's and find out what had happened to your rainsuit.
Mrs Dingle will send off Glady's manuscript to Consie. I do hope something will
happen. I had explained to her that she might have to; now I can direct its
going.

What a ghastly tragedy with SwissAir and all the village. The end of
the world will no doubt be like that.

I have an urgent mission for you so that I will not lose face as sensai
in Japan. A former student, now professor, Sôji Inoué, of Osaka, writes me: "I
guess you are very busy preparing for your departure, but if it is not too much
trouble for you, won't you please tell me the meaning of the underlined part of
the following sentence: '... but it would make me laugh just as I laugh at the
con man who gets away with the old trick of the Spanish prisoner.' (S. Maugham,
Strictly Personal, p.100). I'm now giving the finishing touches to my translation of
the above-mentioned book." I suppose this is the story of the prisoner who sneaks
a letter out saying that he knows where there is treasurer, and if the listener
will give money to the man who tells him about the prisoner, the listener and the
reporter will share the spoils. But why don't you write Willie Maugham and ask
him to be sure. Perhaps he would rewrite the sentence so that the Japanese can
understand it. Or give a gloss that can be translated into the footnote. I rather
forget the details of the confidence game.

Will I ever get even most of things done! I have finished the Newsletter
anyhow.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

6 September 1963

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 3rd being in this early morning mail, I can't think of a better way of beginning the day than with a note to you. I shall hold it back however until afternoon in case other bits come to my attention.

Delighted that your croak has ended and that you could see Mrs McPherson. And thanks for the Aldington copy of Hilda's translations. Mrs Dingle has instructions to hold all for me. The plan for Margery's book is excellent. I suspect that alegh Trevelyan will at least give a fukler account of its rejection if he does, as I hope he won't, reject it.

George's letters, which I was delighted to have, seem to show him steadily on his feet. If he can do the English pub or hotel, probably this is as good as going to Ady. I do understand how small her house seems to anyone who is used to being alone. And when the other children come it really must be difficult. What a rough situation it is.

Silvia Hay has sent over a copy of her privately printed book of illustrations of animals from the zoon, which Hodgson so much admired. It came surface, and was sent long after Doris is supposed to have sent the Lawrence letters. I am worried about these, not so much that they won't arrive eventually as that it seems unlikely they will be here before I go. This will make their sale to the dealer difficult. I shall write her after I finish this letter and send her the $300 as for the bulbs, and I can wait until March and sell them later. It is too complicated to leave for Mrs Dingle to handle. The dealer wouldn't understand. I do wish Doris hadn't tried to save the little extra it would have cost to have sent them airmail.

The slipcases for the Ballantyne mss have come, so that at least is in last minute order.

This afternoon we go to the lawyer to sign the codicils to the wills, so all will be shipshape so far as your rights and Hilda's are concerned.

Spent last night at home trying to put the cellar in shape, and blessed you for all your sorting into piles two Novembers ago when you were here. I have had to put everything in double rows on the shelves. This is maddening so far as knowing where things are, and even what I have. But there was no other solution.

7 September

I never managed even to get your letter in the mail, for when I returned from the Bank, having signed proxies and the like, and from the Lawyer's, having signed the codicils, I sat down with Mrs Dingle and dictated twelve letters of recommendation for students who will be needing jobs next year with an affidavit from me. I still have a few to go, and tonight we are to be the guests of Lizzie and the Addises for dinner, so the evening is wasted for thoroughly practical achievements.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN • CONN

I wrote Doris yesterday and sent the check, but later explained to Mrs Dingle in such a way that she can write the dealer and sell the letters if he still wants to buy them. Then deposit the check to my account. Margery wrote and explained that Bernard is her brother, but I still don't know her maiden name. Or, rather, have forgotten it. Let me know, since she says she has written him. She has sent the cloth on, and Mrs D is instructed to see it through customs and store it against our return. A letter also from "eydt apologizing for not coming and sadly saying he had to relinquish his American visa or immigration permit. But thinks he could take it up again later if he needs to. I think however that this closes that chapter of expectation. He should take his Swiss papers now if he can. A letter from Korea says that if I go I need only make two lectures to universities, and one to the local Rotary Club. So we will probably accept. Martinelli writes with frantic last-minute requests for me to unpack her boxes in the Library, find something and send it to Pound. Will I have time? It is the limit!

Four hours later.

The man arrived from New York, and we discussed why my publishing the Italian notebooks and the edition of Hawthorne's letters in the Obio series was not irresistible. And I took him to lunch and then to the 2 o'clock train back to New York. From the station I went to the house where we met the Redkeys who will live at Goodrich Street during our absence, and explained how things worked and what they should do. Now back to the office for an hour before we have to go to dinner. Even Kenwin cannot be more visited than I seem to have been just lately.

Your letter of the 4th came this morning. I think you are wrong. You owed me, you said $1250 including the money for the Craig Collection. You gave me $500 and I took $750 from the royalties account, so we are clear. I have not heard anything from Benay about any accumulated dividends to deposit before my departure, but it doesn't matter. I am sure there will be enough on hand to take care of things. I wonder if he ever did decide to buy any Controlled Data stock. If he had, at the time I spoke, each share would have gained some thirty points, rising from the 60's to over a hundred, despite the fluctuations. Schick also looks like a good buy, and I am told by employees that their business has over doubled thanks to being in ahead of Gillette with the new blades. But I do leave all to him.

Susan inquired of Abercrombie's when she was in New York, and has called them since while they try to check. They promise to call again on Monday, and she will phone if they don't. There is no question but that it will come eventually, only it is a nuisance, and they have fallen down unexpectedly.

Susan has started *The Guns of August* and liked the first fifty pages enough so that she has put it aside and we will take with us to read on the plane and in Japan. The Lethbridge book sounds fascinating. I leave to you as to whether we should have a copy waiting for us here, or both try to read when we come to Kenwin.

Your bon voyage cable arrived this morning, and nothing could have been more welcome. It is you who have made the trip possible, but then you have made everything possible. I bow with thanks and love,

All love NORMAN

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 September 1963

Dearest Fido,

The little greetings, such as the one I enclose, have been a godsend these past few days, since I have been able to use them as Viola Jordan does her minute flower-scattered notepaper to clear away correspondence that would otherwise take full pages of typed wisdom or jollity. And when I have nothing really to say except that I wasn't angry in not having answered, I can write large as to where we may possibly go.

I thought you might be interested in the enclosed clipping from this morning's Sunday *Register*. I thought he did very well. In fact he used to be a little magazine writer himself, which is one reason he gets along so well with writers here and abroad. He is unusual to combine that talent with a very real one for business.

This morning's New York Times carried an appeal for "photographs and other pertinent material for a work about Dorothy Richardson", from some one named Thomas Staley in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But I shall leave an answer, if any, to Horace who will, or his family will, inevitably have seen it. In general it is better for the Staleys of this world to write about what D.R. has written.

We had a most pleasant family farewell dinner last night, going to Lizzie's for a cocktail and then on to a Syrian restaurant where they all had ordered the meal in advance. This meant no cooking or dishes for anyone, especially good for Susan who is foolishly typing a dissertation for a graduate student. It is a rush job which is due on the 15th and was given her late. So at nine we all broke up, the children were taken back to bed, and after resting a bit I went back to the cellar at Goodrich Street which is now immaculate for the first time in a decade. So there are some benefits from the pressure of leaving the house fit even for students.

This noon we go to Mrs Bennett's for lunch, and then take the last things back from the shore. I have almost finished my letters, have only a few recommendations to do, but most importantly I must put together the papers I want to take to Japan with me for my lectures and information.

Kyoto Hotel

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

4 October 1963

Dearest Fido,

We begin at last to settle in a little. We have our
alien registrations, the bulbs from Doris were finally cleared thru
the customs in Tokyo, Tokyo made its confusing but hospitable impact
on us, and now we are in Kyoto and Susan has had the third of her two-
hour flower arrangements lessons. Even I taught a two-hour class
at Kyoto University this morning to take the place of a former student
of mine who was called away by the death of his mother from a series
of eight lectures on 20th-century American literature based on the
seminars he had taken from me at Yale. So, quite to the bewilderment
of the Japanese students and professors I talked on Gertnude Stein--
the assignment he had originally given. I even ventured a few words
in Japanese, to the evident pleasure and amusement of the students--
all this the result of my first tutorial in this incredible language.
The foreword to my textbook reads: "And it is a never failing thrill
to an instructor to see the happy expressions of his pupils when they
find themselves conversing in full sentences from the very first hour--
'Is this a book?' 'Yes, that is a book.' 'No, that is not a book.'
Etc." There was not very much etcetera in my Japanese, but 'Is this
a book?' 'Yes, that is a book.' seemed like an excellent text on
which to preach Stein.

So much has happened, and so rapidly, that I have had no
time for breath or journals or letters. This is more the pity but even
more the opportunity to see things, to try to cram impressions in, and
then slowly to relax from that intensity with which in the past few
years I have tried to stretch every hour into 80 minutes.

We arrived in Tokyo on the 16th in the rain, met at the
airport by the Japanese Air Lines man, the car I had hired in advance
to take us to the Imperial from Haneda airport, by three Mizutas (the
family of the Japanese girl at Yale), an English-speaking student whom
they engaged for us as an A.D.C., and by my own American friend Paul
Blum who had brought his car along. We waited interminably for our
luggage to come off the plane, but then the customs let us through with
simply a nod of approval to our luggage, and we tried to sort out the
order of procession for the triumphal entry to the world's largest
city. At least we were left an peace after our exhausted arrival at
the hotel, roughly unpacked our bags in the small suite we had in the
old wing of the Imperial, and went quickly to bed. We have hardly
stopped being exhausted since, for we were called on constantly and
the small extra cost of the suite proved a boon in letting us recieve
our many visitors otherwise than in the hotel lobby. They came in a
constant stream. A representative from the Bank of Tokyo was there
shortly after 9 the next morning with the letter of credit; the Mizuta
daughter and A.D.C. were there to pay me my money and make plans,
including the use of a car and driver for our two weeks in Tokyo; I add
to cancel a luncheon planned for me at noon by a Professor Takagi, who
did finally entertain us the following Monday; and the telephone rang

2

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

constantly from people we knew or who knew of us, welcoming us to Japan. That night we went to dinner at Blum's, a spacious house on Japanese terms which he seems to have acquired as a spoils of war. Fortunately however, dinners are never late in Japan (one goes at 5:30 or 6 and leave about 9).

After that first day, what did we do? For a little while each morning and each afternoon we used the car and driver partly out of a sense of duty, since he waited so faithfully for us and I could never quite seem to make him understand when to go home because we wouldn't need him any more. We visited the National Museum, and in addition to a splendid collection of Japanese objects saw an unsurpassed exhibition of Ming and Ch'ing dynasty objects. We went to an out of the way folk-art museum of considerable importance in the revival of this sort of craft. We went to several department stores for exhibitions of art, flower arrangements, ceramics, and the like; for the 7th floor of all the large shops is devoted to this kind of museum-cum-sales activity. Thanks to the Mizutas we were entertained by her and her American tutor (for speaking English) at the semi-final of the great Sumo wrestling matches, where four of us crunched Japanese-fasion on cushions in a 3 1/2 foot square, de luce box, apparently obtained only by the greatest parliamentary pull. We munched from little boxes of semi-raw soy beans, fried chicken livers, and raw fish, drinking beer while we cheered the incredibly fat men who in a ritualistic fashion thumped their legs down, cleansed their spirits by washing themselves in a "Sen"-sible way, and threw quantities of salt into the ring before each start, to drive the evil spirits out. Sachie, I remember, was immensely intrigued by all of the ceremony. So were we, and even excited. On Sunday we watched the finals over t.v., as did 4/5 of all Japan. The next day we balanced the cultural scale by being taken by the Mizutas to Kabuki --five hours of it-- and all of it fascinating as the old makemonos seemed to come to life with the samurai and geisha costumes, and again the great dignity of a ceremonial display. For the first time I felt the old Japan reassert itself. Later in our stay we went to the Asahusa Kokusai theatre for an extravaganza of musical scenes in the old hippodrome fashion--60 girls jumping about with 60 male-dressed and haircutted transvestites who were a nice revenge on the exquisitely female men who played all women's roles in kabuki. The Mizutas of course continued to be unbelievably generous and kind throughout our stay and the daughter even saw us safely on the train for Kyoto on the 1st. We spent one afternoon at their new half-western half-Japanese home: a series of prolonged sessions of tea and crackers and then sherry and biscuits, and then fruit; after which we were shown each inch of the house to our intense interest, and Mrs Mizuta did a modified tea ceremony in their garden tea house. After that, Mr Mizuta, in the same tea house, as we sat on our heels, showed us specimens of his superb collection of makemonos, each classified as an Important Cultural National Asset (an official classification), and I daresay that my striking the ¥ sign was no true error. He has

3

Kyoto Hotel

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

Utamaro-period

also an important collection of the famous woodcuts, which he showed us--the latest issue of the chief Japanese Art magazine is devoted to his collection. Then, considerably to my surprise, he asked if we would like to see some of his erotic woodblocks. I gulped, we bowed politely--what else could we do--and we were treated to a display of Fanny Hill in Japan. They are of course beautiful in design and color, and one series had a charming sense of humor, including in each a dwarfed figure of the artist who had been shrunk by magic and thus could see all. He lolled quizzically on his elbows, watching, or peered around the corner of the shoji, or stood leaning against the door. I made clucks of appreciation of the artistic composition and tried to comport myself appropriately to the circumstances. I must have done so surpassingly, for when the last was put away, Mr Mizuta called his social secretary to bring out a wrapped box which he said he wished to present me as a souvenir of our afternoon at his house. It was a series of 12 brilliantly painted scenes, in gold and silver and of the highest style of 300 years ago, which had belonged to the mad Duke Hisamatsu, Lord of Matsuyama (jo) Castle. Until this was an Important Cultural National Asset I do not know, but it will certainly be an Embarrassing Cultural Asset for me (if I can ever slip it by the American Customs). I shall have to leave the room if ever you look at it. I am told by Blum that this is very costly indeed, but I might have wished for a simpler specimen of Japanese art which I could show more freely. Mrs Mizuta had brought a fine pearl pin to Susan in the States, when she visited there; I gathered this was a man's gift to a man.

When the last refreshments were over, we were taken en masse: the 3 Mizutas, the American tutor and his Japanese wife, and the two of us, plus the social secretary (the political secretary did not come along as being irrelevant)--to Matsubayama, a Geisha house operated chiefly for Nite-Tures of Tokyo on the main floor; but in a separated wing (7 October: it goes thusly)

there are the rooms for private geisha entertainment. There we were, all cross-legged on cushions around 2/3 of the table, with Susan and myself squatted in the positions of honor, with one geisha for each of the 8 guests, plus a number of younger girls and entertainers, so there were 15-16 of the women at one time while we ate a prolonged meal of tidbits, tempura, and sukuyaki cooked for us at the table, each geisha seeing that our bowls were constantly filled with food and our cups with sake, or coca cola or beer (for the more temperate). We were enchanted with the geishas most of whom were from 35 to 50 years old (a geisha gaining status as she grows older and a better conversationalist), the younger ones presumably serving the later-in-the-night hungers of the men in a more traditional gathering. Their wit, Susan and I could not enjoy, for they spoke only Japanese, but their smiles and good humor and the fun they had was contagious as we listened to the others joking with them. After an hour or so of eating, there was a break in the meal while an entertainment was given for our benefit: a little drama, some geisha dancing, a ventrilo-

4

Kyoto Hotel

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

quist who made the dummy joke about Susan and myself, after which she became a magician and a clever one (she was close-cropped and we were hardly surprised when with great grins on the part of the geishas, two of the younger girls were pointed out as her wives); a comic pantomime between a country bumpkin and a melon-faced peasant girl (both masked for that effect) who seemed to be preparing for a night together; and then finally a long ritualistic presentation of the final ceremonial preliminaries before a true geisha and her patron (played by the English tutor to his discomfiture) went off to their couch. This ended, the geishas resumed serving food until the bowls of rice came which signified the end of the meal. This kind of geisha evening is colossally expensive, I am told, and done privately these days only for industrialists or men with expense accounts. At any rate we were both delighted with the experience. The Japanese seemed to like it too, including Mr. Miguta.

A little like this in the rarity of the opportunity was when we were entertained another evening by Professors Doi and Saito who were Hodgson's closest Japanese friends and colleagues, who had also, for guests, two ladies who were Hodgson's early students, one of them (Professor Ohara) being his first Japanese student at Sendai; the other a somewhat younger one (Professor Konda). This was of course all thanks to you and your help for Hodgson, and I did not realise that women could bow so low, with their hands spread apart in the highest homage. The dinner was at a Zen Buddhist Japanese inn, religiously serving only a vegetarian diet of the most exquisitely prepared things—mushrooms, and bamboo sprouts, and seaweed, and we were overwhelmed by the crystallanthemum blossoms fried intact and without loss of color or shape in the light deep batter. We again sat cross-legged at a low table in a private room, with the screens opened and shut only when food was brought in; and we were reminded of the geishas by the fact that two girls served the six of us, one kneeling on each side of the table to see that our bowls and sake cups were kept full. Quite unlike our western habit of having waitresses seen but never heard, and looking but never hearing what the guests said—these two took the greatest interest in the pictures and souvenirs of Hodgson that were passed around, carrying on an unobtrusive conversation with the Japanese guests from time to time.

On another evening we were asked to the home of ex-President of Tokyo University Prof. Nambarra, the father of a former student (now with the Bank of Japan) to whom I had loaned some money when he was at Yale. Also there was a guest was a Professor Takagi whom I had met at Yale many years ago, and whose son-in-law and brother-in-law, and several students of law, had been students of mine. Nambarra was the man chiefly responsible for the reform of Japanese university education after the Pacific War, and so was well-informed and very interesting to talk to. He and Takagi had been friends since school days. The mother did the cooking but sat at table while we ate, while the meal was served by young Nambarra's fiancee—a lovely girl,

5

Kyoto Hotel

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOH" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

just about to finish her college education as a major in English,
Susan and I wondered how many American girls could be persuaded
to serve as their future mother-in-law's helper.

Professor Takagi had us to lunch one noon at the Inter-
national House, with the executive assistant to Gov Rockefeller, an
energetic American lady in her fifties, on a 7-day world tour,
we entertained various ex-students from the Tokyo area and Sendai for
lunch at the Imperial; tried dinners at various hotels and restaurants
while we improved our use of chopsticks (so that now we had no longer
plaintively have to ask the waitress for a naifu or fooku) and gradu-
ally became accustomed to the incredible traffic and the bewilderment
of language. I splurged a little, and having been recommended a
shirtmaker by my friend Blum had a number of superb shirts tailored
at the cost of $6.50 apiece as against $25.00 for ready-made shirts
at home. We even got the same man to make up the series of kimonas
we had been commissioned to buy, and he will send them off to the
States without our having to think of them again. We were presented
with a number of books by former students or callers, and I wrapped
these all up and sent them home, though now I already again have
acquired an equal number more in Kyoto.

The matter of the daffodil bulbs from Doris presented us with
an epic struggle in communication, although it was finally settled
on the Saturday before we left Tokyo. We could have had a festival
display by tying bow-knots with all the red tape involved. Without
our A.D.C. we would have been helpless. They were sent, as I asked,
to me in care of Paul Blum. Who, the botanical experts in Tokyo
asked was he? - and why did he want so many? They were for me. Then
why was his name mentioned? Finally this was cleared up, and the
bulbs theoretically examined, and forwarded from the airport post-
office to the main one. Ultimately we reported there. The whole
series of explanations had to be gone over again. Where were they?
Finally they were found under the name Norman, since Japanese give
the last name first. Doris, in natural pride, had insured them for
100 pounds. Fantastically, now could bulbs be so expensive? The whole
matter of appropriate duty would have to be taken up with the govern-
ment again. Finally, seeing my distress at the continued delay, which
would mean that we would go to Kyoto without our gifts, they turned
to me in a friendly fashion (since I had adopted the "low posture"
throughout). They really weren't worth 100 pounds were they? Sadly
I shook my head, disavowing Doris as readily as if I were Judas. Then
what did I think they really were worth, for the 25? I smiled in
acknowledgement of how foolish she had been in her estimate. $15.00,
I said, or perhaps $20 at the most. Then they were very happy indeed.
There need be no duty at all for such poor things, they said, being
happy really at the commonly acknowledged deceit on my part which
allowed them to be generous as they wished to be from the beginning.
Sincerely, they said; now they could be delivered to me in care of Mr Blum.
My eyes fell. It will be too late, I shall be in Kyoto! But that
is the way they were addressed. Finally it was decided that I could,

6

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

in view of the tremendous consequences at stake, either appeal through the government (meaning Mr Mizuta, the Diet member--this was the a.d.c.'s suggestion) or go directly to the Section Chief in charge of all foreign mails in Tokyo (this was the suggestion of the custom's clerk). Since it was a half-hour before closing for the weekend on Saturday noon, and we were leaving on Tuesday, I preferred the Section Chief, whose late morning tea we interrupted while I was introduced as a v.i.p. in the professorial world. He could not have been more kind, but since rules were rules, there were of course problems to ponder. He pondered, went back with us while he shook the box to be sure (perhaps) that there were no bombs; asked who Mr Blum was, why they were sent to him, why he wanted so many, (ah! they were gifts!) Finally, our a.d.c was instructed to write a letter of application to have them delivered directly to me rather than to me in care of the proper address, and this being done I signed the beautiful rows of calligraphy with my name; the petition was approved, and the bulbs handed to me ten minutes after the office had officially closed. I paid a total cost of ¥60 (about 18 cents) as the cost of inspection. But the experience was an interesting one, and the gifts of the bulbs have been great successes. I am deeply grateful to you and to Doris. And of course to you also for the Italian books which I had refrained from sending to anyone in Japan in order to make them my gift.

On the Sunday before we left Tokyo, Blum took us in his car to Kamerakura to see the great Buddha, an immense object serene against the green background of hills and trees despite the throngs of Japanese who had gone there as tourists rather than as religious believers. The ride, or at least part of it, was our first glimpse of rice fields beginning to yellow with autumn gold; bamboos; and orchards of pomegranates.

I never did quite escape business in Tokyo, but managed to keep it at a minimum. At the request of the Embassy I called there about the Korean visit, paid my respects to Fahs the Minister of Culture, and the various assistants and explained again that I was a free man and did not wish a planned junket. I was also called on by the publishers of the little book on the history of American literature, which is really the encyclopedia article which will appear in English but with Japanese notes of explanation. They had the proof so I spent one rainy afternoon and night going over it, to my great relief since my eye was better than their own for such errors as "no cast too great", for "no cost to great" in a poem by Edward Taylor, and such matters which would have been confusing to the heathen. I am supposed to write a little introduction, which I shall try to do in time for its publication in January.

Enough for now, and Tokyo. I shall send this off and start on Kyoto. Letters will come regularly now. Susan joins in love to Elsie and all love to you.

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Cable address "Miyako Kyoto"

TELEX: MIYAKOHOTEL KYO

338-32

6001
6011
6021

Founded in 1893

MIYAKO HOTEL

Kyoto, Japan

20 October 1963

Dearest Fido,

We are staying at the Miyako for the last few days before we return to Tokyo, having no reservation at the Kyoto Hotel for this period because of the local festival on the 22nd. The Miyako is considerably "posher" than the Kyoto, but we like both the comparative economy and the more central location of the other. So will return there in mid-November after our interim wanderings.

The past, now almost three weeks has been an absorbing and somewhat exhausting time. If I have not written so much as I had intended it is because for various reasons we have not really been free agents. Our time has been filled for us by the efforts of local acquaintances to be sure that we see everything. If we haven't seen everything it is because Kyoto is so crowded with things to see (the over 1500 shrines and gardens being only one category among many) that a lifetime could hardly encompass them all. And of course central to each of most days has been Susan's two-hour lesson in flower arrangement. Altogether she managed to get in a dozen of such, starting at the very beginning of principles but getting ahead fast because of her already developed skills and with the help of a private master of the Ikenobo School and an interpreter. Each night she came back to the hotel with a fresh armful of flowers from her lesson, which she used in new arrangements for our room. The little maids were always eager to see what she did with the flowers, brought her new vases and applauded whenever appropriate. It all added to the friendliness of living.

But there was more than enough friendliness from every direction. As I think I wrote you, six professors were on the railroad platform to welcome us as our car came in, escorted us to the hotel, waited patiently while we ate supper, and then assembled in our room for a glass of whiskey from the last of what I had brought in duty free; and made plans for when they would come to make plans for what we were to do and say. Each would have been sufficient, altogether it has been a kind of pleasant hurley-burley of attention. I am only embarrassed by the amount that was done for us, and the number of yen expanded on their parts. But they have seemed to want to; and it proved difficult to know when it was appropriate, or decorous, to say no.

For example, we have said Noh (plays) almost too much, and this afternoon went to our fourth performance in this comparatively short visit. We stayed for six hours of the eight-hour performance, and then rather limply withdrew after watching the Master of the Kanze School (Moto-masa) perform the very rare "Matsura Sayohime" danced in honor of the 600th anniversary of the Birth of Seami. This was 9th on the program of plain singing, dancing, Kyōgen, and other Noh plays. Yesterday we also gone to the same Kanze Kaikan, a recently built Noh theatre at which the aficionados turn up their noses because one sits in seats and because there is a modern-istic pine tree painted at the back of the inner theatre. But they did "Kantan", which was an excellent play to see, and we had our chance to watch.

Gracious Resort Living in the heart of the ancient Capital of Japan.

2

Cable address "Miyako Kyoto"

TELEX: MIYAKOHOTEL KYO

338-32

6001

Phone: (77) 6011

6021

Founded in 1893

MIYAKO HOTEL

Kyoto, Japan

a bit of Bunraku, the early puppet drama now given only in Osaka, of
which Sachie spoke so enviously on meeting. There was also dancing, and
a recital of koto music--all given as the Eleventh Meeting of the Appreciation
of Japanese Culture. Yesterday we were introduced to Mr Gondo, the
manager of the Kanze theater here; enthusiasm for the kyogen acting of
Shigeyama was relayed to that actor, so we were well received today
with the best of reserved seats in a packed house. Wednesday night we
saw Noh at the Kyoto Kaikan: the "Funa Benkei" performed by Kanze, and
"Makura-Jido" by the Kongō School, with Master Kongō himself playing shite
in the leading feminine role. But the previous Sunday was perhaps the
best, for it was at the Kongō Noh Theater, whose headquarters is at Kyoto
in a very old Noh house where the audience sits on the floor on straw
mats, and everything is in the oldest tradition, with a stage much like
that of the Elizabethan theatre and altogether a wonderful spectacle in
itself. We were taken, and have been sponsored by a Professor Suga who is
a great Noh enthusiast and known to all Noh players here. He took us to
the Mirror Room and Green Room behind where we met the Master (himself an
Intangible National Asset) and the other members of the company, watching
them prepare for the performance, the Noh mask taken precisely from its
box and fitted to the shite's face. Suga explained the plays to us as
they were put on, and has seen to it that some Japanese person (when it
was not himself) has accompanied us to each performance. I have become a
devotee and find Noh one of the most fascinating experiences I have had.
It is of course all linked in my mind with Fenollosa and Pound whose books
I have been rereading here, and to my own satisfaction at least have come
to a rather startling conclusion that the Noh is structurally important
to Pound's conception of the Cantos. I shall make this the theme of my
address on November 30th at Kobe to the Kansai District American Litera-
ture Society. My Japanese friends are much pleased by this early result
of my Japanese Studies, and accept on faith what I conjecture.

As for lecturing I have not quite managed to escape it. My former
student, Professor Takuwa, of Kyushu University, was in Kyoto giving an
intensive series of lectures on 20th century American literature at Kyoto
University, but later on the night he greeted us on our arrival his mother
died. When the others came the next morning, I was told; and my offer to
do a lecture in his place was much welcomed as getting them out of a hole,
especially because his lectures were announced as having been based on my
own. So, as again I think I wrote in my other letter, I talked for two
hours to his class and guests on Gertrude Stein. On the 10th I gave a
two-hour talk to the senior members of the Kyoto University American Studies
Center on the principles of area studies, and answered questions about
our program at Yale. I like these Japanese meetings. Beforehand one drinks
tea with the elitest of the faculty, and again afterwards. And naturally
I liked it also because I was presented with three large books of transla-
tions of Noh plays, which have helped us immeasurably in understanding
what we understand. After the meeting on the 10th, Susan and I were enter-

3

Cable address "Miyako Kyoto"

TELEX: MIYAKOHOTEL KYO

338-32

6001

Phone: (77) 6011
6021

Founded in 1893

MIYAKO HOTEL

Kyoto, Japan

tained at supper by the President of Kyoto University; a couple of
professors and the Dean also present at the mitzutake meal in the
Japanese inn of the Miyako, a detached house of which the average Caucasian
guest here seems unaware. The President was very jolly indeed, as I
remembered from his visit to me in 1960, and on retirement he promises to
come to New Haven to take flower-arrangement lessons from Susan. My last
formal appearance at Kyoto University was last Thursday afternoon when
I gave a public lecture to the university, using still again "The
American Writer and the Sense of Community." But what a long process
it was; I lectured, then a lengthy 30-minute summary was given in Japanese,
and then the Dean gave a speak of appreciation. At tea afterwards, I
was presnted with 5000, and now will have to find something to buy with
it. I had not meant to lecture but how could I refuse when so much had
been done privately for me by the faculty, and at any rate it was pleasant
to be driven to and fro in the university limousine as though I were some
ambassador.

My contacts with Doshisha University have been less so far, but I
gather they are being reserved against my return. I did have dinner on
the night after our arrival with Otis Cary and his wife; the President of
Doshisha paid a formal call on us at the hotel, inviting me to give the
lecture at Kobe, and then last Friday night he and his wife took us and
the Carys to dine at an attractive Japanese inn, with most carefully
selected menu of raw fish and mushrooms and other delicacies to which
we are now becoming adapted, and attack with increasing skill in the
use of chopsticks.

We have had, actually, a constant stream of visitors at our hotel
rooms, and a good many mornings and afternoons were broken into by such
appointments. I took several first lessons in Japanese, but as the spoken
sentences became more complicated and the difficulties of uninflected
speach more terrifying I began to use the time to ask useful questions
about academic life and Japanese habits instead of concentrating on
adjective nouns. And indeed I have learned a good deal about life at
least, from that as well as from my solitary wanderings through the
streets while Susan busied herself at school. I liked the chance to
watch, to pretend to shop, to see the men who spread cartoon-like pictures
on the pavement and, with a stick as pointer, tell some story to an
enthralled audience. Or to see the little birds who for ¥10 will range a
tiny Japanese flag before a miniature temple, then pick up the yen and
drop it in the contribution box, ring the shrine bell, open the shrine
doors and from within pull out a fortune which is returned and dropped
into the customer's outstretched hand. I even went to a two o'clock
strip show where an attractive Japanese girl danced sedately in the most
formal fashion, and then slowly removed the various complicated layers of
her outer and inner... until she lay open to the lascivious eyes of
the men who crowded about the platform. I learned something both
from her and from the audience.

4

Cable address "Miyako Kyoto"

TELEX: MIYAKOHOTEL KYO

338-32

6001
6011
6021

Founded in 1893

MIYAKO HOTEL

Kyoto, Japan

I think I told you that while in Tokyo I read proof on my brief history of American literature which is being published by the Eihosha Press. Prof. Takuwa is the one adding notes in Japanese, and he had with him in Kyoto the second set of proofs so that I could go over them with him. He also had the original text and I was embarassed to find that mistakes like "cast" for "cost" were in the American text. He had asked me also to bring along the Munich lectures and any others of my old articles, so now the Apollon-sha of Kyoto is to publish two volumes more: one of the Munich lectures plus that on the Nazi-Soviet Pact; the other made up of various 19th century American literary articles. Why not? You can see you started the ball rolling. I touched these articles up a bit, gave them over, and will see proof at least on the first book when I come back to Kyoto in November. Since Professor Nakanishi, of Kyoto University also had a good deal to do with the publication, and since Kyoto being a national university has no library appropriation for books in American Studies, and because one has to go through all sorts of red tape to get money out of Japan, I decided quite on my own to give over what will certainly not be the very large royalties to Kyoto University for the purchase of books on American matters. This seemed to go down very well, I am glad to say, and perhaps helps a little to repay their kindness.

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.

October 26, 1963.

Dear Bryher,

Norman got another tome off to you before we left Kyoto but since there is no way of telling when he will get on with his I thought you might like to know that we get deeper and deeper into our Japanese Studies every day. He went off to Waseda University speak at one o'clock, and has not yet got back (it is now ten past four). We flew back here the evening of the 22nd, took a tour all day the 23rd, and another the 24. The first was one I very much wanted to take, as it was of private gardens, ten of them, planned and run by the ladies who make up the International Service Group, a charitable enterprise. There were three buses to take us around, and goodness knows how many private cars. The other two buses got to eight of the ten gardens, and I doubt if anybody saw all ten, Tokyo and it's traffic being what they are, but we got to five, having spent 2 and a half hours after lunch, being driven around through narrow streets, backed around cars and corners, and generally shaken up by a driver who was both stubborn and stupid, refused to take directions from the lady guide who was our "bus mother", and kept us waiting while he held endless conversations with people on streets, ostensibly on how to get where we were to go, but who knows on what else. We saw four gardens in the morning, and at the end of our long afternoon trip, one more, and that just about at sunset.

The next day we went to Nikko with one of the former students, saw beautiful fall color in the mountains, and an equally brilliant Shrine. What we really learned was that the globe-trotting Japanese are the most inveterate trippers in the world. They were visiting the shrine by thousands when we got there, all ages, school children from about eight up, and all the grown-ups who could possibly get a day off. It was just about impossible to move anywhere at the Shrine, or to see much of the insides of the buildings for the continuing masses of people who jammed themselves through the doors and stood to listen to a lecture from the Buddhist Priest. In Japanese, so we couldn't understand it, but I suppose all about the Shrine and its history. We saw most of the best of it, and were able to take pictures, but it took endless patience. A most interesting experience!

Yesterday went to getting our visas for Korea, and then our reentry permits for Japan. Since we had difficulty before, Norman got the Embassy on it, and spent most of the morning talking with them. About one we went to the Embassy, were given two letters, one for the Koreans, and one for the Japanese, and a nice Japanese man to go with us. The Korean Mission was closed for lunch, but we were able to go in and wait, and in less than ten minutes a man appeared, took our applications, stamped our passports, and it was done. The Japanese Immigration office was something else again. We were given three forms to fill out, all with the same personal information, they were checked, a card was inserted in each passport, and they were handed back with the information the reentry was granted, but we would have to return after a week to get a stamp and pay ¥2000! Our Mr. Fujita was rather stunned, but also amused by the red tape of officialdom, and it is a kind of a nuisance, as the office is tucked away among the docks on the water-front, about as inaccessible as it possibly could be. But the letters Norman had in case of need were never needed, and never read. But at least we are now sure of getting to Korea and back again into Japan!

We go to Sendai on Monday the 28th, return here the 8th of November, and are off to Korea for five or six days on the 11th. How long we will stay here when we come back we don't know for sure, but we will go back to Kyoto before the 27th, and be there most likely till after Christmas.

Grand Hotel Sendai

( )

1 November 1963

Dearest Fido,

At last we seem to be having a few days of relative quiet in Sendai. I have at last been able to write Mrs Dingle a long letter of things to be done for me, written the acting chairman four letters of recommendation for promotions within the staff, tidied up some business notes of my own, and perhaps even will be able to write you a little of what you deserve. Tomorrow we go for overnight to a Japanese inn at a hot springs in the mountains. Unaccompanied and tongueless, we should find it both cold and adventurous. But we have until Friday here of next week, so this letter will be only the first from Sendai. Actually I'd like simply to make this a comment on your letters and not a travelogue. I don't miss Yale but I do miss the every-few days interchange of our "business."

First, let me say how grateful I was to you for cabling me about Kurt's death. I shall be anxious to hear the details when your letters catch up with me, presumably in Kyoto late in November. This will be a blow for Helen. No matter how much she would have preferred to live in the States, the kind of close quarters of their arrangements for the last many years, and the hovering care she has had to give, will have become a pattern whose change will be difficult to make. And of course there may ultimately be business repercussions. She will always be able to support herself, for she is an able business woman. But a large number of the invaluable literary connections might possibly prove to have depended on Kurt, and ultimtaley drift off. Not Mrs Lindberg of course, nor yourself. I wrote her immediately at Locarno, and hope the letter will reach her eventually.

2 November (just before we leave)

The Cultural Affairs Officer came yesterday just as I had begun, to take us to the ruins of the local castle, then to a shrine. In the afternoon a young Japanese instructor had us at two o'clock for tea (until 4:30), then we rushed to the opening of a flower arrangement show (very good), and after dinner went to the Hawthorne's for the evening. But eventually I WILL catch up.

I am glad Pup's visit went off. I always feel she is a little easier with you at Kenwin, but this is perhaps natural. The relationship is straighter than in her own home; the household responsibilities have vanished, and some of the personal tensions, perhaps, with John. # I am of course eager to see the *Artemis* reviews when we come to Kenwin. Mrs Dingle wrote that you had sent me a copy of the English edition, for which my thanks. To return to Pup, did you gather more of anything that might have happened between her and Kenneth? As we know, for her there was a curious and important relationship but one I suspect that Kenneth was uneasy about and anxious to be out of. # What news of George and his plans for the winter. If only he will go to a warm hotel in England I daresay everything might work out. He hates these trips to the States, and I understand how the smallness of Ady's house makes him feel that he inconveniences them at the same time that he relinquishes his own privacy. The lone bee can't return to a hive comfortably. # And what news of Jocelyn after his mother's death? I hope he can rehabilitate himself. One wonders. I forgot to include his address in my book. If you think he would like a card, send it. Also Lady Vyyvyan's. # Your trip to Rome sounded successful, and I am glad for the boys' sake that you could go. And glad you could see the Letizia. You know her son was a student of

Grand Hotel Sendai

(2)

mine at Yale. A very nice and intelligent as well as a handsome young man. And good too that you could see the Wongs. I was pleased that you now have a little Japanese camera, I suspect very much like the Olympus Pen I bought for the same reason. For Susan I bought a good Nikkon for use in taking pictures of her flower arrangements here and at home, with good lenses, a built-in light meter and distance measure, and low stops. Really better than my now old Leika, but this is still too good to exchange. I have been taking pictures with some success, but the weather is usually too cloudy for much brilliance in the results. I am spoiled by the crystal atmosphere of the arctic, where even a child can take good photos. We will make a selection of the better ones and bring with us to Switzerland where, if Elsie will be kind enough to let us use her projector, we can give you both a little private showing of Japan. # I am most happy about Kenneth's frenzy of work on his new novel, and hope it pans out. Then when that is done, I should like him to try his hand at memoirs. They could be witty and keen; he has an excellent eye. I shall probably miss the boys in the States, worse luck, although we might just cross paths. I do enjoy them both and will be infinitely sorry if we miss. # I am not surprised at your and Agnes's opinion of the new Rouse. He has become scholarly lazy and arrogant, and thinks his minorest opinions to be delphic. I shall be eager to see Leslie's book, and have told many in Japan about it. # Your help for Agnes vis-a-vis the Commonwealth students sounds most sensible and necessary. We have often the same situation in the States, and I have had privately to help out a number. Universities themselves of course cannot; I quite understand that. # And I shall be anxious to know what you find out from the book on the Australian Hentys. Did you ever really here from the Henty firls about your dedication of the Carthage book? # Oh dear, oh dear! about Inez and the dishwasher. Elsie will have every reason to be disappointed. I trust it is in working shape again. # And sad about Jean Starr, whom I hope is better by now. She does manage to have all the rough roads in life. # Yes, do by all means (perhaps you already have done so) write Mrs Dingle and ask either for micro-film or Xerox copies of the Margiad Evans letters. She will simply take the bill out of my account at the bank, and we can transfer from savings after my return. We ought to help in any way we can. # Your London letters (I had one on the 18th and 19th brought to me while we were still in Tokyo) sound as though that had begun to go well. I shall be eager for more news when the letters eventually reach me. I suspect you are right, and that Sylva Norman did do the TLS review of Artemis. At least some one did it who was familiar with Queenswood. But it is on any account one of the best you have ever had, and I liked it much better than many of her reviews of other people.

We have had no letters from Gardner, so I suppose my mother is about the same. One letter has come from Susan in New Haven, which seemed cheerful. And this last time in Tokyo there was a long en route letter from Lizzie in which she reported the usual collapse after our departure--she has had this misfortune every time we have gone away anywhere, but this time I suspect it is complicated by not having a job. She has to have a 24-hour a day companion lest she try to commit suicide again, is taking daily p.a. in order to help, and is of course much worried about financial matters. There was a long distance phone call from the States to the Imperial when we were out, but when eventually it was traced the party had cancelled the call. Meanwhile I thought we would be institutionalized wondering what had happened to her. Now I suspect it was she trying to check on money. I sent various cables, and hope all is well. At least nothing since. But we will not go home under present circumstances. It would help nothing. # The phone has called, and we are to be taken to the bus. I will write again tomorrow when we are back from the mountains.

Love, Norman

Grand Hotel Sendai

( )

3 November 1963

Dearest Fido,

We are back from our overnight at Kaminoyama Spa, near Yamagato in the mountains, and although we wait for the Manning Hawthornes with whom were are, or were, supposed to have a late Sunday-night snack once they had been to some official concert (he is the American Cultural Officer in Sendai) I can at least begin another letter to you. In fact we were back about 3:30 (it is now 8:15), and having had no lunch on the train, we have already eaten. So their coming or not coming matters very little. We came back to the hotel, went out to a coffee bar for a fruit salad, and then wandered along milling with the large number of Sunday shoppers and trippers. For they do shop, and they certainly do trip. But then, so far we have looked for an antique shop which had been recommended to us, and finally found it, buying (as I had planned to do) a little present for Elsie which we will bring with us to Switzerland. We were waited on by a friendly young woman and her son, who kept running behind into the living quarters (everyone lives behind their shops) to ask the price. Then my ikebana eye saw a rich-brown

(4 November)

(They came)

bamboo wall-vase, obviously old, tucked away in the midst of buddhas and bronzes. When the young woman went back to ask the price of this, the old mother of the family appeared. It was not expensive, and when I asked (having bought it) if there were other old ones (the patina being so important on these), the mother disappeared and the father came back with her. Obviously our status had risen, and now he produced three old bamboo vases: one made 250 years ago by the warlord duke of Sendai (I like to think of Mountbatten cutting out a bamboo vase, -- but then this was the equivalent, no doubt, of Churchill's and Eisenhower's painting). It did not sing to us, despite its history, but another did, and Susan bought it with a little part of your gift to her. It had its own box, its famous maker's name inlaid in gold ideograms, and inside its box was the name given to it by its maker, 300 years ago in Kyoto: "a passing shower." It was a good sale for the old man, a happy purchase for Susan, and there was much bowing to the floor and expressions of mutual respect and appreciation.

Our trip to the spa was a beautiful one, a six-hour bus trip (just an omnibus, not a tourist coach) through the harvested countryside. In the fields were families taking in the crops, piling rice straw into the different patterns of stacks we find so intriguing, the people never looking up from beneath their big round straw hats; white radishes strung along the eves of the farmhouses, or else rows of corn (yellow and white); the trees losing their leaves and bright with pomegranates, which are surely one of the world's most beautiful fruits; fields full of mulberry trees for the silkworms; and frequently unexpected rows of brilliant crysanthemums. Alas, the bus sped on too fast for me to take photographs, and then began to climb in the mountains, up winding country roads at the edge of deep ravines, where the ginkgo trees were gold in the sunlight, and the maples scarlet as though in flame. Mostly however the colors were subdued and paisley-like in hue; and I was reminded of the drive we took with you through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, except

GE

Grand Hotel Sendai

(2)

that when we had climbed up above the gorges and the streams rushing down them, we were a mile and a half up and there was a scattering of snow everywhere, like the dusting of powdered sugar. At the highest point we changed buses, and took an aerial lift still higher, and then climbed on foot for a while longer in what was now almost early winter cold, to a tarn in the crater of an extinct volcano, the crater side towards us eroded, and the far side standing up like a back lip. We rubbed our hands in the cold and admired the view and then retreated to wait for the bus down the other side of the mountain to Yamagata and Kaminoyama Spa where we were to stay at the Murao Ryokan. The head of the bus line invited us to warm ourselves at the hibachi used by the bus drivers, served us green tea, and showered us with picture postcards as souvenirs. Fortunately he spoke a few words of English, which was something no one on any of the buses did; and this was our first trip on our own. There are always surprises as to who does and who does not speak English. At one of the bus stops on the way up, we were suddenly addressed by a uniformed man who drew himself up and said "I am about to ask you a question." Then, "Speak slowly and clearly when you answer." I could only think we were in for some misdemeanour, when the question elegantly came forth: "Where do you come from?" Yesterday, as we were waiting for the train back, a uniformed school girl came up to us and shyly said that she too wanted to ask us a question. "Is it all right?" We said it was. "Are you Catholic?" And then she pulled out a holy medal proudly, to show she was. Actually she was quite useful in checking the trains, and we had quite a chat together. "I have no parents. I have no sisters and no brothers." And then, finally: "I want a mother and a father." But since she seemed a little big to take home as a souvenir on our luggage allowance, we made no gestures of adoption.

The Murao was our first experience with a Japanese Inn, and since except for a woman with whom I occasionally spoke over the phone but never saw, no one spoke English, our stay was a little like a mystery story in which we were never sure what was coming next. Our nice little maid took our bag and guided us up stairs and down and along corridors and across galleries so that we never tried to find our way back until the next morning. Once in our room, with our slippers left in the entrance door (our shoes had been left at the entrance to the hotel) she served us tea, motioned to the kimonos and drew a hot bath in our private Japanese tub. One lives apparently always in splendid isolation in these hotels; we had a handsome Japanese room, with tatami mats, a kakemono hanging in the alcove, and an arrangement of crystals, and a handsome huge lacquer table with a futon (cushion) on either side. There was also an alcove, with two western easy chairs and a coffee table, looking out on the autumn foliage on the mountains, where we sat and read and had a whiskey nightcap which I had thoughtfully brought along in my small overnight bag. At six our dinner was brought to the room, and since we had had no lunch we were really hungry for the endless varieties of raw fish (tuna, octopus, abalone, etc.), a small trout apiece, a gobbet of cold fried pork, hors d'oeuvre, cooked fish with noodles, rice, soup, and grapes. All very good but all cold by the time it reached us, except for the warm sake. The only extraneous object seemed to be a t.v. set, but after dinner this was pushed aside, the table placed along the division between the main room and our alcove, and the beds spread out on the floor. At 8 the next morning, the man came and put everything back in order again, and the maid brought our breakfast: noodles, soup, cold salmon, pickles, spinach salad, two cold nearly raw softboiled eggs (without a spoon) which we managed to slurp up from a bowl with chopsticks (quite a feat), and then a second soup with bean curds, and a bowl of rice. We hot-bathed again this

this

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being a Spa, and since because of a slight drizzle outside there was little temptation to wander. But we did go at the end of the morning to a local crysanthemum festival which was splendid in the magnificence of the flowers, and curious in its elaborate display of historical and romantic scenes in which life-sized figures were clad in crysanthemum blossoms. Kaminoyama Spa being a half hour away from Yamagata, we taxied to the station there after being first deposited at the Kanimoyama Station, or nearly so since I recognized the error and managed to convey the mistake to the driver. By 12:30 when our train left for Sendai, the sun had come out, and we had another splendid harvest tour through the fields and between the mountains with all their foliage.

We were wonderfully lucky in the weather today also. Having been rained out of our trip to Matsushima last Wednesday, this was our last chance to see the famous pine islands which were once the private estate of the House of Date but are now one of the celebrated scenic points of Japan. There are some 263 islands of various sizes, made of volcanic rock and white sandstone, carved by the sea into various shapes like icebergs when they are small, but capped by the beautiful spread of the Japanese pines. The islands are of various sizes, some little more than rocks in the sea, others are inhabited by fishermen and oystermen and gatherers of seaweed. The tourist season being over, thousands of bamboo poles were driven into the shallow waters, with nets to catch the seaweed. The oyster racks and the fish weirs are more permanent. The vistas were lovely of course, but I enjoyed the sight of the people at work in their boats almost more than anything else. On the way to Matsushima we stopped at Shiogama Shrine, and after our boat trip which lasted until 1, and an elaborate (too elaborate) lunch of raw fish, fried eels, and other seafoods which went on an on until a quarter to 4, but in a new hotel which was being shown to us, so we ate Japanese style in an upstairs room with a view) we went to the Daigyoji Temple to see it in the fast-fading light. Manning Hawthorne took us in his car, and also along were a Professor Yamaura (who had visited me at Yale) and his attractive son who had a holiday from college since this is National Culture Day. It was Yamaura who had wanted us to see the hotel run by a friend of his, which accounts for the over-splendor of the food.

Sendai has been an interesting experience. It is the most important town in the N.E. of Japan, but off the track for tourists, and without anything but the normal life of Japanese for us to see. But two professors (Yamaura and Yokazawa) were known to me, and the American Cultural Officer is Manning Hawthorne, the great grandson of Nathaniel, whom I have known for many years, and who originally was to have been one of the editors of Hawthorne's letters. Actually he has a fat family scrapbook which he has let me see, and which I must now go over. He has been kind in showing us around, as have his wife and daughter. For his sake I held a coversazione with the American Literature Club of Fukuoka Prefecture, tomorrow am to attend a tea in my honor at the University of Tohoku, and on Friday a similar reception at Tohoku Gakuin College. But otherwise I have been lazy. We go back to Tokyo on Friday, and on the 11th are off to Seoul where I hope there will be no revolutions until we return to the Imperial in Tokyo on the 15. We will stay in Tokyo until about the 23rd and then go back to the Kyoto Hotel which will be roughly our H.Q. until after New Year's.

Susan joins in love to you and Elsie.

All love,

I mean by this, First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks for your kind assistance.

CABLE ADDRESS "IMPHO TOKYO"

Imperial Hotel
Tokyo

10 November 1963

Dearest Fido,

This is a tail-end-of-the-day and tail-end-of-the-stay-
in-Tokyo letter, since we leave early tomorrow morning for South Korea
and what is my only official four-of-duty on this trip. We came back
from Sendai on Friday, accompanied on the American Cultural Center bus
to the airport by so many people who wished to see us off that the wife
and daughter of the American Cultural officer (he had had to go away on
a trip) had to kiss us goodbye in Sendai, farewells at the station or
airport being so important to the Japanese that they dared not be ugly
Americans by claiming seats in the car for themselves.

The last few days in Sendai were very pleasant ones indeed,
and we left with so many gifts that it took two large boxes to ship them
from here to the States to await our return. I think I told you in my
last letter that I had spoken at the Cultural Center to the American
Literature Society of the Tohoku Prefecture; later I spoke to Tohoku
University and also to Tohoku Gakuin (a missionary college where Aurelia
used to teach, and which she left in some diagrace for having married
a man who had been divorced.--Did I tell you that the President of Tohoku
Gakuin registered a semi-official protest to Hodgson at the marriage?
No wonder she seems to show little desire to visit Japan again.)

One reason you did not get another letter from Sendai was
the fact that Manning Hawthorne let me look at a Hawthorne family scrap-
book in which several letters by the Hawthorne family were pasted. I
copied and copied, and even Susan helped by typing out copies of letters
which might be of value to me in my annotations. I delivered it back
to Mrs Hawthorne only late at night of the evening before our departure.

11 November (15 minutes before
we leave)

Everyone in Japan had said we were fools to go to Sendai for
so long, but in the end I think it will serve as a balance with a metrop-
olis like Tokyo and a museum like Kyoto. We did things more leisurely;
there was ample entertainment, and the attitudes were folksy, people
being pleased that indeed we had come there. There was only one garden
and two shrines, the ruins of the castle walls, and a few shopping streets
to see, but we saw them all several times liking them no less for the
repetition or the good will of those who showed them to us. We were
entertained in several homes, had long conversations about Hodgson (but
that will take a special letter or a coversation of its own), and taken
to the Japanese restaurants to which we have become well accustomed. I
shall never forget our dining out in a restaurant on the night before
we left, taken by a professor and his wife and three sons, plus Mrs
Hawthorne and her daughter as added guests. We hunkered around the low
tables, in the seats of honor in front of the takenoma (or recess with
its kakemono and its flower arrangement), in the adjacent rooms other
parties were being held, with the sound of the koto and all the merriment
which accompanies a Japanese dinner. When we had finished our host had
prepared a little entertainment for us; and taking out some sheets of

CABLE ADDRESS "IMPHO TOKYO"

Imperial Hotel
Tokyo

music which he had laboriously copied, he sang Hamlet's soliloquy ("To be or not to be...") to us, his particular intonation making it seem like a song from a Noh play. I listened and we all applauded at the end, really, what could have been more wonderfully pleasing to old Shakespeare himself, in this approaching anniversary year, than to know that "To be or not to be" would be sung in Sendai in a little Japanese inn!

Most of Saturday morning we spent finally securing our re-entry permit to Japan, the cholera ban having been removed and the checks on our conduct since arrival in Japan having been successful. In the afternoon I went to the International Book Fair, and talked with some of the sales representatives about questions which the Yale Press had asked me to find approximate answers to. Yesterday, being a glorious autumn day with bright skies and coblish air we went to two huge crystallanthemum shows: an amateur one in Hibiya Park, and another at the Botanical Gardens. I had not dreamed there could be so many varieties of flowers or varieties of people to watch them.

All love, always

Norman

Your letter from England on the eve of leaving & see Act III
arrived, for which all thanks.

SEOUL
REPUBLIC OF KOREA
BANDO & CHOSUNHOTELS

CABLE ADDRESS
"BANDOHOTEL"

November 14, 1963.

Dear Bryher,

Here we are, in this old, old country, much more
mountainous even than Japan, much like Japan, and also much unlike
it. We were met on arrival, after a fine two hour flight from Tokyo,
by Mr. Strauss, the U.S. Educational Mission head, and Mr. Kim and his
wife. Mr. Kim was at Yale three years ago, and is Professor here.
His wife speaks a little English, but her real claim to fame as far
as I am concerned is her lovely serene face and figure, and the way
she moves in her native dress. She is utterly captivating, doesn't
look a day over thirty, and has six children, five girls and a boy!
The eldest girl is about to graduate from college, is a student in
bio-physics, and her father wants her to continue study in the U.S.
next year. The next girl is a senior in High School, the others are
indefinite ages, the boy being 7 and next to last, and the young-
est girl five. We had dinner at the Kim's house Tuesday night, and
this is very different from Japan, where one is never expected to
dine at the home, but taken to a restaurant. The two elder girls
greeted us, with their mother, and then they disappeared to take care
of the last preparations for dinner, while we sat with Mr. and Mrs.
drinking straight rye and eating local walnuts and peanuts and dried
fruits. Dinner was served in Mr. Kim's study, on the floor, and the
long table was absolutely crowded with all sorts of fried and
pickled vegetables, egg rolls filled with raw spinach, flat rice
cakes, white, with fine vegetables pressed into them so they looked
as lovely as they tasted, and some sweet rice things filled with
different sweet stuffings. The color of the outside indicated the
stuffing. In the middle of the table were two steaming chafing
dishes, emitting a most appetizing odor. They are on raised bases,
in which are coals, and the food is in a tray around the vent in the
middle, so it keeps bubbling till you get ready to eat it. And of
course there was rice and soup, and another kind of sweetened rice,
very sticky, full of nuts of various kinds and very good. One helps
one's self in any other one chooses, and once the stew had been
tasted another dish of hot beef strips was brought, highly spiced
and also delicious. Norman and I stuffed, but it wouldn't have been
polite to refuse to taste anything on the table. After dinner we
rose with some difficulty, and went back to the western style room,
for another drink, and the son was induced to paly his violin for
us, which he did with great aplomb, and also great skill for one
who has been learning for only a year. We were enchanted! Eventually,
after nine-thirty, we managed to get away. We're not sure, but it
seems that where the Japanese expect you to leave as soon as dinner
is finished, the Koreans expect you to stay awhile.

Norman has a schedule that would kill him if we were to stay
longer. He starts at ten, goes to one place, then another, for

consultations with fac ulties, then a luncheon, then another consult-
ation, then a lecture, and finally we have a dinner engagement every
night. The only one that is non-business was the one at the Kim's.
I didn't join him yesterday. Mrs. Strauss took me out to see Seoul,
from department stores to the busy market, to lunch in a Hospital
cafeteria, to an ancient palace and its Park which is called a garden,
to two curio shops, in one of which I found some good of Korean
celadon, but at such a price that I think we wont buy any, and
finally to her house for tea, and then I had to dash to the airport
ready for my flight home.

I'm sorry this had to come from me, but as you can see Norman
could not possibly find the time or the energy to write. But don't
think for one minute he isn't enjoying all this, and learning a
lot, though I know he will be releived when we get on the plane tomm
orrow!

Our best love to you, and we wish you were with us. You
would like this sad and poor country with its cheerful people.

CABLE ADDRESS "IMPHO TOKYO"

Imperial Hotel
Tokyo

17 November 1963

Dearest Fido,

We returned from Korea Friday night, to find your two
letters of the 31st of October and 5th November waitinfg for us at the
hotel, Prof Cary having been in Tokyo for a meeting and left them for
us. It is good to think of you as at Kenwin again, although you cer-
tainly have a full schedule of visitors lined up to keep you busy until
Christmas. Today I feel a little woozy (and of course hope it's not
cholera), so am taking things easy, will eat soup, and stay close to
the hotel except perhaps for an excursion to the park this afternoon
for a little fresh air. My letter about Korea I'll begin later, but
perhaps not manage to finish today.

I was grateful for the additional news of Kurt's death, and
it is interesting that I told Susan, when your cable came, that whereas
a younger man might have survived the accident, it was not unlikely that
his heart had failed to stand up under the strain. I wrote Helen to
Locarno, as you know; but do beg her not to acknowledge. Perhaps I
can help her later. It was good of Jovanovitch to come across for the
funeral. She and Ninon may be able to console each other.

I was delighted of course that Islay's pictures of you came
out so well; there was a letter here from him too, jubilant at his suc-
cess. I am eager to see them. This week I shall try to go to a huge
show of Indian art, and will write him when I send him a catalogue--air
mail I suspect or he would not have it until spring. I could wail at
missing dinner with the boys in New York, in fact at missing them com-
pletely. Perhaps I will have to spin over to see the Pope this summer,
in order to have their blessing as well.

I was sorry (to repeat the string of adjectives) about John's
diabetes. Of course if he will take care of himself he will be all
right, one judges these days; but it will certainly cramp his style and
keep them all on edge. And sorry too about Horace. His resistance is
obviously not very great; we ought to be happy simply that he is alive
and able to write, but of course I keep wishing he could have his old
resilience.

Best of all is the news about the adoption of <u>Carynare</u> by the
British bookclub. I suspect it may have been advantageous to have the
memoirs come out as they did, to call attention to you and your work.
But how strange and how critically stupid to have to wait for such rec-
ognition when already you have published so many fine novels in England
as well as in the States. This will of course please also both Helen
and Jovanovitch.

Obviously your English and Irish trips were a great success,
and I was particularly pleased that you enjoyed Ireland so much.

Outside of the pleasure from your letters and that from Islay,
our other mail waiting for us was a little terrifying. Susan's mother
has been operated on for a malignant intestinal cancer which could not
be wholly removed, and although she makes a good recovery so far she
will have to have a long series of x-ray treatments--hardly very

CABLE ADDRESS "IMPHO TOKYO"

Imperial Hotel
Tokyo

pleasant for like Susan she has a great fear of cancer because of the lingering death of the grandmother. Still, the surgeon says she should have three to six years more. And since she has just celebrated her 87th birthday, it is not unlikely that something else will take her before the cancer does. Yet this is hard on Susan too, for they are as close as their names. But she has decided not to go back unless things take a turn for the worse.

They may of course on every account, for in the same mail were letters from little Susan and from Lizzie's psychiatrist. It now is told that Lizzie celebrated her grandmother's 87th birthday, which was celebrated by a large family birthday party, but taking what the doctor described as a "small" overdose of sleeping pills, then calling him to tell him, and younger Susan had to take the two children to rush there (not being able to get a sitter) to find Lizzie unconscious and having to be taken to the hospital on a stretcher. A rough experience for the two little ones. The pattern of course was precisely that of Florida, with a greater flare for the dramatic by calling attention to herself at a birthday moment. Since then she has had daily or nearly daily p.a. treatments, two full-time p.a. nurses, with the third part of the day requiring various cousins and aunts and sister to sit and watch her because the doctor (probably rightly) did not want to commit her. The burden on the family is intense, and she has them as she has us in the strategic position of being damned if they do and damned if they don't. As, for example, the opinion is that we should not come home (as indeed I agree); but you can be sure that we will have deserted her for our own frivolous goals. The bills must be immense, for she had given up her job without telling us before we left (we are now informed) and begun seeing him (which again we did not know though inevitably the bills would have to be paid by me). He does seem to be doing a good job, according to Susan's sister Barbara; and since he also has Jim Addiss in treatment (as that letter informed us) he should have an earful to guide him. I have however just had to write the psychiatrist to say I could not be enthusiastic about his support of Lizzie's idea and hope to have a little store of her own to run. I cannot imagine anything worse for her, not least because of the likelihood of failure, still another failure. The cost would be as impossible as it would be unwise; we would have to foot the bills for rental, equipment, stock, and an assistant. If we tried to keep an eye on the account books this would be interpreted as interference and a failure to believe in her. If we did not continue to feed in anything she wanted, then the failure would be ours for not having given the one additional and obvious key to overwhelming success.

Remember me in your prayers, as I say to my Oblate friends. And I should not be surprised if we never were able to finish the trip as originally planned, quite apart from having any moments free from worry in the course of it.

Still, we have seen a lot and enjoyed a lot. And my gloom may be partly due to my dysentery.

Kyoto Hotel

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

24 November 1963

Dearest Fido,

Perhaps now that we are back in Kyoto, where we arrived by plane (to Osaka and then by bus) tonight, I may at last and at least be able to write you. And write more than the wail of last Sunday, for which I apologize. I was exhausted by Korea and then laid low by an attack of dysentery so that I seemed to treat the rather tarnished news from home as though it were a fresh event to distress me. Perhaps I miss the discontinuance of my common cold shots, but I did stumble through the week at rather a low pitch of energy. Now I begin to feel much better.

Yesterday morning we were off on a Fuji-hunt, having missed the mountain so many times because of clouds or rain or nightfall, and were just about to get into a tourist bus at 7:30 a.m. when I glanced over the shoulder at someone reading a one-page extra about the assassination of President Kennedy. I found it completely unbelievable, as though someone had played a speculative game called "What would happen if they assassinated an American President?" But so in fact it was, and tonight I have just finished reading last week's *Time* with an account of a woman who shot off a flash bulb on him with her camera last week, and "Moaned a New York police official: 'She might well have been an assassin.'" I suppose one faint internal satisfaction is that the killing is not linked to segregation, for that would have been an American trauma with incredible consequences. A good deal of the day's tour was spent answering questions both by Americans and others as to the chain of succession in case something happened to Johnson, and what my opinion was of the consequences to American foreign policy etc. My own opinion is that there will be very few until after next fall's election. The rider is changed but the horse will have to be the same for political tactics of nothing else. And I daresay the Democrats will have a better likelihood of re-election (altho they probably would have been re-elected anyhow), for the attacks of Kennedy's policies will be soft-pedalled less they seem too personal about the dead. But it is a shocking thing to have happened, and real blow to the western world. Oddly a blow not least to the Russians who, certainly not having engineered the affair, will nevertheless bear a certain brunt all the same.

It is odd that I should have been in London at the time of Roosevelt's death, and in Tokyo at this time; for one felt very strongly the impact of American leaders in both cases on the world at large. At least in Kennedy's case, I had the tour to busy my mind; and it was indeed a lovely trip to have taken. We went first to Kamerakura to see the immense Buddha; we were rushed by the tour leader but having seen it before (and gotten the photographs I wanted) this did not matter so much, and the Buddha remains an incredibly satisfying piece of peace. Saturday being a national holiday, with most of Japan out in automobiles, traffic was impossibly

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KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

slow and we travelled at a snail's pace (there is no traffic in the world to compare in intensity with Japan's) until after a couple of hours we left the road to enter the Hakkone National Park and climb the mountains whose foothills were lined with persimmon and tangerine trees, and garden beds of horse radish, up through the autumn foliage until at last we saw Fuji rise with its snow-covered cone. It has a cliched beauty which suddenly comes to life with full vigor and freshness, and is one of the wonders of the world which really lives up to its reputation. I should not agree with one American I T & T engineer from Okinawa, who said breathlessly "It's so beautiful it looks as though it were made by man himself," but it does have a regularity which is unusual, and is already so stamped on the memory through reproductions, that it seems quite unreal. The day was completely a mountain-catching experience, and we wandered along the mountain roads engrossed by nothing else than by Fuji, returning to Tokyo at 8 p.m. feeling as though we had been one of the 1500 who, the newspaper said today, had climbed the mountain yesterday to the top. Actually today in flying to Osaka we were again in luck with the weather, and the plane flew so near the summit of Fuji that it seemed as though we could reach out to touch it. It was like that trip you and I flew back from Italy through the Alps.

It is pleasant to return to the Hotel. The porters and bell boys all exclaimed in delight when we appeared, the clerks lined up to bow and thank us for returning, and the maids made little faces to express their pleasure. We have the same room, as we always do at the Imperial. And of course that helps. Now Susan will resume her flower arrangements lessons, I shall start wandering again, and we will try to see as many more shrines and gardens as we can manage.

My indisposition kept the last Tokyo stay at rather a low ebb, but we managed to get a good deal done all the same. We came back from Korea on the evening of the 15th, and spend Saturday morning unsuccessfully trying to regain possession of our alien registration cards which we had to give up when we left Japan. Everyone was very nice about it. But, they said, "You have come back too soon." And so it seemed, for the cards had not been sent in from the airport on Thursday when we tried again. The Japanese are bureaucrats, but they have hearts, and finally Friday evening at 5 o'clock, the last possible moment before our departure (Saturday being the national holiday), the Imperial desk clerks recovered the books for us.

Sunday I felt so wobbly that I lunched and dined on cream soups and nothing else, but in the afternoon I wanted a little fresh air so we taxied to Hama Rikyu, a former Imperial garden which is now a public park, and on the harbor, where we walked about enjoying the garden a little (it has rather run down) and

3

Kyoto Hotel

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

and the people a lot. One learns a good deal in a public park on a Sunday. Fathers play ball with their small sons; boys walk hand in hand with girls (some in kimonos, some in western clothes, some in slacks), families picnic, students sit in circles on the grass and sing. Nearly everyone munches tangerines, which they carry in long net bags. And absolutely everyone takes photographs of absolutely everyone else. Girls take of girls; boys take of boys. Boys take of girls. Parents take of children. Husbands of wives. It is almost impossible to take a vista without including a score of photographers and models (amateur) in the picture. People kneel, ambrace, or leans against stone lanterns. Individually, the Japanese population must be the most heavily documented census in existence. Photograohy is an absolute passion, and no wonder that it is combined with other passions as well. For the daily papers advertise the possibility of photographing nudes after 5 p.m., if only we will phone a particular number and be outside to have the car meet you and take you to the studio. So far I have resisted, but this is probably sheer folly on my part if I am really to know the East.

I went back from the park to collapse and sleep until time for
corn soup at night. And the day of Monday was chiefly spent in
having a tooth filled at the International Dentist Clinic, which I
braved successfull in order to replace a loss I had incurred in
Korea. Actually the dentist, recommened by the hotel, was as good
as any I have had; and I was delighted to have everything put in
order in a metropolis rather than in a smaller city like Kyoto.

Monday night we had dinner with Professor Saito at his home,
a family dinner that included his wife, a professorial son and wife
and a professorial son-in-law and Saito daughter. Since the Japan-
ese are reputed to entertain very seldom in their homes, we have
been lucky in being asked to so many. Saito is about 78, and the
man who persuaded Hodgson to come to the university in Sendai, a
man who is a close friend of Blunden (he has an enormous collection
of Blunden's work--I had not realised that Silvia Norman had been
wife #2), and a good friend of Robert Graves. He had a collection
of Hodgson holographs, and altogether was a book collector with
great enthusiasm, even having a volume of Lyrical Ballads with
manuscript corrections by Coleridge. A good Japanese, but very
western in his tastes, and we sat at a dining room table for dinner.

Tuesday in Tokyo was spent chiefly with my lecture at the
University of Tokyo; and although I am grateful to have "The
American Writer and the Feeling for Community" tucked away handily,
I am getting a little tired of delivering it. But as a lecture it
covers the waterfront and so works well. There was a luncheon with
the faculty beforehand, and a meeting with four or five graduate
students afterwards during which I answered their questions as best
I could. One student was so enamoured he asked for the privilege

coffee break
25 Nov.

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Kyoto Hotel

KYOTO, JAPAN

CABLE ADDRESS "KYOHO" KYOTO

TELEPHONE NO.23-4301-5301

of dedicating his master's thesis to me, and the next day I found
a Noh fan left by him at the Imperial Hotel for me, with a note
which he signed "Affectionately." Since I was also presented with
an elaborately painted Noh fan, and stand for it, by the University,
"in appreciation", I am well stocked with equipment whenever you
choose to dance for me in New Haven.

Wednesday we lunched with the Japanese head of the Yale Alumni
organization of Japan, and I agreed to give a talk to them on January
8th in Tokyo; and then afterwards went to the National Museum to
see a spectacularly beautiful show of Indian art, collected from
all over India by their government, and probably better in quality
and certainly better exhibited than any museum in India could show.
The catalogue was splendid and reasonably cheap (about $2.00—I
don't see how they can do it), so because of some Gandharan pieces
I sent a copy surface to Ingholt, and by air to Islay so that it
would arrive before he and Kenneth left for Mexico. (By the way,
I have also bought what I think is a charming little netsuke, of
mice in a bale of rice straw, for you to give to Rosemary for her
collection. I will bring it with us and you can save it for a
suitable occasion.)

Thursday I lunched with the Counsellor of the American Embassy
at his request for a "project" in which he mysteriously said he
thought I would be interested. I had visions of personal grandeur
and importance, but it turned out to be only his idea of getting an
honorary degree from Yale (of which he is an alumnus) for the Ameri-
can ambassador, and another for the ambassador's wife.

And, oh yes, I had forgotten. On our first Saturday back we
went to another of those lavish reviews, this time the Takarazuka,
in which along with a chorus of some 80 girls, the male roles are
all played by lovelies like the enclosed. The audience, for what
the English part of the program described as "A Gland Review,"
was dominantly housewives and schoolgirls and young business women,
and the bobby-soxers among them screamed and howled their approval
of the "men" whenever they appeared, each group having its favorite,
and each favorite strutting to its particular fans.

Friday morning I had an appointment with the publisher of my
literary history (it won't be out until February) and gave him my
selections for the abbreviated collection of Hilda's poems which
I hope I can persuade them to publish, even if I put up a little
subsidy. Most people with whom I talk like her poems, but she is
not available. Nor are any modern English or American poets. It
might start a trend, and is at least worth exploring. They promise
to be in touch with me. The rest of the morning I spent having
parcels of books and other gifts to me wrapped to send back to the
States, for only in that way are we able to survive. And so far
have not been overweight from the time we left home. In the after-
noon, the weather having cleared, we went to Rikuzen Gardens,

suggested

red

we went to Rikuzen Gardens,

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the last of those in Tokyo of any importance. So at least we
have seen all of the good Tokyo gardens, though we can never hope
to do the same in Kyoto where they proliferate. The maples were
often scarlet, and there were a number of nice vistas as well as
more intimate spots, and it was a pleasant late-fall afternoon.
At night we went to dinner at the home of Ayako Ishizaka, or rather
at her father-in-law's home, since her own parents (he was ambassador
to France and the Argentine, and she was later a student at Yale)
were dead. Ishizaka père is an industrial tycoon and the house
showed it. But the company of younger people was good (the father
was sick), and the food excellent, and any number of male servants
who knelt at one's elbow in the way you must have been accustomed
to in Pakistan with Kenneth and Islay.

Then Saturday was our "mountain-catching day" with Fuji;
yesterday we flew back here; and today, while it has poured, we
have been more or less inert. Susan did go to her school to make
arrangements about resuming her lessons in flower arrangement, and
this afternoon we went to the Kyoto Art Gallery to see the Marc
Chagall show we had missed when it was in Tokyo. It too, like the
Ming show and like the Indian show, was an extravaganza--the greatest
ever held, with 391 items loaned from France.

I was naturally shocked this afternoon to see another extra
on the assassination of the assassinator of Kennedy. I am doubly
shocked and horrified, perhaps as much as by the first action. As
a symbol of justice it is an outrage for a thug to become the
avenger of a president; and the incident doubles the sense of law-
lessness by which such things can happen. The picture of America
is not a pretty one.

While I was in Tokyo I cut out the enclosed notice of Luebke's
visit to Japan, because I thought you might think it interesting
enough to Ninon Hesse to send it along to her because of his dis-
cussion of Hesse with the young Japanese interested in German. But
of course it may not; I leave the decision to you.

I enclose also, because it is its own best evidence, and the
best reason for my not having written from Korea, and been exhausted
afterwards, a copy of my Korean schedule. I won't say it was not
interesting, and the response was certainly gratifying. For Koreai
enough off the beaten track for scholars so that all too few of
this breed visit there. At Sungyunkwan University (the Confucian
seat of learning) there were some four or five hundred in the
audience. But because I had been scheduled to lecture there (a
professor had been a student of mine), Seoul National University
did not want to hear me, so tender is the status of protocol. I
certainly could not have cared less, and much preferred warmth to
dignity. Still, the whole visit was a good demonstration of

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my decision not to go around the world as a government representative, for as it was I only began to touch the edges of the some 20 or more universities in Seoul alone. And the officials could not begin to accept the infotations which *came to them* as soon as my future arrival was announced. I shall have to sit down and write the whole thing up for Washington when I am back in New Haven, but it is still to scrambled in my mind for me to analyse here. What I was chiefly sorry about was not having the chance to see anything of Korea or the countryside, except for what I *glanced* driving from one appointment to another, a half-hour in the market place on Friday morning, and the usual ride to the top of a mountain for a bird's eye view of Seoul and its valley. And (I did forget) we were also driven to the Blue House (the Korean equivalent of Washington's White House) and walked through the garden as a special but hardly very exciting treat. I much preferred the sight of the peasants in their Mongolian costumes, long white baggy trousers, manchurian beards and long pipes, those curious Korean black straw hats that look to me (incorrectly) like the headgear of mandarins, and altogether the mixture of new and old on far more striking terms than one finds in Japan. There was more poverty, too, because of throngs which have poured in from North Korea, and caves cut into the dirt hillsides were not only shops but homes for the poor.
Yes, I did learn a lot in five days, and am glad I went.

Thinking it might amuse you, I am also enclosing a press clipping and translation of a souvenir from Sendai. I am only sorry that Doris cannot see how rural I have become in my interests.

A letter today from Susan's sister says that Mrs Bennett is not after all to have x-ray treatment, and that the doctor has revised his estimate of her life span to a year, saying also that something might take off suddenly in between. But this is not really saddening, for if she had x-ray she would know, and the 3 yrs would only be a hell of waiting. Susan will be back within a year, and if something came suddenly she would not be there anyhow. As to Lizzie, she is reported to be somewhat better although with ups-and-downs in mood. And will certainly continue to have until at least she finds a job. She has her psychiatric companion-nurses for 2/3 of the 24-hour day, but, thank God, her relatives no longer have to sit up with her during the long hours of the night while she sleeps. At a long family conference with her present, the psychiatrist, Mrs Hoblitzelle wrote, had been a little rough with her and told her that she had to learn how to live with her infirmities exactly as if she had diabetes or were a polio case. I think she does

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27 November 1963

Dearest Fido,

Yesterday evening a boy brought a small batch of
letters from Otis Cary, and chiefly among them in number and
importance were four from you: one from London on 20 October;
and three from Kenwin, on the 7, 11th, and 18th of November.
I do not miss New Haven at all, except the usual rapid corres-
pondence between us.

I was interested in your impressions of Oonagh's
London house, perhaps in its richness a symbol of a successful
marriage, and certainly a symbol of the good taste which Petrie
bred into her. And I am always intrigued by your accounts of
successive Queenswood reunions, feeling almost (thanks to your
memoirs) as though I had been there in a lower class. One re-
members, I suppose, even the straightjacket when one has success-
fully removed it --remembers it, that is, with affection and
even with gratitude for having been induced into a good posture
for life. If the others think you unsentimentally truthful about
your schooldays, it is because they slump now. More power to
your committee on the school history, if the history too can stand
erect. Or if it simply looks down at its own feet, which is what
I judge to be the case with the editor of the *Sphere*, I do not think

As to Hume, I suspect you are right in viewing him
with less than enthusiasm. But enough others may be even more
dubious of Wilson so that Hume can manage an election. There
seems to be no spark or warmth for the coming winter of discontent.

I had a characteristically attractive letter from
George, which did not say very much I had not learned from your
own information. But he did seem to be in better spirits than
when I left, and to be relieved not to be going to the States
this winter.

There was also a nice letter from Helen which I en-
close. It is just possible that I may actually be able to help
her occasionally in the future. It is remarkable how the various
threads of one's life begin to weave a cloth finally.

I was naturally delighted to learn that Catha had sent
you Hilda's letters to Mr A, and I shall try to write her to
tell her so. I suspect that good many others will turn up, but
that for obvious reasons of his travelling and female affairs he
never kept all of them so scrupulously as she did. I do think
it might well be appropriate to give her something for them. But
two things strike me on the spur of the moment at least. The

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first is that others are almost certain to appear, perhaps even a cache of them, and it might be better to wait than to give repeated driblets. The second is that one would want to be reasonably fair, and for this the value depends very much upon the contents --on what Hilda actually said in them. Might it not be a good idea to say that you are holding them until I visit you on my way back, which would both give me the chance to look at them and also give her the chance to turn up still others?

As to Jocelyn, I am very glad that you are continuing his allowance for the time being, or at least decreasing it slowly during the period of his readjustment. Eventually he will have to save himself by some effort of the will, and his best chance is through his metier as writer, a chance which the need for income (rather than leisure) is most likely to stimulate. I will certainly send him a card. And also to Lady V, for whom Christmas will make a good excuse.

I was naughty not to write you (though perhaps I did) that I had had a nice letter from Romaine Brooks forwarded to me from New Haven. But, then, I think I must have told you, since I wanted *her* address. I do hope we can have a little luck with her manuscript while she can still enjoy its publication. My own feeling persists, that she has written a remarkable even if a somewhat unrounded book.

Perdita's difficulty with Kenneth may be a little due to her sense of Kenneth's real dislike of John. If there is any correspondence between Rome and New York, this might well creep in between the lines. At any rate I am delighted about Islay's success with your photographs, and with those of Kenneth.

And as for the saga of Ines and the dishwasher, Susan and I have howled with unChristian delight. Sometime you will immobilise all this in one of your contemporary novels.

Can the Richard Burton life be the one I bought and read in New Haven before you came over, with long and somewhat porno extracts from his work? I thought it so dreary that I did not even wait to give it to you to see, since everything was old hat. Instead, like a Yankee, I gave it to the Yale Library, and entered its cost as a tax deduction for a gift.

I think a later letter than yours of the 11th told about your brief visit with the boys, when Kenneth was anxious about the problem of royalties and taxes. If he wants to of course I could always make a separate savings account as I do for you and for Hilda's books, and turn the money over to him whenever he comes to the States. But unless he really gets into the best seller class, which I doubt unless there is a windfall from

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movie rights, it is probably better to keep things less com-
plicated.

Now, reaching the last letter I see that it was in
yours of the 18th that you told of your visit with them in
Zurich.

And also of Marya's operation in Baltimore. Of course
it may indeed be minor, but my instincts always told me that
what the doctors really were telling me about her was that the
prognosis was not good. Indeed they told me that the tumor in
her breast was malignant. I have not heard from her yet, but
course,
nor did I expect to. And in fact it may be better for them to
have me absent rather than serve as a crutch. At any rate I
left orders that my thousand for them was to paid them on January
2nd, so do not try to cover that amount. They have enough to
get along until I return, and one of my first jobs will be to
see what the situation actually is. Probably by talking to Pat
first.

Congratulations on your presentation from Durrell. I
only wish you could go to Hamburg for the opening night of his play.
You might be able to slip out on the town afterwards -- the boys
tell me it is quite a town -- and make a play of your own out of
the experience.

Among the letters yesterday was one to Susan from her
mother, which seemed cheerful and assured Susan (incorrectly)
that the tumor was benign. I am really glad she does not know.
I myself would want to know. So would you. But we have things
to straighten and tidy; she is 87 and does not. Why should she
sit and wait with fear? Lizzie telephoned her mother yesterday--
I suppose because she had not written herself but the once--and
said her grandmother had been back to the hospital briefly but
was now out again and doing well. Susan thought that Lizzie
seemed cheerful, and she was to go to New York with the Addises
for Thanksgiving at his mother's.

I was interested in the clipping about Mrs Philby, but
not actually surprised. I suppose she waited until financial
matters could be straightened out in such a way that Kim's
British pension from MI5 could be sent regularly to him in the
Soviet Union. I notice that the *Times* was careful not to
mention in Kim's biography that he had been a correspondent for
them in the Spanish Civil War, and also careful to phrase it
so that he "was widely believed to be the 'third man'". I do
enjoy the survival of good manners. The second clipping was
not about Kurt, as you said, but a wonderful account of how
central heating emasculates the soul. The world should move to
Kenwin or Japan.

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Susan's ikenabo school cannot begin her lessons until next week, but she is planning to take only two two-hour sessions a week, since we are now waging almost a campaign by which to be sure that we revisit certain gardens and include as many as possible of those we did not get to when we were here before. Yesterday morning, because the sun was shining, we went back to see the Koke-dera (Moss Garden) again in order that I could take three or four pictures I wanted but had not managed because of the weather on our earlier visit. Then yesterday afternoon we went to the Shugakuin Imperial Detached Villa, for which permission must be obtained ahead of time, and which we had postponed until the time of the autumn foliage. There was still a good deal of color in the maples and ginkos, and one realised how cleverly the Japanese planted for effects in the fall as well as the spring. We are not half so averse in these matters in the States, but might well be. Indeed we learn. Afterwards we went to Professor Kawada's home for tea, which was pleasant. But I am glad to say that our absence has broken the spell of necessity for the Kyotans to guide our every moment, and we are thankful for that. This morning we went to see the Golden Pavilion for the first time, and this afternoon to visit the Imperial Palace and its grounds--for which special permission must also be obtained. I click my Leica furiously in the hope of being able to show Elsie and yourself something of all this. Tonight after dinner we even went to the Gion Corner for an evening of Geisha dancing and other snippets for the tourist trade, so that we could feel we had done still another thing-to-be-done. Tomorrow morning we go back to Katsura Villa, for a half-dozen additional slides I want of it. (So far it is our favorite of all the gardens.)

And of course I must begin to prepare my talk for the Kansai District American Literature Society meeting in Kobe on Saturday. It will be on Pound's *Cantos* and their relationship to Noh plays. I am a little annoyed to find that Doshisha University, also in Kyoto, has planned a two-day seminar on the 13th and 14th, with a two-hour address by me, followed by two hours of discussion on Friday; and an afternoon of seminars led by me on Saturday, followed by a dinner and an evening of discussion. Cary of course teaches at Doshisha, and having done three for Kyoto University (their local rival) I cannot decently refuse Doshisha. But, but, but.... It is obviously about time for me to jump off to Hong Kong and then Cambodia.

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1 December 1963

Dearest Fido,

Susan is having her touch of intestinal flu, and is dozing in bed. So I shall have to type softly in order to disturb her as little as possible. Still she did not begin to feel badly until noon time, so we were still able to take the scalp of another morning of garden-and-temple-seeing in the last month of our visit. The pace will have to slow down Tuesday when Susan begins her flower lessons again. Today the special goal was to see Daigo-ji temple and Sambo-in, the garden of the latter having been the prototype for gardens like that of the Katsura Villa. And because we had to take a cab anyhow we also went to Zushin-in and Kanshu-in for no better reason than that they were more or less in the neighborhood of the first two and so were an easy addition to our census of accomplishment. And we liked the last two because they were less known and good examples of the ordinary. Most temples have an accompanying garden, and each garden usually has some spot of which it is particularly proud. Large numbers of Japanese tourists mill constantly about the famous gardens; at Kanshu-in there were only three old kimona-ed ladies on wooden getas, clumping their way around on a little private holiday of their own, bowing low to us whenever we met, and then finally chosing a place in the sun (for the weather is beginning to be cold) and sitting down on a bench to eat mandarin oranges while they watched the ducks paddling in front of a pagoda. And we liked Zushin-in because there was absolutely no one there but ourselves. When we entered the temple a woman appeared and then disappeared as suddenly, but finally a kimona-ed man who turned out to be from Hawaii and there because he had married the bishop's daughter and they had come back with their children on a visit.

Once we had shed our shoes we trotted after him to the main shrine (there was not much else to see even though it was an imperial temple) by reason of an emperor's visit to it three hundred years ago, whereas he had a simple but wonderfully illuminating explanation of what each priest did in the ritual. He led us up to the altar, where we had always been curious to go, and so at least made us converts to his kindness. In fact one of the pleasures of temple-wandering is the surprise at what we find. Sometimes we think we are going to a certain temple and find ourselves deposited at another. More frequently the taxi driver knows the name of the place he is supposed to go to, but can't find his way there. And no one seems to know how to tell him. So we simply get off at the next temple we pass, and the gods appear to have intended us to see this unexpected bit of beauty.

The Sambo-in garden is of course famous, and we were not disappointed in its superb composition, even in its elaborate inter-weaving od design. In the rooms, the paintings on the screens were particularly fine, though by now we have seen so many that we are only able to enjoy them without distinguishing them in our memory after-

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wards. How rich all these temples are in their possessions and surroundings, and what wealth was necessary for their establishment! One speaks of the simplicity of the Japanese style, but it was, and is, very expensive simplicity. And from another point of view, rather intricate simplicity as well.

Japan is full of paradoxes of this nature, and tourists begin to share them. We often come across the many British and Americans who come to live in Buddhist temples, to shuck off the materialism of their own countries by contemplation and humility. They learn a few words of Japanese and acquire a distant look in their eyes. They have visited every spot of interest, and at this November-December season are revisiting the same spots, keeping at the fringe of the tours, staying a little behind the others in order to kneel on the tatami in front of the open shoji in order to moonwatch at high noon. But before they leave the group they usually manage to let everyone know they have been here before (perhaps several times), explain how little the average tourists (meaning the group) understand of what they are seeing, and display an overwhelming pride in their own humility. They are usually en route to Hong Kong and bargains.

Yesterday I gave my address to the Kansai District American Literature Society on Pound, being really a discourse on the influence of Noh drama on his conception of the Cantos. People have known about his references to Noh in the poetry, but no one seems to have understood the important thematic and tactical relationships between Noh and Pound's most important works. He himself has said it indirectly, but only now do I know how to interpret what he said. It made a good subject because it involved both Japanese and American literature, and I was pleased that it was well received. The meeting took place at a minor university (the one with 10,000 students) called Kansai Gakuin, about halfway between Osaka and Kobe, the only university I have been at which is not in the middle of a city. As usual at these meetings I was the only American, and since everything except my talk was in Japanese I had to hang around for two hours afterwards in a faculty lounge with one or two Japanese who pretended to prefer my company to their compatriots' papers on the relationship of Christianity to American literature. They may have been right, for the topic is a dull and unprofitable one for me anyhow, and I managed to learn a lot by my questioning of my companions. Actually it wasn't so bad, for the room had a little kerosene heater in it, while the lecture hall was not only unheated but had some broken windows in a temperature of about 40 F. The audience wore coats while I talked, but I of course did not. (My gift for the talk this time was a butane cigarette lighter; I shall be bankrupt by paying duty on all these presents in lieu of yen.) I had been driven to the college from Kyoto in the car of the President of Doshisha University, and he and it took me at the end of the afternoon another fifteen miles to where the evening dinner was held at a hot springs spa. It was a good dinner, but oh dear have

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you ever been to a dinner where there were 38 speeches? Every guest has to say something: a few speak briefly, but most are only too eager to go on and on. Fortunately the speeches began with the soup and so lasted only a half an hour after the final coffee. My own talk was last, but I hope I endeared myself by saying only a few sentences about how much we all had in common.

That "we have many things in common" you will see also as a truism between the British and the Japanese, as well as between them and the Americans, by the clipping I enclose. I trust you will like "the noble-looking, yet affable, Gilbey."

Your letter of the 22nd was brought to me yesterday, and I was pleased to hear so soon after your visit to Helen. I am, and I am not, surprised that she is wearing deep mourning. It is very European in the old tradition, and I suspect that Helen-without-Kurt may for a while at least become more European than even he was. As a way of clinging to his memory, as a feeling of guilt for having wanted to be American. But eventually this will wear off. It would certainly be nice if she were to take a place in New York with an extra room for you. The only inconvenience would be when you wanted to entertain a Marianne or a Chester Page for lunch, but you could always arrange to meet at some hotel.

I do know what you mean about Lizzie and Heydt. He has an immense talent for cases like this. But alas, when the crises come lately we are away and the case already in the hands of another doctor from whom she would have to be snatched and shipped off. One considerable difficulty might be the problem of no languages but English for her, coupled with her terror of being alone without friends. But at any rate we can do nothing until we return and see what the situation then is. And the farther off our return is, I daresay the better it will be for her. I am glad I can forget about it when I sit and watch the reflection of a rock in a pool.

All love as always,

Norman

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5 December 1963

Dearest Fido,

Perhaps because the great flow of tourists no
longer writes letters to or from Joan, our letters to each
other come more quickly. But at any rate yesterday Mr Cary
apparently left, since we had them waiting for us in our hotel
box, yours of the 21st, the 23rd, and the 26th (to Susan). It
is now late, and we are just back from half-way between Osaka
and Kobe to visit the home of a former student, so I shall
hardly be able to do more than begin to answer your letters
and bring you a little up to date. But at least it can be a
beginning, and tomorrow I can finish it.

As to Lizzie and Heydt, I do agree that he might h
help, but there is nothing we can do until we return and see
what the score is there. I have written you later reports. I
am still selfishly glad to be out of it for the time being. Of
course one extra difficulty might be that Lizzie knows Heydt is
a friend of mine -- a complication which did not arise in Joan's
case or Belinda's, and this is as you know a real drawback to
the independent rapport between analyst and analysand. It will
be very good luck for me, to change the subject, if the boys
are still in New York when I return. But you can brief me on
their plans when we are in Switzerland with you. I no longer
plan; I simply hold on, and try to crowd in as much as possible
against the contingency that tomorrow we may have to pack and
head home.

I am really grieved at Mrs Macpherson's unhappiness.
I hope she got my postcard. I had planned to send more, but it
would seem that they would do no good. How much I resent, some-
times, an iron constitution such as exhibited itself in my
father's case. Alas, I fear that I have one too; and I only
hope that you and Susan have long since been dead before you
are forced to sit and wait for my lingering demise.

As to money for the States, do not worry. I wail
chiefly because my Yankee instincts teach me that this is an
unnecessary use of money, and therefore slightly immoral from a
Puritan point of view; but there are good reasons (which you
know of) why, despite my Puritan wails, I can channel my fears
in other directions.

And as for Rosemary? Yes, why shouldn't she have
her dream house. Securities make better sense, but depressions
make nonsense out of practicality. And if she can be sustained
by her dreams, in a way she has indeed herself earned out of
her very dreaming, then her little house in Greece may turn out

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to have a gilt gable.

As for Marya's cancer, that is something I will have to
hope with when I return to the States. It is too much to ask
Patrick to have to deal with in terms of a mother and of parents,
since it tends to reverse the relationship. Still, from anything
but an Oriental point of view, it is too bad that he has such a
burden combined with such a sense of responsibility.

Your reports on Helen were much better than I had feared,
for she has been under great strain for several years. I am so
glad for her sake that you could go to her.

As to the American situation, by now things seem to have
settled down; and on this side there is a sort of admiration at
the smoothness of the transition from one administration to another.
Most people want Johnson to do well, and are therefore anxious to
help him. So for the moment protocol and pride have become secondary;
nations are willing to go to Washington rather than to receive at
home, and recognize that there are many lines of attention in addi-
tion to the one that points directly to them. I myself do not feel
that "Sarajevo" is much more relevant than "My God!" or Mrs. Kennedy's
"No, No!" Which is to say they are all emotionally revelevant, but
inaccurate as explanations. Actually I suspect that the surprising
degree of sympathy may act as check for a while at least. What
happens after any tomorrow, no one ever knows anyhow.

I never really do seem to settle down for any very long period
in which to write to you. But I apologized for this long ago. Now
having spent the morning at two gardens, we have recieved the manager
of the Japan Art Center with some pieces of heavy shoji paper that
Susan bought for a lampshade (he also brought a framed picture as a
gift, which means we will have to buy something in return. Then
came a professor from Doshisha Women's College to ask me to give a
lecture there next week. For many reasons I had to say yes; and
so will speak to a Doshisha club on Tuesday night; to the Women's
College Thursday morning; to Kyoto University Thursday afternoon
(followed by a reception and then Noh); and the two-day seminar at
Doshisha comes on Friday and Saturday. Then on the following Friday
and Saturday I have to give an address at Kyushu University and
a nother at the United States Information Center in Fukuoka--again
in order not to hurt feelings or suffer the status of former student-
professors to suffer because they could not persuade me to come to
their universities. Although there are an infinite number more
gardens to see, it is probably time that we pulled out in mid-
January or else I should simply become an unpaid handyman.

At present reckoning we will return to Tokyo and the Imperial

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Hotel on January 4th, and leave Japan for Hong Kong on the 13th or 14th. Our schedule after that is not fixed yet, but we will probably spend four or five days in Hong Kong, and then (if the political situation permits) go by Air France to Ankor Wat, and then to Bankok, and from there to India. We may stop overnight in Bombay but are just as likely to go on to New Delhi and spend four or five days there because of a former student. There is no use in trying to do India this trip; it is far too vast, and we will already have had enough impressions from Japan to absorb us for some time. We will go back to India some time. Then Istambul and Athens for four or five days each (because as you know, Susan's heart is set on seeing them despite the winter weather. So we should arrive in Zurich about the last week in February and can come to see you if you would like us to. Do not worry about this, and if other possibilities or necessities tempt you, you should act on their certainty rather than our indefiniteness. And of course we are still counting on your coming to the States in early April so that we can make the trip to Williamsburg and Charleston together.

Our trip to Osaka on Wednesday to see bunraku (a traditional form of puppetry out of which kabuki sprang) was most interesting. Sachie speaks of the form, although nothing was being given there when he was in Japan, and there is only one company left.

(Now 8 December 1963)

It is peculiar form of puppetry in that the three manipulators are always visible, holding up the puppet from beneath: one head puppeteer who manages the head and right arm, another one blackmasked and black clad manipulating the other arm; and a third similary blacked out who does the feet. Out of this kabuki was derived. As usual we were lucky in our Japanese friends, and the professor from Osaka had arranged with a friend to arrange to have us taken behind the scenes, between plays, where we were given a demonstration of how the puppets worked, allowed to try our hands (unsuccessfully, for they are three or four feet tall) to work them ourselves, met some of the puppeteers etc. An American woman, Edith Hansen, had married an apprentice puppeteer (he did the feet on one puppet in the show we saw), and she served as interpreter. The performance was especially interesting, for at the beginning of the show was the announcement of the public succession to a famous name, of a samisen player. The Japanese Noh players, Kabuki playeres, musicians and artists, hand down names not necessarily to their sons but to apprentices. Apprenticeship is long. For a puppeteer for example it is a thirty year period before he is allowed to handle a chief head and right arm. The introduction had an

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an interesting formality to it, with almost a religious air of ritual. As the curtain was drawn back, nine men were sitting on their heels, costumed in brown and blue, with one more black gowned and hooded man sitting behind. The heads of all were bowed, with the head of the newly named man bowed lower in humility than all the rest. He never moved, while three men recounted his history and the history of the name, praising his professional abilities. He took on the name of Nozawa, and became Nozawa Kitchi-bei the 9th.

The performance, at least the part we saw, began at six, so we ate about nine-thirty and were back in Kyoto a little after eleven. The full show had begun at 11 a.m., and a few brave ones stuck it out all day, but most come in and leave when they feel like it. Today we are going to Noh again, and the performance begins at one and lasts until six-thirty. The usual evening performance starts at 4:30. Since Japanese stores often keep open until 10 p.m. (at least the small ones) and there is no Sunday closing of course since that is a Christian day, people take their time off whenever they choose to (they do not even have a regular vacation period, but are allowed about two weeks worth a year, in driblets.) All this seems to work well for the Japanese, but it is a problem how to eat when one goes to the theatre, and we are always having to grab a bite at the last minute at night.

We were pleased to see the bunraku, for with Noh and Kabuki we have now had a chance at far more than the usual tourist is able to pack in between temples and gardens. Of course we have seen those too, and have our little list we are trying to accomplish before we leave. Only this morning, Susan said she was tired and chose not to see even another garden.

Thursday afternoon we went back to Osaka and then halfway to Kobe to visit the home of Aoki, a former student. He made the two and a half hour trip from his home to our hotel to see that we got there safely, taking us to a museum in Osaka en route, and to a garden--all very carefully planned for our pleasure. The Japanese do go to the most unbelievable care in planning everything, as he had done, even to what phonograph records should be played to us. He is still just about thirty and young on Japanese terms, and it was obvious that the visit was of great importance to him. Only three times in his life, he said, a teacher of his had called on him in his home. The first time was when a teacher came to persuade his parents (actually his father is now dead) to permit him to go on to a university; and the second time was when his older brother had died, by custom it then became his duty to take on the obligations of the oldest son, and a teacher was afraid that he would

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have to give up becoming a teacher himself, and wanted to persuade his mother to let him continue. "And now," he said, "you have paid our humble home the honor of a visit, and this is my third happiest moment. You have seen that I am happily married and that I have a son; and if you had come two years ago you would not see how lucky I am." His wife teaches too, and his mother lives with them and takes care of the son, so he has fulfilled his obligation after all.

We have luck with our garden visits and with our shrines. Yesterday morning we were driven by an art dealer far into the country so I could see Byodo-in, one of the earliest and most important architectural examples. The day before I had hired a taxi-driver by the hour to take us to some remote gardens we especially wanted to see, and en route managed to see and photograph both some fields in which silk was laid out to dry, and I got even a few pictures of rice threshers and a woman washing radishes in the ditch to add to my comparatively few photographs of rural life. (We never seem able to get out of cities!) Then yesterday afternoon, after visiting Tenryu-ji, we walked rather aimlessly in the outskirts nearby, hoping to find a Zen shrine we had seen on the map, and went down long muddy lanes through a bamboo forest to come out suddenly at the shrine. In what we take to have been the priest's house across the narrow lane, a party was being held at which the parishioners were doing traditional fan dances, chanting haikku poems especially written for the occasion, two little girls of seven performed separately doing geisha dances, the teacher did a noh dance, a comic rural dance was done by one man while an old countryman became so engrossed that he joined in. They had seen us watching through the open door and insisted that we come in and join them, put two futons in the front row in the place of honor, poured us saki, while, mirabile dictu, the priest turned out to speak excellent English and explained what each performer was doing. We exchanged cards of course, in the best Japanese manner, and considered ourselves very lucky indeed. When we left I went across the road to visit the shrine, and dropped a thousand ¥ note in the offertory, (about $3.00) which I hope will be recognized and be a pleasant surprise. I only wish I had time to go back sometime and learn the history of the shrine, why so many talented people were in the parish, and why the priest spoke such good English.

Friday night we went to the evening performance of the Grand Kabuki Festival being held here, in which most of the great Kabuki players in Japan took part. We saw several of the most famous, including Utaemon Nakurama who is the great performer of emale roles, and one of the most graceful dancers I have ever seen. It is fatastic to think of him as a man.

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And in a minor role a man played the part of an old woman with equally unbelievable sureness, with the poise and assurance an old woman can have, and an ease of slow movement which was completely faithful to the inner spirit of the part. Still, the finest performance was by Danjuro Ichikawa in a comic role, as a man, white-faced and clown-marked. Danjuro Ichikawa is one of the great mimes alive today, and reminded me of Weis Pfeffer and some of the great continental mimes I have seen.

Last night I had my evening in a coffee shop, to see Cid Corman, an American poet who lives here and edits the magazine *Origen* for Kyoto. He goes every day to the same coffee shop from 5:30 until midnight to hold court. He had told me the name of the shop, The Muse Coffee Shop, and as I told Susan before I went it sounded like England in the 18th century or even an Elizabethan tavern. And, my God, it turned out to be an Elizabethan timbered house! But that account is too long for now, and I must lunch and get this letter off to you.

In this morning's mail at the hotel was your letter of the 3rd, swiftly arrived. Thank you so much for the nice clipping on Lewis. I had just read of his death in the Asian edition of *Time*. I owed him much. I was pleased that the Gough trip shapes up so well, but judge nothing was done as from Yale for a lecture there. I will write Ingholt and ask if it is not too late. I thought I had it arranged, even to offering to chip in on the fee. I forget when they go, or whether I will be able to see them while they are in America. No, don't comment on my letters. It is much nicer for me to know what is happening to you. I will send Mrs McPherson another card, just in case she responds. I send them every other day to my mother. My brother thinks they make no impression on her, and I am sure if they do that there is no continued response by the time he arrives to see her. But they are mail, and thenurses will like them and she will have something to show and attract their interest. We can talk about your spring visit when we are in Switzerland. My only thought had been the chance for the trip south, which might be best then. But we can see. I spoke earlier in this letter of coming to Zurich, but presume Geneva would be easier. We can see how the connections fit in. I should let Catha give the letters; your repayment can be indirect, and still let her have the privilege of repaying your many kindnesses to her. I enclose a number of clippings. The Ghamdaran film might interest Islay and Kenneth to see some time. The Viking clippings my brother sent me. Etc.

All love from Susan and myself to you and Elsie.

Kyoto Hotel

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16 December 1963

Dearest Fido,

It was quite impossible to write you during the last
of last week, for all the reasons Susan will have suggested that
kept me busy with lecturing at Doshisha Women's College, Kyoto
University, and the two-day seminar at Doshisha University. And
then Sunday and Monday in which to recover my stride again, so that
I can be fresh for the lecturing next Saturday and Friday in Fukuoka.
I will spare you the details of the lectures, however, except to
say that the one to Doshisha Women's College on Hilda's poetry seemed
to go across well, and they responded with enthusiasm to the poems
themselves. Eight or so mimeographed pages of texts of her poems
were given to each of the 300 or more students who attended. I only
wish Hilda herself might have known; I think it would have pleased
her. I have heard nothing from the Tokyo publisher about my suggest-
ion of a volume of her poems. Perhaps this is to be expected. It
is difficult actually for the Japanese quite to get a western poem,
brought up as they are on the traditional formalism of haikku and
tanka.

Poor Susan suffered for most of last week from a cold
which she has not yet quite shaken off. So the fact that I had more
or less to abandon her did not matter very much while she kept to
her room and warmth. She did not go to the Noh performance on Thur-
sday night of "Matsukaze." The theatres are not heated, and even
a hibachi ( a vessel in which charcoal is burned) in the box does
not keep most people very warm. But I was delighted to go, and it
was especially pleasant to find the entire theatre filled with students
from Kyoto University. It was annual performance sponsored by the
university so that students can go for nothing.

It does begin to be cold as we visit the temples and
gardens, but we enjoy the season chiefly because there are very few
tourists and wherever we go we are nearly always alone. The old
women and priests who serve as guardians are exceptionally polite as
though realizing that only devotees would venture out now. Sometimes
they bring us tea, or a hibachi as we sit on the porch to contem-
plate the garden, or a futon to kneel on. Thw weather is sometimes
foggy, and occasionally it rains. But the gardens are so beautifully
composed that many of the priests like the gardens best in the mist.
They like them in the snow too, but then all they have to do is to
push aside the shoji (screens) and look out.

We do begin to feel a little as tho the end was near. We
check off our list of places to see, knowing there will not be time
enough for all. I am again in the throws of sending off packages
of gifts and accumulated guide books. Today a Professor Nakanishi
and his nice non-English speaking wife took us to a kind of farewell.

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Only the problem of communication arose in terms of other than his wife. For he had told me distinctly (but perhaps only partly) that he wanted to take us to visit a well-known potter who was his wife's uncle, and when I invited him to lunch (not knowing the wife was coming) he said "No, it was better for us to lunch first." So Susan and I did. It was an act of gallantry on Susan's part (and bravado in terms of my bird-like appetite anyhow) that we dutifully went thru an entire second lunch at a nice Chinese restaurant. Then we went to the potter's, went through the same routine as with Kawai, and had a kind of tea ceremony out of choice tea bowls, dutifully turning them in our hands (we have learned how to make loud noises, which is de rigeur when one eats or drinks, in order to show appreciation) to admire them. And then it appeared that Susan was to choose anything she wanted as a gift. She chose a beautiful container for her flower arrangements, and I was given a curious and interesting ash tray which I inadvertently admired. Now I shall have to have these crated and expressed home. And then when I am in America again, think of some- thing equally expensive to sent to them. The Japanese give gifts like madmen. The little college boy at Tokyo who wrote me affectionate letters and sent me a fan, was moved, after I returned an offprint of the Hawthorne engagement article, to send me a New Year's present of a battledore and shuttlecock. Am I supposed to respond to this too? Every guest at a wedding, or the opening of a store, or a theatre party is given a gift when he departs. Last week I slipped in at the end of a funeral at a nearby shrine which is usually closed, and about which I had been curious; and everyone at the funeral was also given a gift on leaving. (But not me, of course.) I am usually given a gift after making a lecture; altho Doshisha being a Christian university gave me nothing for the two days I donated to them.

I keep on poking into corners that have interested me, and on Sunday late afternoon when Susan wanted to stay in after being frozen at a temple, I went at last to a public bath (cost: ¥23, about seven cents.) Men and women separated at the entrance but dirobed in completely full view of any who entered the wrong door, as many did. Clothes were put into individual baskets; and then with towels the size of a washcloth (since they served both purposes), soap, and a little wooden bucket, one went into the bath room itself. Most of the kimono-ed men and women brought their own. I naturally had not, and so was thoughtfully given a cloth relinquished by a recent bather, and still wringing wet. The bath itself was rather jolly. A father had brought his young daughter to bathe her, and she obviously had a very good time running around and in and out of the great hot pools after she had been soaped and rinsed. So did the men, who were however usually busy facing the wall and sitting on the upturned wooden buckets while they soaped and shaved. Yet it was not clubby in the sense that the bath in Istambul had been. No one lingered and talked; they

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simply soaped and then rinsed and then lay immersed in the pool of water enjoying the warmth. I am told that community baths at hot springs are different, and that there much chatting takes place over long periods of time. Or similarly at the private baths in what the Japanese call an "avec hotel," meaning hotels where one goes with a girl, not usually one's wife. (It is a nice use of the French.) Even I found something of the same sense of community when Susan and I were in Kyoto earlier, and were taken to lunch, along with two other men, by the publisher of my two books being brought out in Kyoto. On such occasions, men take a hot bath before lunch while the women wait. So Susan waited, but the publisher had the grace to wait with her while the other three of us departed for the baths. We stripped and then entered what looked so exactly like an oven that I felt like Hansel and Gretel being put to bake by the old witch. The inside was arched like an oven with an oval ceiling, but to my surprise at the far end of what was really only big enough for three, without taking each other in our arms, was a takenoma precisely like those in a formal room, with a kamennno and a flower arrangement. Tatami were stretched out on the floor, and as naked guest of honor I was given the tatami of honor in front of the flower arrangement (somewhat wilted because of the extreme heat). So we chatted and parboiled. I have also tried the Turkish baths in Japan, the chief advantage of which is a pretty Japanese girl who carefully bathes one, giving careful attention to every inch and organ. The Japanese like bathing, and I am often asked how many times a day Americans bath. (The Japanese try to, at least twice.) And when we first arrived in Kyoto about seven, without dinner, so that we postponed our later meeting with those who had met us at the station until we had had dinner, I discovered later that they were certain that the real reason for our postponement was that we wanted to sit first in a tub.

Your letters of the 5th, 7th, and (today) of the 10th have come since I wrote you last. I am so glad you now have tely. I know you will enjoy it as we do at home, and here in our room at Kyoto. We do not listen often, but on occasion it is irreplaceable. Mr B. is to be congratulated, and perhaps when Elsie is away and the aristocratic bars can be lowered, Inez can be permitted a glimpse. You have more than my absolution; you have my blessing. But oh, and alas, that you should be physically down. You use the past tense for Mrs MacP.; and indeed this is so, even though she still lingers. I sent another card to her, in your care, this morning, as a topic of conversation when you go again. I hadn't realised that Helen had gone to Berlin with Jovanovitch. How much there will be to tell me.

(Incidentally, we were surprised yesterday to have a phone call from an older Hungarian women who is a friend of Susan's nephew in the States-- a pottery designer who had come to Japan for the two

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largest Japanese porcelain china mfgs to do quick designing for them.
We asked her to dinner, and in the midst of pleasant conversation
about cancer she mentioned Leo as a childhood friend of hers whom she
had befriended, and housed, since his illness. She knew Trude of
course.)

I was so sorry to learn about Carl Koch's death. This will
be hard emotionally on Lotte, though I suspect she will manage
financially because of her own reputation with silhouettes.

I long to see Muriel. Maybe it will still be running in
Lausanne when we come.

Our plans at the moment are to leave Japan for Hong Kong on
January 14th, tho I am not precisely sure what our schedule will be
after that. I feel I must stay until then because of the national
annual meeting of the American Studies Association of Japan, on the
11th and 12th. I suspect about five days in Hong Kong, and then we
had hoped to fly to see Ankor Wat. But what will develop for Ameri-
cans and British in Cambodia I do not know. Afterwards Bankok, and
then India. But it will be hopeless to try to see India and I doubt
we can have more than a week there if Susan holds (and I sympathize
with her) in wanting to see Istanbul and Athens. This has a special
significance, because I have been twice in both places. We will
simply have to make an Indian safari some later time, and then maybe
you will come with us. Personally I would love India; personally
I would arrive in New Haven on September 10th. But then, but then....
At least we have begun to see Japan.

All love as always,

Norman

Kyoto Hotel

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18 December 1963

Dearest Fido,

This must be the merest lick of a letter, for it is
now late and we have just finished packing up our things for our
visit to Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu. Not that we are taking
everything with us, but simply that I do not want to pay the rent
on our room for the four days we are gone. There are few tourists
here now. Almost certainly no one will be in our room during our
absence. But still, I could hardly ask to keep it from circulation
over the weekend.

Your letter of the 29th, about C.S.Lewis' death was
delivered to me today by Mr Cary, long after your letter containing
the second communication about Lewis arrived. But Japan is having
a slow-down by the postal clerks, who are taking the New Year's season
to argue on the matter of wages and holidays. A million-and-a-half
letters are undelivered; and it is now forbidden by ordinance to
mail a package within a prefecture (canton) or between a prefecture
and any one adjoining it. Since the Japanese give him mad at New
Year's, the blow is a vital one to them.

Your letter did clear up a point or two, especially in
regard to Philip's blots. It is too bad that both Harold and Kershaw
should have been troubled unnecessarily. I fancy that both negotia-
tions seem like small fry to Philip's office.

Were JoiniNew Haven, I should have time enough to write
all that C.S.Lewis meant to me as a tutor at a significant point in
my life. As I told you, I owe him an immense debt.

Thank Helen for the Waley festschrift. I shall be eager
to read it, especially now that I am immersed in the Chinese-Japanese
current of literature.

The last few days have been much as usual, except that
Susan's cold returned, and so yesterday except for her arrangement
lesson she did not venture from the hotel. I managed to ship off a
package or two of books, and tidy up a little, as well as interview
a young Japanese dramatist who wanted to come to Yale next year.
Otherwise I spent the afternoon in wandering among the curio shops
(the Japanese term for antique shops) to see if there was anything
interesting. Fortunately I found two little old paper dolls to
give her at Christmas (we agreed on no real gifts), and a little
miniature shrine (of the sort I have bought for Elsie's gift) so
that at least she can have something for her birthday on the 29th.
And I saw a vase or two that might interest her, but in such cases,
since she is the one to use them, I shall have to let her see them.
Almost everything is junk, but a keen eye can occasionally come

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across something that interests a foreigner.

This morning the sun shone, and Susan felt better. So we paid a long-postponed visit to the Ikenobo shrine, which belongs to her school of flower arrangement (now in its 45th generation). Its chief motiv seems to be the spirit of dead flowers, and there were more worshipers than we have seen at almost any other. It is in an excellent state, no doubt because Ikenobo 45 has the second largest individual income in Kyoto Prefecture, thanks to the income from his various schools. I insisted that Susan toss her ¥10 coin into the offering box, clap her hands together three times, and bow, and ring the altar bell. And then I bought her the body medals and good-luck pieces of the shrine for her to keep against the vicissitudes of flower shows in the America. Her first sensai teaches flower arrangements at the shrine, so we paid him a visit, had the usual tea, and invited him to see us when he comes next to the States. As he will. For the Ikenobo School is to do the flower arrangements and exhibitions daily for two years at the New York World's Fair. A young girl in Japan still takes flower arrangements, tea ceremony, and dress making before she is ready for a husband. I tell the Japanese that when Susan finished the other requirements, in addition to flower arrangements, I will marry her. They think this is a very funny joke.

Later we went to the Nishi-Hoganji Temple, the center of one of the sects, with an immense complex of shrines of inner temples. I used my Japanese name-card, and we had a specially conducted tour through the garden, Noh stages, and shrines. I learn the ropes.

Then this afternoon, while Susan had her last lesson, I first wandered thru the Geisha sections; and felt myself an old hand by realising that the Geisha girls (still slightly whitened by their rice powder) with little buckets containing cloth and soap were en route to the bathhouse to make themselves clean for the old gentlemen of the evening. And then went to visit Helen's friend, Mrs Ruth Sasaki (an American) who is the priest of the American Zen Buddhist Research Association. It was very pleasant, and I liked her, as you would. Also there was a Swiss woman from Berne and an Irish-British psychiatrist named William (?) L. Collins, who is studying Zen therapy. Later I was given a tour of the temple and an explanation of what happens to the novitiates. I shall not enroll but I was much interested in the training.

And so, a Merry Christmas to you and Elsie, with all our love. I enclose a clipping of the British festal season, and hope, when you look at your own tattooing, that you too, like a good Englishman, are helped to "think about religion more often."

All my love and gratitude,

Kyoto Hotel

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26 December 1963

Dearest Fido,

Your letters of the 12th, 17th, 18th, and 19th to Susan all came tumbling in Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, and we were of course delighted to have your various greetings for various holidays. We spent rather a quiet day. Susan's severe cold which has lingered on for over three weeks now seemed worse, so we stayed in during the morning and began to go through our cobler slides, so that we can bring some with us for showing you and Elsie and ship the rest directly home. It was kind of pleasant resume of much that we have done and seen so far. Then after lunch Susan had a dentist appointment, having lost a filling and the dentist finding a second one missing that she knew nothing of. This being taken care of, she felt a little better and so we went to a festival at the Kitano-Tenmangu Shrine. I especially wanted to go because Tenjin, the deity enshrined there, is pppularly worshipped as the patron god of scholars. I needed prayer and all the good luck I could have against my return, so this balanced Susan's flower arrangement shrine. The place was massed with people, both making the rounds of the various sub-shrines, clapping their hands and bowing before each, and also reveling in the huge market of stalls that had been set up to sell every conceivable kind of goods and goodies. There were a large number of stalls selling bonzai trees; some, of miniature plum trees in full bud and about to burst into blossom. There were camelias also, and a kind of red, and often white, rhubarb kehl or cabbage that is popular just now for decoration. I like throngs of the sort that go to fairs. They laugh and are curious, and enjoy themselves simply. There were fortune tellers and entertainers. Susan at last could see the little finches that take a ¥10 piece, hoist the Japanese flag and then drop the money in the offering box before a tiny shrine, pull the shrine bell, open the doors and take out a fortune and bring it back to put in one's hand. A large circle were around a man who spun a top into the air, caught it on the tip of a sword, transferred it to other objects, and was wonderfully skillful in a nice meaningless way. Another circle, mostly of children and parents, were around a couple with three monkeys who performed tricks to delight both parents and the young. After this we went to the Cary's for Christmas supper, and then back, rather early, to the hotel again.

On Christmas morning we had a cylinder with paintings by the two grandchildren, and a Christmas message from Justus which he had printed himself, plus one of his school papers. A letter from each of the girls arrived only this afternoon, which was just as well since both celebrated the holiday spirit by rather bitter letters about how we had deserted them, and saying that there would

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have to be serious talks, after our return, about our relationship
to them. This has hardly added to the gaity of life, but I suppose
is not to be unexpected. Lizzie especially talks about the future
which will not include "us". I only wish it could be true, for both
of them need to learn to stand on their own feet and not expect
their mother to solve all their problems. Lizzie will be 30 shortly,
and Susan 33. Strange how they cling to the status of children,
despite their resentments. My Susan seems to take it well, I am
glad to say, --probably better than I do, for I resent their selfish-
ness. On the whole I am sure it is actually a good thing we are
away, and only wish it were going to be for longer.

Today we spent from 10 a.m. until 4 at the morning performance of the Grand Kabuki, seeing all of the great performers again in the unusual opportunity which this month-long Kyoto gala permits. I Kabuki, because of its splendor and its bravura, but I prefer Noh wash its quiet strength and easy refinement.

Our visit to Fukuoka was an interesting one, and as always the
people were immensely kind. We arrived Thursday afternoon by plane,
flying over the inland sea and enjoying the innumerable islands when
we could see them between the clouds, and that evening went to a
dinner party given by the American Cultural Officer there, who came
from New Haven and used to be in younger Susan's crowd when she was
a girl. Friday morning I gave a two-hour interview to the Nishinippo
newspaper, the big one in Kyushu, which I understand is to run in
their special New Year's Day issue. As usual, among many other
things, I was asked about Kennedy's death. But by now I have at
least learned some answers to give. That afternoon I gave a lecture
on American Studies at Kyushu University, and that evening the Dean
of the university gave a dinner for us at a Chinese restaurant, with
all sorts of exotic foods (for us) like eggs buried in the ground
for a year, sliced raw jelly fish, shark fin soup, etc. Our tastes
expand, fortunately, for Sunday night when Professor Takuwa had us
to his home we had raw blow fish (or balloon fish as we call them in
the States). Saturday morning, I made my first visit to a Pachinko
Parlor, a kind of pinball game about which the Japanese seem mad,
and fortunately won five handkerchiefs through my luck. Though
what I shall do with them I do not know. Any more than I quite
know what I shall do with a clay Hakata doll in a glass case, 1'x2',
which was presented to me by Kyushu University. They are shipping
it home for me, however, and it is too large to lose--as I seem to
have today lost the cigarette lighter given me the Kansai Area Am.
Lit. Society. (I am sorry about that!). Saturday afternoon I spoke
on Pound's Cantos and the Noh plays, to the American Literature
Society of greater Kyushu island; and afterwards we went to the
dinner given by them for us and themselves. Sunday we were taken

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3

of the city and some shrines in the neighborhood, and to a hakata
doll factory; and these more or less exhausted the cultural re-
sources of the area. We came back to Kyoto by air Monday morning,
and will be here now until we leave for the Imperial Hotel in
Tokyo on the 4th, to be there until the 14th. Once we are in Tokyo
I can find out whether or not we can still go to Cambodia, and
knowing that at least make a tenative arrangement for our way home.

It looks as though we would be in Switzerland about the end
of February or first week in March if that is agreeable, and will
make our way either to Geneva or directly to Vevey. # Why not tell
Doris simply to cash the check and send the letters to me at my Yale
office. I have no idea whether the man will still want them, especi-
ally because he will know they have been bought in from the Sotheby
sale at a price less than he offered as a dealer. So of course will
Texas or other purchasers. But there is no use trying to teach
Doris about this sort of thing. She is convinced that she is a smart
business woman, which she certainly is not, especially in an area
she knows little about. But she might as well have the money, and
I will put the letters away. As you say, T.E.Lawrence is rather out
of vogue and is not actually being collected. Frankly I am not sure
why he should be, but as you know I am not a Lawrence fan. #It is
particularly good news that Collins is having such a large printing
of Kenneth's novel, and it just might go well. I certainly hope it
does. #I did write Ingholt about a lecture for Michael at Yale, but
it may not be possible to fit in. We shall see. #I suspect your
hunch about Ezra and Noehans may be correct, and that this is the
way he is spending the $5,000 he was given by the National Academy
of Poets. If it cheers him up and picks him up, the money will be
well spent. A Mrs Charlot, whom we know, had the same treatment
recently, though she is only in her fifties. It made a young woman
of her. Maybe I ought to try it myself. # Your other news, about
Pup, the Pippett, and Margaret Phillips is all good to hear. I liked
the latter's first book very much. #But the news about Ines and her
papers is discouraging. I am sure it will be worked out, but what
an additional care this is for you especially at this time. #I was
glad Leslie got his manuscript off. I have just been shown a book
on Shakespeare's theatre about to be published in Japan (in Japanese)
with an analysis of his ideas of the stage in it. #Who can know
about Marya, but I am glad she is optimistic. It would do little
good for her to be otherwise.

I do not have the Harcourt address in New York, and so can
you send the enclosed letter (read it if you like) to her either
at Locarno or in New York as indicated. Her friend here would like
to see her if they are both in New York at the same time.

I do hope this will be a good year for you, for all of us.
Susan joins in love.

Loman

This morning I received in the enclosed post card an introduction, to the best of the two looks like the American. And I have received it in a highly polished form. I must say I like it very much, and I hope it will be received in the same way.

Kyoto Hotel

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1 January 1964

Dearest Fido,

New Year's is a time when the Japanese scrub their houses, make new curtains, tidy up their papers and pay their bills. If I have not written since Christmas it is because I have tried to show the benefits of my Japanese studies. I have been going through my papers and clippings, and sending back everything I wished to keep. I have been trying to write overdue thank-you notes to people who have entertained us, sending them New Year's greetings at the same time. We have gone through our photographs and picked out those in which you and Elsie might be interested, and sent the rest to New Haven. I have shipped off boxes of gifts of one sort or another, and bought whatever we needed to give to relatives when we return—for all stores are closed now for four of five days of the holiday. (Even the newspapers stop publication for a couple of days.) And I have sent back enough books in English and Japanese (which have been given me) to create a shelving problem on our return. In fact so exuberant have I been that I sent back a book I had borrowed, and so am filled with shame which only my return to New Haven and the return of the book to Japan can pacify. But at least I hope we can now manage again with our suitcases as we leave Kyoto for Tokyo on the 4th.

New Year's is, as you said, the Japanese holiday. They like Christmas Eve simply because they like any excuse for a festival, and so when we went to the temple that day it seemed fine to them to play Christian hymns on loudspeakers in the temple yards. But as for New Year's, this belongs to them; and if there are "Happy New Year" signs in English, which they cannot pronounce, it is only because anything in English is so chic. They really do knock off work and enjoy themselves.

Last night we went at about eleven to Yasaka Shrine, in the Gion section, for the festival there. The custom is for families to go and light the end of a rope at the sacred fire, and then (twirling it to keep the blaze going) return with it to begin a clean new year by kindling a new fire for the first meal. But thousands wander around twirling the ropes for the sheer joy of it, while they make offerings and get lucky pieces from the priests, or buy a drink of sake flavored with the same three herbs which are in the sacred fire. In dark corners were fortune tellers. In the bright electric lights of stalls one could buy toys and foods. The place was thronged, and we liked especially seeing the geishas and maikos in their elaborate kimonos and hairdresses. A former student who lives between Kobe and Osaka made the hour-and-a-half trip to go with us, in one of those creatures

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gestures the Japanese are capable of. He brought sake with him, a New Year's present, and a box of pickled fish, lotus root, taro, and candied beans which his wife had prepared although she stayed obediently at home to take care of their child. A little before twelve, with him as guide, we went on foot from Yasaka Shrine to Chion-in Temple for the Joyano-Kane tolling of the temple bell, the largest in Japan and a National Treasure (67 tons worth) which dates from 707 A.D. Some 20 priests tug at the hammer for the 108 strokes which are said to represent the evils of the past year which are exorcised by the gonging and the Yo-ho which they and the audience cry out at each stroke. Only the last stroke is supposed to come after midnight, but they add so much fun with the tolling that when we worked our way out of the crowd next to the belfry (you can trust me to weasel our way up to the front) at 12:20 they were still at it. My hope is that the post-midnight tolling will have exorcised some of the evil out of 1964 also. I daresay we can all use whatever credit of that sort we can establish beforehand.

We slept late this morning, and only went out this afternoon to a party at the house of a young American beat-poet, named Gary Snyder, where we had an ample introduction to the turtle-necked sweater set. But it was all very hospitable, decorous and good fun.

Susan's cold which she has severely had for a month now continues to plague her and keep us inside rather than at the last of the gardens. She feels naturally wretched and discouraged, though we are fortunate in having a mild December on local terms. The real problem is the unheated houses, restaurants and theatres; and going shoeless on the temple porches keeps one's feet cold even with extra stockings (for women. I am too proud!).

Still, we have managed to add some things we had not seen before, and repeated a few we particularly wanted to see again. An older professor at Kyoto University got a university car and took us for an all-day drive to Muroji Temple which is from the 7th century, hidden away in the forested hills about 40 km from Nara, and a treasure too remote for the average tourist to get to. We had a lovely lunch of Japanese food in a local inn (the room was unheated except for a small oil burner stove), and then wandered up the hillside among buildings, each of which is a National Treasure. So were the objects in them, and what I liked particularly about Muroji was that the priest who showed us around insisted that we sit on four heels before the altar while he gave a little sutra chanting and rubbing of beads before he opened the doors of the shrines to see the Buddha within. My obeisance was to art and his feelings, but the ritual did seem

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to give the appropriate ambience to the objects we ultimately
beheld. The light was dim, but suitable. The trip was a particu-
lar delight to us because we saw so much real countryside. It
is hard in Japan to avoid the cities, for the roads are bad and
narrow. But I have learned enough so that the next time we come,
you can join us in an off-the-path visit. The "path" is fine
and important to know. But I long for the side roads too.

On the 31st we were taken for our second visit to Miidera
and Fenollosa's grave, since I seem to be involved, in a semi-
Fenollosa cult. Most importantly however we revisited a little
garden by Coami which is lovely beyond words, and the pictures of
which, taken by us before, did not come out to our satisfaction.
It is nice to be able to go back to things. This has been a
privilege of the trip for which we are immensely grateful.

I thought you might be interested in the letter to us from
Liz's psychiatrist which arrived the day after her and Susan's
came, on which I commented to you in my last. It is the first
letter about her which has made sense, and did much to restore
not my ease or confidence but my sense that as much is being done
as can, for the moment, be done. I will relish our visit with you
and the chance to give my spiritual loins before we fly from
Switzerland to the States.

This is the year of the dragon. I hope it will be in the
right spirit.

All love, as always,

I am sorry, but I cannot recognize any text in the image.
The image is too blurry and does not contain any discernible characters.

Kyoto Hotel

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2 January 1963

Dearest Fido,

When I wrote you last night, I was only partially
tidy,--like the Austrian woman at the party yesterday who said
she had paid her bills etc and thought she was finished. And
then her landlady came in with hot water in which she insisted
the tenant rewash every dish and glass in the rented two-rooms
and stood over her until the beauty of complete order had been
gained. At any rate I neglected your letters of the 22nd which
had come announcing the arrival of the boys. I'll finish this
letter late, but write enough this morning so that I can put yours
into the file of "Return to America."

It must have been great fun to have them with you.
They are always great fun and full of tidbits. I am sorry about
Collins, and Islay's pictures of you. But actually, if I remember
correctly, the cost of Islay's photographs for use by Pantheon
was always paid by a debit to your royalties. Harcourt, being a
bigger firm, did pay. But only because I said they must. It has
to be laid on the line beforehand.

I was pleased that Sylva will be going to the States.
She needs the stimulation of a trip of this sort. If she is
there after our arrival I' shall be delighted to see her, and
altho I am not sure what the Yale Library has in the way of
Peacock or Mary Shelley material it is pretty likely to have
something. I can get her a room at a nearby hotel, so she can
come and go to the Rare Book Room as she wants; and we can see
her evenings. Do tell her so. And I was pleased that at least
Jean Untermeyer's book has been accepted. I am sure she can
finish it.

It was of course splendid to be able to think of
you as a Book Club choice, and different from the States where
such an adoption is made only before publication, seldom after-
wards. It is interesting how your books are more and more catch-
ing on in England, after their initial acceptance in America. I
remember so well the difficulties in finding a British publisher
at first, and always have a warm spot for Collins because they
did take a chance at last.

I hope Helen's visit was a good one. I saw in Time
Magazine that the Lindberg girl had been married to a Frenchman.

I have given you a long rest from getting me books

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I want, so perhaps you will forgive me for asking you to satisfy my curiosity now. But I understand that *The Custom House*, by Francis King, published in England by Longman's Green, maybe a couple of years ago, is one that would interest me to read. It is a splenetic novel about Kyoto written by the former British cultural officer here, and has as one of its characters a Frank Hawley whom I used to know slightly when he was a member of Ryder Street and a broadcaster for the British to Japan. He was a man of immense learning whose one book was on whales, and who died from over-indulgence in drink and women. It was said by Mrs Sasaki's secretary to be interesting on the problems of a teacher of English to the Japanese. Have it sent to yourself if you are curious, and I can use it for plane reading on the way back from Switzerland. (Now I can put that aide memoire in the wastebasket.)

3rd (a little after 11 pm

I have just finished packing, for we are off by a 9:20 bus tomorrow morning for Osaka where we take the Tokyo plane, a little after 11. I might have chosen a better time for the Kyotites to make my departure; but this being towards the close of the 5-day-New-Year's holiday, the later planes are all filled. Tomorrow people go back to work. That is, in a way. Actually the girls put on, or keep on, their holiday kimonos (even though they normally wear western dress), and every one goes to the office for the morning for tea and talk, and then goes home. Writing this has made me realize how clever the Japanese are. For when they begin work again on Sunday or Monday, they can get down to it, already having gotten out of their system the account of what each did.

I wrote yesterday as I was waiting for Prof. Nakanishi to call to take us to his home for luncheon. He is a former student, now 62, and has taken infinite pains to see that we enjoyed ourselves and saw as much as possible. The final compliment was, of course, the invitation to his home; for as you know this seems to be a climax of hospitality seldom extended to their own countrymen. They entertain mostly in restaurants. His wife, who speaks little or no English, had prepared all sorts of New Year's delicacies, so that we added a few more (to us) exotic foods, as well as those particularly suited to this season of the year. By which I mean, New Year's festivities which have their own special dishes. Afterwards he took us to a friend who is a collector of rarities, and lives with his family in a temple. (He also sells.) We were given another modified tea ceremony, and then things connected with it and with flower arrangements were brought out. My heart went out for the pure shibui of an iron kettle from the Silver Pavilion, but my common sense said it was too expensive for any place of honor I could give it in New Haven; but I did buy

3

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a woven bamboo vase-container for Susan, and a sutra case from the Heian period--completely simple but of absolute beauty. Afterwards we went to Professor Kawada's (another former student) for a farewell party and dinner where he had gathered most of the chief friends we have made during our stay. Again there were special New Year's delicacies, and I was made to feel once more a kind of respect that we do not expect in America for the teacher. For I was the sensai and was seated before the takenoma. And when we left all heads of men and women were bowed to touch the floor. It is a humbling experience.

Today we made an effort to see the last few shrines we had not visited, but which the Kyotoites felt we must. And so in the morning we went to Kyomizu and Sanjusendo, and in the afternoon to To-ji. Every place was crowded with New Year worshippers and sight-seers, and the final effect was intoxicating. Even moving, as we saw at To-ji the old and the maimed hold pieces of papers over their heads to be stamped in red ink by the priests and then turned and rubbed on their hair or bald pates of the worshippers to grant them longevity and release from illness. Japan is a curious mixture of half-absorbed modernism and ancient belief, but perhaps we all are--far more than we realize.

In between we went to a curio dealer and I gave Susan a sumi painting, from the 17th century of the moon on waves, for her to use with her flower arrangement. I think you will like it. It is like one of Hilda's poems.

You made both her poems and our trip possible. How shall I express my thanks?

CABLE ADDRESS "IMPHO TOKYO"

Imperial Hotel
Tokyo

January 9, 1964.

Dear Bryher,

Thank you for your New Year and Birthday wishes.
It all seems a long time ago, somehow. I suspect because of our busy
last days, thanks to the New Year in Kyoto, and the fact that since we
got here Saturday we have been thinking in terms of where we go next,
rather than our present situation.

We flew up here on Saturday, a nice flight, mostly over the Ocean,
but with a good, if distant view of Fuji to amuse us. And Tokyo took us
quite by surprise, as the Holiday was still in full swing, the streets
still lined with arrangements of bamboo and pine on each side of every
door, business or otherwise, and all the women in kimono. Sunday we
walked out into Hibiya Park into what looked like an Easter parade of
girls in new kimono, a good many of them with the traditional starched
hair-dos full of dangly pins and flowers. The only difference was that
the kimono were long, and looked most unseasonal, being mostly white
with fancy flower and leaf patterns on them, and very fancy obis. And
they all had cameras, and were using them. We did too, but couldn't help
thinking that we should really have stock in Japanese film concerns, who
must have done a whopping business in sales and processing of film!

Things were still in the Holiday mood on Monday, when we went to
the British Legation to get our visas for HongKong. It should have
taken us no more than 15 minutes to get to the Legation from here by cab,
but it actually took us nearly an hour. I think every private car and bus
business car was on the streets, plus all the usual public transportation,
and the result was bedlam at every crossing! And visa getting is a long-
drawn out affair, we find. The British checked everything, and then said
we could wait an hour and a half, or come back in the morning. So I came
back to the Hotel, slowly as could be, and Norman waited.

Next morning we went to the Cambodian Embassy, and waited over an
hour, and at the Indian Embassy, where we went yesterday morning, they
said to come back at 4:30. But we could send a messenger if we wished,
so we did that, and are now through with all that, and busy with
Japanese good-byes!

So we are on our way on the 14th, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Thailand,
India, as short stays as possible, and though I really hate to go, I'm
also ready to. We haven't addresses yet, but should tomorrow, and maybe
Norm will find time to get them to you then.

Looking forward to seeing you before too long.

Love,

CABLE ADDRESS "IMPHO TOKYO"

Imperial Hotel
Tokyo

10 January 1964

Dearest Fido,

I am about to have to return this typewriter, so am
busy trying to answer as many letters as possible in the last few
hours. You will not get much this time from me, and only scratches
again until I have bought a typewriter in Hong Kong to carry with
us. It seems like a needless expense, but Susan cannot really write
without one, and I fear there would be few letters even to you. Yours
of the 5th January was in this morning's mail. This is remarkable,
and I presume because the tourist mail is so much reduced at this
season.

Most grateful for the clipping of Pound. Maybe he wants
simply to be away from the da,p canals of Venice, the bitter cold of
Brunnerberg, and the squabbles with Dorothy at Rapallo. But, as I
said, I think it would be worth it to spend his $5,000 prize money on
Niehans. If he is still there when we pass through, I may slip my
leash and call on him to ask him Fenollosa questions.

I note addresses, but send this to Kenwin in the hope that
it reaches you there. Knowing that Elsie will follow. Tell her also
that I shall probably airmail on to myself in your care the color
slides rather than carry them through the tropics. If there should
be any duty, please simply pay for it, and I will settle when I am
in Switzerland. But I don't want Cambodians to think I am really a
erporter or a spy. And they are a nuisance to pack and unpack. As
for any letters from you to me, probably better not bother with
writing until we are back in Switzerland. In emergency, we will be
at the Hilton (Hong Kong) from the 14th to 19th, at the Royal Hotel
Phnom Penh on the 19th and 20th; then 4 days at Ankor Wat, and 3 to
4 days after that at Bankok. About Feb 1st in New Delhi, where mail
can reach me c/o my former student A.N.Kaul, 6-B Raja Bazar, New
Delhi 1. We will be there about 10th days, with trips outside to
break it up. Then Istambul and Athens, Zurich and Burier. Your
letter of the 4th sounds as tho you would busy in the Scillies and
London. I am pleased that at least if Mrs McPherson lives, she is
better. It is quite remarkable what resiliency she has. My Christmas
greeting was merely wishing a happy Christmas to you all, but it was
a missed opportunity not to have slipped something through in code.
You are really kind to go to Doris. This time of year must be
especially difficult when she cannot really be out in her garden. And
she may mind the cold inside more than in former days. Probably not
much point in getting Romaine's book retyped until we see what has
to be done to it, or whether it needs editing. Then certainly it will
have to be. A good copy to show around makes an incredible differ-
ence.

HONGKONG HILTON

Telephone: 29011. Cables: HILTELS HONGKONG.

14 January 1964

Dearest Fido,

I can hardly say that we are as yet fully in the
spirit either of Hong Kong or of this new olivetti which I bought
yesterday and which this letter to you dedicates. You may remember that
I left my own machine in New Haven, by mistake, and had borrowed a
Japanese one. I returned that to its owner, properly cleaned; and
without a replacement I fear that neither you nor anyone at New Haven
would have heard more than a postcard from us.

Hong Kong seems as unfamiliar as the machine. It is hard
to get used to seeing 'Queens Road', 'University Path' and such street
names, after Japan; and the daily newspapers look like the Daily
Mail and the Express of London. Rickshaws mingle with Rolls Royces.
A British chemist's shop is only a few doors from one that deals in
dried bats, dried sea horses, deer horn, mandrakes and an infinity
of unrecognizable remedies. The local cricket field is next to a
gentlemen's club straight out of Birmingham in the 19th century; and
both of these lie next door to the 25-story Hilton where we are staying. This morning while Susan was having a fitting for some dresses
she is having made, and having her hair washed, I marched for miles
down the back streets, through little alleys and the shops which cram
them, the market filled with unattractive intestines (last night in
Kowloon we drove by stands selling pealed snakes, split turtles with
the shells hanging like flaps, opened piglets looking sad in death
and ashamed of their exposed guts, and dried ducks.) Jewelry shops
had men sitting at the door with large rifles to guard them. Money
changers were everywhere. So were furtive little men who tugged at
one or two coat sleeves and suggested sexual goodies. But there is the
Chase National Bank also, and business men from every quarter of the
globe, and huge new buildings going up everywhere. Where all the
money and business comes from I can't imagine, unless it is like the
Canadian Diefenbaker who in tonight's papers claims to have helped
create the rift between China and Russia by selling wheat from Canada
to Red China. Such patriotism is of course only to be applauded, and
I daresay the applause is loudest here.

Susan was keen on getting a Suzie Wong garment or two,
and I too reckoned I could not go altogether wrong on jackets and
summer suits that cost less than a fifth of what they do tailored in
the States, so yesterday and a good part of today were spent in shopping, which included this typewriter, socks to replace those I had
worn out, a transistor radio to take to India as a gift from a friend
in Hawaii who wanted to please a friend of hers in New Delhi. All
this took rather more time than one would think, especially today
when the tailor wanted to borrow the suit coat I was wearing, to
copy; so clad only in my raincoat (and trousers) I walked the streets
of Kowloon in a drizzle. But I also managed to arrange hotels and
flights up to our arrival in New Delhi, through Air France, and when
all these matters are confirmed tomorrow I will give you my itinerary

World peace through international trade and travel.

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HONGKONG HILTON

more precisely. But we go to Phnom Penh on Sunday, and on Tuesday to Ahkow Wat, returning to Phnom Penh, then Bankok for a few days, after which we fly directly to New Delhi for ten days or so. From there we hope to see the Taj, Jaipur, and the temples of Khajuraho--all of which are possible by trips out from Delhi. Then of course Istambul and Athens, although I don't want to plan these precisely until we are in India and see how things are going. But, vaguely, this should bring us to Switzerland in the last few days of February.

This noon we lunched with Edmund Blunden and his wife in their home at the University of Delhi. It was all apropos of Hodgson, since Professors Doi and Saito, in Japan, were particularly keen that I should see him and urge him to contribute to the volume on Hodgson in Japan. So I had written him from Tokyo and found a note from him here. He is 67 and finishes here in April, and must be, I should think, reluctant to go back to England, given the income tax for income, and a climate which will seem brutal after Januaries in the 70's. He has a pleasant house very high above the harbor dividing Victoria from Kowloon, and a couple of servants to provide enough leisure to appreciate the superb view. He is a pleasant person, mild and literary in a slightly ineffectual way, and lucky enough to have a charming wife who is poised and unpretentious. He mentioned her as no. 3, but I said nothing of knowing Sylva Norman. (By the way, he presented me with a book published in honor of his 65th birthday, to which Sylva had contributed in what must be a record gesture.) As you may remember, Blunden went out to Tokyo when Hodgson first went to Sendai. He was interesting about Hodgson's various feuds, and they apparently parted when Muriel persuaded him to write Hodgson asking please if he didn't want to write to her about the divorce would he be willing to say at least something through Blunden. Hodgson kept an Olympian silence in regard to anyone so foolish as to want a divorce. But he does want to write, and will eventually I feel sure; doing so in a friendly fashion. We were only there some two hours, and there was much talk about Oxford (where I attended his lectures) and Paul Engle (a protege of his) and Hilda whose work I don't think he really knows.

Japan now seems very far behind us, and indeed those last few days of conferences, public and private, made me feel that we were leaving just a little after the nick of time. Too many people were discovering that I was there: presidents of universities who wanted free advice or to be in line for an American grant; graduate and undergraduate students who wanted a fellowship to take them to America. I should have had to have an emperor's touch to make all their dreams come true.

Actually I did not even make all my own dreams effectual, for on the last night before we left, when the publishers came, they announced that they didn't feel able to do a selection of Hilda's poems (or any British or American authors' poems), even with a subsidy. Publishers in Japan are not very brave. But then what publishers are?

HONGKONG HILTON

19 January 1964

Dearest Fido,

I have about ten minutes before we must pay our bill, take the car on the ferry across the bay to Kowloon and go to the airport for the plane to Pnom Penh. Rather than sketch the plans again for the next fortnight, I include the copy of the cable to the States saying where we can be reached in case of emergency. I suspect we will stay ten or twelve days in New Delhi, making little trips from there, but will of course let you know.

We seem to have kept busy here, even without very much to have to do except visits to the tailors. Fortunately the weather improved for our sakes, though for that of the locals one might have wished for days upon days of rain. They are allowed only 4 hours of water once every 4 days, and even then with great restrictions. Last night there was an apparently severe earthquake, which Susan noticed but I did not, since we were having a cocktail on the 25th floor of a hotel.

Friday we took a private car and had a three hour tour of Hongkong Island, which is indeed exceptionally beautiful in terms of views, and the quaintness of the fishing villages crammed with junks and sampans. Then yesterday we were taken by an Agnes Latham type of lady warden at the University of Hongkong, along with an American Fulbright Professor there on a motor tour of the New Territory, again beautiful in its prospects and picturesque with its walled villages and peasants working in the fields. We approached within a few hundred yards of the border and looked down on Red China, which is as much as an American dare do outside the CIA. Friday night we were entertained at dinner in Kowloon by the Yale Bachelors, a group which goes out after graduation from Yale College to teach the Chinese. They were a nice lot, enthusiastic about the work they were doing, and we learned a good deal from them. Earlier I had been approached by a former student and his wife in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel, and asked for a drink; and Susan had met the widow of the editor of the New Haven newspaper who lives a few doors from us. Both quite by chance. But I doubt this will happen from now on.

I must run to pay my bill.

TÉLÉPHONE N° 3989

ADRESSE TELEGRAPHIQUE: HOTROYAL

SOCIÉTÉ CAMBODGIENNE D'HOTELLERIE ET DE TOURISME

Ankor Wat, 24 January 1964

Dearest Fido,

Ankor Wat hardly seems like a lost civilization, with a British film company using the temple and jungles for Conrad's *Lord Jim*. Not of course that *Lord Jim* as a novel had anything to do with Cambodia. They simply build what isn't here: which means that it comes suddenly on grass huts, river steamboats in the moats, Malaysian plaster buddhas; and an exotic Israeli girl who is playing the part of a Malaysian girl, in the leading female role. 300,000 dollars has built an addition to the Auberge des Temples in order to take care of the cast, and indeed our introduction to Cambodia was in Hong Kong when we were told that no one could stay at the Auberge unless he was in filmdom. Cambodians hustle in the jungle roads pulling cannon, dressed in unbelievable costumes; buddhist priests in their flaming orange and red robes are drafted as extras; and mad dogs and Englishmen wander among the various ruins muttering "She got her Oscar in 'Butterfield 8.'" Susan and I stopped for a drink at the Auberge late this afternoon after Prasat Kravann, Ta Keo, and Sreah Srang, to take another look at the amply endowed Israeli and listen to the judicial words of the script writer who exclaimed "It's the best film I ever wrote." But he didn't sound like Joseph Conrad, and maybe he wasn't referring to the capture of *Lord Jim*. But British Columbia Films has certainly gone out in the midday sun.

But nothing really can spoil Ankor Wat and the other temples, not even suddenly coming upon papier mache cannons. We will have had four full days in which to visit the temples, and they are impressive days. Since about 1870 the French have done an impressive job in hacking away the jungle and doing intelligent restoration. A few of the temples have been left pretty much as they were first found, with the immense cheese trees and banyons clutching the stone towers with their roots and branches. The jungle is always very near, and at midday the air rings with a thousand silver bells from the sound of the cicadas. Monkeys jump around in the trees. Bright red and bright orange fruits hang gaily at great heights. If one steps off the paths, or wanders outside the temple walls, and one is always tempted to see if an unknown temple does not lie nearby and hidden, he needs an axe to hack his way. Basically the ground is flat, but the lush natural growth gives variety and perspective and individuality to each of the temples. The stones of the temple towers are often eroded, but what is miraculous is the fine condition of the decorative carvings, which are the finest I have ever seen in situ. They make a history of the people, their wars, their gods, and their occupations. Thursday morning we drove 30 kilometers in a Land Rover to visit Banteay Srei, a temple discovered only in 1914 and a jewel of the same degree and nature as the discovery we saw in Istambul. It is delicately carved like fine lace, and adorned with heavenly dancers in relief on the walls. Even the linga remains at the central altar to celebrate the divine essence of the king and of Siva. We were exhausted by the bumps along the road, and suffocated by the dust and tropical heat, but were wonderfully refreshed by the beauty we beheld. And we liked too the Cambodian

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villages we passed en route. The peasants were harvesting the rice, threshing the grains out with their feet or by flailing bundles against a wooden frame. They were packing the straw into neat piles for the cattle, and laughing and talking as they worked, despite the heat. But others simply sat in their palm thatched huts, built on stilts for the rainy season, or smoked and chatted in the shade under the floorboards. The women are picturesque in their sarongs, the small children wear nothing. I have enjoyed walking in the late afternoon along the Siem Riep river which runs through the town near the Grand Hotel where we are staying, to watch the water wheels creak every few hundred yards, while near them in the stream the entire family gathers to bath and to bathe the young. Even the water buffalo plunge in to rid themselves of the day's dust, and one wishes one felt free enough to join them. The scene is modest enough, I might add, for the adults bathe in their sarongs, and so launder their clothing and themselves at the same time.

There are a good many tourists here, but never so many as to crowd the tours or get in each other's way. A few Americans come, many Australians, and many many French. There are some Japanese, and one Swede and one Spaniard. But they are all good tourists, for it is too difficult to get here without at least a little drive and interest to encourage them. We all speak to each other, and then leave each other alone. There was one exception, a law professor from the University of California, who used to be, he said, a student in my classes at Yale,¹² introduced himself and his wife to us at Phnom Penh and was here for a couple of days earlier in the week. So we dined with them, and teamed up to go together to see Banteay Srei. Another former student also introduced himself to me in Phnom Penh, but I will tell you more about that later, in my next letter. This letter can hardly tell you about Ankor Wat or Ankor-Thom about which I dare say you already know far more than I ever can hope to. But at least it will serve as interim, and let me send you my love.

Nornan

Prof. Norman H. Pearson

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NEW DELHI

2 February 1964

Dearest Fido,

I may not bring back many souvenirs with me, but I certainly will return with an international mouth of teeth. As I think I wrote you in my airplane note en route from Thailand, I had to rush to a dentist there to replace an inlay I pulled out with a piece of sticky candy. I had had a constant ache in another area for several weeks, but the Thai dentist could find nothing visibly wrong and there was not time enough for an x-ray. I had half decided to stick it out until I got to the States, but since I could hardly chew food this seemed silly. So on Friday I went, and on Saturday, and today I have two appointments. Fair enamel fillings must be done, but most seriously there was a large area of decay underneath the large filling the Japanese dentist made for me. This only an x-ray showed, and the doctor said it was lucky I had come. For the decay had almost reached the nerve. The dentist was recommended by the mother-in-law of a former student of mine (an Indian) and is obviously very good indeed: has been president of the international association of dentists, has an American and a European degree, was dentist to the Viceroy, to the President of India and to Nehru.

It is a great relief to be rid of the constant ache, but has rather held us up a bit, and I won't know until tonight or tomorrow when we can begin our little internal visit. So I doubt that we can do Benaras or very distant points. I think, instead, that we will take a car for five or six days to visit Khajuraho, Agra, Jaipur and the various points of interest en route. I am a little consoled however by the fact that India is so vast and so complicated that I could hardly get much of a total impression this trip anyhow.

3 February

After two dentist appointments today I at least have an enormous gold inlay -- the wealth of the Indies -- in my mouth, and could bite my dinner without pain tonight for the first time in many many weeks. I have two more appointments tomorrow, and then will have to place my faith in god until I reach New Haven. At least too, the dentist says we can start off on our motor trip on Wednesday. The hotel says there is no room for us to return here, which is a pity; but the travel agent says to leave it to him, which is something of a hope at any rate. We shall see We will return to New Delhi, somewhere, on the night of the 10th. I have an appointment with the Fulbright people on the 11th, give a lecture at the University of Delhi on the 12th, and we plan to start for Athens on the 13th, to spend about three full days there before going on to Athens. I think we will have to leave Athens a little open, depending on the cold. But I presume a week there, if Susan really wants to see Delphi. Then Switzerland, of which I will inform you early from Greece. Susan wants to be home as early in March as possible, since she will have to go to Florida to visit her mother. As you can imagine, I personally have no great relish of returning to New Haven; but what will be, will be.

I enclose the first page of the letter I began in Cambodia. Looking it over I think I was perhaps a little too severe on Leslie. Naturally he wants the credit for what he has done, and who does not like being a celebrity? Probably what I really was talking about was strategy. Although I still wish he himself didn't own the miniature in question.

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I was extremely interested by my visit to Cambodia. The ruins at Angkor Wat were of course fascinating, and fortunately we allowed ourselves enough time so that we could see all of the principal ones, and a good many of those which are less usually visited. Toward the end of our visit at Siem Riep we were usually alone at the temples we visited, and rather to my surprise the elephant ride through the jungle (that is, after we left the paved highway) proved one of the most interesting. The ride was an hour each way, the last part up the side of a steep hill on top of which was one of the best preserved of the ruins, from which we saw the setting sun and the softer light on the carved monuments. But I liked the Cambodians too, especially those who lived along the rivers, threshed and pounded their rice with a kind of gaity, bathed each evening in the stream, and smiled at whoever passed by. We saw a good deal of the country life, which you would have enjoyed. At Siem Riep on the way to temples on the outskirts (40 km outskirts sometimes, by Land Rover), and also outside Phnom Penh where we spent a good afternoon with the photographer from Time magazine who had come down from Hong Kong to illustrate what is to be a feature article on Cambodia. He especially wanted pictures of the people harvesting the rice, and we found a little village thru which we wandered to our heart's content, snapping everything including the pictures of Mao on the walls of their houses. I met him thru his boss, a young man who hailed me in Phnom Penh because he had been a former student of mine. He was of course very informative about conditions in Cambodia which are rotten or at least confused, to say the least. In fact the ex-student boss and ourselves spent an interesting evening at dinner at the home of the head of the Asisa Foundation there, who is said to know more about Cambodia than anyone else. We saw this latter man again when we returned to Phnom Penh, and had a chance to ask him many more questions about the situation. Actually Susan and I were well treated everywhere, but most we met (especially the British, for some curious reason) were given very rough treatment by the customs both on entering and on leaving. There were many annoyances, especially about currency, since the black market rate was twice the legal rate even in Cambodia, and all bills had to be paid for in dollars. Anyhow we enjoyed the best of both worlds--black and white--and proved how lucky a look of innocence can be. Cambodia proved rather to be like New Haven, for shortly after Eric Pace (the Time correspondent) hailed me, I was greeted by another ex-student and his wife, this time he being a law professor from Berkeley who was out on a two-year grant to study the legal system of communist China. They were at Siem Riep for part of our stay there, and he had much of interest to tell about Hong Kong where he was actually staying.

Phnom Penh was a sleepy little capital, full of faded French charm, wide boulevards lined with trees and flowers, like something out of another century. Even the cooking was fine, and the weather was in the 90's. No one moved quickly, and Sunday seemed no different from any other day except that fewer people were visibly doing nothing.

I was glad we went there rather than base our impression of South East Asia simply on Bangkok. Bangkok is bustling, would not dream of pedicabs, and puts up small skyscrapers. Bangkok is getting ahead; Phnom Penh wants to be supported to be left alone. Bangkok was really a series of color pictures flashed before our eyes. We did all the right tours, visited the temples and the floating market, Susan bought a dress or two of Thai silk, and a piece of antique jewelry. But I don't think we felt Thailand as we did Cambodia. We had dinner with the head of the Foundation there, and learned more about the economy and political situation than I have time to indicate, but it was still a like a lesson from a book rather than from life. This man had also been a student at Yale. We dined too with a young Thailander who is up in the government, and his wife who is the chief librarian for the scientific collections of the country. They were not my students, but students of friends of ours. They took us to a Thai restaurant, and were good company indeed. The temperature was 93-95° F, and since Susan doesn't like severe heat this rather got her down.

And the change was certainly great when we arrived at the Delhi airport, to

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be met with absolutely the same response. Finally the driver persuaded so that we could stay. No, we could not have bed linen or blankets. (We were supposed to carry them with us). No, they would not wash the filthy bathroom floor. (At Khajihaho we had used the common toilets and bath.) No, we could not have anything but pure vegetarian food. (When the meal came, it contained non-vegetarian eggs). But the driver raised such a fuss that the district manager came, arranged that we should have a small electric heater which didn't work (we hadn't suggested we needed one, working or not), and had them spread four bedspreads to act as blankets (which worked well, since we kept the windows closed). Yes, the chauffeur could steer men as well as automobiles. It was only a little confusing when we found he could not read. But then we understood why he sometimes went by road signs that pointed a different route than the one we took. But he was excellent with the natives, acted as our translator when the guide couldn't speak English, and proved in every way invaluable.

Khajaraho was really the most interesting part of the trip, and made an interesting link with the Cambodian temples we had seen at Siem Reap. These are chiefly from the 9th-11th centuries, ornamented in an almost baroque exuberance, small enough in size and number for us to comprehend (there are some 20 still existing of the original 100). The usual tourist visit is made by a one-day-to-and-from airflight from Delhi, which allows the visitor two hours there in which he can hurriedly see one out of the three chief divisions of temples. Knowing me you will not be surprised that we saw them all, egging the driver to find the location of some he was reluctant to search out. But in the end he became excited too, and even suggested we visit another (and one of the most charming) of which he had just been told. After seven hours in the morning, and three hours after lunch, Susan was exhausted; but when I read in the guide book that we had not seen the holiest of the holies, still used as a temple, I got the driver to take me back alone. It was an interesting climax, for most of the temples had been dedicated to Shiva. It was twilight when I climbed the long flight of pyramided steps to the entrance to the inner sanctum, just behind two men-- one old man and his companion in his late thirties who were there as worshippers. They had prostrated themselves at the bottom of the steps, and did so again inside the door. The sight was indeed overpowering. A colossal linga about 3 3/4 ft in diameter and 8 1/4 ft in height is set on a large "Gauri-patta" (the usual Shiva altar with a protruding drain) which almost

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completely filled the sanctum except for a flight of steps to the base of the linga. The two men mounted the steps and paid their respects to the priest who was sitting cross-legged by a bowl of ashes and a vase of holy water from the daily douching of the linga. (Normally the water drains out the spout where it is caught and drunk in the spirit of the divine essence of the linga.) Curious to see what cannot have been too often witnessed by non-lingaists, I slipped up behind them and stepped out on a balcony from which I could watch but not be too obviously seen. Twice the two men marched around the base of the linga, clapping their hands and crying out to summon the spirit of Shiva. Then they knelt by the drain and rubbed a portion of it hard with their hands, catching a little of the moisture which still remained from the morning's sacred bath of the linga and with it rubbing their forhedd, eyes and lips. Then, their heads towards the linga they lay outstretched and prostrate at full length. I kept my eyes on the older man, as likely to be more traditional, and watched him as he rose, went to the linga and kelt at its side, reaching down into a pool of water at the base, with which he again daubed his forehead. Then, standing and leaning against the linga he embraced it with both arms, placing first one cheek and then the other against the stone surface before kissing it with reverence. That concluded, he went to the other side of the holy object to where the priest was sitting. He made an offering of money, and the priest ladled some divine essence out of the vase, in a cup about the size of an acorn, pouring the water into the plain of the worshipper's hand, from which the worshipper then drank. As a last ritual the priest (if that is the right word) put some ashes into the man's hand for the man to daub a mark on his forehead. Both men then left. My problem was how to escape decently, for I disliked the appearance of sheer curiosity. So I wrapped up my Puritan conscience and tucked it away for safekeeping, and stepped back on the platform. Going to the spot where the old man had planted his reverential kiss I stayed for a few moments hidden by the massive linga. Then I continued to the priest, made an offering, received the essence, drank it, was given the ashes and bedaubed myself, and then left quietly. As I reached the door the priest motioned me back and put some white crystals in my hand. These, I thought, must be sacred objects given me because my offering had been a full rupee instead of fifty annas. I carried them thought fully back to the bungalow with me. Later that evening, without explaining why, I asked the driver and the bungalow attendant what they were. "Indian sweets" was the answer. "What a child!" the priest must have said after I left.

Actually both my head and Susan's had been daubed with ashes earlier

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Phnom-Penh, le 27 January 1964

Dearest Fido,

We are now at last packed and ready to rise at six tomorrow morning in order to take an early plane to Bankpk. After our leisurely schedule in Japan we now seem like birds on the wing, but at least one pleasantness is that the winds draw us closer to Switzerland and the chance for me to see you and tell you carefully a little of what we have seen. I shall probably post this from Thailand tomorrow, to speed it on its way. For I am told that Cambodian censorship is apt to hold up mail and cables for a considerable time, particularly if the high degree of official sensitivity is in any way aroused.

Today has really been a day of rest, with a drink beside the swimming pool and good French cooking in the hotel restaurant to restore us after the heat of Siemreap and the jungle. Yesterday we waited for over three hours in the Siem-reap airport for the delayed airplane, and would have died of thirst and boredom if others had not been similarly fixed, including a group of technicians from Lord Jim, returning to England after a "bloody awful" three months fixing sets. The rest of the group, including the 2,000 native employees will have been there from last September to next June, before the last film is clicked. But naturally I picked up a certain amount of dirt from them, which was amusing, as well as cadging a soft drink from the truckful brought from Angkor Wat to keep them happy while they waited. A reporter from "Le Monde", due in Paris today was in distress because he had forgotten the necessary 120 riels exit fee, and the Cambodians would not accept a 100 franc note even though this was far larger. So I contributed the amount, and the free press of France was saved.

A letter from Leslie was waiting for us at the Royal on our return. "I'm having a shot just to see whether I'm lucky in winging the migratory Pearson birds. It is to ask you for the name of the agent you suggested to me last year--also whether he insists on 'exclusive'--that is, for Europe as well as America--if I sign up with him. So far my friend Rupert Hart-Davis has been acting forme in G.B. It looks as though the Sunday Times will do a pre-publ. shot (5000 wds) of Mr. W.H. (That is, on or before the 23 April April publication date). So I sent him John's name, since what Leslie has in mind is particularly a great splash in Life (at least that is what he envisioned to me when he suggested I take over his management and share the profits). But I did warn him that it is now already almost February, that if the London Times does a splash, papers can copy, and it will hardly be an exclusive deal for Americans. Also, andmore importantly, that it is too late for April magazines which have already pretty much been put to bed. I also, very delicately, tried to suggest that such a fine and serious book ought perhaps to be introduced with decorum. But I suspect this will not appeal to him. Being fond of Leslie I am a little embarassed by his attempts to be a shrewd business exploiter. Some times, in this respect, he reminds me of Doris. My own feeling is that a far more effective shrewdness would be to speak softly rather than to minstrel it in ballad form to theplucking of aguitar.

Gram: RESTWELL

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होटल जनपथ

11 February 1964

Dearest Fido,

We are back from our 1400 mile drive, and reasonably settled at this hotel instead of the Ashoka, where there was no room for us. We have a day or two in which to hang around, due to my own foolishness in trying to please Mr Kaul by saying I would talk at the University of Delhi. I had thought I could do it today, but the university has a convocation. So it must be tomorrow instead. And then the only plane to Teheran does not leave until ten at night on the 13th, the alternative to Istambul being a plane which would mean being at the Delhi airport at 3:a.m., a prospect hardly to be relished.

I wrote you in my last letter that I expected to leave with the wealth of India in my mouth, thanks to the dentist. After our tour I now know I shall leave with the dust of India in my lungs. The dry season is not a descriptive phrase but a fact. Clouds of dust swept over us everywhere, and the leaves on the trees seemed an abomination in the sight of the Lord. Even the many peacocks we saw wild at the edge of the road looked as though they needed a housemaid with a feather in her mopa. But it was a glorious experience all the same, and in the end we felt a good deal closer to the India we had read about in the past.

Delhi and New Delhi were interesting, especially coming first. There was a good deal of colour because it was all new and fresh. I liked, for example, the first wedding procession I saw in the bazaar of Old Delhi. The groom rides precariously on the back of a bedecked nag, a small boy in front of him on the horse to act as good luck and a proto-groom. Ahead and behind is a line of people escorting him to the bride's home whom he is to meet for the first time. Men carry gasoline or kerosine torches. According to his affluence (the this is the chief display of it during the groom's lifetime) he has bands marching ahead. Immediately in front of this particular groom there was an eight-man group with cornets. A little farther in front was a second (or first) band of more cornets and drummers. And two nautch dancers, since they too are an integral part of a lower-class wedding. Every few hundred yards the procession would start, the bands blare (I could detect no tune), and the nautch dancers sway seductively for the public. Men would step out from the onlookers to join hands with the dancers and dance with them, the dancers lifting their veils to cover their heads and these of the casual partners while they kissed and embraced. There was such rapport between the nautch and the public that finally somebody from the groom's elbow told them to break it up and move on, so that the maharaja-for-a-day could actually reach the bride. "You know that all these nautch dancers are really boys who dress like women," our Indian friend explained as we walked away. It is an interesting wedding custom, and quite different from New Haven. Actually we were to see several such wedding processions, and the bands were

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always incredible, and the grooms always looked as though they were frightened of falling off. The real maharajas ride to the bride, however, on elephants, which must be safer to mount.

Our only elephant ride was to the Jasper Palace outside of Jaipur on our first day of our tour. But I did not feel like a groom maybe because there were no dancers, though a drummer and a horn blower escorted us back down from the palace to the car again. We were glad to have gone by car, and we looked endlessly out of the car windows as we rolled along the roads, usually the only private car for many many miles. There were so few cars that the bullock carts plod steadily down the center of the single lane roads, herds of cattle, and sheep and goats congregate in the middle and at the edges, crossing interminably from one side to the other for the spare wisp of dried grass. There were quantities of men and women and children tending them, the women often carrying baskets on their heads into which they put the lumps of dung which the animals drop as a chief by-product. Every hut had its huge stack of neatly-packed pancakes of dung, to be used for fuel, for roof tiles and for the walls of houses. The roads were really arteries along which the flow of India flowed. Often we saw little bands of Ganges pilgrims carrying the sacred water home under gaily canopied shoulder yokes, the water never being allowed to touch the ground once it had been taken from the river. I was surprised by the large number of working camels we saw. There were peacocks, and monkeys, jackals, a mongoose or two, to watch us with surprise as passed. In Rajasthan we drove through the tiger-shooting country, but alas saw nothing but the hunting palaces of the maharajahs. But the palaces were a diversion too, and the ruins of temples, and the innumerable small villages. When a river or a waterhole was nearby there might be fields of green with the yellow blossoms of mustard. Sometimes too there was the paler yellow of the puce blossom. Mostly there was only the dull brown of dusty wasteland. Yet there were the forts, the abandoned watch towers on the hills, and the ruins of old palaces. I had never really known forts before, never felt them (that is) as an integral part of the landscape. We must have visited a dozen during the trip. Some were famous, some simply an excuse for us to stretch our legs.

We made the usual circuit for tourists of Jaipur, Agra and Delhi -- a fairly well-worn triangle whose dimensions must be well-known to you. Our own particularity came from the individual shading we could give the lines of the triangle by the chance to stop the car wherever we chose, or bear down on anything for as long as it interested us. Thanks to a few tips from friends and our evident interest in what we were seeing, we soon convinced our driver that we were "serious" and he stopped pretending that places would be closed, were "just like the others", or could not be reached by car. Actually he turned out to be not only an exceptionally good driver, but a good diplomat. After leaving Agra for Khajuraho we could stop only at circuit houses or bungalows (run by the state) for picnic lunches or overnight. We were supposed to have had reservations made in advance, but when we finally arrived at Khajuraho late in the evening after a nearly 400 mile drive we were told there was no room for us at the circuit house, the guest house, or the bungalow. We could hardly turn back. Susan was naturally tired. I became cold and British. Slowly, carefully, the driver discussed the point with the authorities for perhaps a half hour. Finally we were told we might stay for that one night only, because there had been a cancellation. As it turned out there were only two other sets of guests, and we had no sooner finished supper than we were asked how long we expected to stay. These government houses apparently have a policy of discouraging business, finding it easier to run a hotel with no guests. (They get paid anyhow). For, on our way back we arrived similarly at Gwalior to

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zero centigrade temperatures, a record here too but on the opposite side. In the day it is warmer, and we wear no coats.

I have been much interested in India, and my student here (now teaching at the university) has been good in introducing us to the scene. But I have nothing like your own British and Kipling background to give me a sense of tone. We have been thru the bazaars at night, seen wedding processions, watched snake charmers and dancing bears, marvelled at the emerald-colored parrots that fly about the trees, and been amused by the monkeys in the market places. The Ashoka is very pukkha to say the least, but there are the paradoxical novels whose life I watch from our bedroom window through my field glasses. I have admired Lutyens' buildings, and sent George a postcard of them. But I think I need the long miles in the country before I can really write anything interesting to say.

Except, of course, to send you my love.

I forgot to write that this morning I sent you a package of unexposed film I have taken since I bought them in Hong Kong. I had to pay the cost of developing them, and as you will see the developing has to be in Germany. Could you send them as from yourself, on the hope that they will be returned to you before we arrive. Or if they don't come back they can be forwarded later. Elsie is an expert on such matters and her favorite film shop can no doubt advise her as to what to do. I will probably send another lot from here after my return from our motor trip. I will reimburse you for whatever is necessary.

If you want to get in touch with me in Turney, or need to, you can reach me safely c/o Mr David Garwood, Robert College, Bebeck, Istanbul, Turkey. In Greece, care of Mrs Mortimer Procter, Athens College, P.O. Box 175, Athens, Greece.

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13 February 1964

Dearest Fido,

We are more or less, now, packing and preparing to sit the afternoon and early evening out until we leave for the plane. But altho I wrote you yesterday at some length, this letter actually may reach you before the other does -- especially if I can persuade the hostess on Air France that it is a letter from the plane which can be posted in Paris.

To repeat the future itinerary so far as I now know it: we fly tonight for Tehran where we arrive about 3 a.m., spend the day there seeing what we can. On Saturday we spend the day flying to Isfahan and returning that night, to leave the next morning early for Istambul. At Istambul we will be at the Hilton until the 20th when we leave for Athens. Unfortunately I do not know how long we will want to stay there, for it depends on the weather (quite unpredictable from my experience). presumably Susan would like the trip to Delphi if this is at all possible. If you want to write, a letter to me in care of Mrs Mortimer Proctor, Athens College, P.O.Box 175, Athens, will at least be safe. I should imagine we would not stay more than five days at the most, and then proceed directly to Zurich where I shall at least try for one overnight at the Stork where we can leave some luggage before coming on to you. I imagine it will be simplest to take the plane back to the States from Zurich again. I will telephone you from Zurich, having already cabled from Athens as soon as our plans are firmed there. Unless of course you had some errands to take you to Zurich, in which case we could make all arrangements about the return flight and have the chance for a long conversation on the train.

We spent most of yesterday morning getting our tickets in shape for leaving from here. And in the later afternoon there was my lecture at the University of Delhi. I did Pound's cantos as epic, simply because they were the only notes I had with me, and had less than no incillation to get up a new lecture. I doubt that anyone in the audience could follow very well, but they seemed to like the sound of my voice and listened intently. Afterwards we repaired with a group of professors to their faculty canteen for coffee --coffee so heavily chlorinated that it had more cleansing than gustatory values. Afterwards, the Kauls who were at Yale had a small supper party for us, his wife having just returned that same day from the hospital with their new son. (The son, it appears, is to have Norman as a middle name--certainly the effect will be strange for an Indian.)

But it was a very pleasant evening. The Rajans were there, as well as a faculty member who had been at Yale and another who was going there, or hopes to, this fall. Rajan is to be visiting professor at Wisconsin in September, so I shall be well involved. Kaul himself is returning to be on the Yale faculty.

This morning we visited the Indian National Museum, and were delighted with the high quality of what was displayed, as well as with the high quality of the way it was shown. There was a fine room of Ghandaran pieces, which I believe Islay did see when they were en route to Kashmir. The museum is only three years old. (I am, by the way) looking forward to seeing the museum in Athens, which as you recall was being remodelled when we were there.)

I still find it very hard to get much feeling of being inside modern India. I try to read thenewspapers, but they are filled with nothing but political news of the squabbles between the different states. The papers express no opinions, and only reprint solemnly the inane assertions of politicians. In fact I believe that the press is allowed to express an opinion only in the editorial section. In relation to the world outside of India, India is of course always right. There is simply no discussion of thematter. One would not object to that so much if the affirmation was not loaded with so many superlative adjectives. The large area and the large population do not automatically make a great nation. Much of this is of course *thm*

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official attitude. Privately, many Indians say that what their country needs is a capacity for self-criticism. There is a good deal of hypocrisy, too, and one wonders who is fooled by it. The venality of the maxim-mouthing politicians is notorious. There is prohibition for the Indians in any public place, so they bootleg in private places. Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays are dry days when liquor is not sold by the bottle, in order to make for abstemiousness. People simply buy more on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays; and if they forget, all one has to do, as I did, is to ask a taxi-driver where to take me. The currency restrictions are such as to cripple investments. It is equally difficult for anyone to leave India on any intellectual mission, since he cannot take any money with him. He must ask for permission to go, and it is assumed that he cannot live while away unless he has a secret hoard stashed abroad. In which case, hell is to pay. Rajan, who is the Professor of English at Delhi, wanted to go to England for three months to finish a commissioned book on Yeats. He asked for permission, saying his wife had an uncle living in London who would put them up. "But she is not your relative," they said, "your wife can stay with him but you cannot." So he could not go. Yet they vaunt their universities.

Oh well, I am delighted to have come and would be happy to come back again.
Perhaps some day I will.

CABLE: HILTELS ISTANBUL
TELEPHONE: 48 32 00

Istanbul
Hilton

ISTANBUL · TURKEY

18 February 1964

Dearest Fido,

At the end of this morning's sightseeing, I asked the car to stop at the Pera Palast and poked my head inside the door for a quick shot of nostalgia. The outside face of the building had been cleaned; inside, the main desk and the concierge's were as dim as always. But the dining room had been opened again and looked almost hospital-clean in white; the lounge, which you may remember still showed the effects of bombing had been put in spic and span 1900-fashion. And behind were two rooms we never did see because they were shut off, but which are as much period pieces as the Sultan's summer palace which I visited on the Anatolian side this afternoon (the Palace of Beyerbeyl). But this is not to say that Istanbul has not changed, and really you must visit Turkey again before too long. Even the Rumelihisar castle, by Robert College, which you may remember they were working on when we climbed over it that rainy afternoon, has been substantially restored so that the walls look like illustrations to Sir Walter Scott. The Sophia, altho it still has the immense Arabic medallions on the walls (they are supposed to come down this summer) has immense surfaces cleaned and a large number of newly visible mosaics which we could not enjoy when we were here. As for the Kariye Camii, it is still something wonderful--a jewel box, a treasury--and it excited me to see the whole thing as an ensemble. Yet in revisiting it, there was nothing of the intense excitement we both felt when we were unexpectedly dropped into it in the midst of restoration, and could climb the scaffolding in the full floodlighting to rub noses with Christ and kiss the glass gold pieces in artistic reverence. This and the Sophia havenow been joined by a third mosque-church from the same period--the Palla Kristo which I visited this morning. They were the gems which the Mohammedans saved by plastering instead of destroying. Earthquakes have destroyed far more than at the other two, but there were a half-dozen masterpieces of mosaic which I was privileged to have seen.

The three full days which I have had this time for seeing Istanbul gave me the chance not only to revisit what I had seen on my other two trips, but also to be driven around the city walls, visit the library of the Sophia (as I did yesterday) and be shown their choicest manuscripts, see the modern palaces of the Sultans, visit the Treasury for the jewels (such jewelry as to make the British crown jewels seem modest indeed by comparison).

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2

Istanbul
Hilton

ISTANBUL . TURKEY

son, and perhaps best of all go to the archaeological museum to see
the tomb of Alexander the Great and a wealth of classical sculpture.
To give the museum visiting a modern touch, when we visited the
Seraglio with its fine exhibits of Turkish textiles, etc., I noticed
a museum of arms and wondered if by some remote chance the gold decor-
ated rifle that Susan's grandfather gave the Sultan might not be on
show. And so it was, along with many other presentation guns all
dolled up in gold or silver or mother of pearl. In return the Sultan
presented Mr Bennett with an emerald and diamond ring of considerable
proportions, but the stones were divided up between two of Susan's
sisters. Susan had been given other jewelry, so was not treated un-
fairly, only her other things of course went with the robbery.

As a kind of solace for not having been allowed to disembark
at Tehran, we flew on Monday morning to the Izmir airport where a
car and guide waited to drive us to Ephesus about fifty miles away.
It was a good solid day's work of sightseeing, and of course we had
to do it rather too fast for third-sights of anything. But it did
prove to be one of those experiences you would have much enjoyed, and
should enjoy some day. A new and large western hotel is being com-
pleted in Izmir, and the city is within easy driving distance of
Ephesus, Pergamum and Troy. If the latter two have anything to com-
pare with Ephesus (and everyone says they do, especially Pergamum),
then thelure should be irresistible. You may not be so drawn by the
associations with Christianity and John, Paul, and Mary; but this is
history too. One can see why the mother of Christ is said to have
died at the city dedicated to Artemis as themother of thegods. We
saw all these, wandered across the fields to thesite of the Temple
of Artemis, now almost completely vanished except for a few fragments
of broken stone in the bottom of what the Turks call "the British
hole" because of the nationality of the excavators. The immense
theatre was interesting, and so was themuch smaller Odeon. The
Library of Celsus was fascinating to visit; so were the baths (much
better preserved than any I myself had seen before). But most im-
pressive of all was the long marble street, with the marble pavement
still pretty well intact, winding its way up the hill and lined by
fountains, small temples, and the ruins of shops. It gave me the
feeling, and I was grateful for that.

I did my yesterday's sightseeing alone, while Susan stayed in
bed. But she had already seen thebest. Being taken through the
padaaces alone onecan go anywhere one wants to), and having this and
that advantage being pointed out, was a little like being a house for

3

Istanbul
Hilton

ISTANBUL . TURKEY

rent. I was shown ballrooms and toilets. "The gold is two inches thick." When at last I reached the entrance hall again, I felt like saying, "Yes, it will do; if you will send the lease, I shall sign it."

Actually by this time of the letter it is Wednesday morning as I finish. Last night, Susan's cold being better we went to the Garwoods for dinner, and they send their warmest greetings. We leave in a half hour for the airport and Greece. I only hope there will be no such mishap as (in that case happily) delayed us en route. I will cable you as soon as I know what can and can not be done at this season in Athens. I sent you another package of exposed film from India, which I hoped you might be able to send to Germany to be developed so that we could show them to you when we are at Kenwin. And of course my sense of thrift wants to save the expense of repaying for their development in the States, since it has already been paid for here.

We are both eager to see you.

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22 February 1964

Dearest Fido,

I am assuming that you will not try to meet us in Zurich, and therefore this letter should reach you before we actually do. You are quite right about the difficulty for reservations in Zurich; we were turned down both by the Storchen and by Bauer au Lac. Fortunately however for us, the Glockenhof could take us in. I cabled you as soon as I had heard. Actually everything was somewhat confused by Susan's illness. Our last day in Istanbul, as I think I wrote you, it rained. She felt wretched with her cold and stayed in except for going to the Garwoods for dinner at night. When we arrived in Athens Wednesday noon, the sun was shining and the air was crisply pleasant, even warm. So after a rest we went to the Acropolis by ourselves (though on the first steps of the Propylaea we met a Chamber of Commerce tour from New Haven, including the travel agent who always handles my tickets) and Susan was thrilled with the sight of so much that was beautiful and famous. She had a warm suit on, and so went coatless. Alas! There was a glorious and prolonged sunset, and we lingered. Then we went to the Hilton roof for a cup of coffee and the last rays of the sun. It was spectacularly vivid. But it was the last Susan has seen of Athens and Greece, for that night she laughed as I have seldom heard anyone; and in the morning I phoned the President of Athens College who is an old friend, to ask for the recommendation of a good doctor. When the doctor finally arrived at 2pm, he ordered her to remain in bed for at least two days, to cancel plans for day trips to Delphi and Corinth,

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and gave her medicines. He was an excellent young man who had had ten years
at McGill University in Montreal. Yesterday being our wedding anniversary, she
did dress (with his permission) and go down to the hotel dining room for dinner;
and we rather hope to be able to go out tomorrow noon for lunch with other friends
at the Royal Yacht Club. I did not dare make arrangements for the plane until
I saw how she was doing, but the doctor says there should be no problem about leaving
on Tuesday. We go Swissair, since this is the only direct flight to Zurich, ex-
cept for the Greek airline. Probably, depending on your freedom, we ought to return
to Zurich on the 3rd and take the plane for New York on the 4th. But I will check
all this over the phone when I call from the Glockenhof.

Actually from our 6th floor room and balcony one has a splendid view of the
Parthenon and the Erechtheion, and although the sun has not shone since that first
afternoon, the Acropolis has its own beauty even in a drizzle. It has rained, or
almost rained, most of the time; but I have wandered the streets freely (this al-
ways fascinates me) both in the old city and the new. The two are not very far
from each other: this afternoon, having visited the museum on the Acropolis, I
wandered down thenorth side through thelanes of small houses grown halfway up the
side of the Acropolis, to the Roman Forum, the Library of Hadrian, some ancient
Byzantine churches, and on until before I knew it I was back at Constitution Square
and the Grande Bretagne ("HotBritan"). This morning having spent my hours at the
Temple of Hephaestos (Theseion) and the reconstructed Agora, I had hardly left the
Agora than I was in the midst of the old quarter again and thus within easy dis-
tance of the hotel.

Actually, making the best of circumstances, I have had an unusually free time
in which to see the museums at better than a skip. You will remember that both
the National Museum and that on the Acropolis were closed when we were here. I
have been able to give a full morning and afternoon to the former, to my immense
enjoyment. The Mycenaean gold work is unbelievable in its richness; the finest
of the sculptures are now displayed with wonderful effectiveness. The museum on
the Acropolis was well worth seeing, though in an overall sense not of course com-
parable to the National Museum. What struck me most was the polychrome on so
many of the marble statues; it is rather shocking to the modern taste--like seeing
a Gothic cathedral with its original high colors. And I liked the Agora and its
reconstructed stoa. This has been criticized; I cannot join in the chorus. The
new building gives definition to the other ruins as well as makes a fine museum
in itself, and the displays are carefully thought out: with ballots, blackballs,
and the fragments of marked clay used to ostracise men like Aristides and Themis-
tocles, weights, measures, household utensils. They were all flesh to the past.

Susan will have missed all this, and so have you. You both ought to see it.
Why don't we make it a spring vacation, when all of the almonds are in blossom?

All love,
Usmar

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

11 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

The moment of return from a trip, I have decided, is far more
arduous than the trip itself. And, like yourself, I wish we might have had
longer and Kenwin, with more of you and more of Elsie's good cooking and
good wine. The flight back however was an episode in itself and should have
been described to you with the intensity of first impression. As Elsie will
have told you, the original flight we were scheduled to take was cancelled
and the young man whom we consulted at the ticket desk gave us, after telephoning
the proper authorities, our first-class reservations for a flight which left at
1:50 rather than 12:50. He did however--being very young--forget to tell us
that the original plane had been cancelled, so it was only Elsie's experience
which made me go back to check and discover. We had a good laugh at his sage
warning to me to be more careful next time about overweight, and were grateful
that he charged me nothing. Having so much time to kill, and never having seen
anything of Geneva before, the car left us in mid-yown at a bookstore where I
bought the Corot I had been looking for, had it sent to Japan, and then went for
a cup of coffee and a cake to keep us going until lunch on the plane at 2. We
were back at the airport in good time, made our way through emigration and customs
and settled down in the waiting room. Ten minutes before the plane was due to
arrive, the loudspeaker announced that "Mr and Mrs Pearson are wanted at the
Transit Desk." Dutifully I reported, leaving Susan with the luggage. "May I see
your tickets?" I gave them. "There is a mistake; there is no room in first class
for you." "But here are our boarding cards!" "The man who gave them to you made
a mistake." "But he phoned, and I was guaranteed seats last Tuesday in Zurich."
"The first plane was cancelled because of fog. I told you he had made a mistake.
You can go tourist if you want, or wait over and go by a plane tomorrow." No
apologies, no offer to put us up overnight, no alternative. I became really angry.
I exploded. I talked violent English. My French was never more fluent. My German
flowed like lava. We finally settled in to argue in German. Not to have been told
about this before; to have actually been given first-class seats; not even to be
told that I could have a refund. They knew; they said we could not call you at
evev because you would have left already (and I never said Vevey to them, only
that I had been driven a long distance and that the car had returned.) It was
completely a like-it-or-lump-it attitude. All my spectacular fury amounted to
nothing; we had no place to stay in Geneva, and our other bags for the plane had
gone through, with what we thought was ten minutes to spare. So finally we said,
being expected on Wednesday at home, that we would go, but when we mounted the
plane an hour later at 3, when it actually left, I am afraid we were both pretty
sullen. It was not because of travelling tourist: I don't mind that, and do it
often. It was the way they handled the matter. Lunch was finally served (a snack,
that is) at 4; and we settled back for the trip. They were nice on board, and
since the Swissair office had simply stapled the tourist card on top of the original
1st class card, I wore it in my breast pocket pink-side out. Word must have been
passed, because the 1st-class steward once came back to us to say he was sorry and
to offer a free drink of whiskey. Susan read her Maine island book from Hilda's
shelf with pleasure, and I read through the Hong Kong book which is very good
indeed. It belongs in the same class with Monica's book on Denmark.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

The Swissair desk in Geneva was so unspecific about how to go about getting my rebate, except that I could apply for it in New York, that on my return to New Haven I left it up to my travel agent who will indeed see to it although he says it takes a month or two. When I told him the details, he told me to my surprise that he was not surprised. On board a Swissairliner, he said, everything is fine; it is one of the best. But at any of their offices, and especially in Switzerland it is the worst line to deal with; in fact it is the only line with which we have repeated trouble whether with individual cases or with groups. It is standard procedure even for tourist tickets under such circumstances for the airline to offer to put the passenger up at a first-class hotel while he waits; for a first-class passenger it is unthinkable. But what obviously happened is that some one came along, probably a Swiss, and they deliberately gave him or them the tickets already assigned to you. He asked if tourist was full, and when I said it was not (although 1st was), he said that other airlines using that particular type of plane would have extended the first class division back one row of seats and put first-class seats in place of the tourist. But not Swissair. No, he repeated, I am not surprised.

Of course all this was hardly a tragedy in retrospect, but at the moment I am not very much tempted to take Swissair the next time. You being Swiss are in a different category. And the food indeed was perfectly adequate, and the hostesses on board were very kind both to the many children and the adults. They did not answer bells when one called them, but one soon learned to go to them.

The plane kept to schedule, although it was the first jet flight I have made which was really rough, the plane bouncing and jouncing at times en route so that we had to fasten our seat belts willingly. We were two hours later than we had expected in New York, and arrived about 5:30, so I was glad we had in-structed people not to try to meet us in New York or New Haven. Susan had ex-pected us for supper, as you will know from her delayed card, but since we didn't arrive home until after 9, which was 3 a.m. for us, we simply declined by phone the note of invitation also at the house. Customs was a drawn-out affair, and it took us a halfhour of conversation with the inspector. But this was spent in whittling down by him of the actual values we had declared on one of my interminably long lists, so that in the end we had to pay very little and he opened only the one bag in which we had put all declarable articles.

Everything was fine at the house, and the only discordant note was one marked "TO BE READ FIRST" in which I learned of the death of my mother on February 7th. I had been cabled at the Ashoka in New Delhi, and written there too; but both must have arrived while we were on our motor trip, and although I had asked the Ashoka to save mail for my return, they had simply returned both. At least some two weeks later the cable was returned as undeliverable, and presumably the letter will eventually be returned to my brother. She had been unconscious for a month, but her heart ticked along as my father's did with a kind of Yankee stubbornness at giving up the ghost. Once it was known that I did not know, we were already within a fortnight of getting back, and they decided nothing was to be gained at this point by telling us. I think they were right. There was a wonderful relationship between my mother and myself, but I could not want her to live and it had been agreed before I left that in case of her death I should not try to return for the funeral. I am glad too, for the sake of my brother and my

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

sister that they no longer have the burden of watching over her. For five years they have visited her several times a week (at least my brother did; my sister somewhat less often) and it must have been constantly disheartening. My brother left on Saturday for Florida for a fortnight's rest, but before he went there were a number of papers waiting for me to sign (since he and I are the executors), and this is one reason why things have been confused. You will forgive me, I know. I shall go to Gardner when he has returned, to go over a few things there; but I shall probably not get that way very often in the future. One does feel the lines cut.

Things seem to going smoothly with the Addisses, and the grandchildren were of course delighted to see us. Susan talked with her mother in Florida by phone, and Mrs Bennett seems to be full of energy and good spirits. Perhaps Susan will want to go down to see her after the 11th when her mother returns to her own Florida home after visiting her own sister who is also there in the north of the State. As for Lizzie, there was a rather agonizing conversation on the telephone the night of our return (with much emotion but no hostility) and the next afternoon we spent at her psychiatrist's in the first of what is apparently to be a long series of conversations with him and her and her nurse together, and then after she had left for a long conversation with him. She is in pretty bad shape, but he understands her better than anyone I have talked with about her before. But I leave all this for later letters, when I know more.

The cellar at the house was piled high with bundles--there must have been forty or more--and great cartons full of accumulated mail. The boxes have been mostly unpacked, and I am nightly going through the cartons, throwing away madly but always coming across this and that which needs attention. Many bundles are still to arrive; the process of resettlement will be a long one.

One of the pleasant tidbits to relish since my return was when I picked up an advance copy of last Sunday's Herald Tribune, to see that Horace had been elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. You will remember my telling you about this, and how, after several years of trying to goad them into doing it, I feared that it would never come to pass. Yet Dudley Fitts, at my suggestion, willingly tried again; and I cornered Cowley for one last attempt. I spoke to Horace on the phone Sunday noon and congratulated him on his election. Despite their previous protestations of scorn (which psychologically never fooled me), he did really seem awfully pleased. "I saw no harm," he said, "in accepting it," and I said that I didn't either. He was in fine fettle. The publication of his *Ovid* is postponed until June, I believe, perhaps because *Mademoiselle* is printing an excerpt on hairdressing in one of their next numbers. Actually his *Collected Poems* will appear before the other does. Now he is at work on a volume of selected poems of Longfellow, in which he wants to use my article as an afterword. This is very generous of him, for it was obscurely published and is not very widely known. He speaks of the Dorothy Richardson, but I think this must be some time distant. However, *Knopf* is reprinting *Pointed Roofs* which will help to call attention to her. I shall try to go down to see them as soon as I can.

But there is so much to do. Especially Hansen's dissertation, the last sections of which I shall have to edit and check myself since no one else can. Having gone so far, I can't back out yet. But he still has sections which he hasn't returned and is making longer rather than shorter. I cabled him to disgorge at once.

4

Your own letters have been a joy in terms of contact, although the fact
of your flu has made us disconsolate at so unhappy a gift to you and to Elsie.
As to the mackintosh, it was stupid of me -- but I was thinking of you and so
many other things, and it must have looked so naturally on its hook at Kenwin,
that I completely overlooked it until the very moment in the waiting room at
Geneva when we gathered our luggage together to board the plane. I did buy at
least a summer raincoat, after braving the torrents for two days in my best blue
topcoat. It has been both cold and rainy, and last night there were drops enough
of snow to give a white coating to the earth. Today it has gone.

As for the typewriter, you are forgiven if you do not try to use it until
after you have finished your novel. And of course I forgive you anything, but
I do hope you will be amused enough to want to keep it. Unlike the television
it can be yours alone, or shared as you like. The delay in its delivery wasn't
really subterfuge, it couldn't have come any sooner anyhow. As it is, you may
want to have some keys changed if you keep it as I hope you will. Now that no
one flies small private planes, one can at least be 20th-century and pound an
electric typewriter.

Thank you for your two letters after that of the 6 th, and for the card from
Susan which arrived today. But those two letters, snuffly ones naturally, are
in my brief case, and it is time to go home from the office to dinner.

We do miss being with Elsie and yourself, and Susan joins me in love to you
both. She coughs a little less, but still does not feel very well.

And I send you, as always,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

14 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

How the boys wished that you could have been with us yesterday for lunch. And so did I. As always the conversation was gay, and as always the food was good. I arrived at the Buckingham at one, and Islay had prepared a splendid lunch for us: raw clams, lamb chops, and then superb fresh straw berries for desert. I left a little after three. Both seemed to be in excellent form, in spirits and in health. In fact I have seldom seen Kenneth looking better, and I should certainly not have guessed that Islay was anything but fit except for the fact that his treatments still continue. Nothing very important was said, but there was a sparkle in everything the boys remarked. I asked about Anticoli, and I gather they have no intention really of giving it up, but rather dream of a little place by the sea for Kenneth's satisfaction anyhow. Only of course it is expensive, and they use Anticoli, I should think, a little less. Kenneth has finished the draft of his second novel, and his American publishers are expecting a good market for the first when it comes out next September. (Incidentally, you apparently did not order a copy for me and perhaps it is silly not to wait until fall for the American edition here. Unless for the Macpherson Collection. K spoke nothing about sending a copy and suppose he won't.) They were most anxious to know what your reaction had been to the Turkish trip, and I said you were enthusiastic. They knew about the possibility of Greenland, but I said I had no idea whether this would interfere or not. Their suite had been painted since their last visit and really looked very well. And it is cheap, I must say. $590 a month for the two bedrooms, large sitting room, and kitchen. I think they cook most of their own meals except when partying. They begged for a visit from us both in Rome if we did Greenland.

I really made the trip to see them, but did stop in at one book dealer to chivvy him a little about getting the evaluation done on my gifts to the Yale Library last year. My income tax will have to be filed next month, and I cannot wait until the last minute to learn my deductions. Then I went to another dealer, about to stage an auction in which there are two Hawthorne letters offered. I put in a minimal bid on both, and got his permission to pass on a letter to the successful purchaser if I lost (as indeed I inevitably must, my bids being what they were.) One of the letters is trivial; the other is one of the half-dozen best in existence, I should think. At least it is from my point of biographical view.

The mail has brought a letter from Horace, which I enclose as its own best proof of his good spirits; and also one from Pup (having heard from Islay) to welcome us back. She reports that Valentine has been accepted at Choate (his and their first choice), although they are not supposed to know yet, the news being smuggled to them by a friend. Choate is an excellent school, and I am delighted.

My own life will be involved for the next few days while I edit the conclusion to Hansen's dissertation before sending all of it to the typist. Most has already been typed, but I shall have to proofread it. I had waited a few days to get back the 30 pages that had been sent him to compress. This has been returned, and like Thomas Wolfe under similar circumstances he has expanded the 30 pages to 80. Individual chapters have as many as 1500 footnotes to each chapter, and one job has been to cut these down. I am in it too deeply (having to pay for all this as well) for me to back out at this late stage; but I must say I had not expected to use my leave

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

to earn a doctorate for a student. I am afraid the whole tale is rather a sad one, although everyone assures me that the substance of the thesis is sound enough to warrant the degree. Most of the difficulty comes from the disadvantage of distance.

The boys were much amused, and proper! outraged at my story of the Swissair adventure -- as I hope you were, at least amused. I do feel it needs an affidavit and so enclose one of the boarding cards as I eventually carried them on to the plane. Personally, as airline agent, I should have been embarrassed enough to destroy the original first class assignment, rather than simply to staple the tourist class one on top.

I was most grateful to have the Clement Shorter copy of *Amy Lowell* by you, and am looking forward to reading *The Custom House* which was waiting for me here. There was also a copy of *Two Selves* sent by Chester Page at your suggestion (I shall write to thank him), and a copy of Hilda's Iphigenia chooses marked by you as having formerly belonged to Aldington. Did this come from Eatha too? Monday I shall mail you the memoirs of Miss Hill and a copy of the first of my books published in Japan. I will need to take them to the postoffice to be sure the weight is correct.

The weekend will have to be dedicated to Hansen, so I shall be in the office on a Sunday despite my holiday. But I can work better when no one is around.

I do hope your flu is better.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

16 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 13th was in this afternoon's mail, and I hope
you know how sorry I am that so long a time elapsed before my first letter to
Kenwin. But at least one should have reached you by now, and I hope the future
will be less barren--which is another way of saying that I hope my present will
be increasingly relaxed. Fortunately, having spent yesterday on Hansen's "cpmclusion"
to his dissertation I could hand that over today to the graduate student who is
agreeably willing (despite a sacrifice on his part) to check the notes. I will have
to proofread the dissertation once it is back from the typist, and see that it is
bound up for submission. But long before that I hope I can slip away to the library
and begin my own work.

I was wonderfully happy that the Brigadier will have his trip to Japan, and would like nothing better that to fly like a seagull to join his boat. As for the trip to Greenland, I am amused by the idea of Narssaq as a rest home --it seemed even uglier the second time I saw it, and still has no hotel (I think). But would you like to go then, to see the ruins, or do you prefer the Turkish trip with the boys?

I shall write Urzidel to tell him my congratulations on his prize.
This is very good news indeed. And pleased that Rosemary is interested in the
hospital project. She should be an invaluable asset.

Do keep me in touch about Doris.

I was much interested in your comments about *A Thousand Miles Up the Nile*, and certainly it should be preserved. But why not let it be with the Henty books and cross-referenced to Hilda? I think of it in terms of you both, which is exactly the way it should be. Actually I had been thinking a good deal about Hilda today, for among the treasures that awaited my return was a box from Gretchen Baker with some 20 or more letters from Hilda to her, written during the war and from the 1930's on, filled with cues to the past which were nostalgic to me as they would be to you of course. Hilda talked much about her family and about Bethlehem which made them especially interesting. I stole time off to read them so that I can thank Mrs Baker at once. If you should ever write her, do mention my pleasure and gratitude. I keep forgetting, but there is always the possibility of flying to Nova Scotia to see her on one of your trips here. Hilda was obviously fond of her, or so it seems.

Making another little foray into my accumulation of mail in the cellar at Goodrich Street, I found the copy of the English edition of *Artemis* which you had so kindly sent with its inscription. I make my woofs! And I have found, too, the copy of *The Scillonian* with its comments on Nor-Nour and its article by Hilda Quick. I don't think I've seen this magazine before, and with its articles and advertisements too it is really like a guide book. One becomes eager to return, if only Doris's health grows better.

Suddenly I see your Marryat quotation, which is extraordinary.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

I forgot to write you in my last that a letter from Pantheon Books told me that---
oh dear! I see Mrs Dingle has the letter, and has now gone home. The business
detail I will leave then until tomorrow when I can reclaim it. But the publisher
went on to say: "I mentioned the Bryher books and the Ghandaran Art to a great
many people while I was in Europe and that the books were prominently displayed at
the Frankfurt Book Fair. We have gotten a great many nibbles, including some from
Sweden on Bryher, but so far nothing has come through. But I do feel we are cover-
ing every possibility." By chance I saw Schiffrin on Saturday at the Co-op, and
when I mentioned your particular interest in a French translation he said that
they had had one rejection there but that another publisher had inquired and he
had sent a set of the books to him. They have only now, at long last, gotten a
French publisher for one of Renault's, but not Duggan. I know he will work at
it.

Susan has been busy looking for a station wagon to suit her, and I believe
was to go to look at two final possibilities today. There is the problem of
length, so that it will fit the garage (alas, they make them longer and longer but
always with diminished storage capacity). But they take a long time to be delivered
when ordered, so she is anxious to get at it. She had been rushed thinking she
would go to Florida to visit her mother. Now she discovers a sister and her daughter
and daughter's friend are to go on Sunday for a fortnight, and I doubt that Susan
will try to go down at all. Mrs Bennet returns on April 16th, and it really doesn't
make much sense, Susan feels, to pay all the expense to see her mother a week before
she returns. Fortunately Susan seems much better, as I hope both you and Elsie are.

All love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

I begin this now in the morning, but will not mail until later
in the day in case there should be a letter from you. Yesterday I wrote rather
in a hurry, and pick up now from where I left off.

I have finished reading the 49 letters from Hilda to Gretchen
Baker, all most interesting and occasionally having no statements about her
childhood, about Hedgehog and the war trilogy, and even about the tapestry on
which she was working during the war and which we now have at Goodrich Street.
"I should really be knitting," she wrote, "but feel I am keeping alive something
of the old beauty." Isn't that in a way an epttome of Hilda's life, and what
she did do with all of it. There was much of her questioning about ancestors
and Bethlehem, and she speaks frequently of her inquiries to Clifford Howard
who is now, I believe dead. Or is he the husband in California. I wonder whether
I should ask to borrow those letters, and have them copied before returning them.
There is no reason why they should give them up, but they might contain something
of importance for me to know. What do you think?

Mrs Dingle now being here I have dug out the letter from Pantheon,
which summarized your royalties for the six-month period ending Sept 30th, together
with the invoice for the manufacturing cost on the reprint of October and Roman
Wall. "The royalties amount to $1203.38 and the manufacturing cost amounts to
$2076.52 or a difference of $873.14 due us. This is in accordance with your letter
of November 15, 1962." I wrote asking whether the amount due could not be charged
against subsequent royalties, and they have agreed. I hope you agree too. This
saves an infinite amount of bookkeeping on my income tax, since I would otherwise
have to pay for the royalties, and then pro-rate the costs over a period of years.

(I have just now written Mrs Baker to thank her at length, so do not
worry about that.) A letter in this morning's mail is from Romaine Brooks, as eager
as an 18-year oldster. I do like her spirit, and will try to get at her ms soon. I
need of course to re-read the earlier section. Meanwhile I am struggling with
Hansen's dissertation, although fortunately (and out of sheer good will) the
graduate student who has been helping has agreed to check the footnotes for the
conclusion which I edited on Sunday. I shall have to proofread the entire batch,
but I somewhat panicked about spending my leave getting a degree for him. Things
begin to settle down, and I refuse invitations to lecture, and do my best to dodge
Yale's evident eagerness to forget the leave and put me to work on committees. The
International House is in trouble with their director, and I gather I am to be asked
to help select another. But I must be firm about this sort of thing.

In thinking over the news about Greenland and Narrsaq, I wonder if one
couldn't fly out and stay at the airport hotel while the others went to their rest
cure. Erik's house is just across the bay, and the cathedral only a little way down.
in the neighborhood is a great cluster of different farms to which one could walk
or be taken with the help of the maps I have. This would mean we could do our
exploring and note-taking alone, which would be even better during a shortish period.
I am positive that I could hire a small boat to take us about.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

At this stage the letter was indeed interrupted, and the day has continued
to be so by a stream of visitors: Paul Horgan, the novelist; a Pakistani professor
who wants to write on Hawthorne; the secretary who is typing Hansen's dissertation;
letters like that from Aarhus asking whether the dissertation will be accepted
so they can give him a new appointment (I am no crystal-ball gazer), and the like.
But best of all!!!!, really the only good thing in all, was your letter of the
14th which arrived this afternoon.

Although indeed you did not see my mother often, she heard always of you
from me, admired you and admired your books. She would have said "my friend,
Bryher" and meant just that.

Indeed I do remember your rescue of the British dame in distress; wasn't
it after the death of her friend when she found herself short of money? No wonder
she continued to write you. I remember you found her intelligent.

I am still a little puzzled as to why Narrsaq, unless one is put up under
the counter in the new supermarket. Yes, it might be a little cold in early June,
but a bit of extra ice might make it exciting. I still however think that if one
got out there by plane, the most rewarding section for four or five days would be
the Eric area around the airport. And at least there will be a stove in the hostel,
and I might persuade you even to take a nip of brandy. I suspect there will be
more definition available.

I have not added much by the wait until this afternoon, but I still have
to add

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

19 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

I have spent my day dutifully at the typewriter, working at the
sort of "brief" acknowledgement of letters and goodies accumulated during my
six months which actually can be brief when done now, but require real length
if postponed. Since I have written 22 thus far in the day, you can see some
advantages in an electric typewriter. I hope eventually it may prove a little
of a boon to you. But, quite seriously, I meant to say that I did not expect
you to begin with it until at least you had finished your draft of the novel,
and perhaps you will even want to wait until it is done. Only I could not have
waited until then to ensnare you, since I had to make my operations while I was
in Switzerland and had Coigny as a more-than-willing fellow conspirator. When
you came upon us at her office, she was phoning to ask the cost. When I slipped
away from table when she joined us for coffee, it was to write a check for the
amount she had written on the slip of paper she handed me. I think we both felt
smugly pleased at ourselves, so you must not ruin our arrogance forever.

The little Hesse book and the Urzidel "Edison und KafKA' arrived
safely today, and will be duly treasured. Also your letter of the 16th. You
are a good general and scrapper! I had not meant to whet your appetite for
combat, but I should not be sorry if Swissair realised how upsetting such a
situation can be.

I am glad if at least a very little bit of spring has come to
Kenwin. We have had flurries of snow and sub-zero weather, colder than anything
we have met with for over a year. Susan fortunately seems to be completely over
her flu, and of course there is nothing to tempt her out of doors just now. Whöch
is just as well. Last evening we went to the vernissage of a new exhibition at
the Art Gallery, and tonight come back to the university to hear a lecture on
Martial's epigrams by my friend Dudley Fitts who teaches at Andover. I should not
normally go, but since he long ago told me he wanted to dedicate his Martial
translations to me I cannot really stay away. But otherwise we spend as much time
as possible going over slides on the screen. It is great fun to see them projected
so large, and of course we had time for only a few at Kenwin.

One of my letters was to Chester Page to thank him for the copy of
*Two Selves* with your signature in it.

I must fly now to a meeting. I shall not be trapped but this is to
judge a three year fellowship for one of our assistant professors in American
Studies to study Chinese. He did his dissertation under me on ſenollosa, so I have
to be there.

22 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

Having done my daily stint of fifteen letters, against the huge
indebtedness of six months accumulation of mail, I can sit down to write to
you. I have been trying very hard to clear away my correspondence, sin ce
if I write now I can confine myself to notes instead of lengthy descriptions
of their problems or my travels. I need too to go through my filing cabinets
to discover where things were stored, -- or, as I alarmingly find, strangely
filed by Mrs D in the past. I certainly don't blame her; the order of filing
cabinets should be an organic representation of the owner's mind, and mine
is too blurred and confused for anyone without a crystal ball. I must hurry
also to get my income tax in order, or at least to petition for a delay in
filing. Fortunately all this must be do e within the next fortnight, for the
office I am using (not my own; my substitute is using that) must be given up
to the director of undergraduate studies who will be interviewing applicants
for the major. Then at last I will go the library and begin my real work.

We go along, trying to put the slides in order during the evenings,
as we separate the wheat from the chaff and attempt to decide which of the
too many good grains of wheat we should select. But is fun of course, and we
relive a portion of the trip each night. I am sorry I could not have shown
you the views of the Acropolis, which came out much better than I had expected
them too, and made really worthwhile my efforts to take views that were not the
ordinary ones. Those of Ephasus too were interesting, and I hope will be good
enough to tempt you to go there some time. They are not exceptional, but they
tease.

The copies of McALmon's book and the Dowding have arrived, for which
my thanks. I thought the time en route remarkably short, all things considered.
Yesterday I bought a copy of *Understanding Today's Mathematics* for you, forgetting
that you had an account and so please to accept it as a gift from me. It seems
to have sold remarkably well, but since it is a little expensive and very special
I thought you had better look at it first and then tell me whether you want copies
sent to any of your friends in England. I fear I shall not have time to try to
comprehend it myself. I will mail it on Tuesday when Mrs D comes back to work again.
With it, if Susan has finished it, is a remarkable article on Philby from a recent
*Saturday Evening Post* which I saw yesterday in the Barber Shop and with which I
absconded, albeit with the owner's permission. It says more than I have read
elsewhere, and seems sound except in terms of the possibility that the British did
indeed consider him as a double agent, who then tripled. The author does not
really understand how devious the intelligence-agency-mind can become, when it
operates like an old woman at a gambling table. What I particularly had not known
was that Philby's first wife was a well-known Polish communist, and altho they
blitheley say that Kim told all when he enlisted in the British service, my memory'
still smarts when I recall how severe the British were towards us when a possible
recruit had an uncle in occupied territory. Send it back some time for my files,
when you are making up a package. It is worth saving. I suspect, by the way, that
an agile mind might have some suspicions about the total purity of Graham Greene's
past.

Among the various notes I find left for me during my absence, is one from
Mrs D saying that she sent off Gladys's manuscript to you. I hope it arrived

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

safely. A letter from Vincent Quinn, who is writing a book on Hilda, says that he has finished chapters on *Collected Poems*, *Red Roses for Bronze*, the three novels, and an introductory chapter. I am not sure how distinguished the result will be, but at least it is not a dissertation. A royalty statement from Harcourt, for the six months ending June 30, 1963, says that 3,368 copies of *Carthage* were sold (which I think not bad at all), plus 12 copies less 28 returns of *Artemis*. The total net was $1,447.39. Unfortunately this would have automatically been deposited to my checking account along with all other receipts, but once things settle down I will transfer the amount to the savings account. At this precise moment, Lizzie's expenses (doctors, nurses, rent, and liquor) are sufficient to make me want to be sure I am in the black. Actually I have only just gotten the many statements from the bank which handled our accounts during our absence, and so am not sure where I stand.

I think I told you that Jean Untermeyer had wanted desperately to borrow some of George's illustrations to Shakespeare's sonnets, just before I left, and was sure her death was imminent enough so that it would be too late on my return. I arranged for them to go from the library, rather against rules for manuscripts, but she has returned them safely and I have written to thank her,

The weather keeps mostly cold, with an occasional very light flurry of snow. But we have missed the storms that have come nearby, and once in a while the air smells like spring. I hope it will reek with it soon.

All love,

Norman

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

23 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

This has been a day of no particular accomplishment, except
for getting a new ribbon put in my typewriter and having the pleasure of
your letter of the 19th.

Good heavens! I thought we surely must have had all of the
photographs we took, and now you say that others have just come in. I
suspect there must have been some slip up and that they were mislaid at
the developer's. I shall be curious and eager to see what they are. Poor
Susan will be discouraged. She has spent most of her afternoons sorting
what we already have, so that we can run them off at night.

I am much interested by the ad for Rita's China tour. She is
quick on it and will probably make a smashing success. I must admit that
I should be curious to go there, but I don't think under her particular
auspices.

Your own experience with Swissair makes an interesting gloss
on my own, and rather confirms the impression of disorder in their manage-
ment. I shall be curious to know if the man from Nestle's accomplishes
anything. But let me repeat: there is no reason on earth why you or
anyone should not travel Swissair. The only thing is to check and double-
check. My travel agent here did say that once aloft, the service is
excellent. And they have excellent pilots.

You are in a pickle of travel alternatives: with the States,
Turkey and Greenland to choose among. The decision is obviously one you
will have to make for yourself. So far as the Greenland season is concerned,
however, this would be well into their spring, and the chance to see flowers
and the like would be an unusual one. If, as I suggested, we simply stop
at the airport hotel and go out from there, the question of warmth even at
night would not be a serious one. And if it is in season for flowers and
icebergs, it would be gloriously out of season for trippers. The question
might well be whether this is a good experience to tuck away before your
next birthday, because if you should ever want to do a novel with this
background, or go into it eventually in your memoirs, I think you really
must plan to see Brattahlid. Incidentally, I wrote yesterday to Meldgaard
to see what the situation visavis Brattahlid now is.

A letter from Jean Untermeyer in today's mail thanks for my letter.
"My winter," she writes, "was a succession of calamities, and now my eyes are
giving trouble. The Bible says to persist, & so I do. Perhaps in time I shall
achieve such normality as one can expect when one nears one's 78th birthday.
At all events, look for 'Private Collection' (a Memoir) Knopf either next fall
or winter." I really am glad the book is at last to be published. I wonder if
Pat will like it better. Your judgment on the Bowen sounds sound.

In looking over last Fall's book announcements, I see an advertisement
for Britannia: The Roman Conquest and Occupation of Britain," by one Col. George
Patrick Welch, (ret.) published by Wesleyan University Press. Are you interested,
or will you wait to take a look at it when you come over in the fall.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 21st was in this morning's mail, and I at least begin to answer it also in the morning, having several rather stupid little questions to ask you (the asking of which will let me put the reminders back in the files.)

I am really delighted that the Goughs liked the States. I am sure they were never anti-American, but over and over again I find a kind of surprise on the part of British scholars at the truly serious atmosphere of American research and resources. A certain condescension towards the American academic world is probably inevitable; the curious thing, however, is the lingering belief that America is really still a home for barbarians. But there actually are true scholars here, as well as respect for scholarship and research along with the means for helping it. And none of this is any longer done with the aim of "catching up" or demonstrating that Americans have a cultural stability. Scholarly research is simply felt to be a necessary and valuable contribution. I say that many British instinctively feel this way; what is wonderfully good however is the readiness with which they are willing to alter their presuppositions after actually visiting the States. And I suspect you are right in thinking that it is largely the American intellectual climate of opinion which is responsible for the "brain drain" both in the humanities and the sciences.

I am rather glad that Mary did not lecture, and so was free to her enjoy her husband's success and share in his experiences. If they should come again, perhaps for a year's fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks or elsewhere, then we could certainly arrange a life of her own for her.

Your letter of the 21st was here yesterday, but having had a more than full day I did not try to answer it separately. Oddly enough I had just come across the issue of PMLA with Miss Glitken's article on D.R. in it, and had put aside in order to rip the article out to post to you. Now I will simply files it with her (D.R.'s) material in my own files. This material really has to do only with business matters and biography; the real things were long since turned over to the Library. Actually, my own copies of books about D.R. have been turned over to Horace (altho I doubt that he has time to read them), and probably I should let him see this too. In fact, I shall!

Of course I understand about the *Scillonian*; they should stay with Doris's collection. One can see later what should be done about that. Perhaps, if St Mary's ever does have anything like a permanent museum, then one might buy the collection from Dean as a nucleus for the museum's library.

To return to Greenland briefly: the decision should be your own. I should love to pop over and go with you, however, if you decide to make it. We could meet in Denmark, and perhaps spend a week after the trip in going to Norway and Sweden if you want to.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Yesterday proved to be rather hectic, though not exhaustingly so. The morning I spent beginning to go through the filing cabinets in what is normally my office (my substitute uses it this year), since both he and Mrs Dingle were away. I fear that some of the material is rather haphazardly filed, though this is certainly understandable enough. The large correspondence from Martinelli was simply shoved in envelopes and all, being maybe a little strong stuff for the Mrs Dingles of this world. I put that in order, and made separate folders for the autograph material (including Fenn, Henty, and Ballantyne) which had been bunched all together. -- By the way, I had a letter of quotations from Brimmell which was waiting for me; and ordered all of it, since they were all new to the collection, including one brief letter (ms.) from Henty to his mysterious secretary. I told Brimmell I was trying to search out the heirs for the secretary, and wondered if his source for the letter might be of any help. I have of course not yet heard. There was a good deal of confusion in the filing of Hilda's mss., and among your own I invariably found *Sikelia* under S, and *Carthage* under C. The contract for *Artemis* was filed under its original title of *An Alphabet of Letters*. And so it went, as I searched out the material I myself had simply shoved into empty spaces when I cleared my desk. For I need many of these things now when I must prepare my income tax.

Among the papers I found the galley sheets for the pamphlet on *Borderline*. I am right, am I not, in ascribing the authorship of the pamphlet to Hilda? There were also two small linen-bound notebooks, marked "K", with drawings of archaeological and ethnographic things in it. I had not properly identified these, but my memory tells me that they were your father's. If you can't recall them from my description, I can hold them for you to see when you next come. Incidentally, the corrections on the galleys of *Borderline* seem almost certainly to be in Hilda's hand.

Yesterday's mail brought also, Hilda's copy of Crow's presentation to her of a copy of *Proteus* and the Zodiac book of Modern verse with her poem in it.

The afternoon was filled with other duties than those of the files. A little after one p.m., I went to the customs, having at last received a clearance from the shipping agent, to clear two large boxes of Japanese vases that I had bought for Susan's arrangements, or rather one box I had bought and another which had been given her by professor Nakanishi. The customs people could not have been kinder, but it was nearly three before we finished; and when I had taken the things (happily unbroken) to Goodrich Street, it was time for my annual physical exam which went on until five. After such tests as he could check on himself, the doctor thought I was in excellent shape; and he will call me after the x-rays have been returned, and the various laboratory tests on blood and the like. Then at five, came a young professor from the University of Rochester (who used to teach at Yale) who wanted me (a) to go over his proposed table-of-contents of a book on poetry in England from 1880 to 1920, and (b) get permission to go over Hilda's correspondence and unpublished mss. I did what I could for him with (a), and told him that (b) was impossible. He had been to see Aurelia last spring and reported more at length on what she had told him about Hodgson's papers. He said she reported flatly that Rafe wanted them to go to Yale. I said I had understood that, but there was no sense of quid-pro-quo in the help that had been given him. So that whereas she had told me at the 90th birthday that Hodgson had made out his will for Yale, he had not, and I had not raised the

concluding scene or its organic relationship to the novel as a whole and its particular appeal. I know these
are reasons for some people's liking it less than the other books, but I do know also that it indeed has
some of your best writing in it.

All love,
Norman

3
NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON
231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN · CONN

question after his death. Townsend said she had told him that the will read
that he wished the ultimate disposition to be in Yale's favor, which is
reasonable enough. I still stick, however, by my advice to Aurelia not to
sell or give over title to them, but if she wished them in a safe place then
simply to deposit them, keeping for herself the psychological assurance of
security in case circumstances were ever such that she really needed financial
help. In any case I am sure that many of Hodgson's carefully saved collections
of the books of particular authors might well be sold for her benefit. Hodgson
had wrapped them and never read them, and obviously looked on them as he did
less wisely) with his multiple editions of Shelley, as a collector's shrewdness.

3:30 p.m.

Your letter of the 2nd was in this afternoon's mail, and not having
posted this morning's letter I acknowledge it too in this same emissive. I
ought to get either to the files or copy-read Hansen's dissertation, but
both bore me. As to Hansen, it is simply the feeling on my part that having
gone so far I must go on with it. I had a letter from his chairman at Aarhus
asking about its likelihood of success, which I answered, and to which in
turn I have just had an answer from her in which she says he has gone to
sacrifices in order to finish it. Well, so have I--but that's another matter.

I'm rather glad that I wrote the last page about the Goughs before this
afternoon's letter came, for at least it gives me an in-between agreement
with you. As for the possibility of a job, I suppose it depends on the right
opening. I shall keep my ears open, try to keep Ingholt's open too, and will
try to do my best. And of course it is perfectly au fait for him to mention
some time in a letter to Bumbarton Oaks (the headquarters for this sort of
thing) that he would be interested in a position if the right one came along.

Many thanks for writing Hildegarde about the possibility of Hilda's letters.
I simply want to put as much in order as possible. I was called from the library
today on behalf of someone writing a critical study of Aldington, to ask if there
were letters extant between him and Hilda. I saw no reason for lying. I said
simply that there were, that I owned them, and that for the foreseeable future
they were not available for consultation. Of course if someone were doing an
official biography, and Catha wished me to, I should feel it a different matter.
I hope I did right. You must advise me.

As for Greenland, again, I doubt that we could do either than (a) fly out and
immediately back by return flight, or (b) if, as I think, the plane stays over,
last out the nine days. (a) would really be foolish, for we could see nothing
if the plane did not stay. (b) would be the sensible plan, especially if we
could hole in at the airport and make our own trips out from there. One really
ought to be able to have ample time to sit and look, to walk and look, to resit
and rewalk. This is the percious privilege of travel.

You speak about Pantheon and Gate and Sands. Gate is among your very best
work, and Sands contains some of your very best writing. But Gate is perhaps
a jewel reserved for the very discriminating. As for Sands, some people seem
to feel that the two parts do not perfectly cohere, and the second part distracts
from the first. I don't think they get the idea of what you were after by the
contrast, and I know that many people don't understand what you meant by the

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

It drizzles outside my window, and I find the weather de-
pressing. Nevertheless I stick at my typewriter and send off missives
to Japan and Germany and various parts of the States. An oldish professor
from NYU has just written me, sending an offprint of an article by him
"because I have always admired your deracination." I must say I had
never occurred to myself in just that particular violet light!

There is not much to report. We worked again at slides last
might, after unpacking a painting that had just arrived from Japan and
hanging over the desk in the study in place of the Bracque. It makes a
nice change in the best Japanese fashion of changing pictures. We slow
down a little in our enthusiasm for the photographs, but at least I am
much more selective than I ever was in chosing amongst icebergs, and
actually throw away the inferior ones rather than save them for an inde-
terminate posterity. If we do get back to Brattahlid and the cathedral
so that I can take some decent pictures to replace the foggy exposures
of my previous visit, I can do some more wedding out.

Today's mail brought a letter of the 21st from Consie thanking
me for Gladys's mss of her book, saying it had arrived yesterday. I am
glad all is in order.

A letter from a Patrick Garland, on the MONITOR Programme of
BBC, reads: "This year at Stratford-on-Avon the Shakespeare Birthplace
Trust is going to publish a large souvenir brochure concerning the events
of the Shakespeare Quatercentenary. I have been asked, as Director of the
Stratford-on-Avon Poetry Festival, to contribute an article on the poetry
we read there. I would like very much to quote in my article from The Tempest
by H.D. (from "By Avon River"). The Trustees of Shakespeare's Birthplace
will pay whatever is due by way of royalties, but Mr. White tells me that I
should ask your permission first."

There is no reason why he should not have permission, and my
first reaction (since he rather carelessly did not say how much he wanted to
quote) was to tell him to let Authors fix the fee as they have done for me
before. But then it seemed to me it would please Hilda to be included, and
the Birthplace Trust obviously putting whatever they earn to good ends, I
told him to consider the fee as a gift from her, or from me in her name. I
hope you approve.

I shall go back to my six months pile of mail.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 March 1964

Dearest Fido,

Well, I have done my 20 letters for today, and so now
indluge myself with the pleasure of a note to you. Yours of the 24th
was in this morning's mail, and I blush to think of all the trouble
I have unwittingly put you and M. Benay to because of l'affaire Swissair.
And I especially weep to think that copying my letter took you from
the novel.

I do expect to have to be in Boston one of these days, and
if I do I shall certainly call on the I.A.Richards. I remember once
when he wrote me a very kind invitation to come to them, after I returned
a watch he had had repaired in Switzerland or London (I forget which).

No hurry certainly about ordering Kenneth's book, and no
necessity to do so at all. I can wait for the American edition. But
since I shall probably pop in to see Perdita after they come back from
Florida I can ask whether hers came, and clarify by that.

You are absolutely right of course that British lecturers,
any ones really, should take their audiences seriously even in America.
Often, to be popular (or to try to be) only end up in condescension.

In doing a little period of further tidying on my files this
morning I came on a filed but unmarked group of letters to you from Hilda,
which go now in their proper place. They were from Berlin, and rather
gay but not indiscreet. About a Mrs Williams. Who was she? There was
also several pages of notes she had taken of the conversation she had had
with Dorothy and Alan Odle at Chateau Riant. I will re-read these tonight
at home; it might be useful to Horace.

Last night we had the Otis Careys for dinner. He was the
professor at Doshisha in whose care the early letters there were sent. He
had a year's leave of absence, and they are living around the corner. It
was very pleasant, and they liked what we had bought (at least what we
showed them), but for a while we wondered if the dinner would ever take
place. For Susan had invited them for 6:45 and they arrived at 8:00,
saying they weren't certain whether Susan had said 8 or 7:45. Fortunately
we had decided to wait, and the dinner was one which made waiting possible.
But meanwhile I feared lest all of Susan's fine care in preparation might
go for naught. Tonight we shall probably do photographs again, although'
Susan is getting a little weary of getting them ready during the day.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

29 March 1964

(Easter Sunday)

Dearest Fido,

I am back at the office for a little, after a family
dinner at the Lawn Club. All Addises were there, and Lizzie as
well. We find the latter not going out at all, and naturally having
almost no friends, so we are trying to tempt her into outside engage-
ments like this. Usually she backs out at the last minute, using
a bad back or flu or something else to cover up; and altho we had
asked her to go to church with us (her idea is that we do not want
to be seen with her), and she would not do that, we were pleased that
she was willing to face the large dining room at the Club. Actually
it was very pleasant.

Yesterday was another full office day--one of those
glorious occasions when no one comes in. I spent most of the morning
reading Hilda's letters to Aldington, and then putting them in folders
for the filing cabinet. They do not say much that you and I do not
already know, for they are mostly filled with her life at the Cecil
or especially at Brunner's. But for another generation this will be
invaluable. Obviously it meant a good deal to her to have this
reconciliation with R.A., and it gave her a little pleasure to be
on the helping side toward him financially. But she liked the
geographical distance between them too. Once in a while she comments
on what she is writing, and I made a few notes on that. I put her
letters to Gretchen Baker away too; so that her things are in pretty
good shape now. But I see there is an immense amount of early prose
(mostly from the files at Kenwin) that I shall have to read, before
we can discuss what can be done with it in the way of publication.

In going over the last of the six months mail I find a
letter from Rose Odle wonderfully enthusiastic about her visit with
the Gregories, and apparently pleased with the way Horace put bits
and pieces together with the right questions about D.R. They seem
to have seen to it that she met people in New York, and Pat took
infinite pains in arranging things for her to visit and do. He read
her ms, as she says, "professionally," and says he is sure she can
find an English publisher from whom an American publisher might take
sheets. (How mss do get tossed back and forth between the two countries!)
But she is happy about all this and busily at work on extending and
revising it. She too is professional enough to understand how to use
advice.

Now after putting one or two things away, I must get at my
income tax.

All love,
Norman

1 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

No letters from you for a couple of days, and I hope you are
both well and profiting from the Gough's departure by the chance to get
back to your Swiss manuscript. (You are always a marvel to me in the way
you can pick up a manuscript again with such comparative ease.) But then
I have not written you for a couple of days either while I have been working
on getting together the documents for Seward & Monde to use in reckoning
my income tax. It will be a little complicated as to whether or not I can
claim any exemption for Lizzie's medical bills during the past year. She
cannot really be counted as a dependent for 1963 since I gather she earned
about $2,000, but the accountant thinks I may be able to use at least some
of the doctors' and nurses' bills even though the daily living expenses
won't be allowed.

It is always rather slow work pulling such material together,
although I had been orderly enough before I left, and the bank statements
for the management of our financial affairs after September put the last
four months into true neatness. Yet, Grove Press did not send a statement,
so I had to phone them; and so it goes.

I did have two packages of books yesterday from Kenwin. With
Perry's *Origin of Magic*, *The Book of Common Prayer*, and the anthology of
modern Japanese poetry. And a smaller one with Eric White's pamphlet etc. Also
from England came *Parry of the Arctic*. So I am well supplied, and many thanks.

This morning was eaten into by our weekly conference with the
psychiatrist (Lizzie herself not coming this time), and this afternoon I have
begun reading the final copy of Hansen's dissertation. I still have some
500 pages to go over against possible typist's errors. And then, I hope, the Library
and Hawthorne.

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

7 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

The income-tax man has been here this morning and taken away
my pile of documents to work with. Yesterday I finished (no, Sunday rather)
the first 600 or 700 pages of Hansen's dissertation, putting in French
accents and correcting typographical errors in the three copies of each
page. I imagine there will be about 100 more to read, and then I must get
it bound etc. The bills for research and typing will be formidable, and it
is lucky that I don't have to pay myself for this last task. But I must say
he has learned to write excellent English, has worked hard, and turned out
what seems to be a good piece of work which ought to have no difficulty in
being approved for his degree.

Two yellowbacks came in this morning, and for old time's sake
I sat down to read them when I might better have worked at other things.
But it was fun: Barbara Jordan's night at the lecture, and other highlights.
And it was not fun: Doris's very discouraged letters which saddened me.
Joan does seem to be in good shape, and taking strain in her stride. I
thought George's letters sounded more like his old self. Kershaw seems
really appreciative, and kind to Catha who is I feel sure (as he does)
suffering a delayed reaction to her father's death and her sense of loneli-
ness. The transition from being a schoolgirl to being a French farmer's
wife (even if he is a cowboy) must be unthinkable difficult. It say's
letters were fun. He apparently does not know the expression "comfortable"
in respect to income. There is, or was, in New England a series of gradations.
One "manages"; then one if "comfortably off"; next one is "well off"; and
finally one is "wealthy." But the last of these classifications is rarely
reached. Hilda Quick is, I think, wise to print only 2,000 copies. One could
always reissue by photo offset, and fine as it is it is not likely to be a
best seller. I was of course pleased that Marjory liked the shirts, blouses
etc. Melitta's letter (naturally I have not read any for a long time) seemed
to be more vigorous and alive. I am glad she has her Italian branches to
interest herself in, but only hope she does not set too much store in the idea
of managing them. I sometimes felt that perhaps one of her disappointments
in New York was that either the organization or her control of it (one or the
other) did not burgeon as she had hoped. I was charmed by the Brigadier's
enthusiasm at the birth of the newest princeling. It shows that the old royalist
feeling has not altogether left; he was very genuine in the best army tradition.
Pat's letter was a nice one, although I am still amazed at the literary primness
of his style. The primness is too dominant, I think, for it to be likely that
he himself will everywrite much.

Two batches of Hilda's papiers d'affaires have arrived safely, for
which thanks. And the numbers of *Encounter*. And as from this side, have come
Robert Penn Warren's new novel which he sent me, and a copy of an historical
collection of Korean poetry, translated by a wilgilom protege, with an introduction
(of no consequence) by me. The book is good, but my part in it so trivial (for
some reason the publisher wouldn't bring it out without an intro by me) that I
probably won't send it on to you unless you yearn for it. Otherwise you can see
it when you are over on this side.

2

The batch of juveniles for the collection has come from Brimmell. The
letter to Griffith was disappointing, except that it is of course an autograph.

33 Lavender Garden

Dear Griffith

Please come round tomorrow to
fetch away a good parcel of books to read--
We can then talk over matters

Yours
G A Henty

I asked, as I told you, if the source of the letter might help. But Brimmell
writes only "Sorry I know nothing of Griffith. The Battersea Public Library,
London, S.W.11 have the Henty family collection--they may be able to help.
I could have told him you knew more about all that than he did. At the meeting
of the Bibliographical Society of America last Friday and Saturday, I talked
to the curator of rare books at the University of Indiana which has the
biggest Henty collection. "We got Henty's own copies" he said, which makes
me curious.

The only Henty item among the books was *In the Chimney Corner* (1899) with his "Little Mistress Valentia" among others in the miscellany. There was Kingston's *My First Cruise* (including "The Travelling Tinman"); his *Manco, The Peruvian Chief; or an Englishman's-adventures-in-the-country-of-the-trees; his Janet M'Laren; or the faithful nurse; his African Trader; or the adventures of Harry Bayford; his *My First Voyage to Southern Seas*; his *Annual for Boys, 1860*; Gordon Stables, *A Little Gypsy Lass: a story of Moorland and Wild*; G.S.'s *Off to Klondyke, or a Cowboy's rush to the Goldfields*; and his *Hearts of Oak: a story of Nelson and the Navy*.

As to your own letters, I blush to think of the several I have not
answered. If my count is right, I have not written since yours of the 30th, 31st,
1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Though I sometimes answer them (as with the last which came
today) before I take them home to show Susan if I do take them home.

Easter Flowers? We have pretty well managed to cut them out, simply
by making an agreement with Susan's sisters not to send. We used to become like
a funeral parlor, and it made no sense either artistically, socially, or financially.
Many thanks for the long answers in your letter of the 31st. I only hated to
cut into your time so when I should prefer to have you work on the first draft of
the book.#Do come to the States any time you want, in spring or in fall. The
only difficulty that might arise if you were to come out immediately before the
Danish-Greenland trip would be (a) fatigue, and (b) problem about luggage. You
might like slacks and walking boots for Greenland, and yet not need them for
New York. As for shots they would obviously be better in the fall, but this might
not be a prime consideration. As for ms of your book we could hole away for a
couple of days in Denmark or Sweden and I could read and we discuss then. Probably
there would actually be more chance for concentration outside the States than
in it. Or I could even take to Greenland, which would br rather swanky, since
the nights are long with few cabarets to divert either of us. # As to Gladys's
mss, I dare not breathe a word. But since Consie said it had just arrived when she

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

wrote a fortnight ago, I have my suspicions that Mrs Dingle never really did send it as she said she was going to, and got around to it after my return. I actually paid her an extra $50.00 a month to take care of my mail and tasks of this sort, but I think she was easily distracted. # Doris's letters were really worrying, and if it were not for her being on the Scillies (which she loves) and having confidence in Dr. Bell (which is important to her nerves) I fee sure she could have a more thorough diagnosis elsewhere. But I don't know that it is worth uprooting her for things of this sort. I get less and less sentimental about the more fact of life. # Yes, I admit you did say to get into the Cambridge mess for Philby, Burgess and the others. And you were right in this, as in so many other instances. No hurry to return the article. Perhaps if the boys come to visit you this spring they might be interested. But it is probably not quite their cup of tea. # The John White volume sounds fascinating. # Coigny as always is helpful in matters of Vaud names etc. I should trust her judgment. # I think of you reading Rousseau by the waters of Leman.

Elsie can take a healthy sniff at the American authorities too, as I saw in *Time's* account of the wealthy American dame at Lausanne who was done in by the doctor. It was shocking that the consular officials should have been warned ten days before her death and did *nothing*. I should like to hear Coigny on that one. The odd thing is, you know you yourself said that in the case of a British woman the consular officials would have acted! And I think they would have. Better dig out your *Time* and read it.

This is my night to go to the concert.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

This is a dreary day; foggy and raining, like most of the
days recently. This has been as bad a spring, if indeed it can be called
that, as I have known for a long time. It rains and grows warm, then the
thermometer sinks to 20. Properly I spent from 8:30 on in the dentist's
chair where I kept him busy until 10 when it was time to go upstairs for
the hour and a half joint session with Lizzie, her nurse, her mother, and
the psychiatrist. But this time she did manage to last out the entire
period without breaking down and leaving, and at least a few things are
being brought into the open so as to clear the air. But I will not bother
you with all this; we can discuss it on a Viking ruin in Greenland.

Many thanks for sending the Kōkeritz obituary. I knew him well
of course, but no one at Yale was notified of his death until a newspaperman
noticed it in a Swedish general release. The obituary was perhaps a little
unkind in saying "When he failed to get a professorship there [in Sweden]
he went to the United States," but this may be a new angle on brain-drafts.

Oh yes, I do give you the greatest credit for checking details,
even though you give me the dickens for checking them too! Seriously, what
everyone admires is the soundness that lies behind your writing; what they
admire too is the way you are able to make your knowledge sound easy and
familiar. The latter is why you do not constantly have your research mentioned.

"I'm glad you liked the *Atlantic Voyages*, and shall look forward
to seeing them. I believe a book is coming out on the Newfoundland excavation.
We must see it together, and a combination with Gretchen might well be feasible.

Alas, at the moment I think you are right. If you get to the
Scillies you must devote yourself to Doris. A visit to Nor-Nour would be all
right, but not an assignment there. Miss Dudley will, I know, understand.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

I have let this letter go rather too late in the day, but write it anyhow since I cannot let another day go by without at least a note to you. What have I been doing since I last wrote? I can't remember just when that was, but during Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I was reading the last of the 600-odd pages of Hansen's dissertation, revising his summary which did come in the nick of time, and finally handing it in the binder on Friday. Yesterday was devoted to the inauguration of the new president of Yale. Kingman Brewster, and today to trying to pick up my office again and answer letters and pay bills. Wednesday night we went to the theatre to see the opening night of a musical for which one of my former students (and a member of the Pundits) wrote the score. Thursday night we drove to Hartford for dinner and afterwards I gave a slide lecture on Japan at the annual meeting of a club to which Susan's sister belongs. Friday night we finally agreed to play bridge with the next door neighbors. Last night we went to the inauguration ball. I shall be happy tonight to do nothing.

Actually your last letter is as of the 7th with its very sad news about Doris. I do hope that they can do something, and Susan and I will sit at attention to hear from you about developments. You have already read the text of the little Japanese book, for it was first published in the *Encyclopedia Americana* and I sent you an offprint. I thought only for your shelves, and for sentiment.

Naturally I am eager to see the first draft of the novel. I am sure there is no need to go to the expense of typing a fresh copy now; for when it cools a little you usually like to work over it again. Then, you probably will actually want a new text made for whatever study you want to make later on.

Have been reading through the accumulation of yellowbacks, which as I think I wrote you were left as is by Mrs Dingle. I will file them over some weekend, but this gives me a chance to forage a bit among them. I was delighted with the tidbits of Hesse which will be duly filed. Rosemary's Greek isle sounds like fun for her, and why shouldn't she have some fun. It was amusing to read Horace's old letter about the resounding NO his New York doctors had given to the suggestion of Gaylord. And how nice that Rose Odle really did like New York so much. You have a fine instinct for knowing who will and who will not. If ever anything happens to Doris, perhaps Ethel ought to pop over some time for a visit. Your Peggy Lewis seems lively. Perhaps you will want to meet her some time. Whatever happened to the G.A. Henty books which Mr Spencer Jones sent you for disposal? I am only curious. And I was interested that Usbert's rather sadly written but very warming letter about the re-reading of *The Player's Boy* signalled out the ending to praise. What I said earlier about the general response remains true generally. But how differently a trained response can react. Finally Chester Page's letter after returning from his Scandinavian trip was excellent. I really liked it, and therefore him, very much for it. The trip seems to have released some sort of tension in him.

Must rush this to get the last post outside.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

13 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

I almost wrote 1909 above, the habit having become so ingrained
during our trip when every hotel asked me to put down the year of my birth.
At any rate you could have hardly timed things better in terms of my birthday.
I had put on one of your Grieder birthday ties, and they in themselves would
have been enough to commemorate the day. But in the first mail was yours of
the 8th with greetings; later in the morning came your cable; and in the
noon mail was a package from Goulden & Curry with a copy of the Owen book and
Tom Lethbridge's *Witches*. So I feel well wrapped in your affection, and
deeply grateful. As for Greenland, I would dearly love to go with you --and
will if you want to go. But we will have to see how things go before we
divvy the ante. There may be extra expenses for Doris or for others you
are helping. I am really anxious to know about Doris, and altho I agree
completely with you that to go now might only alarm her I shall not be surprised
if you feel a quick May visit is indicated. But don't let it stand in the
way of your trip to Greenland. Or, as you say, you might go back with Hilda
and Margery.

As for the Marsden Smedly, you really ought to know more. But
perhaps conversation with her would be the best solution, and you ought to
put this on your agenda for the next visit. I'm only sorry I don't live next
door, or I should pop in and do the reading and reminiscence myself. But
tactically in any event it is better to have the thing done by a Britisher.

As for the birthday -- this day -- well, it is louring without (as
one might have said a century or two ago), and I seem a little sullen too. I
think of my mother's death, and Lizzie's unhappiness, and all that there is to
do. But tomorrow morning I shall begin at the library with Hawthorne --first
wish dust cloth and broom -- and this may be a needed change of pace.

This noon, having engaged myself for luncheon with the director of the
Yale Press, I wrote a 3 page single-spaced report on Japanese publishing practises
with particular relation to the possibilities for the sale of Yale books in Japan.
I had promised to make such a report when I went out, and am glad to have been
forced into getting it off my chest. I was also glad that they have fallen in
(Yale, that is) with my suggestion that a John Smith should, rather than myself,
be editor in chief of the Jonathan Edwards edition now that Perry Miller is
dead. (I did not, repeat not want any more editorial work of that kind.) I also
agreed not to shift over the French and Italian journals and the edition of
Hawthorne's letter to the Ohio State University Press as part of their Hawthorne
series. If I haven't told you this long story, I can do so in Greenland. (You
see, we *must* go there or nothing will be told.)

And then I finished going over the last of the accumulated yellowbacks,
so I can put them away en masse and file them in later weekends. I did not read
every letter with equal detail, but some series I did follow more or less carefully.
Let me take a few to comment on, for my sake rather than yours. Pat's letters en

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

masse seemed less fussy than I thought. Maybe he will write; he certainly
could write. # I understand about the Hentys, as thru the Brigadier. Sorry
to have bothered you about this. # Much interested from Jocelyn's letter
that Sturge Moore had written Noh plays during the time when the bug bit
Britain. I shall make a note of this. # Carl Koch's obituary was fine in its
tribute. And I liked very very much what Peter de Sautay had to say in the
Times about Kurt as a host and human being. # Gerald Durrell's "Jersey Wildlife
Preservation Trust" does sound very august and stable. I hope it works. Sorry
that it's not really my cup of tea. I like saving "even one species from
extinction" but it's better for me to concentrate on saving even one poet from
extinction. (Did I write you that I had been made a Chancellor of the American
Academy of Poets? It sounds very elegant, and fortunately has the income from
several millions to hand out. Horace got their award once, it was what Pound
got last year. Auden, Wilbur, etc constitute the rest of the Chancellor's
who are, I believe, considered to constitute the Establishment.) # Catha's
letters are interesting. I have a sneaking suspicion that now she has gotten
farther along in her studies she finds the associations more interesting than
those of hotel and stable, for she writes about the latter on almost sociological
terms. Her marriage was obviously necessary and the right thing for the moment.
But I should not be surprised if, eventually, it broke up. # John Phillips writes
an extraordinary letter for a young undergraduate, and I suspect he has something
special in him even though, again for my taste, he doesn't brew my kind of tea.
I imagine he will end up in the church of england priesthood. # I notice in one
of the Collins letters that you prefer not to have the cost of your own books
deducted from royalties. But by all means do so. I am completely bewildered
about what drifts in at this end for your British publications, and will use
the opportunity of my return and your two new ones to ask Helen what does happen.
I can't find any statement on my royalty accounts that anything comes across the
ocean. But it must. #Very curious about Frank Glynn's Christmas note of the
new stone on this side. Separately I'll send you a little thing by him I found
amongst my mail. # I am much impressed by the way the Family Welfare Association
distributes the sums you give them. The tact and sensitivity is astonishing in
an institutional setup of this sort. More power to them! # Many thanks for the
note on Philby's son. # Much interested that Joanna prints most of her letter
by hand, and then swings into cursives for the farewell salute. Very modern, and
much since my time. # Going over the many letters from Doris I see how often she
asks about the $300 check I sent her for the Lawrence letters. Of course, as we
agree, it was perfectly senseless for her to send them off to Sobeys, and the
failure to reach the minimum obviously reduces their value. But she was certainly
wonderfully kind about the bulbs, and this is a way to repay her for that. Other-
wise I should have to scold her, and this is no moment for scoldings. Probably
it is no moment for anything, but a letter might sheer her up. # I was pleased
by John Lehman's appreciation of your travel gifts. Is this established now by
a trust fund? # There are several letters from Mr Thorpe about the Margiad Evans
letters. Do you wish me to be in touch with him about them? I am of course happy
to make anything disposable to him by film.

What a dull letter, even if it does help to clear my desk. But
what a dull fellow I feel! Except in gratitude and in sending you

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

15 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

A drizzling and rather wretched day. From 8:30-10:00 at the dentist's, from 10:00 - 11:30 at the joint session with the psychiatrist. Luncheon with a young man who is here to use the Hawthorne material. And the afternoon at the custom house, from which I finally extricated the last of what has arrived so far.

But your letter of the 11th arrived, for which thanks at this
tail of the day. Yes, the Hansen dissertation is now bound and handed in.
And presumably being read. # Poor Elsie. I think it a stroke of magic that
she does not object to our presence at Kenwin--at least noticeably. It is
of course her social insecurity, the fear she is being snubbed: that she
should be mistaken for a housekeeper rather than a co-hostess. But at least
np one could be nicer when she is nice, nor arrange better meals. And she
does keep things going for you. It was extremely nice, by the way, of her
to send me birthday greetings. They arrived yesterday and were much appreciated.
I shall write her shortly. Poor Susan intends to also, but can scarcely keep
her head above water. Lizzie is moving to another apartment, we have to buy
new furniture for her, and we must make great efforts to show how interested
we are.

I am really worried about Doris. What I would give if a magic
carpet could whisk her to Gaylord for one of their careful diagnoses.

Horros! I couldn't care less about going to Sweden, and think
my ears must have been tuned in on the wrong station since I thought you had
said or written that you wanted to go there as well as Norway. No, longer in
Norway would be fun, or longer in Denmark, or a skip to Hitzacker, or a shorter
trip.

I did spend yesterday in my library room trying to restore a little
order to things after the several people who have used the books and papers
during the past two years. Several empty wastebaskets took care of a good deal;
putting books from the table back on the shelf helped too; so did simply returning
papers to the filing cabinets. It is not quite finished, but another half-day
or day should give visible witness. The gentleman from Minnesota is still there,
and does not interfere with housework on my part. I will be glad to have the room
to myself when I start to re-read and re-think the project.

I was delighted to have a copy of Horace's book in yesterday's mail,
sent first class in order to arrive promptly. I have been able only to look at
it, for we had a symphony concert last night, but it is handsomely produced and,
fortunately, ungargantuan. I felt honored when, for the first time, he actually
inscribed the book in his own hand. As I think I told you, he and Marya (at
Gaylord) had made a great thing of the dedication of the book to me. Actually it
is now dedicated to Marya, and I am very glad of it--for it is a period of his
creative life with which she is inextricably bound. And if indeed anything should

2

happen to her because of her illness he will have had the happiness of her
happiness in the acknowledgement.

We are now in the throes of the dinner party for Leslie and Mary
on the night of the 23rd after his Shakespeare lecture. I found there was
to be a reception at the Elizabethan Club after the lecture, but nothing
after that. Our only mistake was to ask the Hotsons if they was someone
special they wished to ask. The size of the dinner party has now reached
18, and Susan is driven frantic by Mary's frequent telephone calls to be
sure she has asked Widow Withington, or Leslie feels that John Palmer would
be right for Isobel Wilder or Widow Rollins--they are our "dearest" friends.
"Oh, you couldn't ask the Proutys; Leslie doesn't like Charles!" I say,
"poor Susan", because, alas, Susan thought she was the hostess, and hated to
have to say she had tried to get Mrs Withington twice on the phone, as though
she were reporting in. Anyhow, alas for Leslie, the Proutys had already been
asked and accepted, since he is the chairman of the celebration committee which
asked Leslie to make the speach. And it was he who introduced me to Leslie,
suggesting the need of his being helped. It was not until much later that I
understood (I think from Leslie himself) that Leslie had been an active candidate
for the job Prouty got. I did talk with Leslie once on the phone, and he was
much excited by the full page on him in the London Times last Sunday, and by the
excerpts which will appear. He said he was disappointed that no American paper
was doing similarly, but American newspapers just don't. And especially don't
for British publications with an American publication scheduled for the fall.
Anyhow I do look forward to the lecture on the 23rd, and to the dinner party
afterwards. He deserves all the praise and applause he can get, and I join in
clapping. We will give it at the Graduates Club, since the Lawn Club is having
another "do" that evening. It is really too big for us to give at home.

Letters will be a little spotty until this office is free again, it
now being used for interviewing undergraduate applicants for the American Studies
major. But I shall not have forgotten you, nor ceased sending

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

18 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

You would have had a letter from me last evening if, when I came back to the office from the gymnasium, I had not found a note to call Leslie at home. I was a little apprehensive, thinking he might want to add more guests to the dinner party which already numbers 18, but I was not apprehensive enough. He was absolutely in a white rage of anger, and I understood a little better why it was apparently so difficult for people to work with him during the war or on the faculty of Haverford. Not that rage made him speakless--far from it. I have not been able to check on the affair today, though it is obvious that he expects me to get retractions, changes, and the like. The story seems to be that he was asked to give a Lamont Lecture on Shakespeare's birthday. Now he finds his lecture is the climax of a series of four whose sponsorship is stated to be the Elizabethan Club and the Yale English Department. These two are trying to steal the credit under false pretenses, for the name Lamont Lecture was not given nor is it what he would call a University Lecture. In twelve years the English Department has never asked him to lecture (I said what was true that members of the English Department are never asked by themselves to lecture, and he (like James Osborne) is a member by reason of the Research Associate they vote him. This gives him full university privileges and listing in the directory. "Nonsense and nonsense and nonsense!" The Elizabethan Club has paid no attention to him since the Lilly masque, and has not invited him to speak. I said that members of the Yale faculty never were asked to speak. "Nonsense, and you know it!" Prouty (his bete noir) had sent out an announcement calling Leslie's lecture (it was sent only to Elizabethan Club members) the Elizabethan Club lecture. There must be a retraction. (Prouty did get the hour wrong, so I'll try for a correction on that basis). No representative of the English Department or representative of the Elizabethan Club is to be allowed to sit on the platform or be referred to. "I am being introduced by Wilmarth Lewis who is worth three of any of them. If the English Department or the Elizabethan Club had asked me I would have refused them." (I don't quite dare tell that as a reason, for he could hardly expect to be voted one of them afterwards.) But the Elizabethan Club is having a reception afterwards, and our dinner includes the president of the Club and Prouty as Chairman of the Committee, and oh my god, my god, my god! I reminded Leslie of the guest list, but he says not to *worry*, he will behave beautifully. Having already called Prouty and given him hell plus the demand for retractions. Of course I was away during the fall, but tried to explain to Leslie (as a member of the University Lecture Committee) what most likely happened. But to no avail. I had not realised that perhaps behind his desire to give the birthday talk here was a linked desire to be able to say (though not quite accurately): "You see, the English Department does not ask me, but the university does!" Leslie was really pretty rough, and I fear I felt rather cold than sympathetic to him. What is it that working on Shakespeare does to people like Leslie and Rowse? But what bothers me really, and I mean actually does bother me most, is that what I had hoped would be a happy occasion for both Leslie and Mary has now been soured for both of them. Indeed the sour will inevitably spread. At the moment I seem to have an unlucky touch, and as you can imagine neither Susan nor I look forward to the dinner party at all, at all. Yesterday I went to the Yale newsbureau to arrange for extra articles

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

about the lecture and about Leslie's book to be run ahead of time, and I am
glad I did. For Leslie himself had been in the day before with his British
clippings (which he would not leave) in order to arrange himself for articles
on him. The question I was asked was whether he was really as good as he said
he was, and I think I bolstered them on that score. I hope so, for Leslie
does deserve a good audience. He had only given as his title "News About
Shakespeare" and I was afraid that the public wouldn't get much hint from that,
or even be curious.

I do feel so terribly sorry about the whole affair. I was really
rather shaken by the time I more or less finished off the conversation. "No,
of course you can't understand, because you won't put yourself in my position."
My only answer was "I can't." And so help me, that it god's pure truth.

To shift the subject for the moment, I do find it difficult these
days not to be able to be in any office except the library between nine and
five. Or five-thirty. So I have not really been very faithful in the practise
of correspondence. All of the interviewing should be over by next mid-week,
however, and things better from then on. Yesterday morning I went to the
dentist and then to a meeting of the Garvan Committee on American Art, which
lasted through lunch which, in turn, I left halfway through in order to go
to Kokeritiz's memorial service. But I have through the week at last begun
to put my library room in order. You have no idea of what degree of chaos
had been reached, and my hands become filthy and the wastebaskets filled with
debris as I try to clear the tables and go through the various files. I did,
for example, find one little fragment of the ms of Hawthorne's American
journals, quite important (tho it cost me only $15.00 20 years ago), which had
been mislaid for a decade. Into one corner goes everything related to the
Italian notebooks. The other things get filed away. I can now go into the
room without sinking of heart. Next week I hope to start lifting up my heart
to the hills of Rome.

I have a group of letters from you before me now, but which I have answered
and which not, I cannot remember. For your records they are: 7th to Miss Glitkin,
8th, 10th, 11th, 13th and 14th. You have been NOBLE. It was a very good letter
indeed to Miss Glitkin. I still have not had time to read the article on D.R.,
though I have it at home waiting. As for Dr Miriam Yevick at Rutgers, or Mme
or Miss or Master XUPQTV anywhere, they answer is no to requests to read their
manuscripts. Partly they want a pen pal, mostly they want a crutch and an
introduction to your own publisher. You cannot waste your own creative strength
in writing other people's books. Non fiction is another matter, in terms of
memoirs or books on Slavic seals. Why not simply tell her odd though it sounds
I (by name or anonymously) have forbidden you to do this, and especially now when
you are in the midst of a new book of your own you cannot help her. Of course
you can simply not reply, which is what most in your situation would do.

I shall be curious as to whether Robin finally succumbed to Niehans. And
I am distressed not to have invited Beney to New Haven. But perhaps he prefers
to be on the town, which is understandable. Incidentally when you spoke of the
restrictions on importing foreign capital into Switzerland, I thought of this
in relation to what I had once thought of in relation to what will probably
be about $40,000 which will ultimately come from my mother's estate to me. I
have such confidence in Beney's judgment that I had thought of asking if he

would consider running so small an amount as a separate account. It might
of course be $50,000 but in the States they will not handle any account of
less than $100,000. Actually it's probably not worth it for Benay and also
a little impractical. At least it shows how highly I value his judgemnt.
As for the Swissair affair, I am sorry to have put him to such trouble.

I now see I must have commented on most of these things before, since
your letter of the 11th is about your dislike of going to Sweden. I simply
don't know it well enough to like or dislike the idea, but I do get on more
easily with Danes and Norwegians.

I do not comment on your struggles with the ms, but only pray for the
chance to read the story when you have it ready for me to look at. As for
Peacock, I hope you twist it my the tail. Let me read the Dahlberg auto
which was sent me as sample, or wait until I have to advise whether to send
for your collection or hold mine for you to read when you come.

You were really wonderfully kind to send the obituary of Humphrey
Trevelyan. We had none of us seen it, and I shall have xerox copies made and
sent around. Again it is one of those things the British do so much better
than we do. This must have been written by some one who knew and liked him.

Must rush now and get at least this much of the letter into the
postbox before the final collection in five minutes.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

19 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

I am back at the office, but I am a little later than I had expected because of a call on the chairman of English to get that angle of l'affaire Hotson straight. After writing you yesterday, I did get Prouty on the phone and heard his somewhat bewildered version. It was not he but the president of the Elizabethan Club who sent the card out, and he had not seen it. The phone had rung as he entered the house, and he picked the reciever up to hear a bull's roar: "Is this Charles T. Prouty? This is Leslie Hotson!" Charles said that Mary was screaming out things hysterically in the background, and what a pity it is that they have been upset about it. After this morning's talk, the story seems to be this. When I went to the chairman last spring after Mary had told Mrs Cleanth Brooks that Leslie wanted to lecture at Yale, and Mrs Brooks had passed the buck on to me, the chairman went to the Secretary of the University who agreed to give the money for a Lamont Lecture to go along with the Elizabethan Club commemoration of the birth. At the chairman's suggestion, the secretary himself wrote the letter (Hilles asking the secretary to explain about the Club's connection), but the secretary has the year off and so no one saw a copy and thought everything was understood by everyone. The card was sent out by the president of the Elizabethan Club because Prouty was in Florida, and the president is now so mad at Hotson (he and his wife are also guests at our dinner) that he doesn't want Hotson to come to the Elizabethan Club party between the lecture and the dinner. The university calendar got the time wrong, or at least shifted from when it was originally scheduled. But perhaps it was just as well that everything came out ahead of time, for it seems that Prouty had expected to introduce Leslie as he had the others on the series (Leslie of course was furious that he was only the climax of a series and not off by himself), and my statement (derived from Hotson's iteration that Wilmarth Lewis was to introduce him) was a puzzlement to alb. So it looks as though my guess were correct, and it was Leslie who asked Lewis to give the introduction. This is unusual to say the least, although no one objects to Lewis and, as Leslie presumably wanted, it will add a little flair. But imagine what a scene and confusion there would have been when two men had waited to mount the stage to introduce the speaker! Well, I still have the president of the Elizabethan Club to see, a corrected postcard to send out to members of the Elizabethan Club (which I shall pay for, so that won't be another grudge against Leslie, see Wilmarth Lewis (fortunately we will both be at the annual meeting of the trustees of the are Book associates of the Library, and revisit the newsbureau. And then, PRAY.

A few bits were left undone yesterday in my attempt to make the last postal collection.

Can you send me Heydt's new address. I ought to acknowledge his note on his Christmas card. And the Brigadier's Tokyo or other address en route. I should like to write him. I rather think you did give it, but if so its now buried among the things I shall begin to file away after I have cleared my desk.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

This not being able to be at the HGS office during the day is
certainly a good to progress in getting the library room in order, but does
complicate correspondence. So this must be little more than a note if it
is to be finished by the 6:15 post.

The Hotson saga seems to have reached comparatively calmer waters.
I spent Sunday morning and a good part of Monday trying to pacify the various
parties concerned, tho I have not spoken with Leslie since his blow-up. But
I got a second Elizabethan Club notice sent out, on the excuse of the wrong
time on the first, which called the lecture simply a Lamont Lecture. I had a
long talk with Wilmarth Lewis so no reference will be made either to the
Elizabethan Club or the English Department (the bêtes noires who have tried to
steal him), and this was very lucky since Lewis had been a little puzzled as
to why Leslie had phoned him some months ago and asked him to do the introdction
(I fear this was historically unique on Leslie's part. I went back to the Press
Bureau to be sure they had the correct time and there would be no references to
the bêtes, but this was not strictly necessary since Leslie called earlier in the
morning to tell them what to do (they were only somewhat baffled as to what
others would think. I assured the president of the Elizabethan Club that Leslie
would probably go to the reception afterwards, and indeed he will because he has
asked some on the non-member dinners guests to go with him. I haven't said,
not spoken to Leslie since; but yesterday afternoon Mary phoned Susan to be sure
that Susan had asked Mr Lewis to the dinner. "She sounded as though nothing had
happened," Susan said. I hope Mary gave Susan a goodconduct Sunday school mark,
since of course Lewis had been long since asked.

One little incident from the past did come up which perhaps explains
Leslie's perhaps revenge by giving a university lecture. I knew he had once
taught in the English department here and then left, but I had not known that he
was apparently so extraordinarily bad as a teacher, and the students raised such
a howl (in this case acceded to) that Leslie was paid for the whole year, and
stayed around, but was not permitted to teach after November. I sympathize with
him for any rankling he may still feel; and then when he lost out to Prouty for
the professorship, and was not able to get a job elsewhere, he was (as it turned
out) lucky but I can see that it would still rankle. I am only surprised that
if it did, he should nevertheless want to settle down here.

I haven't seen the book but look forward to it. I am so glad you
like it. And I completely agree with you that he not only deserves a trip and
a change, but ought to have it. And if he were to go now while his book is
fresh he should have a real whirl.

Kenneth's book arrived in today's mail. I have not had Lady V's,
but of course the mails from England are a little slow, slower than from
Switzerland it would seem. The idea of seeing the White book is exciting,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

especially if it will tempt you over sooner.

I am so sorry about Doris, both in terms of her health and the Hales. Though in this case fortunately he is married, and there is no danger on that score. The chief problem would be her possible wastefulness with funds as she tried again to get more deeply involved in agriculture. Yet, alas, the bulbs, and managing the farm, keep her interest up in life.

Yours of the 18th was in today. And yours of the 14th, 16th and 17th all came yesterday. The earlier ones will have to wait for an answer.

Alas for the glory of it, there are 12 chancellors in all on the American Academy of Poets. So both the power and the glory are infinitesimal.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

22 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

It keeps on raining. Saturday we saw the sun pleasantly, but have not seen it at all since then. It dampens the soul. Tonight we go to the theatre; at least it should be bright inside.

No letter today from you, so I take the tail of the afternoon with which to write about the others I did not get to yesterday. Many thanks for your letter to Hildegarde Wylde: a pat and a scratch behind the ears too. # So sorry about Petrie's diagnosis for her Robin. Personally am not so surprised at his fee, it is after all an operation for popes. # And sorry for the fathers of the Ineses. I wish there were ways to help, but it would not alleviate her contribution which would go on all the same. # I begin to suspect that I shall have to go to New York for overnight and two straight days of interviews. And thus can see Helen more at leisure and find about the Peacock and British royalties in general. # You had not written about Catha's "complete nervous breakdown", though while we were at Kenwin her first anguished letter came announcing her husband's sterility. I am so sorry about the collapse, and have every reason to be alarmed. Do keep me in touch. #Will try to dig out Mr Thorpe's address, though am not sure where it is among the year's accumulation of yellowbacks. Perhaps it will be in the carbon of yours which you say has gone out to me. #As I told you, *Colored Pebbles* has not come, but Perhaps still will. I think safer to wait for a while before reordering. # Glad I went on record recently in favor of Chester Page, so when I say bravo to your contribution to his sea voyage you will know I mean it. # The Aero Llyod plan for Greenland is not very appealing, but is what they did last time I was out. I met a young British girl who had saved up and did like it, but it is not (I suspect) your cup of tea. She was billeted in the small house at Narssaq of a small shopkeeper who lived with his mother. Neither spoke English, but she established such a friendly relationship with the youngish man that there seemed to be a good deal of give and take between them. At any rate she was anxious to return to see the young man again. I doubt very much that there would be any house big enough to give each of us a room, but we could see each other between meals and pay visits to the supermarkets (there are now two in Narssaq). Otherwise what would there be to do? No, I think one puts it up to them that they fly us out, we stay at the airport hotel and take care of ourselves in concentrating on Brattahlid and the cathedral. I am sure I can get a small boat to ferry us. And there are other small ruins around which one would be keen to see privately. I have not yet heard from Melgaard in answer to my offer, or I would write him to ask him to speak personally to Aero Lloyd about it. Or if you give me the name of your correspondent and the address, would you like me to write them, reminding them we have both already been at Narssaq and what we want is for professional reasons to see the Erik country at close range and with chances to go back. Or I can write Vebaek or Melgaard and ask them. Melgaard is better on this than Vebaek would be. # Splendid letter from Henty's granddaughter. It is important to have it in writing. Many thanks. And

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

23 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

Quite apart from the elation one feels (if one feels elation) at the 400th anniversary birthday, this is one of those days that will be well behind one. It is a beautiful warm spring day, and the magnolias and azaleas are in blossom. Nothing against the weather! But the day seems broken up. At eleven I had to be at the dentist to have an impression made for a capped tooth. I got there promptly and had to wait a half hour while the then incu, bent of the hair lingered on. Then the dentist fiddled and fooled but couldn't get a decent impression and so sent me away without accomplishing a thing. From noon until after two I had to entertain a Professor Friedman from Munich, who is head of the America Institute there. He had wanted to see me and two others who had been on the Yale junket. Ostensible reason: who could he get to teach American history (that is, who famous?); real reason: where could he get a job in America. So now, with an errand or two behind me I wait for Susan to come so that we can go to the Hotson lecture at 4 p.m.

Your letter of the 20th I picked up from the mailbox on my way upstairs this afternoon. Quick travel. Congratulations on the progress with the novel. I hope you get in finished or nearly so before you set out on your trip. As for starting immediately on the second draft, I am as you know generally against this, preferring to let it cool for at least the length of your ausflug. Naturally, however, it is the artist herself who knows best about such matters. I only comment because I myself am not disturbed at the interval. The trip itself sounds sensible.

I think I may vaguely remember the eskimo bead bag for Hilda from Hudgon Bay, but would have to see it to recognize it.

Don't forget the Brigadier's address. At least I can send him a letter from a man.

No point in asking Denmark at what time of the year we can be conveyed to the excavations. The answer is any time of the year, and we must reassure them that we are happy to take care of ourselves when left at the airport hotel. Brattahlid is directly across the narrow fjord from the airport. The cathedral is only a few miles down the fjord. Other Viking ruins are scattered all around the Eriksfjord. No, if you put the question as you suggested they will say its is impossible. What we want, paying the regular fare if necessary, is to be conveyed to Narsassiwak (spelling?)(the airport) and provided food and lodging at the airport hotel rather than be taken to Narrsaq and lodged with the local butcher. We keep busy ourselves, taking care of ourselves, until the others return to the airport and then we go back on the plane with them. In this way we can make several visits to any place which particularly interests us, and to sit and look is the only way to get to know a place. As I wrote you yesterday, I will write them if you prefer.

I do still get the _Beaver_ so pass your copies along to someone locally interested, or in U.K. Hilda might like.

All love,

With kind regards to all my friends in U.K. and New York.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

24 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

The birthday is now over, and we can now settle in. Yesterday's New Haven Register carried the enclosed on its front page (I am intrigued by Leslie's identification of himself with Sherlock Holmes or Watson [Hotson]), and this morning's New York Times carried the same picture of him and a similar story only related to yesterday's lecture. Several hundred were at the lecture, thanks I think to advance publicity in the papers and the Elizabethan Club crowds, and altho Leslie said he had expected to pack them into the balcony as well the attendance was very good in view of the fact that five important lectures were all scheduled for exactly the same time, and Dean Acheson and some others were scheduled to speak that night. "What should you do?" --the Yale News said, and then answered "most observers would recommend Mr. Hotson's lecture." There was a good attendance at the Elizabethan Club party after the lecture, and Leslie seemed to enjoy himself and was very much in the midst of things. The dinner party went off very well indeed("You mean there are sixteen of us?" Leslie exclaimed with obvious delight), the shad and roe were excellent, so was the wine, and we gave Mary the arrangement of table flowers to take home with her in lieu of a corsage.

Actually things went smoothly, although certainly they might not have. Leslie's lecture was given with considerable dramatic and elocutionary power, and his introduction by Wilmarth Lewis was most gracious -- including a tribute to the fact that (remembering Rowse's lecture at Yale) Leslie had made his doscoveries without getting into attacks on others. Actually this did not quite work out appropriately, for my impression (and I gather that of the audience) was that there was a considerable amount of scorn (slightly veiled) against Rowse and certainly (and openly) about how little anyone but Leslie had discovered relevant to Shakespeare. Actually Leslie opened by saying we should apologize to Shakespeare for having treated him so badly in the field of scholarship. It was a delight to listen to his presentation of his identifications, they were given with such bravura. His voice rose and fell, shifted to scorn, then to tolerant good humor, then to deep seriousness, to dialects, and sometimes I thought he was going to bring out his guitar and sing ballads. The audience was sympathetic and laughed a good deal when they were supposed to, and Leslie said afterwards that he had never had a more a more congenial audience. My impression was that people were not immediately accepting the evidence, but of course this is impossible to do on simply hearing it, and the only copy of the book any of us saw was one he had given Mrs Withington which she took to the dinner and put in a position of honor at the table.

But then Leslie had the moment he must have been waiting for a long time. He was, as Mr Lewis, said afterwards "Homeric" in the epic dimensions of his abuse. His rhetorical powers surpassed any display of them in the lecture proper, and his yearning for the life of the stage must have been supremely fulfilled. "I can only

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

give you a small approximation of the riches of allusion connected
with these identifications, and for the full story of (a) and (b)
and (c)¹ I recommend that you read my book which was published
earlier this week in London. It will be published in America by
Alfred Knopf, but not until September. That's American speed and
efficiency for you. And Mr Knopf had pages at the same time that
Rupert Hart Davis did. Personally, I'm getting my copies of the
book from Rupert Hartavis. When you get the book you will see
that it is dedicated to the Provost and Fellows of King's College,
Cambridge. You will wonder why I did not dedicate it to Yale.
The book was written under a six year fellowship given by King's
College. Has Yale ever done anything for Shakespeare. The
answer is no. Not even as much as it pays for a charwoman to
clean the floors." Etc etc. for a considerable span of time.
Then he reached new heights. "What does Yale feel? Boswell si,
Shakespeare no! Franklin si, Shakespeare no!" The dramatics
with which he gave this Castro cry was almost a burlesque, but
the audience, which had been startled and embarrassed, was now
overwhelmed, for of course Mr Lewis's Walpole edition presumably
fell into the same category (tho no one of the three is financed
by any Yale money). Then Leslie went on to the Elizabethan Club
and his scorn for it, the climax of which was that he had at least
heard the Club had a new manager (steward is a more appropriate
word) and that might a little help in getting "the Elizabethan
Club to pull up its socks." Then he bowed and thanked the audience
for their kind attention. When he walked out with Mr Lewis, the
latter turned his eye toward me slightly and I saw the twinkle.

The whole affair really was Homeric, and Leslie took such
obvious delight in what he had done (though it was never mentioned
again) and enjoyed himself so much at the Elizabethan Club (where
some were surprised he would go, though the dinner almost made it
imperative), and had such a good time at the dinner, that it was
hard (or at least that was my ploy in calming Lewis and the others)
to take it seriously. Actually I was doubly glad for the dinner
party, at which Lewis and the president of the Elizabethan Club
were also guests, since we seated the people properly to avoid
fights (and Mrs Withington and her book were at Leslie's right)
and people did have a good time, and at least the surface tensions
were released. Who knows? Even those his facts about Yale were
incorrect, it may well have been good for Yale to know that King's
does better. And no American university, I know of, has that kind
of endowed research post in the humanities; nor does Oxford except
for All Souls. He may stimulate such an endowment somewhere in the
States. But I think Wilmarth Lewis will always wonder what particular
motive led Leslie into asking him to do the introduction. Perhaps
so that at least one of the non-Shakespearean editors could be in the
audience to hear the attack.

Mary looked well, and when I asked Mrs Brooks about her (as
you had suggested) she said she too thought Mary was much better than
usual. Then I was surprised. "Yes, she's really better; there have been
times you know, in connection with the church and other things when she
has been ... really, well you know.... now it's Leslie."

3

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

I agree with you in the excitement of Leslie's detective work, and shall be eager to read the book. Mary presented me after the dinner with a copy of the Sunday Times abridgement which of course I shall read. But I think one needs the whole thing. I was particularly interested in the Luce Morgan identification, although I'm not quite sure I follow the hidden 'more than' in the text. It must be fascinating, and I think will do well as a book, especially in England. I will go more into my own reactions when I have read the book.

Your letter of the 21st came in after I began this letter. Yes of course I know Watkins poetry, and like it. The Travelling Award has obviously been a huge success, partly I think because Osbert's wise guiding hand helped steer it at the beginning into good channels. # Hope the ms goes well and that you could have a moment or two while Hilda and Margerie were with you. They will understand why you must work. # I am really pleased at Martin's success. Perhaps I forgot to comment on his earlier letter, but I did think it sensible. He will not end up at the Ritz, but thanks to you he ought not to end up at a bar.

I had a happy thought about Greenland this morning. If we can be left at the airport hotel while the others are living with families in Narssaq, I can arrange ahead of time with the schoolteacher in Julianahaab to have a motor boat come up from there to be ours during our stay. This would be heavenly, and we could go farther up the fjord where I am told there are some splendid ruins. It is quite safe, but off the beaten path. The motor boat and pilot will be my contribution. So just tell Aero Lloyd, if you write and don't want me to, that we will take care of ourselves as far as a boat in concerned. Our other source for a boat is of course Melgaard.

All love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

I thought you might be amused by the enclosed--please destroy, since I have the original--, but I can't imagine that Swiss-air will be as a result of the double pressure from The Union and from the travel agency. The next time I visit Switzerland I shall probably be barred at the border, or at best be allowed only to sleep in the transit waiting room until the next plane leaves.

Tidbits arrive in the mail. For example a book catalogue from Acme Books, of Oakland, Cal., offering a copy of the Oxford Anthology edited by Normal Pearson. Do you think I should order it, addressing the order to Acme Books?

I have finally read Miss Glikin's article on D.R., which I thought very good indeed in terms of usefulness. My impression is that she deliberately left out any criticism of the novels, and concentrated on what we have never had: a straightforward presentation of biographical data. It is in a sense the sort of article that ought to be written about Hodgson, simply to get the record down. I, certainly, learned a lot from reading it, and have torn out my copy to keep. I do think that I probably ought to get a London bookdealer on to finding copies of the many translations by D.R. which were published. The collection ought to contain them, and they will be harder and harder to find as time goes on. But I will ask Rose about this when I write her, for she may know where copies already exist of at least a few.

I was struck in reading the International Student Center News, by the following announcement: "Mrs Turner announced that a most eminent and interesting Tibetan scholar, Mr Shakabpa, is available for speaking engagements. He is a historian, and the only historian to write about Tibet in the Tibetan language." It is no doubt as true as it is strange, and I can understand why the Asia Foundation is concentrating on the encouragement of the Asian countries to write their own histories of themselves. Hardly sinister, it is by all odds invaluable as intelligence both for themselves and the western world.

I ought to be at my mail, or have gone to the Library. But I did want to explain about the Wednesday sessions with Lizzie and the psychiatrist. It is not an example of group therapy (except perhaps indirectly), but is meant as a way of opening communication between Lizzie and ourselves. She has always claimed that this is impossible; and this is true but for different reasons than she used to accept. She had over the years become a habitual prevaricator as a way of avoiding issues or unpleasantness or insecurity. These prevarications had no coherence or continuity; she herself believed each one intensely at the moment. They involved all aspects of her own life and relationships and had spread like threads of cancer throughout her. She is now trying to talk, and it is important that the psychiatrist and her psychiatric nurse hear what actually is being said, for she distorts and twists (now instinctively and by habit) all she reports.

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

I am amazed at how much she now admits, and there is no question but that she is trying to learn to speak the truth. It takes a long time, and it takes tact combined with firmness to correct her or remind her of inconsistencies, or disabuse her of the schizophrenic fantasies in which she has lived and on which she depends. One of the first things she brought up (the initiative is hers) is her dream of being without indebtedness if we would establish a trust fund to cover her expenses. This is directed against her mother and supported by a dream of Winchester Bennett wealth. So I told her what her mother had, and that such a trust would take more than half of her mother's capital, that if anything happened to me there would no longer be what I earned etc. A fantasy gets pretty deep into a person and involves parents, status-seeking, working, relationship with her sister etc. Other topics have been her alcoholism, her promiscuity, etc. Including her move to a new apartment (which she has done) and the problem of furnishing it. These involved: -- but you can easily see what they involved. At the first meeting or two she could not stand the pressure and had to leave. Since then she has stuck each one and one-half hour session out. The psychiatrist knows that I would eventually like a complete analysis (though in the traditional fashion, analysis is not so much practised as it used to be), but Lizzie is not intellectually capable of it at the moment, for the question of logical sequence is not within her capacity. As for the alcoholism, the psychiatrist is convinced that she will eventually have to go to an institutional cure; but if it is to be effective it can only be because she wants to be cured. At the moment she is convinced she can control it. As to the open sanatorium, really this is what now happens: with her nurse, and two psychiatric sessions a week in addition to the meeting with us. And as you know from my efforts to find a similar place for Hilda they do not exist here, and exist less and less in Switzerland. The famous clinic in Stockbridge, which is "open", will not accept an alcoholic. I wish Heydt had been available when she collapsed this time, or before, but, instead, she came under the care of Dr Turfboer. He knew her at the Institute but never had her as a patient. He understands her better than any psychiatrist I have known, and he is tough on her and with her, as I can tell from our joint sessions. In the case of most people I would agree that uprooting and replanting in Switzerland would be good. It was certainly good for Joan who wanted and needed to be away from her parents. Lizzie ought to be, in a normal condition, but her condition is so much involved with her relationships to us and the Bennett clan as a whole, and her general social relationships that she would be suicidal in a country whose language she could not speak and where she knew no one. I think there may be a time, I hope there will be, when she can stand up to such a situation. But I would not dare at this moment break the continuity of her present treatment.

Actually I do not know how I could hope to understand the present situation, if indeed I do understand it, without the advice you have given me in such matters--not given always as advice either, but the conversations on related matters which have given me the benefit of your experience with Hilda, Walter, Joan, and a score of others. I had not gone too much into detail about the Wednesday sessions, for you have enough problems without becoming involved with the burden of mine as well. Nevertheless I do cherish the opportunity to open up.

3

NORMAN

HOLMES

PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

You will be bored with the Hotson saga, but having given you the
outline I might as well fill in details as they come to my notice.
Yesterday, Mrs Carl Rollins (the widow of the distinguished typographer
whom Leslie wanted to come) called Susan to thank for the dinner and
gossip. Mary sat with her at the lecture, and when Leslie had finished
his final outburst she turned to Mrs Rollins, tense faced and saying
in a bewildered fashion that she had not known Leslie was going to say
this. This probably explains why she seemed a little dazed throughout the
rest of the evening. Mrs Rollins said that Leslie had asked her what
she thought of his attack; she said she replied only that it was not
always easy to do things within large institutions (Yale, I presume,
being larger than King's), but that yale had at least given him one of
the great libraries of the world in which to do his research. "I didn't
think of that," he replied; but of course this wasn't quite his point,
and politeness replied to politeness. Actually as I realize now, altho
he dedicated this book as he did *The Wooden O* to King's, all of the
research for this (tho not of course the general skill acquired over a
lifetime) was done after his King's fellowship, and at Yale. "Everything
I once need is here," he once said to me.

I was a little sorry to hear one story Mrs Rollins told, of how the
Provost of King's, who has just been at Yale as a Chubb Fellow had asked
particularly for the chance to call on the Hotsons to pay his respects.
Mrs Rollins and the wife of the Master of Timothy Dwight College, finally
managed to find a two-hour period in the Provost's stay which was not
filled, and Mrs Rollins was prepared to drive him out and back for the
half hour they could spend there. This was about a fortnight ago. So
she called Mary to ask if they might come, Mary withdrew from the phone
for a hurried but prolonged discussion with Leslie, and returned to say
no, they could see the Provost when they were in England again. Apparently
the Provost was understanding and said it didn't really matter; it was only
a social call. But at the dinner Mary showed me your really fine letter to
Leslie about the book (you've never done a more polished composition), and
when I said I hoped they would be going to England, she said no that they
wouldn't be. What was the point, you'd just have to go from place to place
etc. I wonder where all this will lead to?

All love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

26 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

Spring does seem to be here, and if there were anything I could do in the garden to help Susan weed I should probably be there instead of in the office. But she is afraid I will rip out small plants along with the overgrowth of weeds, and no doubt she is right.

There is nothing to report since yesterday. Last night we had intended to break rules and go to see *Hud* and *The Lilies of the Field* which won the academy awards. But when we got to the theatre there was only standing room, which is no solution for us. Instead I finished reading *The Custom House*, a novel about Kyoto which you sent me at my request. It was interesting, professionally written, and I enjoyed it. But more so I think because of Kyoto than simply as a novel.

I was interested to read in a review of Golding's new novel, *The Spire*, that his *Lord of the Flies* used "a rousing tale of some children stranded on an island to savage the complacency of the progressive faith, especially as they had been exemplified in a perennially popular and blandly optimistic English boys' book called 'Coral Island.'" His *The Inheritors* seems to have used Wells's "Outline of History." But I wonder what Ballantyne would have thought. We have the book of course in the collection, but this is not one of the ballantyne mss in it.

A Japanese magazine, *The Study of English*, has arrived with a longish interview with me in it. Japan does seem distant now. Also a curious textbook called *Analyzing Literary Works: a guide for college students* which reprints a review I did of a literary history of America by a man named Spiller. I was amused by the material about it published for the classroom discussion.

## "Comments and Questions

1. Note that Norman Holmes Pearson's review speaks, as does Carl Bode's [*on Thoreau of Walden*, another book], of the ordinary or general reader (Pearson's term is 'average'). Does the reviewer compliment *The Cycle of American Literature* by saying that this 'new literary history is well balanced in its efforts to satisfy a wide range of average interests and concerns'?

2. The review is, technically at any rate, a mixed review, in that the reviewer pays the book a number of compliments (particularly in the second paragraph) and also suggests that the book suffers from several organic weaknesses. Does the reviewer eventually indicate that his response to the book is more, or less, favorable than otherwise? Does he imply that the book is valuable despite its deficiencies, or that the deficiencies overcome any redeeming features that the book may have?

3. Contrast the length of this review with Carl Bode's review of Thoreau of Walden. Why is this review so much longer? Notice also the difference in tone between the two reviews. Does this difference in tone have anything to do with the difference in length between the two reviews?

So, how would you answer the questions. I doubt that I could myself except for one particular: a review is usually the length it is, because the editor has allowed the reviewer so many words. It is not usually shorter than what is allowed, because then the reviewer would be paid less.

But how many words will the editor allow? Ah, there the question really is.

All my love,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

28 April 1964

Dearest Fido,

This is a very hurried letter indeed--a few lines written before I have to go to a lecture on "The Word," and a few lines (hopefully) afterwards. And perhaps it will never reach you until after you have left for England.

But if it does get to Switzerland on time, you must call M. Beney and tell him and the bank that yesterday afternoon a representative of Swissair from New York called at my office to explain what had happened at Geneva and to make his apologies. He was a M. René Haberstich, and I believe has Connecticut as a part of his territory but the trip was a special one to see the a & b travel agency and myself, armed with documents and contrition. He certainly knew all about the bank's part in it too; and I must say that the track of an assassin could hardly have been more carefully retraced than were the events of that day. To summarize: he said that the arrangements were unavoidable, and Swissair's handling of it at Geneva was inexuscusable. What seems to have happened is that the plane on which we were originally to go had been cancelled because of fog in the States (too involved for me to understand); in combining the two flights there were two too many first class passengers and it was decided that Susan and I should be put into tourist (why us, as a couple, was not stated); we were assigned two seats in tourist class and could not be notified because Zurich did not have any record of where we could be reached (I had thought we had given your address to Zurich, and Susan thought the same. I also thought that at Geneva they said we couldn't be reached at Vevey [without my having said where we had been] because it was too late.) When the young man phoned to ask for our seats at Geneva he was given numbers which he thought were first class but were actually second, and he went by our tickets. (I was shown a xerox copy of the original reassignment.) They say he should have known and explained to us. They say the Geneva office thought it had been explained to us. They say that only when they heard we had 1st class boarding cards did they recheck. And I must say that the same seat numbers are marked on the first class and tourist boarding cards. They say, or hint, that the young man has lost his job because of it; although this hardly pleases me especially since he allowed us excess baggage on first class terms (as Elsie knows), and the excess on tourist would have been the difference in the fares. But they say, we really should have had things explained, should really have been offered the finest accommodations at the International Hotel, should have been better treated when we finally were told, and that for all of these subsequent events there was no excuse and that I would have a written letter of apology from Swissair. Ah, said M. Haberstich who came from Montreux and had worked at this bank there, and knew Burier and your house because it was next door to your neighbor's, I am so surprised that this rudeness happened at Geneva because the French are

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

so polite; -- now in Zürich....! But I said that in Zurich I had
always had efficient and decorous aid. M. Haberstich had seen my
reply to the a & b travel agency in which I said that because of all
the trouble I feared another trip to Switzerland would have been
interned or, at best, only permitted to sleep the night in the transit
room. He said if I would only go again I should be carried on silk
pillows on the shoulders of Swissair, and I was to be sure to tell
a & b to tell him that I was going. And we have, he said, a special
club for special travellers on Swiss air that entitles them to
special treatment (tho, he added hastily, we always hope and
passengers have the finest treatment always), and if you would like
to be enrolled in that --I only need your business card (which
indicates the power of the mart) -- I will send you the button
for your lapel. I presume it must be worn only at state dinners
when decorations are called for, and I wonder if I should add it
the list of awards in Who's Who?

But at any rate he was very nice about it, and perturbed
("The president of the a & b seems to think this happens often."),
and I am grateful to the Union Banque and Beney and to you for
putting things in order.

Your letters of the 22nd and 23rd arrived yesterday, but
will have to wait to tomorrow for an answer.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

2 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

Time has been a little pressed so I dared not risk a letter yesterday to Kenwin, and have delayed until today when the Sesame should still be reachable. Besides, being now an old hand at departures, I suspect you will have more time for letters in England than on the eve of leaving. I won't try to finish today but will mail what I have done and send another, or installment of the whole, tomorrow.

Just a note or two however of more urgent matters, so that I shall remember to mention them. I did rather delay in getting in touch with Sylva, but before your letter from her reached me through you, I had wired her in Texas and had a reply; and this morning I went to the Midtown Motor Inn (the best here now) and got two singles with bath for her and her friend Mrs Boas for the nights of the 14th and 15th. On the 16th they continue to Boston but this will give them about three days here for me to take care of them. They will be my guests at the hotel, and I have instructed that all charges (restaurant and otherwise) are to be billed me, but it seemed more sensible for them to be there than at Goodrich Street. For the inn is next to the art gallery and two blocks from the library, so they can set their own times, go back for rests and to wash, and Susan and I will entertain them for dinner each evening, and I will see that they lunch.

This week will be busy too with Robert Duncan's coming for four or five days to work on Hilda's mss (he says). If it will help him to finish his book fine; but it will be hell to have him hanging around and wanting to talk about Hilda when my chief Hilda for the moment is from *The Marble Faun*. However..... And Christof deNagy, the Swiss-Hungarian whom Hilda liked, wants to come here while Sylva is here--I suppose because he wants another job in place of the one I got him at the University of Rochester. Well, such is it to be a brood hen, as we both know.

As to Leslie, all seems to have quieted down except for the continued gossip on the part of elder citizens about the lecture. His own little coterie of old dames and the Cleanth Brookses are all heartbroken he made the attack, and the Mrs Withington made a little pilgrimage to tell him he had done wrong. (There really is an air of high comedy about all this!) But Leslie is quietly confident of his victory, and Mary sides with him (how could she do otherwise?), and so it goes. Mary wrote Susan a nice note, which I enclose. I wrote Leslie thanking him for the copy of the Times, but have not heard from him and really don't expect to, after telling him I couldn't put myself in his place to understand the insult. "No, you couldn't," he answered. I think that was about the last word. But I am interested in what you said about Leslie's fear of Rowse, so far as England is concerned. England is so anti-Rowse that I am sure Leslie starts with an advantage. But I am told that the two reviews seen here so far, from England, have not been enthusiastic. Leslie may have seen these, and want (and find) an explanation. He has really banked so much, both academically and financially, on his searches that I am not surprised at his tenseness. But I can hear W.H. shouting from the grave to Shakespeare:

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

"a plague on both your Rowses!"

Am most grateful for the return of the Philby clipping which will
be duly filed, and for the two books of poetry from Hilda's library, or
perhaps yours, which you sent.

Have just been sent a stunning article on early maps of North
America and Greenland, and will try to get an extra copy for you. It
catches up the whole history of exploration quite in the Ashe fashion.
This is a monograph by the Keeper of Maps of the B.M. Very learned, but
well written.

Now down to the letters, which I presume are all in up to the 29th.
Though occasionally they arrive out of order. I am so pleased that you had
a good visit from Hilda and Margery; and if they were less than bountifully
fed on their trip, Elsie's cuisine must have seemed like heavenly communion.
As indeed it is. We still remark on the bread! # Many thanks for Heydt's address,
and that of the Brigadier. I will try to write him. I really do like him,
and we get on well together. But I am used to the military, strange to say.

I look forward to the sections of the novel, and will drop all to
read them when they come. But will try to remember the miracles you always
perform in the rewriting, and not lift you up by the ears as President Johnson
does with his beagles.

The Maggs eskimo portrait sounds rather fun, and early enough, of
course, to be something of a rarity I should think. I imagine the price will
be impossibly high however. I look forward immensely to the White, which must
be very beautiful indeed. I have seen the earlier volume of selected sketches,
and they were exceptionally fine. Presumably the Lady V volume that went to
you was indeed that for here. For none has come. I look forward to it. Am,
as a matter of fact, rather wallowing in reading at the moment, taking evening
advantage of my leave. Have done on the average of one book every two nights,
but blush to say that so far they are about Japan and India. One picks up a
little from each, and occasionally feels superior in terms of what one saw or
did. I am eager to hear what you find out about Doris's condition. Do re-
member how very lonely it must be for her, and in a way I can understand how much
the management of a farm does to distract her now that reading and t.v are denied
her. She can think about that. And her nature is such that needs someone to
direct, manage, and towards whom she can feel a little abler. Her farmer fills
this need, and fortunately he is already married. She'll have her little physical
restlessness, like many older women, but anyhow the farmer is no prince. Still,
I agree, it doesn't make the visit any easier.

And I shall be eager too to see if Collins has anything to report about
letting Sands go out of print. Helen had wanted to do that too --by which I mean
we had not reprinted it. But Pantheon, under the new management, wanted particu-
larly to have it available. So we republished it.

I shall see what can be learned about Greenland. I had not realized
from what you said earlier, that they would be willing to leave us at the airport.
I only wish I could hear from Melgaard. Then I would know whether there would be
anyone at the digs. June I think is the only possible time. Otherwise one is
in the midst of tourists. And you must have time for your novel. Are you sure
you really want to go? We could always jump to Gretchen Baker over a weekend
at any time of the year. I gather there is not much to see at the Newfoundland
dig: only sand.

I was most curious to learn that Holly had sold Silvia's books to
Princeton, for John Carter told me only a fortnight ago that he was still
cataloguing them for auction. But that is expensive, and as I told you the
chief gems from the library were sold by Silvia long since. For most libraries

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

I really should be plugging away at business correspondence. But it is so much pleasanter to write to you, and I like to console myself that I clear my desk as I toss into the basket the little aides mémoires that I jot down for your letters. Even so I never use them, as my notes now indicate.

Firstly, I don't think I told you that the Shakespeare first day cover arrived, with the most careful cancellations. Of course the graduate school has viewed it with awe; and indeed it is a very pretty object indeed. I rather like the new Elizabeth facing the old Bard. I do thank you.

And of Shakespeare what could be a finer tribute than that of the Archbishop of York: "His private life left much to be desired." It takes an Archbishop to know. Indeed I am often struck by the latent Puritanism in so many British (it is overt in Americans, of course). I finished last night D. J. Enright's book on Japan, The World of Dew (borrowed from the library, like the other books on Japan I am now reading). He is a young man, a critic, and (unusually) married. But he finds so much to disconcert him morally that he has three separate chapters in a shortish book to describe at great length the awful and shameful situation of (1) the geishas and meikos, (2) the joro, who are in the brothels, and (3) the hostesses in bars. But of course his puritanism goes much farther, and the only breed who seems to offend him more are Americans. He is not even grateful that Americans provide him with contrasting horror.

I was at the Co-op yesterday and saw Roysce Smith for the first time. He confirmed my impression that Saul Bellow's book was not yet really announced for publication, and I doubt that it will be out even in the fall list. Bellow had been teaching at Chicago, but now has more grants and is off again to Europe. One thing is certain: a successful writer no longer has to live off of his royalties. He gets grants.

How really kind you are to tell me to write about Lizzie if it helps to get it off my chest. I do write as you know, for I like and often need your comments. But I mustn't get it off my chest onto yours. Not at least while you are with book.

I had thought yesterday that I must begin to make my visits: to Gardner, to New York, to see Horace. So I had intended to go to Palisades yesterday, but on phoning found that Joanna and her family were coming for the weekend. It is nice for Horace and Marya but it makes a full house, and I think that Marya (quite naturally) finds it a burden except for the change of pace for Horace. So my visit was put off, though I hope to see them in New York on the 18th for a cocktail party for his book (I hate them, but he is anxious I go) and on the 20th when under the circumstances I must go to his induction at the National Institute. He seemed very fine indeed on the phone, and sounded full of spirits (I sometimes wish Marya wouldn't explain over the phone how difficult it is for 'poor Horace' to move, while she kills time as he comes to the phone.) He finished up his Longfellow book in jig time (he was pleased at that) and is now actually working on D.R. He had read Miss Glitkin and liked what she had done, really liked it. I am much encouraged.

Do pass the word on to Rose.

I did spend an earlier part of the morning with first of the month bills, and putting together the few checks to be deposited. The bill for Leslie's dinner, not counting tips and flowers for the table, came to $135.61, so I hope he and his friends really did enjoy it. I think in an earlier letter I told you of the check for $920.00 from Harcourt. If I did not go into details of how much of each item had been sold, tell me. No, that's silly: I'll do it again. Of The Coin of Carthage 1,490 copies were sold for the six months ending Dec 31, 1963; and of Artemis no copies were sold and six copies returned, which meant a debit of $4.60. The total also included your share ($365.27) of the advance of $472.91 for the English edition of Artemis. Actually I don't quite understand how this was reckoned and will have Helen explain to me when I go in. It usually irritates her to explain things of this kind, for it seems to her I am quarreling. But I will ask. Hilda's royalties from rove for the same period were $207.07, which I thought pretty good. I will take both checks down to deposit to your account and hers on Monday. I still do not have my accounts back from the income tax man, but will write you the abstracts as they affect her income and yours when these are returned.

In a catalogue of Goodspeed's I saw an interesting 4 pp letter by Zinzendorf (these are very uncommon) for which they wanted $295.00. For a moment I was tempted to buy as from Hilda's account in order to add to her Moravian Collection of mss to make it a little more important. She has nothing as good as this. But then did not. Do you think I should? Actually I still can't quite decide where it should go. Probably in the neighborhood of Bethlehem, and probably to Lehigh where her father taught. People say it would be buried in the Moravian archives. I had thought the Bethlehem museum, but people say this is now chiefly Victorian. One can wait for the right place and moment.

I'll put this aside now in case other thoughts come in the course of the day.

5:00 p.m.--well, there didn't seem to be, but maybe I'm a little too tired after a day's slogging at other correspondence. And, alas, Robert Duncan phoned to say he had already arrived and hoped to put in eight hours a day of reading H.D. He won't have carte blanche, you can be assured.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

9 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

I sighed with relief when I left the German professor
from Cologne at the railroad station this morning. It has been a
week of visitors. I am glad to be through with it.

What has come from you in addition to letters? Two
yellowbacks, a copy of the Viking book (what marvelous pictures it
has), and Mrs Duberly's Campaigns (which I am eager to read), and
Leslie's W.H. (which of course I am equally keen to get at it. For
all of these, my thanks.

Now as to a few details. Having spent the earlier part
of the day in paying bills and clearing my desk (a goal never achieved),
I have ordered the Zinzendorf letter (if of course it is still available).
I will take the money for this from Hilda's savings account, which now
(after my Monday's depositing spree) stands at $783.00. Yours after
the same day's deposit, stands at $10,139.37, altho there may be some
adjusting after I reckon the income tax. I won't bore you with the
latter now. Then I have just had a nice note from Sylva Norman who
will arrive in mid-afternoon on Thursday, but is now leaving in mid-
afternoon on the following day. (I have re-arranged with the motel).
But her entertainment is my pleasure, as Leslie's dinner was. And I
will pay for both. You must let me, or I shall never feel free to
write details of such matter. Or, much worse, be forced into a lie.
Sylva's new plans make me rearrange my idea of what to do with her,
but we will have them both to the house for dinner on Thursday, and I
will see that she has lunch with the lady librarian and myself on
Friday. (Naturally I'm not entirely sad at this gift of a Saturday in
which I can do my own work.) It will be pleasant to see her anyhow;
her letter was a graceful one.

Yours of the 1st May, 3rd, 5th, and 6th and 6th have not been
answered. But considering the week I do not apologize. AND, how can I
forget, The Colors of Vaud which has also just come and which I will read
tonight. I would not poke it into corners of the last two days. This
will let me get it off to Helen whom I hope to see either on the 18th
when I go to New York for Horace's bookday party, or on the 20th when I
see him welcomed into the National Institute.

And pleased that you went with Elsie to see the Exposition.
Perhaps this is the fall for her to come over with you, on the basis that
she should be happy for days with the New York World's Fair. Actually
the reception of it has been good, by people I know, and I think we must
go. The problem of food, if one insists on eating at normal hours, is
a real one because of the crowds. And it was reported to me that the
transportation within the fair was chaotic. "Lady, I don't know where
the General Motors Building is," the driver of a bus said; "They just
tell me, take the first right and then the next right, and I do what I'm
told. You'll have to ask someone who knows." But nobody knows, that is
at this dawn of fair history.

2

I take a chance on this in Ethel's care, but I find the
deliveries somewhat slower in England than in Switzerland. Will
send my next one in Doris's care. Do give Ethel our love. I
wish we might have seen her fields of daffodils, but even more that
we might have seen her.

Philip is a little too skittish about not going to Greece,
I think. However I do realize that if one has been trapped as you
were at the beginning of 11, one does not go out of one's way to
repeat the experience. I agree however that I would not seek the
islands. This might prove to have difficulties if anything broke
out. But Athens or the peninsula in general is a different matter.
I was really quite overhwlemed by Philip's sickbed letter about his
chateau. He has his estate now, and can be lord of the manor. Indeed
why not? I should have said this was the first exuberant letter I
have ever read from him. As to the diamonds, I think it an excellent
idea to get a valuation on the diamonds. And presumably to wait, since
I have said the same myself. However, my own inclination would be to
take them out of England and to Switzerland unless one planned to
sell. Only third alternative might be for you to leave them in a
safe deposit box on this side, if you wanted them here as a reserve
against a quick flight from Switzerland. Box could be opened only by
you, but an extra key kept in our box in case of death. But I should
think that Switzerland was the best spot for them.

We were delighted with the Shakespeare decorated air letter.
It is pricelessly for posterity. But not for an art gallery. I really
must say I cannot guess what sort of a *tribute* this is supposed to be:
all quainted up as it is. It has nothing to do with why we pay attention
to the 400th.

The Duncan has of course been around during the week, and I let
him read *The Sword*, *The Gift* and other books Hilda had written him he
should read. Said he had recently liked *Sands* and liked it the best.

Out of one group of letters to you, I see I had laid aside
Pat's letter about Rose's memoirs. A very nice letter indeed, but the
kind I am always a little sorry to see when a manuscript is concerned.
I am afraid they gave her too much encouragement, and now can do little
to help in a practical way. Not that I blame them; it is difficult, and
one would expect a British audience primarily for the books of Rose's sort.
Am afraid that Pat may be a little uneasy about not finding a money-maker
or two for Knopf, for a new assistant to Knopf has just been brought into
the firm (a Symour Lawrence whom I knew, who has been with Atlantic Monthly
Press). He looks as though chosen for the successor to Knopf, a spot I
suppose Pat might secretly always have hoped for (and which Horace and Marya
certainly did.) I don't think he has any reason to worry about his job, but
it may always be a minor one. Though I see nothing wrong with that; and have
never (thank God) thought of Pat as a man for all markets.

Our love of course to Ethel and to Doris when you see her. To Lady
V also if your visit to her is not already over.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

11 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

It is now noon, and when the phone rang to say it was de Nagy wanting to come over now I said he was to wait for a quarter hour. It will be the first free quarter hour this morning. When I arrived at the office, Chaudrey (the Pakastani professor) was waiting with (a) the ms of an article on Dickens and Carlyle, and (b) the manuscript of a book on Dickens (I already have an article on Hawthorne and Dickens). both of which are "necessary" to publish before he goes back to Pakistan and Lahore. I do feel for him, for there is no money for publishing books in Pakistan; yet his prestige would be immensely raised by publication. He writes fiction in Urdu, but of course that doesn't help. He is most interesting on his long and hard work in getting his doctorate at Edinburgh. Then Duncan appeared and stayed one hour and a half. Then René Wellek with a letter from an American in Prague wanting me to write long letters to get a Czech permission to come to the States to prepare a dictionary of American literature. (Whatever that is!) But the American fn Prague is a friend and professor from California. Fortunately something had already been done on this score. Now de Nagy, and one knows already that he will want me to get him a better job when he returns in the fall of 1966 from a Swiss government grant to take him to London. But I have already gotten him two jobs, each of which he has kept for a year but wants something better. I imagine what he ultimately wants (I hope he gets it) is a Swiss professorship. Why, oh why, do they all flock to my door!

A letter in this morning's mail came from Thorpe who wants material on Margiad Evans. Unfortunately one of my Saturday tasks was to write him at length about what is here. Unfortunately too I did not answer all the questions he asked (how many pages in each letter, etc), and so will have to do it over again next weekend. (I wonder if I ever will get at Hawthorne?) I did ask him if he had facilities for using, microfilm if I sent it over. The Irish journal has about 100 pages, and there are approximately 43 letters which would altogether contain about 70 pages I should think. Xerox comes at 25 cents a sheet. Shall we say $45 altogether. The microfilm would be cheaper but harder to use. Perhaps since this helps Margiad Evans' reputation I ought just to go ahead and send the xerox copies. What do you advise? I found on my return that microfilm too costs more than one would think. To do films on the Richardson material, so it would not totally be lost if anything happened to papers while they were with Horace, cost me over $350.00. At least that was the bill I paid on my return from the trip. These were 14 drawings she also sent you, plus the 3 volumes of A Ray of Darkness. But altho I have told Mr Thorpe about these, I gather he will not be interested.

Have ordered a few more for the Henty et al Collection, but alas the only Henty item we already had. We also had Stables Kidnapped by Cannibals in your childhood copy. New additions are: Kingston's

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Digby Heathcote(1860); Stables, By Seadand Land(1890); Ballantyne, The Red Man's Revenge(1886); and Brereton's Rough-Riders of the Pampas (1909). The last volume I took rather carelessly for it is more or less beyond the cut-off point; but Brimmell tells me Brereton "is starting to be collected now," and I wanted to have a look at him. Undoubtedly you know him already, so you must let me know what you think of him, or whether he should be added. I count on your judgment for this.

**Yellowback commentary:** Having typed that heading I have now gone over the envelope itself, and am not sure there was any justification for it. Not that the letters were not interesting, but that nothing demands an addition to itself. A letter from Edith is fireworks in itself. A letter from George now makes me a little sad, and it is difficult to remember the joy he had with his hedges, with birds, and with the flowers in his garden and the jamjars in his cupboards.

Yesterday was that American horror: Mother's Day. And although Susan and I and the children do not observe it as a family, the Bennetts (in homage to Mrs Bennett) collect aspirin. The wind has been high for the past two days (gardens have been dried out by it) so we gathered in the courtyard of our shore cottage rather than at the big house. Steaks were cooked, and people had a good time. But gatherings of this size are better suited to political rallies than entertainment. However, at 3:30 Susan and I had to leave to go back to town and dress for an early supper at the Cleanth Brookses, who are leaving for two years in London at the term's end and were clearing off last calls. He is to be cultural attache at the Embassy, the job you may remember I refused several years ago just before Carl Bode went. You were brought in on my security clearance, when Rita's FBI boyfriend interviewed you, altho we didn't know why at the time. But to come back to the moment, he had said he would write me for the names of people he should meet (he is very nice as a person and well known as a critic). Suddenly I thought of the talk in the fall on H.D.'s poetry, and asked him if the contingency arising) he would be willing to talk on her. He said he would, although this is in no way binding and in fact has things against it as well as for it. For it is the fact that this will be an early appearance of the Cultural attache, and a man whose name is pretty well known in England. He always talks gracefully. Against it is the fact that he never knew her and, I suspect, being himself metaphysically inclined and a "new critic" might make her seem minor in terms of her true importance. Though I should of course try to coach him. What would be best of all would be your own appearance, and barring that--I'm only sorry that it isn't economically practical for me to fly over for such a single appearance. So the Brooks is only a possibility, in case all other possibilities fail.

Your letters of the 6th and 7th are here, the latter arriving this morning. By now of course you are well off and on your trip, and I shall be eager for news of Doris. Obedient to your command I wait until you see how the situation is with her before I try to contact Denmark about the trip. At least this is one reason why, naturally, or at least I interpret, you want to wait a bit to decide. The other, equally understandable, is that you may feel you want to keep on with the first draft of the *Colors*. We will see. I am quite content to get to my Hawthorne.

Glad you went or were going to Mrs Boys for tea. She is like Alice, and would be bitterly hurt if you didn't, no matter what time of day you called. A Phyllis is relentless in such things; and I think it becomes a matter of pride not to indulge in tea, not to ..., not to.... I am glad you

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

sensitively think of the pleasure it gives others. You always have.

I am indeed more than a little worried about the Sesame. But what can one do? The costs of service and food and taxation go up so much there is little space left for the costs of a club. And even to patch the ship, so to speak, would not be durable for very long. Perhaps if you find some particularly worthy dame who wants to come to this side, I might find a place for her. But the greatest difficulty for them would be finding new friends. Money one can earn, food one can eat, but friends are increasingly difficult to find as one grows older (especially if one is a servant on this side, or even a companion).

The Swissair affair was as you say really a matter of counter
courtesy. And the representative came out with his, for which "there
is no excuse" at once. He spoke of a letter of apology coming, but I
have heard nothing so far. No doubt it will come in due course, and it
hardly matters whether it does or not.

I had read a snippet about the Swinnerton mss, and remarked it
especially because of the John Gould Fletcher archives already there.
But the Times account was fascinating, in the quotations from Swinnerton
himself. I'm afraid he's right and the BM wouldn't really want his mss
at all. ### As for Siberia, alas, even under Rita's sponsorship think
how interesting it would be. And how expensive! I rather like the
trip as one of "our Art and Architecture series" and having Lake Baikal
and its 1350 fishes as the grail.

Halfway through this letter, after lunch with de Nagy (who did want just what I thought), I went to the shore to be sure things had been put away. They had, both by the children yesterday afternoon and by the caretakers today. But great excitement: they (the caretakers) found in the rocks blown up on the lawn by a storm last winter what seems likely to be a fine stone Indian adze. I have left it at the Peabody Museum for their opinion. The Indians did use the little harbor in the past, and one or two things have been dredged up before. I shall be eager to know what the Museum thinks.

Now as to Colors, I really like it. I really like it. Chapter One still seems a little uncertain, but once Two is reached the thing marches. It was odd that I had made a note querying the use of Mrs Perritt for Mme Perrett. If you do decide to use Mrs, perhaps an inserted sentence or two should be there, saying that because she was British the people (or she) did not feel she belonged and therefore even tho married to a Swiss they did not treat her as such. At the beginning of Chapter Four, on p.24, I was confused by the long dialogue when I had no idea who was talking. Unless you meant a Saurraute touch. In the movies of course one sees who is talking. Maybe it should be a new chapter, so it comes out more sharply defined. I have made some picayune remarks on details, but, as you say, this is first draft. I shouldn't touch the first chapter until you have gone through the whole thing. But I do like the book very much, and am eager to know where it will be going. You're smart to leave several directions open still at this point of the book. I will send to Helen and discuss next week.

All love,

Norman

All love, All love, All love.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

12 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

I paid the dentist what I hope is my last visit for some time.

Coming back after my experiences on the road home, it seemed to me one of the accomplishments I could be reasonably sure of was clearing up my teeth. And I have, I hope. One cap put on where inlays covered half a tooth before; divisions between teeth fixed so food would not be caught; small and large fillings. I say, thank God it is over with.

Susan is no doubt saying thank God too, for this morning she was to pick up her new Chevrolet and drive it to a flower show she was judging. It is a convertible, with power steering and brakes (to help her bersitis) and air conditioning which I insisted on since heat so terribly bothers her, and no windows can ever be open because her hair blows. I shall see it tonight for the first time; I simply gave her a check to give them, and she chose it for herself by herself.

I spoke on the phone with the anthropologist-archaeologist with whom I left the stone yesterday, and he was much excited. Says I must confirm with someone who is expert (he is more middle American), but he himself is convinced it is some 2,000 years old and a fine specimen of an adze. I am to pick it up and take it on.

Susan read *Colors* last night and was much impressed. Said it moved along. I tried to phone Helen at 10:30 this morning but she had not yet come to the office. Asked to have her call when she came in. The call from her came after I had left at noon for lunch. There was a note on my desk saying that if I wanted to speak with her for me to put the call in again. Hugh Kenner, the critic, just back from abroad and en route to California, had come to see me after lunch and I could not call until a bit after 3. She had gone home for the day. I hope this does not mean she is ill. I had hoped to lunch with her next Monday or Wednesday, as suited her, and discuss *Vaud*. I presume we still will. And other things.

Goodspeeds wasted no time in sending along the Zinzendorf letter. With it were two typed translations, two copies of the translation that is. I enclose one for your interest. The Count seems to be a good politician and manager. It seems to me to be a good letter, and certainly is a tremendous addition to the H.D. Collection.

Ingholt was in this morning with the catalogue for a Sotheby sale for Wednesday May 20th, with an extraordinary group of Gandharan pieces to be auctioned off. One of the two best in the States, and owned (of all things) in Guilford, Connecticut where we go for the lobster restaurant by the small harbor. Kenneth would go mad, and indeed anyone would covet items 166 and 170. Ingholt of course weeps that Olson did not give them to Yale as he has so much else, but it appears he has lost much money lately and has a useless son to support. Ingholt now hopes the Danish National Museum will buy 166 which he feels has exceptional value and only two comparable pieces in India or Pakistan. You might like to look in and at least pick up a catalogue for Kenneth unless you want to buy for him. Will probably be expensive. But do get the catalogue, for Islay's sake, since all references are to your Gandharan book. It is established.

Love to Doris, and all love you personally - Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

13 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

Another one of those days in which nothing of Hawthorne has been accomplished. But... The morning was devoted to the meeting with the psychiatrist; Liz seemed in good control of herself, but I find all of these meetings emotionally draining. Useful, however. And when I got back from lunch, Duncan was waiting and stayed on until 3:30 when he went for the train. (I was meanwhile able to escape another author, Townsend Miller, whose life of Isabella I had helped to get published), who "just stopped in" while I was just stepping out.)

However I hope I have been able to make arrangements to see Helen on Monday. If not then, on Wednesday. Apparently she must not work much at the office, for when I called today, "Mrs Wolff is not coming in today." I remember that Kurt preferred to work at home, and she may not only be used to it but find it more economical of time. So the manuscript of your novel was sent to the office, and I wrote her a separate letter asking her to wire me if she could see me, and at what hour. I have also, I hope, arranged to see Grove Press about Hilda's things earlier in the morning. And after the party for Horace's *Collected Poems* we will have Perdita and John for dinner at the Yale Club at 7:00 p.m. This will mean we can take the 9 o'clock back.

There have, naturally enough, been no letters from you for a couple of days; but this morning's post brought both the copy of Leslie's *Sunday Times* and Hilda's Eskimo beed bag. Did I tell you that Leslie has sent me a copy of the book inscribed "To Norman from his grateful friend Leslie"? This was very nice of him I thought. I shall give the copy you sent me to Prouty, I think. I happened yesterday to be looking at a new directory of scholars, and was interested that Leslie had put down under his name that he was "Shakespeare quatercentenary orator, Yale," for 1964. I had never been quite sure of his age, but he was born Aug 16, 1897, in Ontario. Married in 1919 and received his BA from Harvard in 1921. Was instructor in English at Harvard, 24-25; asst.Prof. 25-26; Sterling senior resident fellow at Yale 26-27; associate prof. English NY University 27-29; Guggenheim Fellow 29-31; Professor English Haverford College 31-41. The rest you know.

I looked over the Sotheby Catalogue again at home last night. It was very good indeed. The cost of the illustrated catalogue is 10 shillings sixpence if you want to send one to slay. Sotheby's address is 34-35 New Bond Street, London W1. The only point is seeing his book as the chief reference. That, I think, should please him.

Must study timetables before risking another to the Scillies. But love to Doris.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

I am sorry for the interval between this and my last letter.

But at least I warned you. And I shall not be able to write tomorrow either, for I shall be having an uncomfortably busy day in New York.

Our visit from Sylva and her friend Mrs Louise Boas was a pleasant one for us, and I hope for them. Sylva was, I think, a little nervous at first (naturally) and therefore a little over-made-up and a little strident as we met at the station, but by dinner time had quite completely completely relaxed. And since both she and Mrs Boas are chatterboxes, there was no problem about conversation. There had almost been a problem about food, for not until we were in the hotel for their rooms did Sylva tell me that she was strictly vegetarian.

Fortunately there was an hour before we were to be at Goodrich Street so having left them I telephoned Susan who cooked some extra vegs for Sylva, and the rest of us ate what we would have eaten otherwise. But how fortunate that we learned of it before we sat down at the table.

I fetched them at 10, the next morning, took them to the library where each did an errand that lasted till noon when I took them and the woman an assistant librarian of the Rare Book Room to the Lawn Club for luncheon. Afterwards I took Sylva and her friend for a walk around the new colleges and a drive up East Rock and through dogwood which Sylva liked very much. Your note about seeing Nelly Kirkham had come Friday morning, so I showed it to her to her pleasure, Miss Kirkham being apparently her 'greatest' friend at Kingswood. Mrs Boas was almost 80, a widowed professor whose husband was also professor of English, who now fills her time discovering oddments about Shelley. She has a son who is professor of mathematics at Northwestern University, and a daughter also a professor and married to one at the University of London. She is spry and scrappy and just right for Sylva.

Yesterday, having the extra day I had not counted on when Sylva's earlier plans came, we drove to Gardner for the first time after my mother's death. Our first visit was to the cemetary, which was not as difficult a mission as I had feared it might be. The headstone was laid in place but not yet fixed, so that there was a little open space around it. It seemed symbolic to me that things should not quite be finished until after my visit. Now the stone can be fixed, the soil filled in at the margins, and the grass can grow. We had luncheon at my brother's (whose wife--psychotic--had just returned to the hospital) and my sister (neurotic, certainly) and her husband were also there for the later division of the few remaining pieces of family silver and the like. When I brought up the question of whether my brother or my sister were to take care of the family burial lots in New Hampshire and at gardner, I was really worried at all that seemed to be implied by this custodianship. Fortunately I am well out of it, and a solution of sorts seemed to be worked out largely, I think, because I could be there as a third voice or moderator. But with this out of the way, the actual division of things went on a silk path. I announced that I wanted nothing, since my mother's things should be handed down eventually

["2", "NORMAN\nHOLMES\nPEARSON", "231 HGS", "YALE UNIVERSITY", "NEW HAVEN · CONN", "through her blood descendants Susan agreed), and this helped as well as\nthe absence of my sister-in-law with whom my sister does not get along\nvery well. Still, it was all rather nervously exh austing, and I was\nglad when we were back at our own home about 9:30 at night.", "Lady Vyvyan's *Coloured Pebbles* arrived yesterday and was\nwaiting for me. For which thanks. I know how much she must have enjoyed your visit to her. Her letter beforehand was an exceptionally nice one. It came in a yellowback which I have also gone through in order to pick up my desk a bit before I leave tomorrow. The state of confusion becomes worse rather than better. # Poor George Plank seems to be having the sand run out of him. It is terrible, but there is nothing one can do. His letter was one of denorous agony. # I was at least relieved that Catha had been to Kershaw's. # Rosemary S. does manage to write a good letter about almost everything, whether it is going to the theatre with her godson or losing a particular house in Greece. (I suspect she is well out of that particular deal!) # And poor Kenneth alone with his one dame-cum-kids on the boat. He needs some one twithwhom to talk over old campaigns. # George's letters are anguished; Jean Untermeyer's are wails. I really do prefer other types of response to difficulty. # I liked Chester Page's description of Marianne feeding the elephants celery and brown bread. He wrote me too that he had found a copy of \"Development.\" What he wants (politely enough) me to help him get are copies of \"Arrow Music\". \"Amy Lowell,\" and \"A Picture Geography.\" The letter was only written on the 13th, and I shall be answering later today that if I see any for sale I certainly will remember his interest in having one. But unless you very much want him to have these, I shall not give him any of the few duplicate copies we have. (I noticed that you were hesitant in sending him a photograph of yourself. I agree). I doubt that you want all this to snowball too rapidly, but will of course do exactly as you say. # You were of course quite right in not reading the ms for the lady professor of mathematics at Rutgers. Let agents and publisher's editors do that.", "Mary's Easter card was pleasant. The week having been what it was I could not begin \"Mr W.H.", feeling I ought to have read at least one of John Schaffner's Christmas books before we see him tomorrow. I did. It was really quite interesting, about Indians (from India) in Tronidad, and the conflict between the two cultures and religions and generations. Rather poetically done, and not entirely unrelated in theme to your own books. The daily Times review of Leslie's book was certainly respectful and a real tribute to Leslie's knowledge and research. It certainly held back a little, and straddled a bit, and \"a Special Correspondent\" ought not to lose friends in any camp. I now hear from Wilmarth Lewis that Leslie wrote him a day or two after the lecture, saying what he understood that Lewis was a little unhappy at the talk, and that of course he (Lewis) understood that there was no reference or insinuation about him and the Walpole project in what Leslie said about Franklin and Boswell and Johnson. Then according to Lewis he went on into a tirade again about Yale and his bitterness toward it, in a tone which Lewis found psychiat- rically alarming. I still feel deeply sorry that what should have been so pleasant an occasion for Leslie as quatercentary orator should have been an unhappy occasion instead. But having written this last sentence, I am"]

3

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

not sure I am write in calling it an unhappy occasion. Actually, Leslie
may have felt this was a moment of triumph, of a victorious revenge,
a moment of history accomplished with high theatrics. And if this is
so, he is probably happy rather than unhappy. But I am afraid the
historical life of the episode will be brief, and I fear that the lesson
he wanted to teach will not have been learned.
Anyhow,
the Chairman of English and I agreed that we would make every effort
a year from this join, when his appointment as Research Associate ter-
minates, to be sure that he was reappointed for another term. He
could of course pay a fee and continue to use the library if he were
not appointed, but since Leslie has never resigned the appointment
I suspect that it must somehow, a little, please him.

Your letter of the 9th had come on Friday morning, and yours of
the 13th (from Tregoning) I have read for the first time today. Your
decision about Greenland does not really surprise me, for I had seen a
little unc at work before, and had not written to Copenhagen on the basis of your
suggestion that I wait. I do think the circumstances with Doris means
you will want to keep a certain flexibility, for as Lady V rightly says,
this is entangled with "roots." And I think too that you may be inwardly
eager to keep on with the Swiss novel rather than break the flow during
at least the period of the first-time-through. At any rate I shall keep
busy; and being less ahead with the Hawthorne than I had hoped to be, I
too can work without a longish break.

The trip with Phyllis sounded fun. And I am glad you saw Mrs Boys
and Mrs Kirkham and her husband's honey. I must say I have never tried it.
Something would depend on the type of tea, I should think. Ludlow I saw
only once, but at a time when they gave a performance of "Comus" is the
countyard. I liked the castle very much, but ought to see that part of the
Isles again.

All my love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 May 1964 (#2)

Dearest Fido,

I sent you off the earlier letter this morning. But a few matters come up as I work at my desk, and I risk another letter to the Sesame. Probably Tuesday's letter had better go to Kenwin directly.

I do sense how you feel about strain at this particu-
lar moment. Greenland would be remote -- we can do that later,
perhaps especially if they do accept the offer of funds for the
restoration of Battahlid. But if something should happen to Doris
and she wanted you, Greenland would prove as impossible as India
was in reference to my mother. Switzerland or the States (if you
should decide to flip over here) is quite another matter. I should
not worry about Prutting; it is a matter of strain. You need to
talk it out with a professional; or I would say talk me deaf. But,
and I mean this seriously, what about Sarasin. He is older with
an older person's wisdom. He knows you, but too well -- only enough
so that he knows the situation and you do not have to start from
scratch. The London analyst won't do, I think. And Heydt is a
little too close to many things, really to get the landscape. Annie
Reich might do, if you came over. But Sarasin has the Freddian back-
ground. I suspect a talk a week for three or four weeks might well
do the trick. Or a more concentrated period of 3-4 days in Berne.
(You could see the zoo). At least this would open up anything that
needed more extended treatment.

You are not the only one who forgets. I forgot to tell
you two days ago that the White book had arrived from Maggs. I was able
to take it home only today, for I did not want to unpack it at the
office, and it is enormous. But what a beauty if it! I have seen
many of the illustrations in a cheaper edition that came out several
years ago, but they could not compare to their present state. I shall
be eager to read the text, having only looked at the volume of plates.
You must hurry over soon if for no other reason than to see your book.

Nor did I say that Susan is delighted with the new Chevrolet
station wagon I gave her. It is a good medium priced car, and I agree
with her that it has the best storage space (especially in height) of any
she looked at. It is a light blue, which should not show the dust. Has
air conditioning, though I have not tried it, and indeed everything
except a radio (which she did not want). So there is another vehicle to
tempt you over.

This morning I forgot to say that Sylva Norman quite kindly
reported the existence of a long correspondence between D.R. and Claude
Houghton in the Houghton papers at Texas. I shall try to look in on them
when I make my own trip there to see the William Wetmore Storey papers at
Austin. There must also be some D.R. things in the H.G.Wells papers at
Illinois. I told Horace of these, and he asked if my secretary could
write and inquire if they do have any. I reported, correctly, that I
don't have a secretary while on leave, and so it was left that I should
write Illinois in order to save him valuable time. I have written this

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HOLMES
PEARSON

While I was waiting at the Rare Book Library on Friday for Sylva and her friend to do their chores, I checked the catalogue of what we had given of D.R. to the Library, and found that of her translations we had given only Katzenstein's *Jews in Germany* and Neumann's *Mammon*. We do not have von Schumaker's *The DuBarry* (London 1932), Peerre-Quint's *Andre Gide* (London 1934), or de Troy's *Silent Hours* (London 1934). Nor her *Consumption Doomed* by Paul Carter; of Man's Best Food by professor Kruger; or Gleanings from the Works of George Fox. All derived from Gloria Glikin.

Now I discover one last note that I may not have answered. The new book announced, or which you thought would be out, by Saul Bellows is not listed as either a summer or a fall publication. At least not thus far. Roysce Smith and I will both keep our eyes open.

Hope your days in London are not too frenzied or hectic.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

19 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

Despite my last letter, I shall take a chance on this
one also to get to you at the Sesame. Not that there is a rush to
anything in it, but only that you will indeed yourself be rushed af-
ter you return to Kenwin.

Yesterday was a full day in New York. I went first to
Karlbach's, the antiquarian from whom I bought so much of the eskimo
material, to have three pieces of antique jewelry evaluated for insu-
rance: little oddments we bought on the trip. And, alas, he had just
written me that he had been at the Denver Museum and had bought the
60 most interesting pieces from their eskimo collection (the source of
much of mine, and the source that Giddings told me in Copenhagen ought
to be kept together as far as possible.) He wanted me to have first
choice, so I suppose I shall have to go down in ten days or so when
the things arrive. But I fear this isn't quite the season for buying,
with Lizzie and the new car and other needs for the house in town) but
we shall see. Afterwards I went on to Pantheon to see Andre Schiffrin,
and of course forgot to ask him (rather than Helen) about the royalties
on the Peacock paperback. He had been eager with the possibility of
French translations of your books, but had been turned down by allimaud,
Mercure de France, Hachette, and some others. And I found later that
Helen had had the same experience. They seem to be afraid of historical
romans. Schiffrin had had no luck either at the German fair or during
his trip to Italy. He says all European houses are becoming even more
commercial than the better American ones. I think he is sincere in trying,
and had been to see three English houses about taking on distribution of
the Gandharan book. I took the Sotheby catalogue down to show him the
use of the book as reference. So not very much was accomplished except
mutual goodwill. We spoke also about paperbacks. And he said he would be
pleased to look at Romaine Brooke's memoirs. I would like to see what a
publishing friend or two thinks of them before suggesting any further or
final changes. I doubt that this is quite Helen's cup of tea. What do
you think?

Luncheon I had with Gerstle Mack who worked with us at London,
and who I have not seen for five or six years. Is 70 and looks as young
as ever.

Then Helen at three. She looked well, was lame but not more so
than before. And was animated, though I felt this to be somewhat of a
veneer. Schiffrin says she is much improved during the period she has
been here, and has at least given up European widow's weeds for American
black. He agreed she might easily have slipped back into the latter. But
I suspect Europe will now have a stronger pull because Kurtz is buried
there. "Kurt was after all European," she said in another context. But
if he had died and been buried on this side, it might seem different.
Who knows? We talked mostly about the contract for the Book Club choice
for Carthage, and a query about the last royalty statement which I am
glad to say she couldn't quite understand either, and paperbacks which
she felt were being held up only by Pantheon. And then of course about
the new manuscript which she likes. But I don't want to risk the comments
to a letter destined for Sesame, lest it by some bad chance be delayed and

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

then not delivered. Susan met me at Helen's office, and we went on more or less at once to see the new Huntington Hartford Museum, except of course that when we got there we found it was closed on Mondays. So we went to a Ligget's drug store counter for a cup of coffee until it was time for Horace's party at the St. Regis. It was a nice party, perhaps 50 there altogether. As Marya said rather plaintively, "it is our first party in five years." But I did not talk very long either to her or Horace, since I will be seeing them at Palisades and do many of the others cannot. We left at 7 to meet Pup and John and the Yale Club, but because of some confusion they had gone upstairs to the table we had reserved while we waited in that little ladies' lounge on the ground floor. But we joined together at 7:30 and had a pleasant meal. John looks infinitely better with his new thinness, and I have simply never seen Perdita look better: less flushed, less puffy. I wonder (my mind being on it for various Lizzie reasons) if John's curtailment of drinking (wasn't he supposed to) may not have served to diminish it for both. The reasons don't matter; the results are excellent. And they seemed less tense, I thought. But perhaps this was just being away from home. Susan and I caught the 9 o'clock home.

At that point I had to leave for a reception on the retirement of the Registrar of Yale College, a nice little man who has served for 44 years. Now that I am back it is almost time to leave. Your letters of the 15th and 16th were a delight to receive, although I shall not be happy until you are at Kenwin. I am glad you are seeing Heydt, but still wonder of Sarasin is not also indicated. If I can share, you have only to say the word and I will spin to your side. As for Greenland, things work out perhaps as they should. A letter today, of which more later, indicates that the Danes will accept the offer and make plans for the fuller work to be done in the summer of 1965. Once it is done, pure curiosity on both our parts will want us to see it. So all you need to say is that because of restorations we are postponing the trip until 1966. Then they ought to lay it on properly.

Why not let Erik White and Dora do as they want to with the Hilda program. Her poetry will stand up to any assault or defense, so we need not worry. And this is no time for you to whip back to the U.K., and it would be ostentatious for me to come over. As well as meaningless in their ears.

Of the rest of your letters, love of course and thanks, but comments later.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

24 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

Does one sometimes share unwittingly? I think I must have during the past ten days. It is not simply that there have been too many things to do. Nor that having thought my toothache days were over, I was again with pain. It has been simply a kind of depression that I can lay only at vibrations in contact with the Scillies. I have worried about Doris and your being there, dreaded events and emotions that would ensnare and exhaust you. Perhaps I wanted to take a few on myself.

My desk is a mess. I start the letter at the wrong end, with the incidentals. So that I can put these away. Thanks for the bundle with *Orion*, and a long list of contributors whom we both know. And thanks for Sappho of Lesbos. And thanks for the yellowbacks which have come and been read. Several of them. Am pleased that Vebaek is doing so well. I shall look for his article on Narssaq in the Illustrated London News. This should I think help him. Perhaps one can do something for the 17-year old daughter when she goes to England for her 2-3 months. # I am pleased Leslie wrote you almost at once about the epilogue to his lecture. I am only sorry you did not send along the ms of his coda, since for his own sake a copy ought to be on record in the files. No mention was made in the papers of it, or elsewhere. It is interesting that his criteria of encouragement is financial. But at any rate I need not weep for him, nor be sorry that he had a bad time when he might have had a good one at the lecture. For I can see he had a very good time indeed. But I still wish he were willing to make friends with the peasants. # I was delighted to read the letter from your cookbook writer. We have it, but I had not connected her with the Goughs. Susan thought it was delightful. In fact I remember so did you, at least for tips for the novels rather than food for the table. # And the Mrs Duberley author was similarly fun; I think I told you that the book had arrived safely. # Much grieved to hear that Sir Ronnie had been another glaucoma victim. # My own housekeeper Miss Hitchcock sent me another Shakespeare Festival air letter, so covered with a hideous picture of the theatre that its only appeal could be to those who wanted to write shorter notes. # Much shocked at George's reports of his sister's nurse, in Carolina, running off with rings and dollars. One tried much the same on Susan's uncle, but fortunately Susan was already executrix, and this scared off the nurse (who was planning to marry him) when she found out the true situation. # I myself had a nice card from Margery and Hilda, as from Italy, which arrived two days ago. # Mary Hotson's letter was pleasant. I should think they would really enjoy their Maine camp this summer. # Marianne's letter was gay, as always. I saw her at a distance last Wednesday at the American Academy, and she looked pretty in a light blue dress and the official black hat. But I lost her afterwards, and with it the loss of being able to speak to her. I was sorry. # Was pleased that the Urzidels are having such a fine time of it. I like his getting the recognition at last. I think the Europeans do it better than the Americans do: they make these awards into true events. With us there is always the element of doorprizes at a bazaar. # As I told you, the beautiful volume of White has arrived. Do not weep over the painting of the eskimos. I will take you to see another real one some day. # O.B. still swims as bravely, and successfully, as ever. I do like him. # Cannot

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

yet put my mind to Rose Odle's ms and the solution for the problem. I
had thought Pat and Horace felt more confidence, and am afraid Rose felt
so too. My sympathies are with both sides. I saw Pat at the party for
his father, and then again at the Academy where he went to give his father
a full report, he said. He was with Nancy Rosenfeld, the young non-professional
architect whom he has been interested in for some years. I thought this
had colled, but perhaps not. She did the photograph on the jacket of Horace's
*Collected Poems*. # Am still sorry Collins let Player's Boy go out of print,
but it is hard to shake the opinion of any publisher. # Congratulations on the
irstf English *Swiss Family Robinson*. This is a real triumph, and of course
something to wear against the heart (yours particularly). I suppose there is
almost no chance of ever getting a first edition in German. # Thought that
Viola Jordan's handwriting seemed firmer than usual. # Nice letters from
Horace and Marya to you. I had a phone call, briefly, on Friday from Horace
sounding well and composed, without any tremor in his voice. He was full of
his work on D.R., and so I imagine he must be deep in it. Whether in the end
it will be quite what Rose originally wanted I don't know, but I think she
will like it and it should help to recreate interest in D.R.'s work. Horace
says he has found a neighbor who will bring Marya and himself to the New Haven
hospital for a checkup. I must say I am glad for the double run down and back
proved exhausting the last time. As from that end one need only come here and
return. Horace is disappointed in his powers of walking and has theories
about constrictions. But he seems more genuinely worried about Marya who, he
says, exhausts very easily, has energy only briefly, etc. I could not comment,
but of course secretly suspect that the cancer keeps working. # Thought the
letter from $aillet about Silvia's library was a very nice one, and was
pleased that he was pleased it was going to Princeton. Princeton was smart
too -- I wonder if someone put up the money for it, and thus permitted their
generosity--of giving the 5,000 volume selection from it to Paris. It kept
the books meaningfully together, and did not create the problem of being
simply duplicates at the university. For Princeton to have sold these would
have appeared gauche to the family and confused the issue locally.

I had a very kind letter of thanks from Sylva Norman who is apparently
continuing to enjoy her American trip. The Richards had things planned for her
in Boston, and this is Mrs Boas's town of course.

A note from Helen explained that the royalty statement sent me by
Harcourt had the correct amount given but the wrong explanation. It had
read "Authors' Share $367.82. Your Share $315.27." I asked what the
distinction was. Helen wrote that "the line--Authors' share" was put in
by mistake. The final figure however is correct." This doesn't explain
much except that I don't get any more, for you, than what the check was
originally for. Saturday morning I had a special delivery invitation from
her to a reception for Gunther Grass at Jovanovich's offices. I'm sorry
not to be able to go, but the entire morning goes to these joint sessions
with Lizzie, her psychiatrist and her nurse. I am wrecked for the day after-
wards, and had two appointments anyhow for the afternoon.

Your two letters of the 20th and the one for the 21st were in today's
mail. Quite seriously, I have been in empathy with you during the visit to
Doris. It is hell of course for her, but it is also a special kind of hell
for you and for Ethel. Possibly if things have come into orbit by Fall, you
might want to bring Ethel along. She can take care of herself nicely, and

3

would at the same time be good company for a little spin to Washington or Williamsburg, or back into parts of Vermont and New Hampshire you didn't get to see the last time. I think you said she had always wanted to come. Elsie might be hurt, but perhaps doesn't really have to know. As for Heydt, I do agree he has done awfully well by you. And I shall be curious to know how your talk with him in Zurich came off. In any event it means an immense amount to have the opinion of some one not directly involved with the case in question. I recall how useful the conversations were on this side about Hilda's hip.

Meanwhile you will have had a fantastically exhausting trip, and I am sure it is just as well we do not try to make the Greenland trip this year. I have heard from Mølgaard, and although final acceptance has not yet come from the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Culture apparently agrees to the restoration and feels sure that Finance will OK it. Of this more later, but this being the case it would seem as though the right time to go was when we could see the result.

All love as always. I think of you.

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

26 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

A little late at the office this morning, but I cannot go
across the street to the Library, and Hawthorne, without getting at least
a little further in my accumulated letter to you. Yours of the 23rd from
the Sesame was in this morning's mail, and I (paradoxically) feel relieved
that you are on your way back to Kenwin. But I am sure your visit to
Doris was a godsend to her, and especially so to Ethel. Ethel is being
superb in all this (fortunately Kenneth is on his trip, as though by
design), and you will be amused that I suggested America as a reward
eventually. Not, I should think, until things are well in hand. Who
is to know about the accuracy of the diagnosis. I feel after Horace
and Marya that one must stand over the doctor who stands over the
patient. Susan, you remember, says gall bladder might have been indi-
cated; cancer is always a possibility. I somehow doubt that they bothered
with all of the possibilities. Yet, they may have. One has to be there
to ask questions and be a nuisance.

Heydt too has done a fine job, and I am glad you are seeing
him. I would agree he is more dynamic than Sarasin; Sarasin is more
sedative: -- it depends which treatment one needs. Ferg

Forgive my putting your honey in the wrong cup! I am ob-
viously influenced by Hilda's misprint in the first Collected Poems:
"Neither honey nor tea for me."

I really envy you your helicopter ride. Have never been in
one. Now be sure to go down in the submarine with Elsie when it is at last
repaired for the Lausanne fiesta. Then you will have conquered all the
elements.

More oddments: many thanks for the Noel Stock, *Poet in Exile*.
Pound again, but I really must have read it before I start teaching next fall.
I have now read Rowse's edition of the Shakespearean sonnets. I was on the
whole deeply disappointed. Perhaps the subtleties escape me, for after all
I have never studied the sonnets carefully. What he does is rather like a
schoolboy exercise for examinations. He writes a prose paraphrase of the
sonnet, much as our examiners asked us to do. Then he makes a few comments.
For example, he says the following about Sonnet 30 (When to the sessions of
sweet silent thought/I summon up remembrance of things past,...)" The second
line of this sonnet has achieved a world-wide circulation in the literature of
the twentieth century, with its concern with time. It was taken for an epi-
graph by Proust or the greatest of all modern novels, *A la Recherche du Temps
Perdu*. The modd of depression, with absence from his friend, continues and
brings back to Shakespeare the thought of earlier friends now dead. How much
we should like to know who they were and all about them!

"Observe the
alliteration running all through--second nature to a born poet. L.5, compare
the phrase in Lucrece 1.1239, 'they drown their eyes'; 1.6 compare Romeo and

3

How don't you envym? Who as the representative said to me,
"We really like it, feel that we give 'special obligingness' to everyone."
They sum it up, have forgotten the letter of adulation He was so elegant
ahead, but who could cavil after being made Knight of
Livesaïs (First Class).

I am sure I know not to have sent the enclosed directly to Kenneth, but I
was sure he would never send it to you but would sleep with it under his pillow.
As indeed he should, being both Morgan Forster and Lawrence Durrell in addition
to himself. The add is from this week's Publishers' Weekly. Do send it along to
him when you are finished. The comparison seems perhaps a little extreme, but
why didn't they bring the Pope in too. I am sure He does something for Rome also.

The letter is filled with goodies, since I also enclose a copy of the
letter from Eegaard of which I spoke yesterday. There was nothing new in it of
course. I had photographed both Tjorhilde's church and the pagan burial ground,
and been shown the irrigation system. But last year was their off-year for work
in Greenland. His plan to have plans drawn up this summer in situ seems to me a
sensible one, but they are in a better position than I am to decide what should
be done. My original suggestion, by the way, was for a model of the entire farm
or settlement, not just the church. At any event I have told him to go ahead
once the appropriate Ministries have agreed. I am saying nothing about it on
this side, and see no reason why one should. Susan knows, and so does Ingholt
(for good Danish reasons). If the Danes want to say anything about it later,
they can; otherwise the pleasure is in doing it. I will notify Benay in a year
or so when the time comes. They may of course find they will need a little more
than the sum mentioned; I have simply asked them to estimate what they would con-
sider an ideal restoration. With a Dane I dare put it this way. With an American
I wouldn't suggest it for a moment.

To return briefly to last week, tho I can hardly catch up with everything.
Wednesday morning I went downtown to see Grove Press, and with one thing and another
this took until 12;30 from a quarter to eleven. Most of the time however was spent
unsuccessfully while they tried to search for a manuscript submitted by Lindley
Hubbel in Kyoto (at their request) two years ago and never acknowledged. This is
too common. He wept and I said I would see what I could do. They promised to write
me immediately, after the first search didn't pan anything, but so far only silence.
However I brought up the subject of another volume of Hilda's poems, and was told to
put it together. It is an odd situation; I think I could switch to Scribner's, where
Duncan now rests, but I prefer keeping to a single publisher. Grove murmurs subsidy,
as I did for the last printing of Selected Poems, and I daresay this would be worth
it. The main thing for me, as I see it, is to keep the poems as much as possible in
print. Then I did make an arrangement for Grove, at 25% of receipts to do the
permissions for all Hilda's things, not just what they have published. This will
save me a little work it is true. More importantly it will make some kind of balance
between Grove's prices and those I set. Many requests for reprint privileges are
now divided, part to Grove part to me. I hope you approve. If you do not, I can
always withdraw.

The afternoon went to the Academy and Institute sessions, always a bore
except for the friends and acquaintances one meets. I saw the Schaffners and a good
many others, but of course not the Gregories whom I had half expected to be there.
Ate a sandwich at the Yale Club and took the 9 o'clock home.

The photograph is one taken in Japan and used in an interview there, published in *The Study of English*.

Must close now, and hie homeward. Au revoir, Norman

27 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

Your letter of the 23rd was in this late afternoon's mail. Your being in London rather than St. Mary's does cut down the travel time for mail. Am much relieved to learn that the Hilda meeting will be put off until October, and especially that you might hop over or at least write something special for them. I do hope the latter in any event; it might make a nice little brochure for them to print. If they want my friend to speak also, tell them to write to him at his London office where he will be after June 1st, for two years:

Mr Cleanth Brooks, Cultural Attaché
American Embassy, Grossenior Square, etc.

How annoying about both Peacocks and china tea! I forgot to mention yesterday about Kenneth's letter celebrating the finish of his second novel. This really is a miracle, and seems to be acting far better than your neighbor's monkey glands as a lift for his spirit. I have never seen him so gay. I almost think you ought to pop down just to absorb the spirit.

We both could benefit. This was a good day, which I dread, especially this session when we were slated to discuss the question of Lizzie's having the neighboring house Northshore. This gets all involved with what are described as "rights," -- a word hard to define and even to accept. The time would be only for a fortnight, but would mean young Susan and her family would have to move out. I hate being pushed into a corner, and made it a little worse by taking a codein pill by mistake this morning, before I went, instead of a tranquilizer. No decisions by the end of the hour and a half session, but we left with the consolation that whatever decision was finally made would be one to leave one party or the other unhappy, and ourselves as well.

In your last yellowback was a letter from Arnold Thorpe saying he was writing to me about the Margiad Evans papers, and indeed I have had a second letter from him asking me to have comparative costs reckoned between having the journal letters and drawings microfilmed or xeroxed. I can hardly blame you for forgetting some of the questions in my letters --with all you have had to face-- but I asked you at one time if, under the circumstances and because of the likelihood that he would not have a projector easily available, it might not be a sensible solution simply to have everything xeroxed and sent to him as a gift. I suspect the price, probably under $100.00 but no doubt close to that, would be a little steep for him. Yet we are anxious to help her reputation in any way we can. I have the money for this--that is not the question. I simply want your opinion one way or the other.

Last week was a busy one as I wrote you. Monday and Wednesday I was in New York. By Thursday, despite the fact that I had thought I was finished at the dentist, I was back with a dull ache, and spent a couple of appointments then and on Friday while everything was removed from a back

molar, and I was being given packings and treatments for a dull throbbing ache and an excruciating response to hot or cold. It seems to be better now, and they hope to save the tooth by capping it. I have been twice this week, and go again on Friday. The rest of Thursday was devoted to the Grolier Club and its foreign guests who were visiting the new Rare Book Library. As a member of the Grolier Club and also interested in the library I was supposed to be a quasi-host. Thursday night we went to see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the Shubert Theatre, and I was much impressed with it. It sees far better than it reads, is cruel and devastating but honest. And with a real flair for dialogue.

Friday afternoon we had to go to a cocktail party for three departing members of the faculty, and then picked up the two grandchildren whom we entertained Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday until midnight while their parents went to New York, to the World's Fair etc. They are exhausting but interesting to have, and they seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. Saturday night Susan took her granddaughter to the Lawn Club by themselves, and I took Justus to Mory's "among men only." I suspect this was the high point.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

28 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

An uncharacteristic monring, spent in cleaning half
the attic at Goodrich Street. We have not gone over it, to throw
away things, for 15 years at least. There was a good deal to toss,
and we quit only when Susan became, naturally enough, exhausted.
But there is room to move in now, at least on the one half we've done.
And I hope we can keep at it again some day next week.

Actually I have spent more time than usual this week
at the house, having waited Tuesday morning to see the heating man
and plumber. Alas, we must have a new heater furnace and blower
for the hot air system which operates in the house. Still, these
are the same ones that have been there since Susan first moved in the house
well over thirty years ago, so it is not surprising that they have
cracked. They were second hand to begin with. Since the cellar will
have to be ripped up, I have told them to put in two sump pumps to
see if this will help take care of the rain water which fills the
cellar.

Outside there are difficulties too. The driveway light
has been out of commission for a couple of years, and I am having
that fixed. Our next door neighbors have bought a new house in the
suburbs and have the one on Goodrich Street (just below us--a sort
of twin) on the market. So we feel that, rather than have it sold to
a family of children who will romp and play ball on our back lot (the
first couple to look at it came one Sunday when Susan but not the owners
were there, and found the large back lot we have the greatest attraction
to the other. So rather than argue about where children can play (Susan
loathes having them knock baseballs and slide on the snow into her shrubbery)
we are enclosing that side of the lot with a fence to match the other three
sides. To do it after the new owners move in would seem insulting I fear.
But perhaps it won't make any difference, for the Catholic college in the
next block is looking at it as a guest house for the fathers of their girl
students. Nuns have come on inspection, and so have the Jesuits. This would
be fine, and little to disturb us early in the morning but the chanting of
mass.

Your two letters of the 25th were in today's mail. I am touched
that you send Hilda's smile to me as custodian for the two of us. And I shall
be eager to see it. And then eager to share it with you when you come. At
least it can be in your room in New Haven, and why not in New York as well.
I am enchanted that the old dame in the shop liked your books and knew you.
She is, as you say, the type one writes for. Not exclusively, that is, but
hoping that the common man will be touched, even tho one is surer that the
intellectual will be.

You have been busy in London, and I am sure are now busy at
Kenwin. More tomorrow. And about Hemingway also.

Art love,อา monitor

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

31 May 1964

Dearest Fido,

This morning, to celebrate Sunday, Susan and I did lap 2 in clearing the attic. Space begins surprisingly to emerge. Sometimes it is simply because things are piled in a more orderly fashion, but usually it is because we give a heave-ho to objects which have simply accumulated. A few articles of furniture which might be useful to someone we will give to the Goodwill Mission. A few more things may be taken away by Mrs Heida, who on Thursday went home from her cleaning with the oddest assortment of old pillows, lampshades, hatboxes, and the like that one can possibly imagine. Even old maids' uniforms from the days when we had them; but these she will cleverly make into clothes for her grandchildren. My only fear is that things should not be wasted, so I have been happy in passing the discard on to some one else. There is still more to do, but a half day is about all Susan's back will stand. It is hard work.

By now you will have been a long time back at Kenwin, and I hope Elsie will have had a better ending to her holiday than its beginning. I wonder she goes back to Mammern, for her room is always bad and she seldom seems to find old friends. She doesn't seem to rise to the dignity of an early settler. But as to yourself, I hope the talks with Heydt went well. Susan and I both agree that one of the most dreadful experiences is that of helplessness. And I think that is what brought on your melancholia whilst in Cornwall. To have to sit and do nothing, and not even to be sure of the diagnosis! Heydt at least could start your blood moving again. I hope he has helped more, too.

Gretchen Baker has been as kind as always, and sent me one letter enclosing four more postcards from Hilda to her (one of them from ethlehem with your signature and mine in it too). And a letter with three old photographs of Hilda (one, that is of her "as I remember her"; one of the observatory, and one of her house near Philadelphia). How good she is. I have written her of course.

Have been busy with Hilda business. Have written a French assistant at the Sorbonne that his wife couldn't see Hilda's letters to R.A. or R.A.'s to hers, for a biography. All the French want to write about is biography of the recently dead. I said of course in the case of an "official" biography with the full support of R.A.'s estate the matter would be otherwise. I told him about what Texas had, which by the way Texas has granted me permission to see when I go there. I know the French husband, a M. Poli (very able), but I hope you agree with me in this matter. The other was the matter of permission to print three poems in an English anthology. I sent Miss Schmidt the standard British rates (which Authors supplied to me), and leave the negotiations to her. One was from Selected, two from Collected--so the plan should work better.

What do you know a French publisher L'Herne? They publish, presumably among others, a series of cabiers (dossiers de documents critiques) and want to do one on Pound "totalement inconnu en France." Don't bother to inquire

2

if you don't know. It is just curiosity, for I replied that I was too
engaged to contribute an article on Pound to it.

I shall not be able to finish this letter before the last post
at 5:15, and I spent such a busy day yesterday answering letters at my
desk (it being Memorial Day the offices were closed) that I have not written
for a couple of days. There was no mail Friday either so I have had a
breather, gratefully recieved except for the enforced silence from you.

But let me speak a little about The Colors of Vaud after my talk
with Helen. We both liked it; that goes without saying. And we thought
that Sophie was a fine result of your concentrating on one character in
your new scheme of writing. She really is fine, has life and firmness,
and I am intrigued to know where you will take her. The result of con-
centrating on her of course is that at the stage of the drafts the other
characters seem a little wooden. The mother comes alive at times, but
Antoine is almost impossible to recognize if one meets him in the street.
This doesn't worry me, because as you said, you are only treating one
character at a time. What Helen felt also, and I think I agree, was her
surprise that there was so little of Vaud itself. That is, one of the
wonderful strengths of your novels has been the power of evocation of
place and scene. This is true not only of the historical novels from the
past, but of Beowulf also in terms of modern London. Helen had so looked
forward to your evocation of Vaud, of the city, of the farms (you do get it
in the vineyard scene, but not much elsewhere). She wondered whether perhaps
this was because Vaud was too close to you so that you took it for granted.
But I said no: it was missing from the first chapter, for example, because
that at present is only a sketch; and from the rest presumably because as you
worked over the manuscript in terms of each of the characters, you would be working
over the scenes also. But at any rate Helen and I agreed that for your readers
Vaud is as distant as Carthage, and will eventually need building up.

I jotted down a few comments on a sheet of paper, but they are too brief to
in terms of a first draft. Chap II seemed much firmer than I, but I do like the
present arrangement of I better than your original plan of beginning with the girl.
I seems drafty to me as it now stands. Oddly enough I had noted down my astonish-
ment at the Mrs Perret instead of Mme Perret, even before you queried it yourself.
I had simply not understood it, nor do I imagine the locals would have called her
Mrs when she was married to a Swiss. If you do decide to keep it, you'd better
have a sentence which explains that the locals did call her this way because they
would never accept her despite her husband. # In Chapt IV I am not really
prepared in Sophie's case for the full value of "one day she would also go home.""
Of the mother, yes. Someday go to islands, possibly. Go home to Antoine? Maybe.
"but "home'? This is strongly used as an end word. (I am not talking about the
particular sentence of course, but about the book as a whole.) After all, Sophie
feels strongly for Switzerland. # Also in Chap IV, p.24, I wish I had some idea
of who was talking at the beginning after the white space break. Perhaps this
is experimental, but this device isn't characteristically used. In the films,
one would see who was talking; here I had no idea, and was not usefully
confused. Perhaps you could have a new chapter. Then I wouldn't associate it
with the previous paras. #p. 26: first "he" and then "Alexandre"--at this point I
had forgotten who Alexandre" was.

Must close and hasten to the postbox.

All love, Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON
231 HGS
YALE UNIVERSITY
NEW HAVEN·CONN

31 May 1964 (2nd letter)

Dearest Fido,

Having hurriedly finished the first two pages and put them
in the mailbox on the hope of its being collected before I leave, I might
as well finish the second installment, and put your letters away for
filing. Your last three were from the Sesame: the 23rd and two on the
25th. But I see now that I have already answered that of the 23rd which
was chiefly about the poetry society's meeting on Hilda.

The first of the 25th was about the Hemingway which I am
delighted you got. Somehow I assumed that you would already have bought
an English edition or I should have sent you one. But I am always
frightened about anything but the most narrowly American publications.
(For example, do you want me to buy the Stefannson autobiography for you,
or wait until the British edition is published?) The Hemingway is well
written, and no one could be a better judge than you as to whether he
has caught the spirit of Paris in the 20's. And the style is fine,
crisp and witty and cutting like a knife's edge. I don't think anything
will ever be better done about Silvia than his warm tribute to her. (Isn't
it interesting that he doesn't taste Adrienne at all. I think this isn't
just because he really had not feeling for the French--which is understandable
and hardly unique-- but because he could never stand the mates of people he
was in love with or wanted to be the closest friends of: i.e., Gertrude whom
he draws well and lovingly, and Alice whom he lothes; and Mrs Fitzgerald
whom he was out to get, as against F. Scott whose hero he wanted to be.)
No the book will be a classic, and deservedly so in reference to the place and
moment. But I suspect he is correct in saying that much of it is a fiction,
as for example the fact that Miss Stein didn't influence his writing because he
was making the same experiments in the 1920's that she had been making in 1909.
I like the book tremendously, and I like Hemingway as a man less and less. His
protests to Gertrude about how a boy and man had to act at the faint sniff of
homosexuality are meat for the psychiatrist. And each of his portraits has a
personal knife edge rather than the dark line of caricature. I can understand
why Bill Bird told me once that he thought Hemingway didn't have a real friend.
I thought the ending of Gallantiere's review in the New York Times was interesting
and probably true as to his intentions in writing the book. Now you will say I
didn't like *A Moveable Feast*, but the truth is I read it as avidly as you did,
and with as much pleasure. And, benefit; since I was never there, and so look
at the book as a historical novel.

And now I see that I acknowledged, at least these two letters of
the 25th also. Since I thanked you for sending me Hilda's smile.

There was a nice yellowback from London which came on Thursday,
and I actually saved for yesterday when I knew I would not otherwise hear. Kenneth
seems to be having a good time, and now that he is rid of his cabin nursery he
should be in his element. The great prize in this particular yellowback was the
very good interview with Leslie, and the superb poem written to him in affectionate
spoof. I am now reading his book. Leslie does write well. # Barbara Jordan's
letters somehow seem a little more coherent lately, or suaver. # And Helen's
letters have a new and real richness to them. I am pleased for it means she is

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

1 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

Of course my conscience, even my good sense, tells me
I shouldn't spend the morning writing you, after two letters to you
yesterday. But the pleasure of a yellowback from England, and your
Kenwin letters of the 27th, 28th, and 29th, all in the morning's
post are too great an event not to celebrate.

I feel a great relief that you are home again, and at
your typewriter. Though I wonder if this isn't the exact moment for
you to cast aside your reactionary cast of mind and say that they
can ship the electric typewriter to you. Using it will be the
nearest available polar bear fight I can imagine. (I am serious
about this.) Heydt seems to have been helpful, for which I am
very glad. He is serious, and I like this as an attribute more
and more. As to Doris's diagnosis, perhaps it won't matter very
much in the end what was the matter. Yet with her discomfort is
does matter. I wish she could get back to London for a diagnosis
there, but it is certainly not indicated for you to pop over. And
perhaps over a long period not very helpful to Doris either, who
would only worry about using up your English time.

You are kind to offer help with the esimko artifacts.
Let me see what they are, first. I have reached the stage where
I don't really need any more small polar bears in ivory, but rather
objects that fill out the collection rather than duplicate. Except
in the case of old arrowheads, spearheads and tools where duplication
is never really duplication. Carlebach said he would write me after
the objects had actually arrived, but since he was also leaving for
Europe shortly, my notification may be long delayed.

Unless something unforseen happens, or I can be particularly
useful to you, why don't we continue as originally planned, and have our
reunion on this side in October. My schedule should be easier this year,
so that we can have time for a little trip also. Lizzie seems in many ways
to be better, altho we are now in a hassle as to whether she can have the
use of the next-door summer cottage for a fortnight as her "right." One
is licked from the start when things are put on this basis, and it is be-
cause Susan finds it difficult to handle such matters alone that I hate to
be away any more than necessary. And it is harder for her than for me. I
can always say, she is my stepdaughter. For Susan it is her flesh and
blood. As you say it is the feeling of helplessness. And the period of
recovery can be the most difficult of all, when the patient feels further
recovered than she actually is, and forgets how recent the past is.

Much amused by the account of the Swissair oversales. Do ask
M. Beney if he has been decorated as a member of Nights of the Swissair.
Might it be a good idea to bring in Beney on the case of your Grieder girl?

I am pleased I wrote my Hemmingway views last night. I think
we are not actually so far apart. I thought the opening section completely

2

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

completely superb, but with the exception of his portrait of Sylvia the others were painted with a sharp knife. Gallup wonders how much this represents the point of view of the time, and how much was rewritten later. I found I could admire the deftness of his executions without really liking the man who wrote them or believing what was said about others. The account of Fitzgerald is really malicious, and Hemingway would be the first to whimper if Bill Bird, for example, told his stories of Hemingway in bed with a man suggesting that it might be interesting to "experiment." Nor did I like his final attack on the anonymous "pilot fish" who led Hemingway to temptation of money, and his second wife (a Delilah) who broke up his marriage with his wonderful first wife whom he loved so dearly. Put in a corner, "Hemingway finds the trouble was someone else's. One wonders why he didn't apply the same supreme demonstration of masculine probity that he did when, as he said to Gertrude, "I knew it was why you carried a knife and would use it when you were in the company of tramps when you were a boy." In this case Hemingway was saving his knife to use after his opponents were dead.

The cookbook lady's letter reminds me, or was it the letter of another, by speaking of how the best pieces from Ephesus had been taken to Ankara, that I wonder if Michael could tell me the best place to look for a somewhat detailed map of Ephesus to help me identify some of the pictures I took there. I am sure there must be such a map in an article in one of his publications. Yale will have the publication, so I can simply consult it here without owning a copy. It is curious how difficult it is to find anything more than elementary about an excavation unless one is willing to go through endless journals. Of course the archaeologists know about these things anyhow.

I am so happy about Mrs McPherson, Do give her my greetings. She is a miraculous person, and I am devoted to her.

Trying using my case with Elsie about tranquilisers: how fearful I am of drugs, a real Puritan you know (and indeed I am fearful), but how the doctors persuaded me to take an occasional one when I begin to feel tense. In fact I am quite sure, since I use them moderately, that they have enabled me to get through this present strain with Lizzie without my innards collapsing. You will remember how tense and scrappy I sometimes was on that first trip to Greenland.

Of course, women drink beer. But not you: four beers at one serving! Nor many Glockenspielers.

The yellowback was a London cleanup, and smaller than usual. I am sure Adie and Sam preferred having the bank as administrator for the sister. It is not personal. # Barbara Jordan does depend on you for her outlet. She puts up a good front, and must be fearfully lonely. I wonder if a week's vacation, or a 10-day cruise, might not be possible for her--with a nurse to take care of her mother. But I suppose one nurse couldn't. I should think the sister might for once step in to relieve Barbara. #

All love, as always

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

3 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

I did not write yesterday, and with today's morning being consumed by the family psychiatric session, I have not found time until this last closing period of the day in which to make amends. Yesterday your letters of the 30th and 31st arrived -- the service from Switzerland appears to be swifter than that from England--and at the same time your letter of 17th May (Whit Sunday) written from St Mary's. The latter you had forgotten to stamp, or mark to go by air mail, or put any return address on it. So it came along slowly by surface, I am glad to day, rather than being tossed aside, and I went duly to the postoffice and paid the missing pennies.

You will perhaps have wondered at my silence, on respect to it. And certain comments of mine in a recent letter about the ms of your book must have sounded odd to you after your own description of your method and the length you intend for the book. I can only say that I was not arguing against explanations I had already heard, but as one who didn't know they existed. In retrospect, it is only interesting to me that I reacted as I did.

As to Brereton, you are a marvel! I can't pull a name out of the hat without your already knowing it. I think you really must do your book on Henty with its extension to cover the genre in which he worked. Some of this of course you did do in *Artemis*, but I suspect there are unused riches. I must have written you the books which have come from Brimmell (I will not try to collect Brereton), but they were Ballantyne's THE RED MAN'S REVENGE, which is about Winnepeg; Stables, BY SEA AND LAND; and Kingston's DIGY HEATHCOTE. Nothing was set about the complete set of Henty's magazine, so perhaps that was already sold. My records show that we have 8 volumes by Ainsworth, which doesn't sound like an almost complete set of any writer of juveniles. Yet perhaps it is. Would you like me to suggest to Brimmell that he let me know when something appears. I can't think of a better criterion for collecting than the fact that you appreciated the author when you were a child. Yes, I think we should do Ainsworth, and I am only suprised there are not more.

Ah, you topple me from my pedestal, or rather from my seat in the spiritual Olympus amid the Swissair! I shall not throw mine away however, but not count on it. I am glad that Beney, at least, had his letter of apology. You speak of missing the Brigadier in Tokyo. Yesterday, thinking the time was ripe, I pulled out the letter with his Japanese address only to find he had been and gone. Perhaps because flying is so fast, I now think of any other transportation as seasluggish.

Am so glad the Japanese radio occasionally helps as a reserve. This is what it was intended for. But what rotten luck with your Siemens. Probably the Japanese one will behave similarly eventually.

Do greet Mrs McPherson for me. She is my true-love.

Mrs Baker has sent along another four pictures from Hilda's time. They are enchanting, and I shall be eager to send them to you. They would have fascinated Hilda herself.

Carlebach sent one of those cryptic letters which I cannot hope to disentangle:"Just came back and as I will be leaving very shortly for Europe, I will let you know the minute the ivories arrive. I hope you can make arrangements to come down quickly then." He'd said that before.

Yesterday afternoon I went finally to the nose doctor, having been having an increasing series of nosebleeding from a blood vessel that likes to whoop things up at any strain. And then I am like a stuck pig. It was this way years ago, and I had it cauterized. The scar tissue must have washed away over the years. So I had the beginning of treatment (they apparently don't burn any more) and have drugs to put on and desensitivize it (or so I amateurishly suppose). I am told not to blow my nose, which is stuffed like a rag doll. I must say I find the road to health an unpleasant one. Tomorrow I go to the dentist again.

All love,

N O R M A N

H O L M E S

P E A R S O N

2 3 1 H G S

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

N E W H A V E N · C O N N

4 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

Just back, very late, from the library where I have been reading another long year of Hawthorne's letters. They seemed so dull, with one or two exceptions, that I could only marvel that anyone wanted to edit them.

But yours of the 1st was most welcome. I spent the morning again at the dentist in this conflict with a tooth. But the tooth shows real spunk, for though its size has been diminished from a whole fortification (weakened only by the slightest of new fillings) to what is now little more than a rotten base.

The mornings are busy and, as one might say, painful. But these sessions with the psychiatrist do good, I think, in supplying him with data to use in his private sessions (two a week) with Lizzie. At this time young Susan has joined, at Lizzie's request. Yesterday morning had the added value to them of allowing them the catharsis of expressing themselves about me, and I could weep that they have had to hold it bottled up (verbally at least; physically it has been expressed clearly enough). The only thing I regretted deeply is how hard this is on their mother. Of course it hardly makes me exuberant, but that certainly doesn't matter. The doctor seems to want her to have the house at the shore, and so does her former pyschiatric nurse. So I fear she will get ot. Anyhow if she doesn't, all hell will be to pay, and Lizzie has managed very well to bring most of the aunts into the involvement. Frightful, you say? Yes, in a way; but the doctor knows how she operates and must know what he is doing. I don't envy him; I wouldn't envy Heydt either, for he would not see the operations. Well, life was never meant really to enjoy.

Much unhappier is the situation about Kenneth's home in Rome. He had really created something very special; but of course at the same time he created something infinitely more valuable for the landlord. I hate to think of them giving up Anticoli, but it is too far from the city for one's only home. And Kenneth was never one for a pied-a-terre. But as for the cardinal's palazzo, really couldn't I slay defer to Kenneth? That is, Kenneth has made life possible for him..., but then you know all this without my writing it.

Rose's sending her ms to an agent is much the soundest scheme. Really the only way with a book of this sort. And I would suggest some provincial publisher if nothing else works. Perhaps one could, after a decent interval of refusals, write the editor. Or O.B. might help. Yet there may be no more refusals at all. The quixoticism of publishing is its maddening charm.

Joan has really done awfully well. And I give Heydt credit for a miracle.

The Eggede Greenland testament sounds like a true treasure. And a

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

5 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

Another morning in the attic: this time concerned
with a few more empty shoe boxes stored against need, and (more
importantly) two bureaus of drawers-full of linens from the
estate of Susan's Aunt Hope, handkerchiefs with the aunts initials,
etc. The etc also includes remnants from old draperies and the
like. We also went through the old luggage, and have piled up to
give away some pretty worthless objects from my past and from
Susan's. I only hope they can be used; they certainly will not
be used so long as they stay under our eaves. Our next job is to
get at the piles of accumulated wall pictures; and finally to
put family photographs in some order. You see, you have set us
an excellent example.

One result of the cleaning was to discover a box full
of unused envelopes, probably from some year's Christmas cards.
This will explain the present appearance of your letters from me.
Be tolerant, and forgive my thrift.

Your letter of the 2nd was in the mail when I got to
the office this afternoon. I really am amused at your empathy
about the heating apparatus; and perhaps one reason is that I was
acutely aware of the problem chiefly because of your difficulties
at Kenwin. But we have been patching along long enough, and the
furnace and blowers certainly owe us nothing. The cellar will be
a mess while they fix things up, but we will be at the shore. How
lucky we are not to have had it break open in mid-winter. As for
money, I am sure I can manage--thanks to the economy with envelopes.
Also, thanks to Danish caution, they won't be needing money until
next year. And I won't be spending for the trip to Greenland.

Because of the delay in receiving the letter from the
Scillies we've crossed wires enough at this point about Vaud. So
I won't comment on your para in this last until later.

You are most sensible about the dedication of Hilda's
book: just Bryher I'm afraid wouldn't do. everyone would surely think
it was dedicated to a rookery. But you yourself have so many who
settle on you, that perhaps the dedication is proper in any form.

I have finished Leslie's book and written to thank him
for it. And congratulate him on it too. He really writes with more
verve than any scholar I know on either side of the Atlantic. I can't
follow him on my knees as a true believer, but I can certainly dance at
his side in the excitement of watching the chase. He keeps things
moving; he makes the pursuit of his hunches wonderfully interesting.
It seems to me this is a lot. I hope people will be grateful for it,

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

and not simply toss it aside with a Germanic shrug. He might be
right about Mr W.H.; he can't really prove it. He might be right
about the dark lady, too. I don't think he makes anoisresistabtese
case for the Hilliard portrait, except that one wishes the long-limbed
lad were Mr W.H., and both the portrait and the sonnets picture the
ideal Elizabethan Ganymede. I myself feel that the sonnets are the
work of a man in his 20's rather than his 40's, but again one can't
and hasn't proved this. It is more a matter of feeling, still. In
other words, I don't really care very much who Mr W.H. is, and in
any event the final result is not a triumph of theology. Which is
why I can enjoy Leslie's book so much, and be grateful to you for
having made it possible; and yet, not quite be able to say
all this to Leslie by way of definition.

Your yesterday's yellowback: Latham does seem to be having
a whirl. I am delighted. # Mrs McPherson's letters are always a
marvel to me. # And Betrie's a pleasure. # And George's a kind of
sadness at the moment. I will try to write him, tho sometimes I
think an extra letter becomes an extra obligation. # A letter to me
from Sylva's friend Mrs Boas says she had a wonderful time in New
haven and Boston (Sylva, that is), but as Sylva herself says, "her
heart belongs to Texas." # The very important letter I wrote you
about yesterday.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

6 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

This is really little more than a Saturday salute,
since it is still morning and I had written you just before
leaving the office last night. We went out to dinner--rather
in your Montreux manner--and joined the Hoblitzelles (she is
Susan's sister) at The Country Squire where you once lunched with
us and had Indian pudding. Fortunately nothing we ate this
time disagreed with us, so we have no reason to sulk.

Your letter of the 3rd was in the morning mail. I
am glad Elsie did find some friends; as you say it is a pity
she will not keep in touch between-times, so that she could
make her returns coincide with the returns of familiars.

I will have the Steffenson sent on. Will ask
Gallup what happened to Hadley. Actually I gather Hemingway
was so much on the make in the Hadley days, that his account
of their bliss and his portrait of himself as the inexpressibly
devoted papa may be somewhat exaggerated. And I don't think
the loss of the mss helped much, at the time anyhow. (Naturally,
tho I am sure the rewritten versions were better).

Yes, do send along the sections of Vaud as finished.
But there might be some point in keeping it all on hand (it being
so very short a book) until you are satisfied with the whole. Your
comment on skipping nature scenes was very interesting. And points
up a difference between nature scenes and settings. Lady V has a
tendency to write scenes (which tend to exist for their own sake,
and therefore can be skipped). What Helen was talking about is the
feel for the place, there actually being a place, which is what I
mean by setting. I suspect in writing Carthage or October and books
of that sort, you are forcing yourself a little to see, and therefore
carry your reader importantly along with you. But in a book about Vaud
whose landscape is as familiar to you as your toothbrush, you don't have
to force yourself to see, and therefore your reader is permitted no vision
at all. Anyhow, the whole manuscript under your present plan of ending
in media res wouldn't take more than a few days to type.

A yellowback arrived also this morning. I do see by Islay's
letter that he is keen for the she; he enjoys swimming, and I think needs
to have people around him. And of course this would be better for his
profession. # Melitta's London house sounds very elegant indeed. Sje
seems to have found a focus in its reconstruction, and I think is remodel-
ing her personality along with the house itself. This could be important
for her. # Much interested in the Rowse comments. The British do manage
to make scholarship into a sporting event too, which is fine. I am all
for it, or anything which increases the audience.

We go to the Dingle child's wedding this afternoon.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

7 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

A chill grey day, and we are glad not to have moved yet
to Johnson's Point. In fact we had the furnace on last night, one
of the blessing of oil heaters that they can be turned on and off so
easily. This ought to have been a day of accomplishment, but I felt
rather out of sorts this morning: my nostril being treated for bleeding
feeling uncomfortable, and the other so stuffed and useless that it
gives pain in my right eye for which I finally took codeine. Fortunately
this afternoon it has been better, and I have been working again somewhat
unsystematically at my desk. I might have accomplished more this morn-
ing had a Ted Weiss, once a teacher here who now edits a magazine the
*Quarterly Review*, found his way to my office to bring me a new book of
his poetry. I like him; he has integrity, and never let the academic
undertow suck him under.

I read the paper a little more slowly than usual, and thought
how simple the voting for president would be if the Republicans nominated
Goldwater. Traditionally a Republican, it would be unthinkable for me to
vote for any candidate for office who ran on a ticket with him. But people
are lazy; they do not take his bumbling conservatism seriously, and pretty
soon it is too late. I say "bumbling" because it is inconsistent and inco-
herent. I was amazed Friday night to hear my conservative brother-in-law
say it would be catastrophic to nominate him. And yet I fear it will. No
one wants to commit himself against Goldwater, and even Eisenhower contradicts
himself, working against Goldwater but then withdrawing his complaints.

On the other hand I read full page ads in the Sunday *Times* about
little boys who devoted a day's work to earn money to give towards the Kennedy
Library. No one quite knows what the Kennedy Library is supposed to be. First
it was for his papers, of the sort that presidents recently haye had: Eisenhower,
Roosevelt, Truman, etc. This was to have been on the Harvard Yard, near the
Harvard Library. Then it received the Hemingway Papers, which gave it a new
cast, and was to be a research center, on two acres near the Harvard Business
School. Now that is said to be too small, and Harvard I gather is a little
fed. They talk of fellowships, community of scholars center, etc. Babb, the
local chairman and ale Librarian, hasn't the foggiest notion what money is
being raised for, because no one has told him. But the terrifying thing is to
see the great kennedy machine coming full steam into play. The family flies
around the country to receive handsful of pennies from children and fat checks
from industry. They fly abroad to get gifts of #100, 000 from governments,
and dedicate memorial forests. I call it terrifying because one is pushed into
a corner and then bludgeoned into kneeling.

You can see how little there is to write you about. The letter is
only an excuse to send you

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

8 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

5:15 and not much left of the day which has been devoted
since 9 this morning to (a) a young man from Cleaveland who is putting
on a show of Martinelli's paintings this fall and wanted to go over
everything she had deposited with me; and (b) 2-and-a-half hours out
while I saw a friend from the old Washington unit who had come to inter-
view me about Kim P. I don't quite feel up to writing you a letter about
what I learned (one can assume it is the straight story) but you must
remember to ask me when you come over in the fall. But I was amused to
find that I now figure in the training course on this side as an example
of the difficulties of liaison relationships, having been blamed by the
Americans for being too pro-British, and feared by the British for knowing
too much about them.

I suddenly realize that I never mentioned Szillard's death,
though we thought of you at once when we read of it in the paper. Trude
awaked at 3:30 in the morning to find him dead. So it was not as agonizing
as pure cancer might have been. This will indeed be hard on her. I hope
she can at least manage to get back into public health and medicine again.

I should be much interested to get at the true reason for
Leslie's refusal to lecture at Grey's Inn and his timidity about going to
England. This is somewhat different from his refusal to earn the money at
California, for he would have had to prepare his lectures at the time, pre-
sumably, that he would have been reading proof on Mr W.H. Do you think he
is a little afraid of the sharp British contravertialist? I fear he will
withdraw more and more. I wonder sometimes, if it weren't for the need of
a library, if he wouldn't be happier as the squire of Sorrento. And, you know,
they would carry it off awfully well.

Doris's condition bothers me, and I agree that if something is
known to be wrong, then Ethel or Dean should be told. One can then cope. But
not against fog. I wish, I guess, that she could get to London. But if there
is no hope then this might be foolish to urge. Something obviously is very
wrong.

Phyllis might be splendid for Marianne as a guide to Devon and
Cornwall. But do warn Phyllis that Marianne gets tired, ought not to run on
and on at night looking for inexpensive lodgings, and that tea ought to be
permitted Marianne at least on alternate days.

You've spoken of the new Tolkien, otherwise I wouldn't have known
there was one. But I must plead very guilty about the new Saul Bellow. It is
duly announced as for September. You will have an early copy with my tears of
shame at having been so wrong.

I don't think Gallup has any particular questions about Paris,
but if he does you are certainly the one to consult. I'm glad you agree with
Hemingway's attitude towards wives. And, if you notice, he never mentions

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

Adrienne even once in connection with Sylvia, although in his letters to
Sylvia he always asks to have his love given to Adrienne. It takes an act
of will to shut Mlle Monnier out of any picture of Miss Beach. Only in
this case he at least wasn't vicious.

Saturday and Sunday nights I spent reading the Mercure volume
on Sylvia, and what a very good volume it is. The photographs were of
course superb, but her personality flashed out from the truly excellent
tributes to her. Your contribution was just right, and fortunately took
a quite different slant from any of the others. On the whole the French
salutes were the best; the ones by Americans like Tate and Cowley were,
it seemed to me, fuzzy. I liked Hilda's letter of course, even at the
cost of having been given a Christine treatment and feminized. Yes, this
was a very fine book. Sylvia is lucky, and deserved her luck.

Did I ever tell you that Hansen is actually getting his PhD.
All readers of the dissertation voted in favor of accepting it, and gave
it good ratings. Naturally this is a great relief to me. The time devoted
to it, after my return, was rather costly; so were the bills. But I
compound the latter a little by presenting him with a blue doctor's robe,
hood and cap. In the States it is not so important to have one (I only
got my personal one two years ago), but for a non-American living and
teaching abroad, it would be a pity not to have it to flaunt. Hansen's
letters now seem a little easier, and with the pressure off him I hope
he can learn to relax.

In the TLS for June 4th I read, as you will have, the article by
Butor on "The Debt." I hoped against hope to find a reference to Dorothy
Richardson, but I fear my gift of *Pilgrimage* to him never really took root.
I had thought it might. One would think they had a good deal in common.

I hope you do get a fresh strawberry before the season opens.
Your story of picking them only to toss them over the shoulder into the
deep freeze, reminds me of Waith's wife who comes from California and
complains that on her brother's orange farm they get only tinned juice.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

9 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

These are slow, emotionally bedraggled days but fortunately one by one they go by. I have been refreshing myself mostly by going over the manuscript of Romaine Brooke's memoires before sending them to Pantheon. I hand't corrected the typographical mistakes the last time I read it, and I need to have the whole more clearly in mind. So far today I have read about 150 pages, and with the same admiration I felt before. I am quite happy to pledge myself to get it published -- but of course do not know where or when. I only hope she lives to see the book.

Why this should remind me of Pantheons and Peacocks, I don't know. And I don't know whether I wrote you that Schiffrin wrote me that Collins had written Pantheon nothing at all about the Peacock edition or its terms, and he (curious of course) has now written to Collins about it. I am sure this is all quite regular, but I presume knowing Helen keeps her more immediately in the Collins eye.

I went early this afternoon to see the nose doctor, and found that he had indeed cauterized my inner nostril the last time and finds everything satisfactorily healed. But could do little for the cold which plugs the other nostril and gives me pain in eye and jaw each morning. It will pass. Meanwhile poor Susan has caught the cold from me, and suffers far more severely, even in desperation taking to her bed last evening after dinner. I seem to be an inescapable menace.

I gather I menace psychologically as well, for not only both girls affirm I never treat them as adults, but Mrs Dingle gave me a long lecture this afternoon about watching my "p's & q's" this winter and not to be abrupt with her even if tired. "Of course I'm not so silly as to expect you to have a different nature than what you do have."¹ And so it goes. But anyhow she enjoys working for Mr Lewis, who is "easier." Fortunately she was amenable to my hiring a graduating high school girl who is a good typist to begin work at the end of the month and stay on thru the summer, giving some one here during her several vacation periods. The girl can file the letters, type out Hilda's ms, and Susan's travel journals, and do my odd jobs. I simply don't want to begin in September with a great backlog and tension-builder for others.

Sorry that they can't find Heydt's recommended doctor; I should have thought the medical registeries would have told at once. But the good thing is that they are making the effort to find him and do something. I know that will be good news for you.

Last night I read a book of poems by a young Irishman, Richard Murray, and a book on teaching poetry in high schools, so that I could thank for them today. Bit by bit I get my reading done. And at the same time I am putting my old correspondence (saved by my mother) into shape, a melancholy

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

but full of startling souvenirs. I still have a number of books to go, and perhaps it is better for me to take the Leonard Woolf book out of the library, especially since in an emergency I can always turn to your collection of reminiscences. The child book looks interesting. But wasn't the Tolkien published long ago, as the short story out of which the Ring grew? I must be wrong. The Edwardian book has been reviewed here as very meticulous in details as to menus and daily do's, but giving very little of that special activity to which he devoted himself with such talent. It was written however after royal access to the family papers was given, and so is invaluable even if slightly dull. I do think you should have it.

There was an excellent D-day program on t.v. here, though I missed it. Of Eisenhower returning to France and commenting. I believe that Montgomery was outspoken again on what very poor generalship everyone except himself showed. I remember Churchill's comment on Montgomery:

"In defeaty invincible; in victory, insufferable."

But I must say that in these last few days Eisenhower has shown himself to be flaccid as a politician. Like the others, anxious to be friends to everyone, they kept silent against Goldwater. Then Eisenhower, before the California election let out a mild criticism of Goldwater only to withdraw it the day before the election itself. Now he has gotten Scranton to come out to say he would accept the nomination in place of Goldwater, and within 24 hours made Scranton rescind. In that sense of course there is a little truth in what Montgomery says about Eisenhower's generalship. E's quality or effort was to keep everyone friends with each other. But Montgomery is wrong about the really fine generals: Patton, Bradley and the rest. And after all the way wars are waged now, it is not the commander in chief who does the strategy any more.

All love,

Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN · CONN

10 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

I have spent the day mostly reading the rest of Romaine Brooks' memoirs (I gather she calls them NO PLEASANT MEMORIES) so that ↓ can take them in with me to New York to leave at Pantheon. Julius Carlebach called to say that the eskimo objects were there, and he feaves next Wednesday for a month in Europe. I know his plight, he wants money to take with him to spend. Mrs Brooks' memoirs are heavy enough so that I'll save enough in postage almost to pay my train fare. But, seriously, there is only one copy of the second part, and I shall feel safer delivering by hand. It is on my way up Madison Avenue anyhow.

I don't know whether you read the second part while you held the manuscript of it, and if so what you thought of it. It is a "slightly" rewritten journal kept during the bombing of Florence, kept with the roughness of daily sketches. It is certainly interesting and I don't know of anything quite like it (R.B. and N.B. seem to have been very slightly pro-German and very pro-Mussolini as being the defenders of Europe against Red Russia; how well this would go down I don't know). The only problem is the Büft in manner between the highly polished first part, and this journal which makes up the second. But a publisher will be the best judge. I do hope I can find one at last. Schiffrin at least will be a sympathetic reader, and I can learn from his reactions.

Not much of excitement has happened. Susan's cold was very much worse last night and still this morning so we cancelled our family meeting with the psychiatrist, I not going alone because it seemed as tho' my over-talking could only be worse when Susan was not there. But altho' we both agreed, it seems the decision is wrong; for the Dr has phoned to ask for a private session with me next week instead of the group one; and Lizzie phoned to call me a coward for being afraid to go without my wife, gave me a dressing down for not liking the men she goes out with (who could?), and telling me to examine my soul, before shutting down the receiver. Well, I should not call myself a howling success at the moment, no matter in what direction.

Last night I read the introduction and footnotes to the new Yale edition of the *Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin*, since this edition might be used as a text next year; and looked again at the fine new book on Khajuraho I bought. It is just what I was looking for, since it will let me identify the last of slides I took there. Temples can be confusing when they look more or less alike. Susan having again gone to bed early, I also retreated to the cellar and tried to put some more letters in order.

Will probably not be able to write again until Friday. And on Saturday I take Justus to New York for his first long trousers. At six he seems young for them, but it is a matter both of pride and new custom.

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

12 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

A very hot humid day, or so it seems, and I find it
difficult to get down to real work. But your letters of the 8th
and 9th were in the first morning's mail, and the one of the 10th
was in the noon's. Not having had letters for a couple of days,
this makes a feast for me. But a mystery for that of the 8th, which
came with a great brown patch over one corner of the envelope,
and inside, the folded letter torn so that each of the four edges
a rough rip of 3" x 1 1/2" has been torn away, making a rather arty
appearance and, fortunately, not affecting the text. But did you do
this, or did some postal official rip it be accident?

As to the letters: as I wrote they did cauterize my nose,
and all seems well. I have treatment of a precautionary fashion thru
next Tuesday, and that finished it. # I still wait for the missing cap
to my back tooth. Then I hope my mouth will be finished. # Once that
is out of the way I go to check my eyes. # I will wait for Ainsworth
until you have checked with Maggs, or at least until you tell me to go
ahead. I myself don't care; it is chiefly to document you. # Much
interested in the Cookbook lady's Ellermanship. # You will become an
authority of the Lausanne Expo, and obviously a quick comparative
visit to the New York World's Fair is indicated when you come to the
Fall. I see yours vividly from your letters, and to read about is
much less tiring than to go. # Don't worry about the weekly p.a.
meetings; I am sure it is very important for both girls to get these
things off their chests. Especially for young Susan. The time will
come for answering later, one hopes at an appropriate time. Meanwhile
the catharsis is important. I simply of course find it exhausting.
# No, all this curiously makes a trip abroad all the more impossible.
One is not a free agent, and I cannot leave Susan to shoulder the re-
sponsibility entirely. The psychiatrist will be abroad in August, but
this will be a difficult time for Lizzie. One has to wait and see
whether or not this type of treatment will work. Perhaps my solo
session next week will be helpful in understanding. I do, however,
accept the fact that I am often difficult and condescending and abrupt.
You know this, and I am assured of it not only by the girls but by Mrs
Dingle. I shall have to go to Texas and to Detroit for a week each.
And I must somehow get the Italian notebooks done. You will understand
that quite apart from other interruptions I find it difficult to concen-
trate, my mind returning to the running sores. # I have at last written to
Aurelia, two days ago. I still, alas, have a pile of this sort of letter
to write.

I enclose the new U.S. World's Fair stamp for Elsie, the first I
have seen, and so it must be hot off the griddle.

A yellowback came today also: interesting comments on the tests in
English. # Marianne's letter most interesting and less frenzied than sometimes.

2

How interesting that the insurance men are giving prizes in poetry in Stevens' memory. This was rather outside their interest in his lifetime. Or so he thought. Marianne will have a whirl in England, and her friends seem to have all well planned. # You were wonderful as always, to arrange for the two paintings by O.B. for Hilda and Marjorie. Infinitely better for his reputation to have the little red dots at a sale than simply to make a gift. And helps to ensure more exhibitions also. # Doris' handwriting on the card much better than sometimes. I gather she is willing to go to the mainland when it can be arranged. # Hadn't realised that Silvia Dobson was actually settling in California. Indeed why not, since she seems to have found the right place for her. Much better than Spain. # Heydt's letter very simpatico. I hope your session went well, and that you follow them up occasionally. # Nice letter from Rossler, and I am glad he has his newspaper connection now. I liked what he had to say about you, and thank you for letting me share in it. Perhaps we ought sometime to hop to Montreal to see him, on one of your visits. It would be easy. Up some morning, you dine alone with them at night, we take a bus tour of the city, and come back the next afternoon. # Am much pleased that Sylva Norman seemed to enjoy her visit to New Haven. We certainly enjoyed having her. # Still marvel at Mrs McPherson's letters. I forget the day of her birthday. Do remind me if it is still ahead so I can send cable. # Fine idea to have Dorothy Doolittle spend some time on Long Island, while the Schafnners are abroad. This will give Elizabeth Bryher a chance to be the focus.

Yesterday's trip to New York was a little disappointing in that I could not combine my visit to Carlebach with one to the Pforzheimer Library, a bete noir of Sylva Norman and others because of their lack of cooperation. It is charitable foundation, taxwise, but they have no listed telephone. I wrote a special delivery letter saying I was coming, but the curator was out and none of his assistants have a key to the vault. But I suppose that the trip to Carlebach to see the material from the Denver Museum was a success, though I hated to spend the money. This is supposed to have been the remaining chief pieces of interest from the Potosky Collection which I was told by one of the two chief eskimologists in this country should be kept together. I was to have first chance at them, and certainly did for we unpacked the case together--Carlebach and myself. I finally chose 28 pieces, picking the ones I thought added most to what I already have and not asking the price until I had chosen in this way. I think Carlebach was disappointed because I left 32 pieces out, so in a sense he now has leftovers to sell. But I did not want them, so why should I take them. The price for what I chose was 1475 dollars which actually was unusually reasonable in terms of what one usually pays. He is already paid, so there is no worry about that. I think it was good for me, like a woman's buying a hat. I do not really need even ivory hats, but this was an unusual opportunity.

Poor Susan phoned this noon to say that her temperature was 101.9 or 103 or something like that. I have just phoned again (at 5 after a meeting) and she certainly sounds miserable. I must go home to be there when the doctor calls.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

15 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

Sorry! No letter on Saturday, when I took Justus to New York. And none yesterday, since Susan has continued in bed (except to cook dinner Saturday and Sunday nights; I do not go beyond eggs myself at the stove). Consequently I stayed at home, except for two and a half hours at lunch when I took the president of the Mark Twain (newly elected) to the Lawn Club for professional talk, especially about the adjoining Harriet Beecher Stowe House whose 93-year old owner has died setting up a foundation with 2.7 millions of dollars. Susan is still feeling rotten, and coughs all night, but the doctor has pilled her and says nothing to do but wait it out. Meanwhile she is bored, the heat has been high and uncomfortable.

Saturday was amusing enough. Justus was to have long trousers, and since he is so small I thought it better that he should be measured for them. Rowe's, who had written us, had its last day on Saturday; and altho I was sorry to desert Susan, he would have been too disappointed both by the loss of the trip and the loss of the long pants. It was only his third trip on a train, and the first one in this country. Since he left France, aged three, I was surprised to hear him ask as his first question why there were no lumps of coal on American tracks. The new dress up suit ordered (I got him a winter overcoat as well) we went to the Museum of Natural History to see the planetarium which he wanted to visit. Too early by a good deal, so we went to see the exhibits of animals in natural habitats (they are very fine indeed) and an exhibition of rockets (cut in half etc.) He was much fascinated by a movie about the three orbital flight (done in design with spoken explanations) and on the train coming home amused himself by drawing innumerable rockets, each with every part clearly indicated. We lunched at the Plaza, went back to the planetarium where the show was on satellites, and then home on the 4 o'clock. Once in New Haven we went to watch the Diesel engine, and the engineer let him go up in the cab, sit on his seat etc. A very fine climax to the day.

This morning ended one phase of the attic-cleaning when a truck from Goodwill Missions came to take the discarded furniture, luggage etc. The two men kindly went into the attic and took down an iron bed from the rafters, and one immense mission-style rocking chair that belonged to Susan's first husband. Their coming also solved the problem of the day, since (Susan being abed) I feared having to sit around all afternoon. The Mission had told me I could call this morning to see whether morning or afternoon. I did; they said afternoon but could not tell when. Very inconvenient since this is graduation day, and altho I absent myself generally, several PhD'ers wanted me to meet their parents and relatives at the diploma giving ceremony in the Graduate School courtyard. Driving to the office, I saw their truck parked by a house and waited 15 minutes for some one to come to it. Very kindly, they said they would go immediately. So I turned around and went with them. Soon I will be able to show you the attic proudly.

2

Your letters of the 11th and 12th were at the office when I finally got here. (The graduation exercises are being held now.) Also the postcard from the Expo. I do think you must do an article for the Tibetan newspapers on the Fair. You will be an outstanding authority. I rather envy you the chance to see the cantonese costumes. One really has to see them worn, and swinging. Dark glasses? They are the bane of our age, and I loathe them so much I almost deny them their true function.

You really mustn't worry about my getting away. The main thing I must try to do, as and if I can get my mind on it, is to finish the Italian journals. I wouldn't enjoy any holiday, thinking that they remained unfinished. And I have my little girl hired, to begin the end of this month. There is the ms of Hilda's book to get ready to submit: -- of the longer later poems ( the war triology complete, for the first time; Claribel; Ave; Owl Sequence; Winter Love; etc.); Romaine Brooks' book to work on if I find someone interested. Etc. etc. But actually I shall have my breaks, with the week to Texas, and the week in Detroit. But don't think I don't take your advice seriously. You have always been canny.

You are right. I was thinking of Tolkien's *Hobbit*, and had missed announcements of *Leaf by Niggle*. I will look at it sometime when I am with you.

It is difficult to know how to react to the report on Doris. Some-
how it seems unsatisfactorily pin-pointed in terms of the nausea etc. I
still hope she will learn a little more from her trip to London.

Islay's letter about Fonteyne and Nureyev was a classic. Beautifully written. Nureyev is right, tho, his kind of independence is traditional and does not go with the Russia of today. It is the independence of the great artist (I am assuming he is one) who lives in an anarchistic world. Men and women will be constantly in love with him, and he will treat them like dogs. And he is right, for if his lovers were really to possess him they would destroy the very thing they love. (What a splendid thought for the day!)

All love,
Norman

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

17 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

So sorry about the Grieder ties, and all the bother this has put you to. Perhaps they had better be sent to me, and I will see what can be done. Or if it is worthwhile dodging the customs, you could mail them to me yourself as an unsolicited gift. I can then explore what has happened to Hatano. Actually I owe him a letter for having sent me a book written by his mother and older brother, a quite remarkable account of the war as presented by the exchange of letters between the parent and child. It is worth your looking at when you come, and is fortunately short. Somewhat arted up, I feel sure, but basically sound.

Indeed I have been keeping on with miscellaneous reading, and finally finished Steinbeck's *Travels with Charlie*. Finally finished it, not because of having to drag myself through but for having saved it for train reading. The first part of the book, until he reaches Salinas, in California, is excellent--one of the best. I am pleased to read an account of the country which is not based on status symbols, or organization men; he finds these people as friendly each in their own way. But once he gets to Salinas he gets sentimental again, with his you can't go home, and I was stranger in the place I once loved. The episode of kissing the medal is beautifully presented from a professional point of view, but far too clever. Then Texas takes on another tone from the earlier part of the book, and the stay in the South becomes moral. Thus at the conclusion the various parts of the country are never put together into a jigsaw map; parts are better than the whole, but it is a book worth having read. I remember you liked it.

I hope all goes well with Catha's visit. You might ask her what she wants me to say to the hords that now want to write about her father, French scholars included.

I had my private session with Lizzie's psychiatrist yesterday morning. It was most helpful. Things march, but in what direction I should not dare even to guess.

Andre Schiffrin, of Pantheon, sent me a copy of the letter from Collins about your Peacock, in which Adrian House says: "The arrangement with Penguin books is that they will pay a royalty of 7 1/2% of their published price on the copies they sell. They guarantee an advance of £150. Publication date will be some time this summer. Bryher has already seen and corrected proofs." I don't know how much will trickle through to your bankbook here, but something must.

I realize now, with absolute horror, that in the confusion of Susan's sickness I forgot to cut out of the New York Times the juiciest clipping I could have sent you. That is the sale of Beekman Towers by the Panhellenic Society to some commercial owners who intend to refurbish it. It seems the hotel was originally built as a women's dormitory for members of Greek letter sororities (one presumes it was intended as a clean wholesome spot for single women, as indeed it turned out to be). It had another rather silly name then before it was opened by the original owners to others than clean wholesome women. Susan's immediate comment

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

was, "if it was a dormitory that's why the rooms were so small." And I think she may be right. It also explains, I think, why the maintenance was so sometimes sloppy; for the owners were an organization of seven sororities rather than professional hotel people, and they may have been niggardly in putting out money. Now don't say that I read the papers without keeping you in mind.

Even though I don't travel Swissair this summer, I still profit from my membership, and received from the President of the company to "Dear Member" a copy of the annual report for 1963, "The result may give us satisfaction.... We are convinced that we may also in future count on your full support." I think the Swiss outdo the Americans in the sense of "togetherness."

I ought not to have smiled at Marianne's account of the death of Morton Zabel, for I knew Zabel and liked him very much. He was particularly kind to me when I was at the hospital in Chicago in 1937-38. But there is something rather charming about the climb to her "I am very sad that he should have died thus prematurely -- about to be elected to the Institute." I should not reckon life on that measure. Still, no one is ever faithfuller to her friends than Marianne is, and she was deeply and honestly fond of Morton with whom she had corresponded for many years. And her ambition was to get him elected. I remember at Hilda's medal-day luncheon, Marianne thought (apparently because I was at the Luncheon that I was a member, and took me aside to plan "How "we" could get him in."

I went yesterday afternoon to Hartford, first to see Harriet Beecher Stowe's old home now to be turned into a museum, and then to the trustees meeting of the Mark Twain Memorial, and finally to dinner and a meeting of the Planning Committee for the Memorial, of which I am chairman. Fortunately, although I was asked to comment on the Stowe House I have nothing to do with the establishment of the museum. More fortunately too, for them, is the fact that the old dame who lived there and died aetat 93, left between 3 and 4 millions for endowment. Since the Stowe and Clemens houses are next door and all that remain of Nook Farm it is hoped that at least the fragrance of dollar bills will drift across the hedges to Mark Twain's door.

Poor Susan is still abed, with a slight temperature and great hacks of coughing. The doctor now feels she is well enough to go to his office for an x-ray and another examination. She has been in bed for a week now, and is understandably bored.

19 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

These past few days have been crowded and confused. Even now I write with the prospect of only ten minutes before me, having spent two and a half hours in the dentist's chair having the long-awaited cap put on the stump of a tooth, and then an hour at talks by the élite of the graduates of the class of 1924, to which I went at the invitation (urgent) of the librarian who himself was giving a speech.

Indeed the days have started in a crowded fashion, as I got
breakfast, did the dishes, and watered the orchids each morning before
coming to the university. Fortunately Susan does have more energy now,
and this morning wanted to get breakfast herself (she is never lazy on that
score), but she still coughs, and has a slight fever. She went yesterday
to the doctor's for a new set of x-rays, blood tests etc., and was to have
some report today. I have not heard it yet. And presumably will not, until
later in the evening since we are taking an old friend (with new husband)
to dinner tonight before they drive home. This couple have been here for the
alumni seminars this week, which have taken up my mornings once I get down.
I went to a series of four sessions on Southeast Asia out of my own interest,
and to a series of four on American poets (Dickinson, Frost, Stevens, and Hart
Crane) out of curiosity to my colleagues and 66 courtesy as well.

Tomorrow I go to Fitchburg (near Gardner) for the wedding of one
of the two adopted sons of my sister and her husband. The wedding is at 9 a.m.,
the reception at noon. I can't make the former but will go to the latter for
the sake of courtesy. The boy is marrying a French Canadian girl of a much lower
class than my sister (at any rate), but it is appropriate for the boy I think, and
my brother says she is very nice and what he needs. Alas, Susan mustn't go; but
it is imperative that I do. I shall be tired, and hate these long drives alone.

We are still in town of course, and I have no notion when Susan will be
well enough to move. Both the energy required, and the warmer weather necessary,
are dubiously present. This is much later than we have ever waited before.

Your three letters of the 15th came yesterday (nothing today), and I was
delighted to have them. Though of course worried that the situation here worries
you. I smiled reminiscently when I thought how in Wednesday night's letter I spoke
of not knowing in what direction things were going. I didn't, but they were on the
move. At about 5:30 Lizzie took another gollup of sleeping pills on top of a siege
of drinking (her psychiatrist being in Boston for the day). Fortunately, her ex-nurse
was at home when Lizzie called; the nurse came, then had her husband take Lizzie to
the emergency room to save the publicity of the ambulance and another entry on the
police blotter. But Lizzie could walk, only took eight pills (tho this was all she
had), and I suspect was making a gesture. Susan had to dress after dinner and go
the hospital to wait until the psychiatrist came back; I went down then. The nurse
spent the night with Lizzie in the apartment, and we wait now to hear from the
psychiatrist. But everything seems to be well under control, and I find it easier
when there are real crises than when things simply simmer. And I must say this
created very little reaction on our part. The whole thing may prove useful. We shall
see.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

21 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

A lovely quiet morning in the office, and I have made a
respectable progress with accumulated detail. I must get the desk in
reasonable order before the end of the week when the young typist
comes in to help me during the summer. She should be able to get the
filing done, Susan's journal transcribed, Hilda's manuscript ready,
and chores of that sort which are maddening when unfinished. Alas,
she does not take dictation. But at least her salary is not excessive.

I had a good drive to the wedding yesterday, with the
temperature in the 90's but it did not matter so long as I kept
moving. And the reception was held in an air-conditioned room. The
adopted nephew has been something of a problem in the past, and just
squeeked through high school. But the navy seems to have helped him;
he looked handsome and poised, (his father says because nothing ever
troubles him even when it should,) and I think he will be all right in
his own groove. The French Canadian girl he married is also attractive
and poised, has earned her own living for some years, and is smart
enough and hard enough to keep him on the mark. My sister at last
was pleased with the fact of the marriage. My mother always liked the
boy, and it is nice that being now 25 years old he has come into a
smallish legacy she left him, with which he has bought a house.

Susan of course could not go, because of her flu, but there
was quite a gathering of available Pearsons so it was in the nature of a
reunion. And the drive up was attractive: the laurel being in full bloom
farther north, the fields just having had their first haying and fragrant
from it, the daisies out, and the devil's paint brush, the buttercups
everywhere. There were thunderstorms on my way back, so I kept the windows
rolled up and listened to the Yale-Harvard crew race which Yale miserably
lost, or better said: a good Yale crew lost to an infinitely better Harvard
one.

I ate on the way home, since Lizzie was to have come to dine with
Susan. But instead she has gone to the hospital to have her hands taken care
of. She has a virus infection in what was originally, and is certainly
stimulated by psycho-somatic influences. Since both hands are infected and
heavily bandaged she cannot manage herself. This is, after all, what I suggested
some time ago only to be set on for it. "Do you know what he said? He said
put your dog in a kennel and go to a hospital!" But that wasn't really the
tone. Anyhow she is there, and presumably cannot drink for a few days, and this
may dry her out. And so make a basis to work from. Alas, she may have realised
that this was partly in my mind too. It will be interesting to see what happens
from here in.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

There was no letter from you yesterday, so nothing to comment on in them. In all the hurly-burly of last week I forgot to say that the Egede Bible arrived, and is a little treasure indeed. I will take it over to the Library and have it catalogued for me. It is better that way. By that I mean only that I will have a proper card for our files, not that the book goes to the Library. Nor did I say, I think, that O.B.'s *Foaming Ice* came, but my Italian being so poor, my satisfaction is limited to being able to add it to his collection. Hilda's smile is not yet arrived, but no doubt will be here shortly.

Another set of two or three photographs have come from Gretchen Baker. I think you will enjoy them. They are real girlhood snapshots, taken with a Brownie, and not really reproduceable. But filled with charm.

A letter from Leslie, in answer to mine, which I thought you might be interested. Return sometime in a yellowback. I am sending you separately, by surface, two sets of magazines and junk for you to look at and throw away. Never bother to return unless I write on it to do so. The Galaxies, someone might like. Possibly even Mrs McPherson. I have noted her birthday.

We are still in town, despite the temperatures, because of Susan's illness. But we go there for luncheon this noon with her mother and an aunt. Susan fortunately seems much better, and the x-rays and blood tests showed nothing. She is taking pills still for her cough and to build herself up. I dare say the emotional strain of these days left her somewhat wider open to bugs.

22 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

Warm and humid today, but I have plugged. My little dark rose (still unseen by me) is to begin day after tomorrow. Since tomorrow must be dedicated to another Hawthorne visitor, therefore in the library, it has behoved me to move as much off my desk as possible. I must warn you that with the advent of Donna du Trieuillé you are likely to get only notes during the week. But it will force me to the Library.

What have I done? Written to Mary Gough thanking her for her note, by which her husband recommended a guide book published in Vienna. Fortunately Yale has a copy, but even more fortunately Ingholt has one too. So if there is no better map, I will be consulting the best. Then I wrote Horace about the Dorothy Richardson material he had asked me to look up for him in various libraries around the country. And wrpte Rose Odle enclosing a copy of the letter from the Wells papers in Illinois. And to Gtetchen Baker to thank her for one more postcard by Hilda, plus a snapshot of them all being dashing in an early open motor car. She is being very kind. Etc.
Etc.

Your two letters--of the 17th and 19th were in the morning's mail. The news about Doris was really cheering. Like yourself, I am never happy except when something is being done. I should trust this new set up; I am often told that the newest British hospitals are very good indeed. The gulf between the young and the old is very great indeed. It is hard to say how much is truly physical and how much psych-somatic in Doris's case. Surely being ill can get one down, and then being down one's spirit keeps one down. Doris has had little to encourage her for many years now, and on the whole has been a superbly good sport about it all. I should think she would go in for heroin and Russian lovers out of sheer boredom.

Susan seemed well again this morning. Was to visit Lizzie in the hospital, and take some more things to the shore. I suspect she is itching to get down, though she missed nothing last night or today when it has thunderstormed.

Oh yes, why not go, to London. If Edith is worse, all the more reason to go. And good to snap Elsie out of it. I must introduce Elsie to some echt monks. She might find them scandalous and be content that you live only like a Bryher. But by all means let us have a garden party for the parish when I come over again, and you can wear your lovely straw hat with the long flowing ribbons. Console Elsie by presenting her with the first example I have seen of this newest American commemorative.

Much better that Dean and perhaps Ethel too should return to their own hearths. The Brigadier will be back soon, anyhow, I suspect. I think a little with Doris as with Horace at Gaylord. Left alone he mixed nicely with people and made new acquaintances (not necessary to make friends). But with relatives there he slunk away a bit.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

231 HGS

YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW HAVEN, CONN.

I must have asked you the following question a dozen times. If I
have, throw a boot at me but better answer. Was the American edition of
*Development* published earlier than the British one. By that I mean which
preceded the other, even if only by a day. Actually simultaneous publication
is not very common. My impression was that the American one came first and
that sheets were taken in England. But I may have it backwards. A bookdealer,
who is also a friend, has asked me.

Yesterday after luncheon with Mrs Bennett I picked up her London
Illustrated News and read Vebaek's article on Narssaq. Very interesting
even if exactly what, as he himself says in the article, is familiar to
the archaeological world (into which I am sometimes allowed to peek) The
illustrations are as always good. I like the way the News does not try to
rewrite. So you have this rather attractive stitled English which seems all
the more sincere because it isn't glib. I presume you see the News. If not
I save for you to see here. Mrs Bennett kindly gave me her copy.

I lunched with Ingholt who was bursting with the account of the
dinner given in honor of his retirement, a week ago. Members of the Classics
department, fellow Fellows of Calhoun College, and many from the Connecticut
Academy. After the dinner, one man read a poem in his honor composed in
Latin, another in Greek with a Latin translation, one in Hebrew, one in
Aramaic, one in Danish, one cuneiforms, etc etc. And he has been asked by
the British Academy to give their chief lectures (a series of five) in 1965
on archaeology and the bible. It goes from September to November. Perhaps
it isn't their highest series, but very important and a great honor. He has
his Hamar excavations, but what an immense boost the Ghandaran book gave him.
Incidentally he is worried that you never got the offprint of his article on
the head. "Usually she is prompt in answering. Is she well?" I explained how
busy you had been, and about Doris.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

24 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

I was sorry not to have written you yesterday, but the day proved hectic. In the first place, there was a dissertation writer from Columbia here for the day to look at the Hawthorne material. This meant lunching him, and keeping an eye out. Though he proved to be serious and pleasant. Then Susan Addiss's German measles became worse in the morning, so that Susan luckily was able to get a practical nurse to come in for the day, and brought the two grandchildren back to the shore for overnight. Alas, it was the day she had set for the finishing of our own move to Johnson's Point, so there were complications, including those of having forgotten frying pans from Goodrich Street. When I came in at 5 to the office, there were notes that the children would be at the shore, and when I phoned there I realised I had to go to the house for the pans. And for my toilet articles too, as I discovered.

At any rate the children were very good, slept soundly, and Susan took them home this morning before she and I had a session with Lizzie's psychiatrist in the absence of Lizzie still in the hospital for her hands, and Susan Addiss In bed with her measles. Actually it rather looks as though the group sessions might be given up, as not being helpful at the moment. In fact the contrary. Yet, they have been informative to me, even if saddening and chastening.

I had to rush in earlyish because of the new typist whom I have hired for the summer, a colored girl, sister to a secretary down the hall, is café au lait, ample in dimensions, just graduated from high school and going into nurses training in the fall. She spent the day at work filing the yellowbacks, and I suspect has not made very great headway. But at least, eventually, it will be done. Perhaps her greatest value lies in the fact that since she uses the office I have been using in HGS, I am forced (as this afternoon) to go to the Library. So that I ought at least to begin to get something done. Her name: Donna Reed du Trieuillé. Do you suppose she is West Indian?

Your letter of the 20th came yesterday, and tonight when I came back after 5, yours of the 21st had arrived. If not exhilarating, the visit of the Maishman girls must have been full of interest. Don't let them scare you away from the electric typewriter. You can poke, or hammer as one wants to. It makes no difference. My only fear is that you will feel too tied to what was suitable to the Victorians, and go back to pencil or pen. I always think of you as being one of those who wanted to fly an early airplane.

Odd that they should speak of new life at Maggs, for I had meant to write you that the catalogues (like the recent one on binding) were beginning to look up in interest.

I adore your reports of Mrs McPherson. Is there somethigg besides greetings I can send her for her birthday?

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

25 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

And end of the day note: cool weather and I was able to
accomplish a comparatively good deal with the Hawthorne letters. That
is, to complete one important preliminary task of checking to see
whether, absolutely, the chronological file contained copies of all
letters known to me. I find two missing, and so can dig those up
again. Furthermore, in a moment of boredom when I needed to stretch
my legs, I went to the reference room in the library and had photo-
stats made of the British Museum catalogue entries for Henty and
Ballantune (at the moment the two chief groups in the collection).
These will be useful to check against in terms of lacunae. The Henty
bibliographical checklist is almost impossible to use.

I find that my new helper is at least now a wonderfully
busy worker, and in two days has filed every letter from the yellowbacks
sent by you since I left for Japan. I suppose she is uninterrupted, but
it is obvious that she keeps at the job. I will be hard set to keep her
in work for the whole summer, but there are certainly many many things she can
usefully do.

No mail of any great interest today save your own of the 22nd
and 23rd. There was one from Hansen, proudly signing himself "Dr." on
the return address, and, alas, being a little condescending to another Dane
who had been a fellow student of his when at Yale. I suspect he will always
have his psychiatric difficulties, but I feel less involved now that he has
his degree.

I had not realised the Edith-do was at Aldeburgh, or I would not
have advised you to go. London was one thing; you could lose yourself in the
crowds and enjoy your off hours with things you wanted to do and persons you
wanted to see. A Festival is quite different, and a musical festival is
certainly not your cup of tea. I knew Britten quite well, of course, and Peter
Pears too, but except for curiosity I doubt I should want to go. It is very
special.

Marianne

I was obviously wrong about Doris and PHyllis, and delighted to
be in error. For nothing could be finer than for the two of them to be
friends. You are a good planner.

I started the previous paragraph on one subject and ended on
another. I don't know: my instincts tell me that a few months away from
the Scillies would be helpful to Doris, and rest her spirit. However if she
has a constant nurse this will give her companionship too. That is, if one can
get such a nurse. And it is frightfully expensive here, and no doubt would be
there also. Her assertion that she might die if crossed sounds troublesome.

I do hope Elsie is taking a photographic record of the Expo to show
on my or our next visit. We count on this as much as on her strawberry jam.
I only wish you yourself might have gotten away.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

27 June 1964

Dearest Fido,

The day did not start as promptly as I had hoped, and is
cut short by the necessity of driving back to the shore, changing clothes
to appropriate robes, and returning to town to the wedding of the
daughter of a colleague. Johnson's Point is pleasant to go to at the
end of a day; it is inconvenient as a place to change one's shirt.

Yesterday I spent mostly at the library, and almost com-
pleted one further step in ordering the files. And then went to the
eye doctor for a routine checkup after a two-year interval. He found
only such a very slight difference as to say it was foolish to get new
glasses; I could not possibly tell the difference. So at least I hold
my own on that score. It is a consolation in a slipping world.

Most noteworthy has been the arrival of the Etruscan head
of a lady from Spinks, packed as always with their splendid care, and
shipped airmail. It has great beauty, dignity, and a smiling mystery.
I see Hilda, and all of the Helens in it; and taking down the previous
articles on the mantel over the fireplace at the shore, she sits now
and looks out at the sea while we observe her from the side. Her only
companion on the mantel is the 12th century sutra case (a cylinder of
pure shibui) we bought in Kyoto. I am really profoundly grateful for
the chance of custody of this lady. How Hilda would have loved it;
indeed did love the very thing the head represents! So I can still
be her surrogate, -- and yours.

I must take advantage now of the weekends when the dark rose
is not here using my machine, in order to work at my letters and my own
typing. I suspect the girl is far from perfect as a typist. But she
is very nice, and a good worker, and will be immensely useful. And, of
course, as I have told you before, she performs the useful function too
of making me go to the Library and Hawthorne.

I will be in tomorrow with a sandwich, since all restaurants
are closed on Sundays in summer in this area, and will write again then.

NORMAN
HOLMES
PEARSON

Dearest Fido,

28 June 1964

A very quiet Sunday afternoon at the office, with the streets as well as the corridors deserted. I came in in mid-morning and brought a sandwich with me, all the neighboring restaurants being closed in summer. So my lunch was economical both in time and otherwise.

The wedding yesterday afternoon was pleasant, in that not too many people went and in that it was speeded up like a jet. I had hardly crossed myself and gotten through my first set of Hail Mary's before it was time to leave. We went afterwards to the reception, for champagne and sticky cake. Then meeting up with a friend on the English faculty and his wife we took them to Mory's for dinner, went afterwards to the New Haven Green for a look at the Art Festival now in tents there, and somewhat reluctantly went to their house to see some of his colored slides of England. Actually they were very good, especially on Tintern Abbey.

We seem reasonably removed to the shore, though I run errands to fetch things I have forgotten. The Addisses have also moved down for a month, and the grandchildren seem to be enjoying themselves. Lizzie has been released from the hospital where her hands were treated, but has now come down with German measles.

Have a little fallen behind on my evening reading. But finished *Vagabond Scholar* a book about Santayana's last years in Italy by a worshipper who paid him a two weeks visit. Horribly written, but because he includes every detail the whole takes on a kind of reality which a better written account lacks. There is really a place for the poorly written account of people. Then out of curiosity about Romaine Brooks, I read Lady Troubridge's memoir of Radclyffe Hall. Lady T writes better than Mr Lind does, but the book again gives reality through the inclusion of every detail by a worshipper. John Hall must have been quite a person! Did you ever meet her? She certainly took whatever and whomever she wanted, and she did have her admirers. I have never thought of her as one of the great, but apparently people did, Lady T anyhow. Though I think she went a little far when she star stigmata on R H's palms of her hands when she was writing a novel about a Christlike carpenter. I tend to believe it more when Lady T shared a room with R H and found it rather jolly. Like Kenneth and Islay they were always fixing up a new house or flat; the book is an account of a succession of them.

Forgive me, I must go back to my bread and butter typing.