["U S America\n260 Cumberland Street\nBrooklyn, New York\nJune 22, 1942", "Dearest Bryher and Hilda,", "So much to say and to ask and to thank you for. The\nYour new work, Hilda, in L & L, Mrs. Hughes writes us a special letter about,\nhardly able to forgive you and Bryher for having allowed the fact to escape her\nwhen she was with you, that you write that way,-- you moving about in a kind of\nBrahms's brother incognito. (Brahms, you remember, when asked 'is this the great\nBrahms?' :This is his brother; you'll find him over there.") \"the shrine lies\nopen to the sky,\" the conclusion, the \"bee, chick and hare\" are essentially H.D.", "I have not yet written Mrs. Hughes but have written William Morrow & Company,\nto inquire for her about a manuscript, a book on 'scripture' that she has there.", "A most remarkable sentence, Bryher, in your article\non Bertolt Brecht: \"there are things to praise as well as to destroy, . . . and even\nPerseus had to look veiled on the Gorgon's head -- Truth.\" And your editorial is\nto us a kind of visit from you. \"Wonderful ability to see what is there when she\nlooks out,\" Mother said fervently, \"We prize above all, \"sprung into spring\" and\n\"In war things do vanish . . .\" but things grow, they don't vanish. \"Men are put into\ncurry-coloured livery, that they may look uniform -- and then decked with more\ndistinguishing badges than they ever had in peace time.\" \"Does the chameleon ever\nenvy the leopard?\" Tremendous verities, those statements about the home, and war\nas the constant. \"The brute. The barbarian. As he sinks, we gain; hate is at last\nseen as a sense of power gone wrong.\" You must have these articles reprinted. We\nhaven't seen anything on the war that we care so much about as your paragraph\nabout power and growth, and the need to give, not remove. And then that expanded\nnote at the end of the editorial, \"interest roused made it imperative to wait\nfor more material\" for the R.A.F. number. These are the things stereotyped editors\ndo not know to say.", "You would, I think, like a letter just received by us\nfrom a young cousin who collects stamps, to whom I have some of yours and Hs\nenvelopes. It is all about pictorials, imperforates and commemoratives. He says,\nThe censored letter-envelopes sealed at one end with the number of the examiner\ncontinue to be interesting,-- 1341, or 4976, or 6370. \"Seeing such large numbers,\nyou wonder what all the other censors do, and how busy they are,---\" and so on.\nJust a young boy of 14 or 15, setting out for Culver Military Academy summer\nschool, his second season there.", "Compton Mackenzie is no militant feminist, I perceive,\nbut he surely can write, and we would like him in any case for his opening paragraph.\nVery valuable too, those lights on school, in connection with his Oxford-London\nlure, in the novels.", "Our streets are inconveniently dim, Bryher, but the\nabsolute blackouts are merely for stated times. It looks as if Warner is to be kept\nwhere he is; he is having doubly intensive duty, no time off, no thought of holiday\nfor anyone, naval relief fallies, fair-housing committee work, cadet weddings, --!\nin one afternoon, and so on.", "I hope I have not assumed too much, in the matter of this\nthis Whit Burnett anthology, Hilda. The miscellany of contributors does seem like\nDore's concept of the Floor or the procession of animals in THE MAD DOG. But your\npermission fees--if you will permit an impropriety--are sublime. How happy we are\nthat Perdida is near, even if you don't see her often.", "Pierrot Lunaire, I can't say that I really know, it was\nso strange to me when I heard it, but the after-effect was good, I thought. Nothing\ncould be worse than to precede a special moment like the Edith Sitwell poems with\na long conundrum. We can't picture London as it is, but rejoice that it is London\nand that it is going to be,-- on and on.", "Our love and daily gratitude.", "our new letter just received, B.,--about the maritime and inland races, Osbert S.\nand the walk past grass in Rollen Row. \"And people have been much pleased by the posts in Germany. We\nhow independent he got, but us you and - with the innumerable burdens that there are, upon you. Wl."]

["U S AMERICA", "260 Cumberland Street\nBrooklyn, New York", "August 6, 1942", "Dear Bryher,", "The letters! Your gay contagious fortitude and equipoise. That you\ncan think there is anything to thank us for gives us a thrill. Warner is so\npleased the food reached you. It is like you to write him a letter besides one\nto us. And now today there is a second letter for him.", "We are very proud of your Persian, and of course admire the\nmeasuring by widths of a camel's hair and by the load a donkey can carry.", "Can you think what a joy it is to us that after all these months in\nLondon, you would be going to the country, and best of all, to Miss Sitwell's.\nYou know how we feel about her. The penetrating particularities of the choiceness,\nand momentum, and love of the library, in her writing, we cannot thank her enough\nfor. I had just written you when I came on her review of Dorothy Wordsworth in\nTHE SPECTATOR. And now this poem of a book. As I turned back the wrappings and\nsaw the rose which reminds one of the little rose in her STREET SONGS, I thought,\n"Well, here is romance, whatever follows.\" But then the lives themselves; the\nCountess of Pembroke especially. What enticement is imparted by the touch of\nspeculative compassion. And what exciting, vivid majesty in the picture. The\nVirginia Woolf is poetry itself, a kind of spectrum. How helpful to see memory\nused in this way; and how glad we are that in writing of these women and lending\nus her eyes, Miss Sitwell is one of them. We do admire the little tailpieces.\nA whole cosmos is in the Grasmere Lake and Village, and what a keen thought,\nthat horse down on one haunch, with its magnificent serpentine tail, in\nBuckingham's Travels.", "And the overwhelming care you take of us, Bryher. It overcomes us\nand also upholds us. I have a manuscript of Mrs. Hughes' in which there are\nsome endearing references to you. I am trying to get some little separate parts\nof it published, but know these hardened American publishers too well to try\nto get it issued as a whole.", "Will you enclose to Hilda for me, this copy of my second letter to\nMr. Burnett?-- reading it first.", "In about a week, we go to Cummington, Massachusetts, where I am to\nteach English, but this address is best.", "Our love - it is a trial that words are so limited.\nAnd may you be blessed in your valiant farming.", "Would that I could have seen you and Osbert Sitwell\ninspecting the stiff elephant and the other scenes. Warner\ndid not attend the circus when it was in New London but\nin the evening drove to the tent with my sister-in-law and\nsaw three pairs of elephants outside silhouetted against the\ndim sky, cropping grass in the darkness as they waiting to\nhaul the wagons to the railroad, each pair in proximity to\nits wagon!"]

260 Cumberland Street
Brooklyn, New York
October 4, 1942

Dear Hilda,

Your affectionate patience, your reading so
much cheer into the contents of the "parcel" make us all
happy. I think we used to call those inferior 3 or 4"for a
cent"candies in jars, jelly-beans, nigger babies (if
licorice), or gumdrops. And there used to be some with
stripes in them like air-twist glass marbles.

We don't have tea, even in this 🏠 remote place,
and feel greatly the pluck and valor of your having
friends to tea, would so like to have eaves-dropped, let
alone been present when Osbert Sitwell came in. We like
and salute his spirited suggestion about dukes, that instead
of reducing all titles to anonymity, the government should
elevate all nondescriptness to nobility, (and let each be a
duke.)

placidly

entitled

Whit Burnett's anthology is called, I see, by
the Times, THIS IS MY BEST, and is the Nov--Dec. choice of
The Book of the Month Club. As I saw the roster of public
favorites, italicized as a lure to purchasers, I doubted
that we could be in the book, yet have not been notified
so far of our being dropped! You make me more than impatient
to see your SEA*SHELL. I thought I was going to write Bryher
a volume about the last issue of L & L, I was so interested,
and In writing her just now, was see intent on London and your
probable and improbable comfort this winter, and so full of
the summer's surprises, I did not even touch on the magazine.

We are being noisily rationed, and threatened with
involuntarily involuntary rationing if we don't starve ourselves, &
extend our wardrobes without it by discreditable expedients,
without it; There is what a letter received yesterday, calls
"heavy military travel," and the trip through New England this
summer was an amazement, of choked compacted rigidity - nothing
mattering or seeming hard at all, as you know, if only the
fighters can be victorious. And it would be poltroonery to give
the impression that we are short of food; the chief surprise
is in high prices, and the doll-house amounts meted out as-
for the customary money.

I shan't fail to protest if anything about your
material or self seems threatened, but trouble very much about
my uselessness in being nothing for aggressors to fear, and
in being almost non-existent, we are so hidden away here.

Much love; do tell Perdita we are so happy
that she is not ashamed of being part American.

U S America
260 Cumberland Street
Brooklyn, New York
November 21, 1942

Dear Hilda,

We wish, wishing you and Perdita a happy Christmas could make it that indeed. The rather concealed birthday which you and Bryher have made so grand with letters and a cablegram, wishes it could talk to your birthday, and her's and P's. I instantly found your SEA SHELL on the October L & L. You should not talk so indulgently of similarities. You know very well that "egg in egg-shell," "the pull" and "the lull" are something I could never ascend to. But your mention of poems I might be writing must spur me on. Little things, and manuscripts I have been taking a hand with, and more household affairs have made writing a will of the wisp. I had thought I might write something before going to Cummington - had a few phrases lying about - but don't seem to get back to them.

We are happy about Perdita's work and foreign office friends,-- knowing of course first of all how deep your concern about her future is.

I enclose the Liveright Royalty statement. When you write your brother, do you not think it would be well to ask if he really did receive that money?

May "blessings" stay as well as come. Blessings on
you each.

Love from us.

Yale Collection of American Literature

To: Tom Hyry

From: PCW

Concerning: Errant letter in YCAL MSS 24, the Hilda Doolittle Papers

This 2-page letter of May 27, 1943, to HD signed "M. M." is filed with the
correspondence with Marianne Moore. It was microfilmed (1987: ZA Moore
Correspondence Roll 1) for a film that contains only BRBL's holdings for Moore. The
letter is actually from Mary M. Duffee, who is not otherwise represented in the HD
papers (unless there is something in "M Letter General". The attached World War II
Draft Registration card confirms that Mary M. Duffee lives at the address on the letter—
and this document is not part of the HD papers but my contribution.

3549 76th Street
Jackson Heights, New York, N.Y.

May 27, 1943

Dearest Hilda,

That is the home address, though I am actually
in my office at the close of the day, seeking a bit of
uninterrupted time to write to you. We were so happy to
receive a letter from you yesterday and I'm writing at once
hoping that this will not be one of the numerous letters
that never reaches its destination.

Betty has not heard from Carl for weeks, only once
since her last baby was born. It is pretty discouraging,
because she writes almost every day and Carl writes that he
has so few letters from her. But we realize that letters
must give way to more vital things.

I don't know how much you know about things with us, but
if you have heard this all before please forgive the repetition.
Joe and Fanny and I are living in Queens, in a nice garden
apartment not too far from Manhattan. When Carl went away
Betty and the little girl moved in with us as there was
plenty of room and now there are the two babies, both very
fit and happy, waiting only for Carl to come home. Betty was
not yet twenty when the second baby was born but I am sure
now that she knew best and that it would have been a mistake
for her not to have married and not to have started having
the large family she and Carl promise themselves. She left
college after one year and married Carl as soon as she was
eighteen and we have grown to love him as I am sure he
deserves. What will happen of course no one knows.

Bill has had a somewhat too varied matriomnal career
so far. He married a girl from Colorado as soon as he was
twenty-one. They lived in California and then in New Mexico
for a while and then came to New York where Bill's son was
bprn. I think he knew from the start that he had made a
mistake. Anyway after the usualmental turmoil he decided not
to let things drift. He is now in Reno, working his way
through the divorce court. His case comes up June twelve and
unless by that time the case is contested he will be
free at once. In the mean time he is planning to marry
a girl we all love. She is only twenty but has also been
married before. She came here from Budapest four years ago.
Her father, who is an editor of some distinction in Hungary,
is here too, an exile, as is her mother. Our Georgie is an
artist—quiet successful now as a ceramics designer. She is
planning to go west to meet Bill so that, if all is well,
they can be together before he is inducted. He has passed his

first physical test, but may be turned down on the second
because of impaired hearing--punctured ears or something of
the sort. The poor children are and have been going through
anxious times, wondering whether things would be straightened
out before Bill had to go to camp. At first Bill was exempted
because of his child and because he was married first before
the draft act. Now he is eager enough to go, but wants to
have things better arranged before he goes.

I'm working again with the McClure Newspaper Syndicate,
editing fiction and sometimes political copy. It isn't a
very big job but it is most agreeable. Fanny is writing
publicity copy for one of the large advertising agencies.
Her job really is exciting.

I was happy at the thought that you may come here after
the war. Incidentally Joe says, not too seriously, that he
would like to live in England. That is on days when he
takes some of our editorial writers too seriously. Meantime
Georgie and Bill make wild plans about living on an Island
--or perhaps in Budapest, and Betty and Carl dream of North
Africa or Spain. I am sure that there are nice quiet spots
where you could say in town. I'd like nothing better than to
look one up for you when the time comes. At the moment no
one can make any plans.

Please tell me about Verdita. I would so like to see her
again. Will she be coming with you, when and if?
These young people of ours surely have run into a world that
we never dreamed of for them.

I have not seen Ethel Lewis Grose, since I saw you last.
We live not fifteen miles away from each other and occasionally
talk over the telephone but that is as far as it gets. I
imagine that she has been as much preoccupied with her children
as I have been with mine--more so probably because there are
more than twice as many of them.

Betty has read your letter over and over. She admires you
so much and keeps asking me whether I really think that you
liked Carl. She adores him. Carl wrote to us, as I told you,
at great length telling us how much he enjoyed meeting you.
Betty says he especially spoke of your beautiful hands--and
eyes. But I wrote that all in another letter, which perhaps
never reached you. I hope for better luck with this.

Now I must stop this and leave. Every one
has gone and the office is beautifully quiet. Betty and I
were thrilled with the thought of your metting the queen and
princesses. Good to think things like that happen still.

Love and many thanks for the letter--and
loge to Verdita.

M.M.

Nazis are dropping bombs in England again.
I wish the allies could down all their planes
so they wouldn't be able to bomb any more.

Has your Indian friend been able to see
any more departed loved ones in your room?
I wonder why some can come back and others
not. I wonder whether the veil will be
lifted in our time. I live so much alone,
and have so much time to think and ponder
and wonder why things are as they are.

I hope you three dear ones are keeping
well now, and that the flu is not so bad now.
It is on the wane here and soon we will be
having spring weather. February is almost
here and after that the weather ought to
be better for health.

Much love to you all •
from
Hattie

260 Cumberland Street
Brooklyn 5, New York

March 13, 1944

Two letters from Hilda dear H.; two from Bryher! This "just a line"
about the Valentine party and the pineapple, the "huge armadillo thing"
from Madrid have a world of meaning for us, crushed as we are that you
should be bombed and imperial in mortal danger on and on; with noises
that in themselves are desperation. The crashes of an August storm make
one cower, let alone this intentional inferno. The Times says, "a few
more weeks" should mark the end of it. And one night is a lifetime! And
well we know the tension you must have been under with an aged, bereft guest
whose sadness you couldn't cure, as it were begging that you do it, or
at least be there. Perdita and her "Americans" sounds very nice; one
day we shall be hearing something of it detail of it? I do think we shall.

I think, Hilda, I may be able to ferret out something about Central America
Travellers do not always know what to tell one but I have heard from several
that there is a heaven of beauty and safety and climate and interest, in
the mountains above Mexico City. I think this is so. I am suspicious of
Yucatan; I feel as if Wallace Stevens have imagined the region and
that it would be all sunstroke and horned toads. Illness the winter long
prevented me from seeing several movies of Mexico and S. America but I shall
accost Raymond Whitcomb or some travel bureau and see what is recommended.
I finally wrote Mr. Pell and he indeed reveres your writing - as well as
the possession of it; I shall see how heavy the correspondence is, for you
ought to have it. I assume that if you compare statements with results?
financially. I was a会员 but I am a会员.

I was nothing at all, at the Library; I did not "read"; I discussed
points of technique that had arrested my attention - in archaic examples -
of verse, and wore a white blouse, a rough-woven tan skirt made from an
English coat, and the black velvet jacket I wore at the Brevoort at B's
dinner-party if you remember? May Sartainis surely kindly, in her illusions
Sarton

and loyalties. And I do not yet know what you, yourself, read; I know it was
good, that is all. Be sure to say when you are writing, or ask Bryher
perhaps, to just give me the title. It is most beautiful of you and Bryher,
to receive as if they had life in them, our little greetings, so late and
so small, and to make it seem as if there were a kind of benefit in the
laggard transmitting of our love and thought.

We do pray that when this comes, the air will be safe,
and that you can truly come to America, North and South. AN.

December 3, 1944

Dear Hilda

Dear magician -

to capture for us these "spiny skins# , feather-stars, worm-shaped
bodies and tube-shaped worms, - the black-and-whites-- drawn with
"diligent attention to zoological detail."! Moreover, besides the
sea, every word is elate. And to find this for us when books are
battled for and unobtainable, even here they are resistful and scarce.
What is it with you, then! I don't know whether the geometry or the
colors - the mauve sea-anemone or the magic of water cre&ted where
there is none_can stir one more. Strange and enthralling, is it not,
to pore over the "seaweed and periwinkles" so matter-of-fact and
"printed";and have the weight of the weed and the rubber-tortoishell
and nine-taillike effect of it all,come to life better than at the
seashore.

I remember the "marine Biological Laboratory"at Plymouth; but
best of all, to have it "all British"! I could not quite realize
as I studied the binding and the waving anemone-tops, that it had
not been printed by Westermann or some other mann in Berlin or
Munich. "Professor and Mrs. Brambell of Bangor" are a little like
"Mr. Percy Weatherwax's studies of the broome plant ª I mean the
maize plant" undertaken for the Guggenheim Foundation.(I "while a-
way"considerable time unintentionally on the Guggenheim Foundation;
giving thanks every moment that there is such a foundation. This
is the season when "projects" are submitted and strange to say,
writers refer the Committee to me and as seriously as if the life
of the person depended on it, I iniquitize over them and write and
rewrite, trying not to do anybody harm.)

We are a disgust to people for virtually hibernating in winter. Nothing that man or animal could produce, keeps me warm and since we failed to keep useful and well last winter, have to be cautious; you know how much I write - almost nothing - and I seem fated to say when I do write, what annoys me acutely afterward. I wrote a brief review of Ada Jackson's BEHOLD THE JEW, for The New Republic but had to omit the life of the book, there was so little room for quotation. What about yourself? Have you been able to finish anything since THE WALLS? And can you still have Perdita's records? We are much excited to think she has them. And how stirring, that she works on; withoutremorse and without falling ill. These six years seem like 60. I watch the papers for a word about THE WALLS, standing and "reading them all" as the dealer with disapprobation and frequent attendance on me, observes the process, but by reason of there being little to examine here in B. and the fact that we see almost noone with a writer's eye, I could not send you anything worth sending.*I shall ask to see the Walls at Pratt Library tomorrow when I go for a half hour's talk with the students.

The lilies, Hilda, are indeed perfume for our Christmas. What a
feeling it gave us to see them, so garden-like and pure, on the envelope
and within. It is consoling to know Robert Herring can be in his house,
and that "others" can be in it! Do be well. We shall be always thanking
you for the marine King Penguin , the letter in it, and the"blue"one -
blue paper one - and for "wondering when we will meet"! Did you, I wonder
ever get a word or two about Mexico, Yucatan perhaps, that I sent you?
but I'll ask you when we are talking about it! Love from us to you and P.

260 Cumberland Street
Brooklyn 5, New York
September 30, 1945

Dear Hilda,

I hope Warwickshire this summer and having Perdita back
will make the winter seem different from last; hope the
vacation was not too arduous! Despite the strain you were
under so long, you and Bryher were a sense of joy and safety
to Mrs. Hughes; how fervently she speaks of the times she
saw you or heard from you. It has made me envy you.

I am not a good watcher, still I am surprised not to have
seen good things to send you about your new poems; am sending
you two copies of Poetry in which Horace Gregory has an article
about Edith Sitwell; you probably have seen it before this.

Before his next accounting, Mr Pell should be notified
I think, Hilda, to write you direct - and what a joy, to feel
the deadly threats are removed. I have been standing in
your way through of course I couldn't help it - by being an
outsider. It will help me to have you in charge again, but
the- what matters is that your new poems and prestige will
stir things up and certainly safeguard the COLLECTED POEMS
if anything can.

To think that in addition to all you've done and borne, you
could prepare the Vienna memoir for LIFE & LETTERS - read
by us with awe and wonder. I especially feel the reference to
Bryher, the stark veracity of it. It is a long time since any-
thing has seemed so dire and consoling as that sudden
glimpse of Bryher.

260 Cumberland Street
Brooklyn 5, New York
October 24, 1945

Mr. Arthur Pell, Director
Liveright Publishing Corporation
386 Fourth Avenue, New York City

Dear Mr. Pell:

On behalf of H. D., I thank you for the copy received
of her October 30th Royalty Statement which I am forwarding
to her; and I thank you for your patience with my various
ignorances and insistences during the years in which I have
acted as agent for her. Since I was to be her intermediary
or agent merely till the end of the war, I am asking that
future statements and letters be sent direct to her. The work
she has done during the war has, of course, a bearing on her
former work and I am glad to think war no longer prevents
her hearing from you at first hand as originally.

Her address, as you know, is

Mrs. H. D. Aldington
49 Lowndes Square, W. C. 1
LONDON, England.

Sincerely yours,

2

260 Cumberland Street, Brooklyn 5, Aug. 11

FEBRUARY

Thank you, dear Hilda, for BY AVON RIVER,

I am disappointed, puny though it is
of me to mind, that Macmillan left out of
my little comment,

I never had a word to say:
But he, it seemed regarded me
As if myself, I were the play,
Players and a great company

which makes the statement something. Well,
it is all in the book.

Hail, Master is a thought this frightened
world does lack; perhaps you will help
people to revive and ponder ....

And how perfect, Hilda, your lines in Walter
De La Mare's anthology, LOVE, - which I have
only just seen this summer.

I hope you are at peace - somewhat; certainly
having Perdiata nearby is a treat. I so treasure
her. Such fortitude and sensibility; I am con-
stantly surprised, and helped to go on. And
Bryher, the knights of the Grail are not a
phantasy when Bryher is with us.

I must not let your compassion and perceptive
ness be a menace to you. I am "doing better",
dear H; feel contented about me. And I so hope
you may be well and let nothing make you unhappy

Love,

Bryher has given me your address twice and I know
it is Luganobut can't find it.

May 26, 1960

Dear Hilda,

The vital moment in that whole miscellaneous day yesterday, was your being there and what you said. Not a person present could fail to be stirred by your chivalry and heart.

I thought the exhibit rare - unique - (In the room in which we had luncheon); Harry, Leonie and Elena and I studied it - your section - the case devoted to you, and Harry said, even without seeing the words, you would know what it was, from the arrangement on the page, of the print.

I am just saying a word, not writing a letter, but do want to say, that when you got rested, if you can find time for it, let me come to the Hotel to see you- Your valor is beyond comment. I shall be here during June (after the 3 rd and 4 th,) and all of July.

Fondly

Marianne

After the meeting, I was so glad to have a word with Perdita and John.

CROSS REFERENCE SHEET

Name or Subject
Moore, Marianne
[Watercolor]

File No.

Regarding

Original watercolor by Marianne Moore (signed M. M.)
of wild flowers, possibly presented to H. D.

Removed from folder of correspondence and put below.

Date

SEE

Name or Subject Art for the wrong reason collection
N. H. Pearson bequest.

File No.

97