No More Learning

spoke of changing for Harley Street and the Zoological Gardens. Of course one does not change, one alights. Alight for Monkey Hill, alight for the Wild Asses House, Small Rodents House, Small Cats House, Fellows Tea Pavilion, for the Adders, the Brush Turkies [for Turkeys], the Prairie Dogs and Waders, alight for the Gnus Paddock, the Goat Hills, the Gazellez [for GazellesJ Sheds and the Racoons [for Raccoons] Cages, for the Swine, the Lemurs, the Civets and the Birds of Prey, alight for Karin Stephen, Melanie Klein, Creighton Miller [for Crichton-Miller] and Burt White, alight to them that sprawl in darkness and in the shadow of - resurrec­ tion. 9 Or go on to Hampstead and have a drink at the Spaniards, and look at your brother the fly, oh the Spanish fly, moving out of
186
darkness into light, et sqq. Where do the cantharides go in the
winter time? Amn't I after telling you, some go to Hampstead and
the rest do like the swallows do, rush into a coagulum and drown
10
Yes, I wrote two little poems, one after a brief interview with the Author of the Strange Necessity (positively surprising my dear), and the other after profound and prolonged communion with the strange (not to be believed my dear) flora and fauna of my sunken garden, and ut infra respectively they gallop along:
There once was a woman called West Whose distinction it was to be blest
With so unremitting
A sense of the fitting
That she seldom, if ever, undressed.
(Until she met Wells, and then I supposed she had to. ) 12 This poemetto has been well received in certain quarters. This other, which I now propose to you but only after some hesitation, and in a regular little storm of scraping and bowing and moping and mowing believe me, less well:
27 February 1934, Costello
themselves in a dewpond. Mass suicide, Percy knows all about it. Hence we arrive at the couplet that deserves the Croix de Guerre, or perhaps better the Dunmow Flitch:
Light and sweetness, sweetness and light,
11
Obliterate gloom, engender delight.
Mammon's bottoms,
La Goulue's, mine, a cob's, Whipt, caressed,
My mother's breast.
But God's
A goat's, an ass's,
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27 February 1934, Costello
Alien beauty,
The Divine Comedy.
You don't care for it. I don't care for it much myself. But that it is a poem and not verse, that it is a prayer and not a collect, I have not the slightest doubt, not the slightest.
It is hard to believe what you say ofDublin, that the youth, the talent and harmosity are flown. I bought yesterday a bottle of ink
(Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " "Oh thank you kindly, sir", he said, ''I'll have a bottle of ink. ")
from a lady ofClonmel extraction and who dared not cook herself up with the vain hope of ever setting foot again in Fishguard. 14
But then in the next breath you quote Percy, and indeed the
passage was so real to me as I read it that I had to take out my
handkerchief. Now I think you will be put to the pin o[f] your
collarette to make Percy drinking coffee and saying things like
that consist with Dublin bereft. I am thinking that I might well
employ these long, sober (Kia-ora and the wildest scenes ofvirtue)
evenings in writing a True-born Jackeen on the model of Defoe's
True-born Englishman, though ofcourse infinitely more amusing
15
13
and competent.
My velleities of self-diffusion in this stew of LETTERS have
He shall have it then hot from the vinegar.
been repulsed with the traditional contumely, so now I'm sulking and won't play. The book won't be out for a month at least. Can't
16
So I read the last word in obscenities in the British Museum, to whose incredible central sanctum I have
188
get it taken in U. S. A.
gained admittance on the strength of an irrepressible anxiety to
"consult the lesser know[n] French and Italian texts that are not
available elsewhere", and then walk home across the string of
Parks beginning with the Horse Guards, shivering and my feet in
marmalade, past the celebrated pelicans that really have a most
charitable expression and whose inward eye they deign to extra­
vert and bliss of solitude interrupt readily at any time to feed (for
who knows when they may have to disembowel themselves at a
moment's notice? ), and eat the most expensive egg that money
can buy, though it is surely a strange thing that a rich man would
be in and out of heaven twenty times over while you would be
looking for a duck's egg in Old Chelsea, and perhaps this is the
moment to mention that I am a Bigendian, not instinctively but
by education. Instinctively I am a Smallendian, with the result
that when I am tired or my mind clouded these two wretched
affinities, the civilised for the large, and the primitive for the
17
and dare not ifl could, for ifl did the second state of this man . . .
18
My obeisances where obeisances are due, and thee I
embrace, as Sordello Virgil, la 've il minor s'appiglia, and if
19
1 NualaCostello•(1907-1984)beganpostgraduatestudyattheSorbonnein1929;in Paris, she met Lucia Joyce, and, through Giorgio and Helen Joyce, met SB (Patrick
189
27 February 1934, Costello
small, end ofthe egg, come into conflict and the egg is not eaten. No, I think I am all set now to give Liffey's stinking tide a long long miss, and indeed for the moment I have no choice in the matter, but must remain on here as long as this treatment lasts, and God knows how long that will be, probably more months than I like to contemplate. Anyhow I can't stop now,
So my life is the complete Comedie a tiroirs-vides.
you write me a very nice letter I'll give you the reference. A toi
sf Sam TLS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; Costello.
27 February 1934, Costello
O'Dwyer, "Letters from Paris," The Great Tuam Annual [1991] 73, 75). Of her, SB had written to McGreevy: "I met a Miss Costello (where is the accent? ) once met chez Giorgio's flitch, when Shem was there and Colum and all the galere, affiancee then but now disponible, and she frightened me back into my ame des glaces. Who is she? " (7 September [1933], TCD, MS 10402/54). "Galere" (crew); "affiancee" (SB's conflation of "affianced" and "fiancee"); "disponible" (available); "ame des glaces" (soul of ice).
Helen Fleischman (nee Kastor, 1894-1963) married Giorgio Joyce in December 1930; Padraic Colum (1881-1972), Irish-American writer and critic.
2 InDante'sInferno,VirgilisamongthehonoredinLimbo,thefirstCircleofHell, because as a pagan he could not ascend to Paradise. Virgil is allowed to lead Dante on his journey through the Circles ofHell and through Purgatory; when he withdraws, he saystoDante:'"perch'iotesovratecoronaemitrio"' ("thereforeoverthyself! crown and mitre thee") (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto XXVII, line 142; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 357).
Dante is led farther by the fair lady culling flowers, Matilda, and by Beatrice; these two lead him into Paradise. In keeping with his statement that "I can't express myselfin a straightforward manner," SB refers directly not to the locus classicus in which Limbo is depicted, Inferno Canto N, but to Virgil's account of himself delivered to Sordello in Purgatorio Canto VII, line 25: "'Non per far, ma per non fare"' ("Not for doing, but for not doing") (Dante, La Divina Commedia; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95).
3 SBwrote"Democritus<sighing>doing. "
In Inferno N, lines 136-138, the pre-Socratic philosophers Democritus (c. 460-c. 370 BC) and Heraclitus are presented. Democritus is reputed to have laughed at human folly, and Heraclitus is reputed to have wept at it; SB imagines himself"polarized between" the two extremes. SB cites from Purgatorio VII, lines 29-30: "ove i lamenti / non suonan come guai, ma son sospiri" (where the laments have no sound ofwailing but are sighs) (Dante, La Divina Commedia; Dante. The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95, 97).
4 EdmundCurtis,ProfessorofModernHistoryatTrinityCollegeDublinfrom1914 to 1943, was author ofThe Normans in Lower Italy (1912), A History ofMediaeval Ireland from 1110 to 1513 (1923), and, at that time, was writing A History of Ireland (1936).
5 SBmayhaveaskedthisquestioninconversation.
6 Francis Stuart• (ne Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart, 1902-2000), Australian­ born Irish writer, author of The Coloured Dome (1932) and Women and God (1931). Stuart was influenced by his reading of Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism (1912) and studied the lives of the saints. The "most important of all, to him, [was] St. Therese of Lisieux," according to his biographer Geoffrey Elborn: "Stuart speculated that ifSt. Therese 'had not been a nun what a lover she would have made. ' This interpretation formed part of the foundation for Stuart's belief that the search for fulfilment through women was part of the same longing for a passionate relationship with God" (Geoffrey Elborn, Francis Stuart: A Life [Dublin: Raven Arts Press, 1990] 73-74).
Ralph Brereton-Barry (1899-1943) graduated from Trinity College Dublin and was called to the Irish Bar in 1922, and to the English Bar (Gray's Inn) in 1933. As a member of one of the four Inns of Court, he would have had access to the library ofthe Middle Temple, whose Rare and Antiquarian historical collections include some books and tracts on witchcraft; however, there is no current collection as such (Stuart Adams, Library, Middle Temple, London, 1 April 2005).
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27 February 1934, Costello
ThejunctionofD'Olier,College,Pearse,and TownsendstreetsisonthewestsideofTCD. Pigeon House: 25 January 1931, n. 6.
"Etron" (turd).
7 "Gress"(movement;anounderivedfrom"gressus,"supineofLat. verb"gradior, gradi, gressus" [to walk, to step]).
"Crime immotive" (unmotivated crime). Andre Gide's novel, Les Caves du Vatican (1914; The Caves of the Vatican), explores an "acte gratuit" (a gratuitous act) which takes the form ofa crime.
SB quotes from the poem "Locksley Hall" by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): "Forward, forward let us range, / Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change" (Tennyson: A Selected Edition, Incorporating the Trinity College Manuscripts, ed. Christopher Ricks [Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1989] 192).
Guinness stout.
8 SB'spreviouslettertoNualaCostellohasnotbeenfound. HarleyStreet,London Wl, has a concentration ofphysicians' consulting rooms; it is off Marylebone Road, near Regent's Park station at the southeast side of Regent's Park; the Zoological Gardens, off Prince Albert Road, near Primrose Hill, were on the northeast side of Regent's Park.
9 WithinSB'slistofanimalhousesinRegent'sParkZoo,heincludespractitioners whose rooms might be found in the vicinity of nearby Harley Street: psychiatrist Karin Costelloe Stephen (1889-1953); psychoanalysts Melanie Klein (1882-1960) and Hugh Crichton-Miller (1877-1959); and surgeon and gynaecologist Harold J. Burt-White (1901-1952) who was much in the news on account ofreckless driving and a divorce case.
10 The Spaniards Inn, Hampstead Heath (see 8 October 1932, n. 5).
An aphrodisiac, "Spanish fly," also known as cantharides. The dried bodies ofthe Lytta vesicatoria (also Cantharis vesicatoria) beetle, or blister beetle, are a natural inflam­ matory agent. Most cantharides pass the winter as coarctate larvae.
"Et sqq. " (Lat. , and the following [abbreviation for et sequentes]).
In conversation with SB, Arland Ussher may have observed a similarity between the mass deaths of beetles and swallows, or this may be SB's invention. There was a contemporary occasion for such comparison, for in 1931, swallows died in massive numbers when their migration patterns were severely disrupted by storms in the Alps (see The Times 5, 7, 25, and 28 September 1931).
11 The Dunmow Flitch award was given to the "Happiest Couple. " The expression "eating Dunmow bacon" was used of happily married couples, who had lived long together and never quarreled. It alludes to the custom begun in 1104: "Any person going to Dunmow, in Essex, and humbly kneeling on two sharp stones at the church door, might claim a flitch ofbacon ifhe could swear that for 12 months and a day he had never had a household brawl or wished himselfunmarried" (Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, rev. Adrian Room,16th edn. [New York, HarperResource-HarperCollins, 1999] 373). The Flitch Trials still are held in Little Dunmow before a jury ofsix spinsters and six bachelors.
12 RebeccaWest,StrangeNecessity(1928). Westhadanaffairintheautumnof1913 with H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946), and a child by him, the writer Anthony West (1914-1987). SB's "interview" with Rebecca West is not documented.
"Ut infra" (as below).
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27 February 1934, Costello
13 "La Goulue" (greedy woman), the Moulin Rouge performer Louise Weber (1870-1929), whose nickname came from out-drinking anyone in the bar; she and her performing partner,Jacques Renaudin (nicknamed Valentin le Desosse, 1843-1907), were depicted by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) in his poster Moulin Rouge - La Goulue.
14 Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, 30 miles northwest of Waterford. Fishguard, Wales, on the Irish Sea, the ferryport to Rosslare, County Wexford, Ireland.
15 Kia-Ora is an orange fruit drink, originally lemon, created in Australia and marketed in Britain since 1913; "Kia-Ora" (Maori, good health).
Whether SB's proposal of a "TruebornJackeen" was in jest, or, asJohn Pilling asserts, a fictional project using Irish materials later abandoned, James Knowlson indicates that SB did make notes on Irish history for Joyce ('"For Interpolation': Beckett and English Literature," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 16 12006] 223); Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 638, n. 49; Everett Frost and Jane Maxwell, "TCD MS 10971/2: Irish History," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 1612006] 126).
"Jackeen" (Anglo-Irish, a self-assertive, worthless fellow). Defoe's satirical poem was "The True-Born Englishman" (1701).
16 MorePricksThanKickswaspublishedbyChattoandWinduson24May1934,held up while Charles Prentice attempted to find a publisher in the United States. He first contacted the publisher of Joyce at Viking Press, Benjamin W. Huebsch (1876-1964), who declined (Prentice to Huebsch, 23 January 1934 [UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/ 175]; Prentice to SB, 23 January 1934 IUoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/177]; Huebsch to Prentice, 31 January 1934 [UoR, MS 2444 CW 57/21). Prentice then sent uncorrected proofs to Stanley Marshall Rinehart (1897-1969), who offered to forward them to his publishing partner John Farrar (1896-1974) (Prentice to Rinehart, 1 February 1934; Prentice to Rinehart, 7 February 1934; UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/307 and 1378).
Having had no final word from Rinehart/Farrar, Prentice sent More Pricks Than Kicks to New York publishers, Harrison Smith and Robert Haas (1932-1936), as he wrote to SB on 4 April 1934:
So, unless we click with Smith & Haas, or unless you would like us to try another Yank, I am rather inclined to think that the manufacture of the book should be put in hand when we hear from Smith & Haas, whatever their decision is. But just as you like. I don't want to hurry you a bit. The object of this letter is simply to find out what your own opinion is. (UoR, MS2444. CW letterbook 155/91)
17 SB'sreadingintheBritishMuseum:22July1932.
SB describes his walk across London parks from Trafalgar Square in the direction of Chelsea: the Horse Guards' Parade, St. James's Park, Green Park, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens. The lake in St. James's Park is a sanctuary for ducks and pelicans.
Marmalade (anything soft, squishy). Reference to Matthew 19:24: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. " SB refers to Jonathan Swift's "A Voyage to Lilliput" in Gulliver's Travels (1726), in which Catholics are caricatured as Big-Endians and Protestants as Small-Endians,
according to which end of a boiled egg should be broken first.
18 SBreferstohistherapywithBion. SBmayalludetoMatthew12:45andLuke11:26, which both write: "the last state ofthat man is worse than the first. " Or he may allude to the
192
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
"second state of man" discussed by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) in Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell: Drawnfrom Things Heard and Seen, in which "Our Second State of Man After Death" is one in which "we are given access to the deeper reaches of our minds, or our intentions and thoughts" (tr. George F. Dole, with notes by George F. Dole, Robert H. Kirven, and Jonathan Rose, The New CenturyEdition of the Works ofEmanuel Swedenborg, series ed. Jonathan Rose jWest Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000] 380).
"Comedie a tiroirs-vides" (a play with lots of sub-plots, more commonly, a "roman a tiroirs" [a novel with lots of sub-plots]; SB catches up the literal meaning of "tiroirs" ]drawers of a chest] and adds "vides" [empty]).
19 Sordello embraces Virgil twice. With the first embrace, Sordello recognizes Virgil as a fellow Mantuan: "'O Mantovano, io son Sordello / de la tua terra! ' e l'un l'altro abbracciava" ("O Mantuan, I am Sordello of thy city. " And the one embraced the other) (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto VI, lines 74-75; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II. Purgatorio. tr. Sinclair. 85). With the second, Sordello recognizes Virgil in humility: "la 've 'l minor s'appiglia" (clasping where the inferior does) (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto VII, line 15 ]SB writes"ii" for"'! "]; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95). SB quotes the reference from Canto VIL
MORRIS SINCLAIR DUBLIN
4/3/34 48 Paulson's Square [London]
Cher Ami
Sais rassure. Les peccadilles d'omission n'ont pas d'emprise
sur moi. Je veux dire que j'y suis tellement sujet moi-meme que leur manifestation chez autrui ne peut que me chauffer le coeur, chose dont j'ai assez besoin en ce moment. Merci done de ta lettre qui, pour s'etre fait attendre, ne m'a pas mains charme ! 'esprit et egaye la solitude, et merci aussi de la coupure, ou je trouve que ce vieux chameau paranoi:aque n'est pas suffisam[m]­ ent maltraite. Mais c'est tout de meme un commencement --
Tuasdelachancedepouvoirjouerdansunorchestre,quelque moche qu'il puisse etre. C'est une occasion nonpareille pour te familiariser avec les details d'une partition--Je n'ai jamais pu me reconcilier avec la Symphonie Pastorale ou j'ai ! 'impression que Beethoven a verse tout ce qu'il avait de vulgaire, de facile et
193
4 March 1934, Mortis Sinclair
d'enfantin (et c'etait beaucoup). pour en finir avec une fois pour
1
Arte, dont j'ai deja parle a Cissie et sur lequel partant je ne revien­
drai maintenant pas-- Mais un autre, donne par le Quatuor Busch,
qui presente actuellement dans une serie de cinq concerts tous les
quatuors pour cordes de Beethoven, vaut la peine qu'on y fasse
2
Septieme; le second de 1800; et le troisieme de 1825. C'est pour
celui-ci que je suis alle et je peux dire que je n'ai ete nullement
der;u- - Bien que ce ne soit que l'avant-dernier de ses quatuors il a
pour Finale la derniere composition qui soit venue de sa main, un
Allegro incomparablement beau. Mais c'est la Cavatina qui precede
immediatement cet Allegro qui m'a le plus frappe - mouvement
qui en calme finalite et intensite depasse tout ce que j'ai jamais
entendu du venerable Ludwig et dont je ne l'aurais pas cru
capable - vraiment si tu ne connais pas ce Quatuor deja (B Mol
Mineur, op. 130) [for (si bemol majeur, op. 130)]. tu ferais bien de te
4
toutes. JaientenduunsuperbeconcertdonneparleQuatuorPro
allusion. Leprogrammesecomposaitdetroisquatuors,lepremier ("Harfen") de 1809, c'est a dire je crois, entre la Pastorale et la
3
le procurer. Le demier concert de la serie est pour samedi le dixsept, rete de notre infecte Patrice, et je viens de me garantir en quelque degre contre le souvenir de ses cochonneries zoologiques et botaniques en achetant un billet. 11 yaura le dernier Quatuor en F (op. 135) avec le celebre "Schwer Gefasste Entschluss":
allegro
jJ
II JI;II
Es muss sein! Es muss sein! 5
grave
arP�r,11cj Muss es sein?
Puis quelques jours plus tard, le 20 je crois, il ya Jacques Thibaud
avec un programme formidable - embrassant la Chaconne de
Vitali, le concerto en A du kleiner Wolferl, et une galaxie
6
d'Espagnols. Mais meme en commern;:ant deja a faire des 194
economies, je ne sais si je vais pouvoir me le payer. C'est vrai­ ment une tempete de musique a Londres en ce moment, un tel embarras de richesses que si l'on pouvait se les payer tous on aurait de la peine a choisir entre les concerts qui ont lieu le meme jour. Mais voila par exemple une [for un] dilemme qui ne me trouble pas! Helas!
Il n'est pas possible d'exprimer les etranges douceurs que je ressens a l'approche du printemps, et si c'est la une phrase qui invite le ridicule tant pis pour moi. Positivementje ne l'aijamais regarde venir avec tant d'impatience et tant de soulagement. Et j'y pense comme a une victoire emportee sur la nuit, les cauche­ mars, les sueurs, la panique et la folie, et aux crocus et aux narcisses comme aux gages d'une vie au moins tolerable, deja goutee mais dans un passe si lointain que toute trace, etjusqu'au souvenir, en etait presque perdus. Que les puissances veuillent que je ne m'y trompe pas - la peninsule doit etre radieuse. Et le cheval s'est-il un peu renouvele parmi les Zephyrs? Ne manque pas de me rappeler a son souvenir.
Et le travail, cela avance? Cette anthologie Ruddiesque est en effet comme tu dis, une chose puante, et du reste pleine de pieges. Je te conseille d'etudier cela avec une carte de la France sous la main. Comme cela il y a au moins un interet geographique a en extraire. Autrement c'est une corvee intolerable. D'ailleurs je ne l'ai jamais lu. Fais surtout attention a la region proven(ale (Maurras, etc. ), car c'est le pays d'election du noble professeur. Et ce n'est pas la peine de te dire que l'etude des textes qu'on donne a etudier est beaucoup moins importante que celle de celui qui les donne. Autrement dit, mets-toi dans la peau de Ruddy (il y a de la place) et fous-toi plus ou moins de ses anthologies. 7
]'ai sur la conscience de ne pas avoir encore repondu a la lettre de ton auguste pere. Mais a mesure que les heures de
195
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
lumiere [se] developpent et que s'y absorbent celles des tene­ bres, il se forme dans ! 'immense creuset de mon esprit les seules combinaisons verbales dignes de lui et de moi par rapport a lui. (Re]conforte-le done, quand par hasard il aurait besoin d'un tel soin, au moyen de cet avant-gout de la chose qui se prepare.
Devant ta magnifique mere, de la part de qui une accusation de reception de la divine lettre que je lui ai recemment adressee est vivement et instamment a souhaiter, je me prosterne et me remplis la bouche avidement de poussiere. Represente-lui cette attitude.
Et a toi, mon cher ami, je souhaite, maintenant et a l'avenir, tout ce qu'il ya de plus bienfaisant et propice dans un monde ou de telles vertus ont l'air de devenir de plus en plus rares.
Affectueusement Sam
ALS; 3 leaves, 3 sides; Sinclair.
4/3/34 48 Paulson's Square [London]
Dear Sunny,
Let me reassure you. Peccadillos ofomission have no hold on
me. I mean that I am myself so subject to them that the fact of their appearing in someone else can only warm my heart, some­ thing I am rather in need of at the moment. So thank you for your letter, which, for all that it was long in coming, has none the less charmed my mind and enlivened my solitude, and thank you too for the cutting, in which I think that that paranoic old brute is not treated badly enough. But still it is a start.
How lucky you are to be able to play in an orchestra, however third-rate it is. It is a matchless opportunity to get to know the
196
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
details ofa score. I have never made my peace with the Pastoral
Symphony into which I have the impression Beethoven poured
everything that was vulgar, facile, and childish in him (and that
1
was a great deal), so as to have done with it once and for all.
I
heard a superb concert by the Pro Arte Quartet that I have already
spoken ofto Cissie, and to which I shall therefore not return now.
But another one, given by the Busch Quartet, which is at the
moment putting on a series of five concerts in which they are
performing all of Beethoven's string quartets, is worth a men­
tion. 2 The programme was made up of three quartets, the first
one ('Harfen') from 1809, that is I think between the Pastoral and
3
disappointed. Although it is only his penultimate quartet it has
as its finale the last composition we have from his hand, an
incomparably beautiful Allegro. But it is the Cavatina that imme­
diately precedes that Allegro that made the greatest impression
on me. A movement which in calm finality and intensity goes
beyond anything I have ever heard by the venerable Ludwig, and
which I would not have believed him capable of- really, ifyou are
not already familiar with this quartet (B Flat minor, op. 130), you
4
a grave ,11 allegro El;JIIJ;IJII
Muss es sein'? Es muss sein! Es muss sein15
197
theSeventh;thesecondfrom1800;andthethirdfrom1825. This is the one that I went to, and I can say that I was in no way
woulddowelltogetholdofit. Thelastconcertintheseriesison Saturday the 17th, feast of the unspeakable Patrick, and I have just gone some way to protecting myself against the memory of his vulgar zoological and botanical nonsense by buying a ticket. There will be the last Quartet in F (opus 135) with the famous 'Schwer Gefasste Entschluss':
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
Then a few days later, on the 20th I think, there is Jacques
Thibaud with a tremendous programme - including the Vitali
Chaconne, the Concerto in A by kleiner Wolfer! , and a galaxy of
6
The strange, gentle pleasures that I feel at the approach of spring are impossible of expression, and if that is a sentence inviting ridicule, so much the worse for me. I have positively never watched it coming with so much impatience and so much relief. And I think of it as a victory over darkness, nightmares, sweats, panic and madness, and of the crocuses and daffodils as the promise of a life at least bearable, once enjoyed but in a past so remote that all trace, even remembrance of it, had been almost lost. May the powers will it that I am not wrong - the peninsula must be radiant. And has the horse revived a little among the Zephyrs? Do remember me to him.
And how is the work going? This Ruddiesque anthology is indeed, as you say, a stinking affair, and moreover full of traps. My advice to you is to study it with a map of France to hand. That way there is at least a geographical interest to be got out of it. Otherwise it is an intolerable chore. Incidentally, I have never read it. Pay particular attention to the Proven�al part (Maurras, etc. ), for that is the domain beloved of the noble Professor. And I need hardly tell you that the study of the texts that are being proposed for study is far less important than that of the person proposing them. In other words, put
yourself in Ruddy's skin (there is room), and to hell more or less
7
Spaniards. Butevenstartingalreadytosaveupforit,Idonot know whether I shall be able to afford it. There is a positive storm of music in London just now, such a wealth of splendid things that even if one could afford them all it would be hard to choose between concerts happening on the same day. Now there is a dilemma that costs me no sleep! Alas!
with his anthologies.
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4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
On my conscience is the fact that I have not replied to your august father's letter. But as the hours oflight grow, and those of darkness are absorbed into them, there are forming in the immense crucible of my mind the only verbal combinations worthy of him, and of me in relation to him. Comfort him, then, ifperchance he had need ofsuch care, with this foretaste ofwhat is in preparation.
Before your magnificent mother, from whom an acknowl­ edgement ofthe divine letter which I recently dispatched to her is most urgently and insistently to be wished, I prostrate myself and eagerly fill my mouth with dust. Go through these move­ ments for me.
And to you, my dear friend, I wish, now and for the future, all that is most beneficent and propitious in a world where such virtues seem to be growing more and more scarce.
Love Sam
1 Beethoven'sSymphonyno. 6inFmajor,op. 68("Pastoral").
2 The concert given by the Pro Arte Quartet at the BBC Broadcasting House on 16 February 1934 comprised Beethoven's String Quartet no. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131; String Quartet no. 4 in C major, op. 91 by Bela Bart6k (1881-1945); and Debussy's String Quartet in G minor, op. 10 ("Music This Week," The Times 12 February 1934: 8).
The Busch Quartet played a series of ten concerts at Wigmore Hall between 24 February and 17 March 1934; they actually played the Beethoven string quartets in six concerts (26 February, and 2, 3, 9, 15, and 17 March).
3 On 2 March the Busch Quartet played Beethoven's String Quartet no. 10 in E-flat major, op. 74 ("Harp"); String Quartet no. 3 in D major, op. 18; and String Quartet no. 13 in B-flat major, op. 130. "Harp" was indeed written between Beethoven's Symphony no. 6 and Symphony no. 7 in A major, op. 92.
4 SBspeaksoftheCavatinaandAllegroofStringQuartetno. 13inB-flatmajor,op. 130. Beethoven originally composed the Grosse Fuge as a finale for this quartet; per­ suaded that it was too long, he published it separately (Grosse Fuge in B-flat major, op. 133) and composed the Allegro as a second ending (Philip Radcliffe, Beethoven's String Quartets, 2nd edn. ! Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978] 135-137).
5 Beethoven'sStringQuartetno. 16inFmajor,op. 135,wasperformedinthelast Busch concert of the series on 17 March 1934, St. Patrick's Day. SB quotes the epigraph
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4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
of the final movement as well as its musical motif: "Der schwer gefasste Entschluss/ Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Es muss sein! " (The heart-wrenching decision/ Must it be? It must be! It must be! ) Uohn Briggs, The Collector's Beethoven [Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978] 41-42; Radcliffe, Beethoven's String Quartets, 170-174).
6 From 1905 to 1935, French violinist Jacques Thibaud (1880-1953) often per­ formed as a member of a trio with French pianist and conductor Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) and Catalan cellist and composer Pablo Casals (1876-1973).
The program of Thibaud's recital at Wigmore Hall. 20 March 1934, included the Chaconne in G minor, then attributed to Italian composer Tomaso Battista Vitali (1663-1745); Violin Concerto in A major, K. 219, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791); the Violin Sonata in G major. by Belgian composer Guillaume Lekeu (1870-1894); "Fountain of Arethusa" from Myths. op. 30, no. 1. by Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937); the malaguefla "Rumores de la Caleta," from Rernerdos de viaje, op. 71. no. 6, by Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909), arranged for violin by Austrian-born American violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962); "Danse originale," dedicated to Thibaud, by Enrique Granados y Campifla (1867-1916); and the Suite from the lyric drama La vida breve by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946). (For the current attribution of the Chaconne: Wolfgang Reich, "Die Chaconne g-Moll - von Vitali? " Beitrage zur Musikwissenschaft 2 [1965] 149-152. )
With the phrase. "kleinerWolferl" (littleWolfie), SB refers toWolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
7 In the 1933-1934 Calendar of Trinity College Dublin, Nouvelle Anthologie des troubadours, ed. Jean Audiau (Paris: Delagrave. 1928), is listed for the Michaelmas examinations, although the editor's name is incorrectly given as Audian (127). Rudmose-Brown was very interested in the Proven�al literary renaissance and was a member of the Societe des Felibriges.
Charles Maurras (1868-1952) was a member of the Ecole romane, founded by Jean Moreas (1856-1910), Ernest Raynaud (1864-1936), Maurice du Plessys (1864-1924), and Raymond de la Tailhede (1867-1938); the group sought a return to the classical tradition in reaction against the Symbolists, the Parnassians, and the Romantics. See also Roger Little, "Beckett's Mentor. Rudmose-Brown: Sketch for a Portrait," Irish University Review 14 (spring 1984) 34-41.
MORRIS SINCLAIR DUBLIN
SB's errors of German in this letter have not been corrected.
5/5/34
48 Paulton's Square London S. W. 3
Lieber Sonny
Wer einst Rosen pfliicken will, der soll die Zeit, die ihm
auferlegt ist, dann und wann ermuntern. Verzeihe mir also,
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5 May 1934, Morris Sinclair
wenn ich mich benotigt finde, meinen franzosischen Quatsch
augenblicklich fallen zu lassen. Zwar aus dieser unentbehrli­
chen Veranderung wird uns keine Vorteil entstehen, doch viel­
leicht ein bischen Spass. Vorteil! Was wollen sie eigentlich
1
von Vorteil! Sie furchten sie so schrecklich vor dem Leben, das
wenn sie aus irgendeinem Gegenstand keinen gewissen Gewinn
ziehen konnen, so fuhlen sie sich wie geschlagen, wo nicht fast
ermordet. Fur diesen Leute werden Spass und Vorteil allmahlich
so durchaus unvertraglich, dass alle Handlung nur zum Spass
gemacht ihnen wie eine Selbstverstiimmelung scheinen muss.
Wenn ich den Glaube hatte, ohne den niemand hassen kann,
2
3
lange keine Musik gehort. Ausser Horowitz, der ein Paar
Konzerten gibt, und dem Ring, d. h. die Saison, schon in vollem
4
Mit meiner Manie fur alles, das mit der Frage nur die mindeste Beziehung hat, wirst du hoffentlich Nachsicht haben.
Ich habe gem diese Sommerzeit, weil dadurch werden die Finstemis und alle seine schlechte Dinge wenigstens aufgescho­
5
201
sagen, unsre [? schweizzige] Moralisten, mit ihrem Schreien
wiirde ich sicher diesen Gegenstandsauger hassen.
IchwiinschedirallenmoglichenErfolgimFeis. Ichhabe
GangeundKlange,hatesnichtsgegeben. Jedenfallsistesmir, aus Grunden die mir Gott sei dank unbekannt sind, als ware ich von der Musik ausgeschlossen, und dazu habe ich keinen geringsten Appetit . . . .
Ich wollt' ich war' noch alter, und runziger und kalter . . . .
ben. Da ich Manichaer bin, in was die Dunkelheit betrifft.
Hier spreize ich mich, kann und will nicht anders, und habe keine Ahnung, ob Gott mir hilft, oder nicht. Es gibt doch eine fast nie versagende Freude, namlich, das Denken an jenen Millionen, die weniger gliicklich als ich sind, oder sein sollten. Was fur ein Schmaus ist das! Da es aber klar wird, sobald man die
4 March 1934, Moms Sinclair
Sache ein bischen iiberlegt, dass zwischen Leiden und Fiihlen gar keine Verhaltnis festzustellen ist, so fangt auch jene Freude an, trtigerisch auszusehen. Wenn ich, zum Beispiel, in der Zeitung Iese, der arme Herr Dings solle morgen friih, ehe ich aus meinem Bette sein werde, hinrichten werden, und mich sofort zu gratu­ lieren beginn, dass ich keine solche Nacht zuzubringen habe, so tausche ich mich, insofern ich zwei Umstande, anstatt zweier Gemiitsbewegungen, vergleiche. Und es ist hochstwahrschein­ lich, dass der zum Tode Verurteilte wenigere Angst als ich hat. Wenigstens weiss er genau um was es sich handelt und genau um was er sich zu kiimmern hat, und das ist nun ein grosserer Trost als man im allgemeinen zu glauben ptlegt. So gross, dass viele Kranken Verbrecher werden, nur damit sie ihre Angst begrenzen und jenen Trost bekommen mogen. Jenseit der Spekulation kommt erst der Mensch in sein Eden, in jeden [for ? jenen] Schutzort wo keine Gefahr mehr ist, oder vielmehr eine, die bestimmt ist und die man zum Fokus bringen kann.
Neuerdings habe ich an den Lehrer der englischen Sprache
viel gedacht, und mich gefragt, wie es ihm geht. Freilich muss ich
mich bei ihm entschuldigen, dass ich seinen sehr vortrefflichen
6
michvorzustellen,dieseVersaumungseimirzumTrotz. Kaum
nehme ich die Feder in der Hand, um irgendetwas auf englisch
zusammenzusetzen, als ich die Empfindung habe, verpersonifi­
ziert zu sein, wenn man einen solchen herrlichen Ausdruck
8
Brief noch nicht beantwortet habe. So bitte ich dich, ihm fur
7
gebrauchendarf. Deshalbwtirdealles,wasichdamalsschreiben konnte, meinem Vorhaben, dessen Wirkung sozusagen momen­ tanisch gelamt ist, am fernsten liegen. So lohnt es sich kaum. Es ist ein fremdes Gefuhl, unwillkiirlich weit von sich zurtickzu­ treten und sich wie durch ein Schliisselloch zu beobachten. Fremd ja, und zum Briefschreiben iiberhaupt unpassend.
202
5 May 1934, Morris Sinclair
Ich weiss nicht, wann ich nach Hause zuriickgehen konnen werde. Der Aufenthalt in dieser Stadt gefallt mir nur wenig. Ausser den Bildem, die meistenteils, ihres Fensterladenglases wegen, nur tropfenweise in die Augen kommen, gibt es nichts, das man ansehen darf. 9 Manchmal verlange ich nach jenen Bergen und Feldem, den ich so gut kenne, und die eine ganz andere Ruhe, als die zu dieser groben, englischen Landschaft gehorende, bilden. Wenn nur Dublin ungewohnt ware, so war' es angenehm, sich irgendwo in seiner Nahe niederzulassen.
Was fur ein Schlusszierat gehort zu diesem Klagelied? Man atmet, also . . . ? Oder: Was Hanschen nicht lemt. . . ? Die Symphonie unvollendet zu lassen, das ist jedenfalls die Hauptsache. Dabei kann alles in Ordnung aussehen.
Herzlich Sam
ALS; 3 leaves, 3 sides; Sinclair.
5/5/34
48 Paulton's Square London S. W. 3
Dear Sunny,
Whoever wants to pick roses some day should now and then
cheer up the time imposed on him. Forgive me therefore when I feel the urge to drop my French nonsense right away. It is true that out of this indispensable change no gain will accrue to us, but perhaps a bit of fun. Gain! What actually do they want to say, our[? Swiss] moralists, with their cries about gain! 1 They are so terribly afraid oflife that ifthere is any object from which they can draw no sure profit, they feel beaten, if not nearly murdered. For these people fun and gain slowly become so completely
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5 May 1934, Morris Sinclair
irreconcilable that any action done just for fun must seem to
them like self-mutilation. IfI had the faith without which no one
2
3
heard any music for a long time. Besides Horowitz, who is giving a few concerts, and the 'Ring' (i. e. the season) already in full
4
I hope you will make allowances for my obsession with every­ thing that is even the least bit related to that question.
I am fond of this summertime because darkness and all its bad things are at least being postponed thereby. Since I am a
5
have no idea if God helps me or not. There is after all an almost never-failing joy, namely the thought of those millions who are less fortunate than I, or ought to be. What a feast that is! But as it becomes clear as soon as one reflects a bit on the matter that no relationship between suffering and feeling is to be found, then even that joy begins to look deceptive. If, for example, I read in the paper that poor Mr. So-and-so is to be executed early in the morning, before I get out of bed, and immediately start to con­ gratulate myself that I do not have to spend such a night, I deceive myself in as much as I compare two circumstances instead of two emotions. And it is highly probable that the man condemned to death is less afraid than I. At least he knows exactly what is at stake and exactly what he has to attend to, and that is a greater comfort than one is generally inclined to
204
can hate, I would surely hate this object-gobbler. IwishyoueveryconceivablesuccessintheFeis. Ihavenot
swingandsound,therehasbeennothing.