The acceptance of this thing makes flight & escape more & more complicated, because if I chuck Dublin after a year, I am not merely
chucking
Dublin - definitely - but my family, and causing them pain.
Samuel Beckett
17 July 1930}, McGreevy
8
I had a terrible l1⁄2 h(our] with Alan & B. in the usual kip.
I was sitting there with Alfy (whom they know) & Pelorson, and
of course they had to be invited to our table. Then the noble
captain & traducer turned on his salivary glands and his supply
of Shaw texts, and was a camelot on the strength of the 141h's
bunting. He went on & on & Alfy heaped fuel on the flame by
disagreeing. Pelorson collapsed spontaneously on the banquette
and I observed a terrible silence that will never be forgiven
9
Fortunately Louis le Cardonnel was there & the exquisite
Therive. Pelorson was delighted. Therive left without paying
for his beer, and the fat Chestertonian individual refused angrily
to pay for him. 10 Pelorson was in an extraordinary state of
excitement & hilarity. Really he is charming - specially alone.
Ican'tstarttheProust. Cursethishurryanyhow. Didthey mention it in London? I know what will happen: that the German trip will be sacrificed to no purpose, and that I will creep away at the last moment without having done any thing - Joyce or Proust. At least I have finished reading the bastard.
by Rathmines. It is more impossible every time I see them.
Yesterday we were up all night. At last we bought a bottle of
champagne a la Charlus, and brought it up here with his gram
ophone & played Tristan & Isolde & the Oiseau de Feu. Poor
11
A long cheerless letter but very friendly from Ruddy. He
can't find a publisher for a book he wants to write on Racine.
Could anything be done with Chatto & Windus? I bought the
Larousse edition & tried to read Esther. What is wrong with me?
12
Pelorson! What an unhappy person. II n'y a que cela he said.
I find chevilles everywhere, and I never did before in Racine.
I had a nice friendly card from Peggy from the North Sea, where she is with the Boche Hausfreund & Cissie & the youngest
girl. 13 I was very glad. I sent the pome to the Boss. 14 26
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreevy
A letter from Lucia too. I don't know what to do. She is
unhappy she says. Now that you are gone there is no one to
talk to about that. I dare not go to Wales, and I promised I would
15
if they were there on my way through.
There is no solution. What terrible instinct prompts them to have the genius of beauty at the right - or the wrong - moment!
But it is impossible. To-morrow I will get your book & send it along. I forwarded to
I have not seen Mario but will to-morrow evening. We are bring[ing] the Bowsprit
Tarbert a bulky letter from Jack Yeats I think.
16
out for a spree.
Yes, I was in time for Angelo. He was to have come this
afternoon & I hurried back to find a note saying he had to go
17
about his papers to the consulat.
The light has collapsed again & they won't come & mend.
The room is full of candles. Love
Sam
Alfy dit que les Japonais aiment beaucoup a enculer des
canards agonisants, a cause du duvet, parait-il. 18
Gaudin is colle, poor creature, & he wanted to get married.
Reclame pour moi! 19
ALS; 5 leaves; 10 sides; PS upper right margin, side 1; TCD. MS 10402/2. Dating: SB's reference to the strength of the 14th's bunting indicates Bastille Day. A letter fromJack B. Yeats to McGreevy in Paris on 14July 1930 ("I expect Paris in the summer is rather stuffy," enclosing reviews of Yeats's show in London [TCD, MS 10381/111]) was for warded by SB to Tarbert, Ireland. In July 1930, the Joyces were in Wales, but they returned to England on 28 July (see [before 5 August 1930], n. 3). The Apes of God had been published by June 1930. Nancy Cunard was in London from 15 July through at least 21 July 1930, when she attended a dinner party in honor of George Moore. Hence the date of this letter is probably Thursday 17July 1930.
1 OnhiswayfromParistohisfamilyhomeinTarbert,McGreevypassedthrough London. From November 1925 to February 1927, McGreevy had been Assistant Editor of The Connoisseur, a Journal of the Arts (1901-1992), London.
SB canceled "Criterion" and inserted above it "Connoisseur. "
27
Thursday{? 17 July 1930}, McGreevy
2 Alfred Remy Peron• (1904-1945) entered the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1924 and was agrege d'anglais by 1929; he first met SB when he was Lecteur in French at Trinity College Dublin (1926-1928), and they were together at the ENS in 1929. Peron was working with SB on the French translation of the "Anna Livia Plurabelle" chapter of Joyce's Work in Progress, which had been first published separately in English Uames Joyce, Anna Livia Plurabelle ! New York: Crosby Gaige, 19281). Philippe Soupault was directing the translation originally intended for publication in the Paris journal Bifer (May 1929 - June 1931), edited by Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes (1887-1974).
3 MarieLezine(knownasMania,1900-1988);shemarriedPeronin1930.
Ethna Mary Maccarthy" (1903-1959). SB's contemporary in Modem Languages at Trinity College Dublin, figures as a beloved in SB's poem, "Alba," and in Dream ofFair to Middling Women. "'Salaud qui m'a fait rater ma vie'" (bastard who ruined my life).
"Desabuses" (disillusioned ones); "jemenfoutiste" (don't-give-a-damnish); "jusquau boutiste" (no-half-measures-ish).
4 SB alludes to the "accidiosi" (slothful) in Dante's Divine Comedy, but seems to confuse them with the "lussuriosi" (lustful). Those souls "driven by the wind" in the Comedy are the Lustful in Inferno Canto V, and more briefly the Incontinent in Inferno Canto XI (line 71). The "accidiosi" appear in Canto VII ofinferno, but as they are under slime, no wind can reach them: "'Tristi fummo / ne l'aere dolce che dal sol s'allegra, / portando dentro accidioso fummo: / or ci attristiam ne la belletta negra"' ("'We were sullen in the sweet air that is gladdened by the sun, bearing in our hearts a sluggish smoke; now we are sullen in the black-mire'") (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Inferno Canto VII, lines 121-124; Dante, The Divine Comedy, I, Inferno).
5 BastilleDay,theFrenchnationalholidaycelebratedon14July.
SB wrote Whoroscope on 15June and submitted it that night to the competition of the Hours Press for the best poem on time. With Richard Aldington, Nancy Cunard' (1896-1965), English writer. journalist and publisher of the Hours Press (1928-1934), had selected SB's Whoroscope (Paris: Hours Press, 1930) as the winner. To Louise Morgan (1883-1964) Cunard wrote a letter dated only with the time, "3 a. m. " (in AH
June 1930):
We found a poem, a beauty, by a poet - so much so that it must be printed by itself. Irishman of 23, Ecole Normale here, that's all I know, but am seeing him tomorrow. Richard says many of the allusions are to Descartes! . ] I shouldn't have known. Much in it none of us will ever know, and the whole thing so good it proves again the rest doesn't matter.
Will you announce please that the Hours Press prize for best Time poem is awarded to Samuel Beckett. Poem called "The Eighth Day"[. . . ] (CtY, GEN MSS 80, series V, 36/861)
The exact date of publication is uncertain, probably between 1 and 8July 1930. In a card to Morgan dated Mon. [30 June 1930], Cunard wrote "Beckett is� good (not a Honey! ) Doing his poem tomorrow - will send - do insert note of Prize winning. " Louise Morgan was an Editor of Everyman; an announcement of the award included notice that the poem would be published "almost immediately in an edition consisting of100 signed and 300 unsigned copies at 5s. and ls. respectively" ("Books and Authors, Everyman 75 [3July 1930] 728). Writing on Saturday [6July 1930], Cunard indicates:
28
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreery
"Will be sending you Beckett's Poem Tues" (CtY, GEN MSS 80, series V, 36/361). See also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 116-118, and Nancy Cunard, These Were the Hours: Memories ofMy Hours Press, Reanville and Paris, 1928-1931 [Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press; London: Feffer and Simons, 1969] 109-111).
Nancy Cunard's companion and assistant at Hours Press was the American jazz pianist Henry Crowder" (1895-1954).
"Coucherie" (fun between the sheets).
6 SB wrote "From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore: for Henry Crowder to Sing" (Henry Crowder, Henry-Music [Paris: Hours Press, 1930] [6, 12-141). The opening phrase ofSB's poem is "Rahab ofthe holy battlements," an allusion to Rahab, the harlot of Jericho Uoshua 2; see Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 305). Henry Crowder played the piano at Les Cigognes, 187 Rue de la Croix-Nivert, Paris 15. In his memoir, Crowder writes of SB: "Nancy became very interested in this man and he did have a very charming person ality" (Henry Crowder and Hugo Speck, As Wonderful as All That? : Henry Crowder's Memoir ofHis Affair with Nancy Cunard 1928-1935, ed. Robert L. Allen [Navarro, CA: Wild Trees Press, 1987] 76).
7 NancyCunardwasinLondonfrom15Julythroughatleast21July1930(Nancy Cunard to Louise Morgan, Saturday [6 July 1930], CtY, GEN MSS 80, series V, 36/861; Evelyn Waugh, The Diaries ofEvelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976] 323).
Nancy Cunard's letter to SB from London has not been found. Nancy Cunard, Parallax (London: Hogarth Press, 1925) 11.
The Apes ofGod (1930) by Wyndham Lewis (ne Percy Wyndham Lewis, 1882-1957) was published in June.
The Cantos ofEzra Loomis Pound (1885-1972) were then an ongoing literary work of which two sections had been published in limited editions: A Draft ofXVI Cantos ofEzra Pound: For the Beginning of a Poem of Some Length, initials by Henry Strater (Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1925), and A Draft ofthe Cantos 17-27 of Ezra Pound, initials by Gladys Hynes (London: J. Rodker, 1928).
8 Richard Aldington conveyed McGreevy's suggestion that SB prepare a mono graph on Proust for The Dolphin Books series to his friend and publisher Charles Prentice' (c. 1892-1949) ofChatto and Windus; Prentice agreed that SB should submit his manuscript for consideration (Prentice to Richard Aldington, 20 June 1930, ICSo, Aldington 68/5/11). Although McGreevy intimated to SB that there was some urgency, the work was not a commission; perhaps, rather, it was incumbent on SB to complete some work of scholarship in lieu of a doctoral thesis before returning to teach at Trinity College Dublin in the autumn.
9 Alan Duncan (a pensioned veteran ofWorld War I), Belinda Duncan (who was from Rathmines, Co. Dublin), Alfred Peron, Georges Pelorson. George Bernard Shaw's texts were published in a Collected Edition (London: Constable, 1930). "Camelot" (hawker).
10 French symbolist poet Louis le Cardonnel (1862-1936) became a priest in 1896 and is primarily known for religious poetry. "The Fat Chestertonian" may refer to le Cardonnel.
Andre Therive (ne Roger Puthoste [other pseuds: Candidus d'lsaurie, Romain Mctier, Zadoc Monteil), 1891-1967) was a conservative and influential critic for the French
29
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreevy
newspaper Le Temps (1861-1942); he wrote on the crisis ofthe postwar novel, criticiz ing the tendency toward aestheticism, hermeticism, and snobbery (Benoit Le Roux, Andre Therive et ses amis en 14-18 [Saint-Brieuc: B. Le Roux, 1987] 18).
11 LeBarondeCharlusisamajorcharacterinProust'sAlarecherchedutempsperdu. The opera of Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883), Tristan und Isolde (1865; Tristan and Isolde), and L'Oiseau de Feu (1910; The Firebird) by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971).
"II n'y a que cela" (There is nothing else).
12 Rudmose-BrownhadpublishedacriticaleditionofRacine'sAndromaque(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917), but he did not publish a book-length critical study ofJean Racine (1639-1699). Racine's tragedy Esther (1689).
"Chevilles" (padding, superfluous words).
13 PeggySinclair,hermotherCissie,andheryoungestsister,Deirdre(b. 1920,m. Hamilton), were with the "Boche Hausfreund. " "Boche" (French soldiers' epithet for a German), "Hausfreund" (Ger. , friend of the family).
14 SBmayhavesentBossSinclairacopyofhisfirstbookpublication,Whoroscope,or his poem "Casket ofPralinen for a Daughter ofa Dissipated Mandarin"; the latter has many allusions to SB's experiences in Kassel. (See discussion by Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 273-274, 277-296. )
15 In May 1930 SB had informed Lucia Joyce that he was not romantically inter· ested in her (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 111). SB's uneasiness with Lucia Joyce is evident in Georges Pelorson's account ofan awkward lunch he attended with SB and Lucia (Georges Belmont, Souvenirs d'outre-monde: Histoire d'une naissance [Paris: Calmann· Levy, 2001] 170-173). In July, Lucia Joyce was with her family in Wales at the Grand Hotel, Llandudno, until they returned to England on 28 July 1930 (letter from Joyce to Valery Larbaud in James Joyce, Letters of]ames Joyce, III, ed. Richard Ellmann [New York: Viking Press, 1966] 201).
16 Irish painter and writer Jack Butler Yeats• (1871-1957) wrote to McGreevy in Paris on 14 July 1930, enclosing reviews of his London exhibition (TCD, MS 10381/111).
17 Mario and Angelo were waiters at the Cochon de Lait, 7 Rue Corneille, Paris 6 (interview with SB, November 1989); McGreevy was tutoring Mario.
18 "AlfyditqueJesJaponaisaimentbeaucoupaenculerdescanardsagonisants,a cause du duvet, parait-il. " (Alfy says the Japanese love to bugger dying ducks, on account ofthe down, it appears. )
19 AugustinGaudin(1905-1987)enteredtheEcoleNormaleSuperieurein1926to study English, but spent 1926-1927 and 1928-1929 at King's College, London. Gaudin completed the Dipl6me d'etudes superieures in June 1929, and was in residence at the ENS in 1929-1930, taking the agregation examination in 1930. "Gaudin is colle" (Gaudin has failed). "Reclame pour moi! " (Publicity for me! ) refers to SB's role in tutoring Gaudin for the exam. In 1932 Gaudin married Elsie Shillito (n. d. ), who graduated from King's College in 1927. After a long and successful career in France, Gaudin became Proviseur (Head) of the Lycee Fram;:ais de Landres.
30
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930}, McGreevy
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930]
Ecole . . . [Paris]
My dear Tom
Your letter came this morning and this evening I saw Mario
and he gave me the 200 fr. Shall I send them to you as they are or
change them & send or keep them for your return? Alas! I cannot
avail myself of your invitation. I saw Laugier this afternoon and
1
and it seems more & more unlikely that I can finish it before
I leave. Perhaps so, when Peron & Pelorson have gone. We
(Peron) are galloping through A. L. P. It has become comic now.
2
pleasing thing has happened - but I cannot write about it. It must
keep. And when I see you it will be decided, one way or another. 3
Harry Sinclair turned in the other morning. He was very
hospitable & stood me dinner twice at the Hotel Bristol, where
I tasted the best wine - Chablis Moutonne 1926 - that I have ever
tasted, and alas also suffered the 5 acts of Louise at the Opera
4
In this particular aspect of Ruddy's case, I am not confusing
human affection with literary appreciation. I think he can write
the book on Racine that nobody else can write, - a book that you
would never like (even if the author was anonymous), but that
for me would represent at last the truth, no, not the truth, but a
5
arrangedaboutthecaffeine. TheProustspreadsmore&more,
I suppose that is the only attitude.
I wish you were here that I could talk to you. A rather di[s]
Comique. Hehasgoneawaynow. Hewasaskingforyou.
courageousappreciation(howrare). IhadaletterfromPinker
31
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930], McGreevy
(who is he) expressing the usual eyewash and giving a list of his
6
I saw Alan & Belinda the other night with Pelorson. He is
applying for Assistant Curatorship of some museum in Belfast -
backed by O'Brien & God knows whom. Oh, he is all of a
do-da! And Belinda too, with the possibility of a car and back to
the land. Don't spread it, because it might have been a confi
dence, although I don't think so. 7 Angelo is gone, and Mario and
the other are all smiles and willingness. The Bowsprit comes &
talks abstractions every second day, and deniche books for me in
8
with 80 kilos weight of Burns Carlyle Scott und so weiter.
I won't forget your offer. I haven't the courage to accept it - nor the courage to flee to Italy, as I could, and let Trinity go to hell & all its works.
The acceptance of this thing makes flight & escape more & more complicated, because if I chuck Dublin after a year, I am not merely chucking Dublin - definitely - but my family, and causing them pain. I suppose I may as well make
up my mind to be a vegetable. 10
A letter from Lucia . . calm. I sent the Penman Whoroscope.
I am glad you are happy at home, & can understand why. I fear there is no equivalent waiting for me in Trinity. Perhaps I may prepare something - but do something . . . no.
Apes of God is truly pitiful. If that is satire a child's petu
lance is satire. But the more I think about the gulls the more
I disagree with your 'visual mechanics. ' Better than that. Yes, the
12
day. Have you read it? I will send it to you, Ruddy can't stand him, so perhaps you will like it. It is the best novel I have read modernly after the shell-shocked triangle! 13 I am reading
32
clients - a list that I am afraid did not impress me.
thelibrary. TheScotsmanishere,thoughIhavenotseenhim,
9
11
didacticism is regrettable.
I sent Frank 'La Beaute sur la Terre' of Ramuz for his birth
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930}, McGreevy
Schopenhauer. Everyone laughs at that. Beaufret & Alfy etc. But I am not reading philosophy, nor caring whether he is right or wrong or a good or worthless metaphysician. An intellectual justification of unhappiness - the greatest that has ever been attempted - is worth the examination ofone who is interested in Leopardi & Proust rather than in Carducci & Barres. 14
Let me know about the 200 & bon travail & bon sommeil & tante belle cose. 15
Sam
ALS; 4 leaves, 8 sides; TCD, MS 10402/3. Dating: the Fridays after 17 July 1930 and before Frank Beckett's birthday on 26 July are 18 July and 25 July. This letter follows SB to McGreevy [? 17 July 1930]: The Apes of God was received from Nancy Cunard; a letter was received from Rudmose-Brown seeking a publisher for a book on Racine; Robert I. Brown arrived in Paris in July and oversaw delivery of his books (see n. 9 below); Charpentier's opera Louise was performed on 10 and 22 July 1930; Alan Duncan had applied for a position in Belfast and by 8 August 1930 was among four final candidates u. c. Nolan, Director, Ulster Museum, 4 August 1993).
That SB and Peron are "galloping through A. L. P. " suggests that this letter precedes that to Soupault dated 5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930] when two pages of translation were sent to Soupault.
1 McGreevyhadinvitedSBtojoinhimlaterinthesummerwhenhetraveledtosee Richard Aldington at Aiguebelle near Le Lavandou on the Cote d'Azur, France.
Henri Laugier• (1888-1973) was Professor of Physiology at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (1929-1936) and a physician. A prescription was necessary to purchase caffeine.
2 SBstayedonthroughthesummerattheEcoleNormaleSuperieuretoworkonhis study of Proust and the translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" with Peron.
3 Thecircumstanceisnotknown.
4 Henry Morris Sinclair (known as Harry, 1882-71938) was the twin brother of William Sinclair and the proprietor of Harris and Sinclair, Antique Plate, Jewellery and Works ofArt, 47 Nassau Street, Dublin.
The Hotel Bristol, 112 Rue du Faubourg St. -Honore, Paris 8. The opera Louise by Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956) was performed at the Opera Comique on 10 July and 22 July; Louise has four, not five acts, but Act II has two parts.
5 "Racine pleases me more than any other dramatist," wrote Rudmose-Brown in his memoirs: "I have never . . . really cared for what ought to be, or what might be. Mine has been the scientific (or artistic) turn of mind, interested in what is, and why it is . . . I have never been deceived by the cant and slogans and shibboleths ofpoliticians and moralists: but I have never been indignant at the folly and corruption ofthe world"
33
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930), McGreery
(A. J. Leventhal, ed. ,"Extracts from the Unpublished Memoirs of the Late T. B. Rudrnose Brown," Dublin Magazine 31. 1 Uanuary-March 1956\ 32).
6 James Ralph Seabrooke Pinker (fl. 1900-1950), of Messrs James B. Pinker and Sons, London, literary agents for Richard Aldington and Thomas McGreevy.
7 Duncan applied for the position of Assistant in the Ulster Art Gallery and Museum in Belfast in June 1930; by 8 August 1930, of the thirty-six applicants who had been considered, four, including an Irishman living in Paris, were selected for interviews (Nolan, 4 August 1993).
The Irish portrait painter Derrnod O'Brien (1865-1945) was President of the Royal Hibernian Academy (1910-1945) and President of the United Arts Club, Dublin.
8 Jean Beaufi:et. "Deniche" (digs out).
9 When Robert I. Brown arrived in Paris in July 1930, he oversaw delivery of his books to the Ecole Norrnale Superieure. but he did not reside at the ENS until October. His books did not include volumes of Scottish writers Robert Burns (1759-1796), Walter Scott (1771-1832), or Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) (Robert I. Brown, 5 August 1994).
"Und so weiter" (and so forth).
10 McGreevy,whowasnowinIreland,plannedtospendlateAugustandthefirst weeks of September in Aiguebelle.
11 SBmayhavesentWhoroscopetoJoyceinLlandudno,Wales,ortohishomeinParis, 2 Square Robiac. Whoroscope was announced as forthcoming on 30 June 1930 and was probably published between 1 and 8 July 1930 ("Our London Letter," The Irish Independent: 8; SB to McGreevy Thursday [? 17 July 1930], n. 5; Cunard, These Were the Hours, 210).
12 InTheApesofGodbyWyndhamLewis,thecharacterHoraceZagreusspeaksabout satire withJulius Ratner, saying:"To be a true satirist Ratner you must remain upon the surface of existence . . . You must never go underneath it" ([London: Arthur Press, 1930; rpt. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1981\ 451).
Although"gulls"arementionedinTheApesofGod,itisprobablethatSBisresponding to McGreevy's comment on the image of"gulls" in Nancy Cunard's poem, Parallax, a passage that SB had praised in his previous letter to McGreevy [? 17 July 1930].
13 ThebirthdayofSB'sbrotherFrankEdwardBeckett•(1902-1954)was26July. La Beaute sur la terre (1927; Beauty on Earth) was written by Swiss-born novelist Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947). The"shell-shocked triangle" probably refers to the following novels ofWorldWar I: Henri Barbusse (1874-1935), Le Feu,joumal d'une escouade (1916; Under Fire); Georges Duhamel (ne Denis Thevenin, 1884-1966), La Vie des martyrs (1917; The New Book of Martyrs); Roland Dorgeles (ne Roland Lecavele, 1885-1973), Les Croix de bois (1919; Wooden Crosses); the first two were awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1917 and 1918 respectively.
14 GermanphilosopherArthurSchopenhauer(1788-1869)discusseshappinessas "mere abolition of a desire and extinction of a pain" in his essay"On the Suffering of the World"; he adds that, if one's fellow man is seen as a"fellow sufferer," it"reminds us of what are the most necessary of all things; tolerance, patience, forbearance and
34
{before 5 August 1930}, McGreevy
charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes" (Essays and Aphorisms,ed. andtr. R. J. HollingdaleL! ondon:Penguin,1970]42,50).
Jean Beaufret and Alfred Peron.
Italian poet GiacomoLeopardi (1798-1837); for SB's student notes onLeopardi: TCD,
MS 10971/9. For further discussion ofLeopardi's influence on SB, see C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski, The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought (New York: Grove Press, 2004) 316-317.
SB refers to Italian poet and Professor in Classics at the University of Bologna (1860-1904) Giosue Carducci (1835-1907); for SB's student reading notes: TCD, MS 10965 and MS 10965a.
Maurice Barres (1863-1923), French novelist, journalist, politician, fervent and anti-semitic Nationalist, was author of two trilogies of novels, Le Culte du moi (1888-1891; The Cult ofEgo) and Le Roman de l'energie nationale (1897-1902; The Novel of NationalEnergy).
15 "Bon travail & bon sommeil" (work well & sleep well); "tante belle cose" (It. , all good wishes).
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
[before 5 August 1930]
Ecole Normale [Paris]
Dear Tom
I cannot find the phrase you want, but may yet. I thought
I knew where it was, but was wrong as usual. Have you no idea. I
1
I have not put pen to paper on Proust. But I will, & then I hope it will go quickly. I am reading him all again before starting & it tires me a lot. I am supposed to be going on with the Joyce too, alone now that Alfy has gone, God help & save me. I can't do the bloody thing. It's betrayal as well as everything else.
35
thoughtitwasamongstthenegligent,butitwasnot. Whatpoem do you mean? Every second poem of Laforgue is about jeunes ti. Hes & couvents. I will send you my volume of Laforgue. I will look in Corbiere and send it along. 2 Anything I can do I am only too glad to do. But you may be sure I will do it all wrong & badly.
{before 5 August 1930/, McGreevy [. . . ]
I heard from Lucia. I never think of her now. I think they have left Llandudno for Oxford. 3 I saw Bronowski. A talkative
4
Reavey bought a new ribbon for my typewriter & that works very
well now. When are you coming back? Hurry up in the name of
God. Sorry to hear about the Bibesco. Surely he'll pay all the
same? 5 I had a card from Angelo from Piedmont, and was very
glad. I saw your doctor & he gave me some bloody stuffthat isn't
6
them. I am looking forward to pulling the balls off the critical &
poetical Proustian cock. He adored Ruskin & the Comtesse de
Noailles and thought Amie! was a forerunner! I am going to
write a poem about him too, with Charlus's lavender trousers
7
information I can. Have you heard from Aldington? 8 You sent on
an offer of a complimentary photographical seance from one
Miss Vaughan! It'd be better for a man to be dead! When you
come we will drink 2 bottles of Chambertin & half a bottle of
9
Schopenhauer says defunctus is a beautiful word - as long as one does not suicide. 10 He might be right.
Love Sam
ALS; I leaf. 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/4. Dating: Jacob Bronowski was editing the English and Irish sections of The European Caravan for Samuel Putnam; Bronowski was in Paris 31 July to 3 August 1930, and again, overnight, on 16 August as he returned to London (Bronowski to Putnam, 28 July 1930; Bronowski to Putnam, 14 August 1930 [NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl 11/1/23]). SB may have met Bronowski
36
shit. I think I like Putnam & Reavey. But possibly not much.
bad,butI'dratherhavecaffeine. Theyneverdowhatyouask
inaGothicpissotiere. Iwillwriteagainto-morrowandgiveall
cochonfine&findacinecochon. Youareunwisetoleaveme your 200. You know I will spend it. I brought my shoes to a shop and they refused to mend them, but I can still wear them on very dry days. Another pair too I had they refused to mend.
[before 5 August 1930), McGreevy
at either of these times, but early August 1930 is more likely. The Joyces were in Llandudno during late June and much ofJuly; Joyce wrote to Valery Larbaud from England on 28 July 1930 and to Stanislaus Joyce from Oxford on 3 August 1930 Uoyce, Letters ofJames Joyce, III, 512, 201). SB's surmise that the Joyces are back in Oxford would confirm a date toward the end ofJuly or early August.
1 The Princes who have been negligent of salvation are found in Canto VII of Dante's Purgatory. McGreevy does not cite Dante in his Thomas Stearns Eliot: A Study, The Dolphin Books (London: Chatto and Windus, 1931); he does quote from Dante in his poem "Fragments" (1931) (Thomas MacGreevy, Collected Poems ofThomas MacGreevy: An Annotated Edition, ed. Susan Schreibman [Dublin: Anna Livia Press; Washington DC: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1991] 38, 140-142).
2 Several poems by French poet Jules Laforgue (1860-1887) are quoted in McGreevy's Thomas Stearns Eliot, 30-33: "Figurez-vous un peu" (Derniers vers), "Petition," "Petite priere sans pretentions," and "Le bon apotre" (a section that is also part of"Le Condie Feerique"). McGreevy seeks a poem with allusion to a convent; the untitled twelfth poem ofthe Derniers vers takes as its headnote (in English) a portion of Hamlet's speech to Ophelia, beginning: "Get thee to a nunn'ry" (Shakespeare, Hamlet, in The Riverside Shakespeare: The Complete Works, General and Textual ed. G. Blakemore Evans, assisted by J. J. M. Tobin, 2nd edn. [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997] III. i. 120-129; all subsequent Shakespeare citations are from this text). McGreevy discusses the influence on Eliot of French poet Tristan Corbiere (ne Edouard-Joachim Corbiere, 1845-1875), quoting from Corbiere's poem "Vesuves et Cie," published in Les Amours jaunes (1873) (McGreevy, Thomas Stearns Eliot, 25-26).
3 TheJoycefamilylefttheGrandHotel,Llandudno,fortheRandolphHotel,Oxford, about 1 August 1930 (Danis Rose, The Textual Diaries of]amesJoyce [Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1995] 188).
4 Polish-born mathematician and scientist Jacob Bronowski· (1908-1974) was an Editor ofthe Cambridge University undergraduate journal Experiment (1928-1931), begun by William Empson (1906-1984), William Hare (ne William Francis Hare, Lord Ennismore; from 1931, the 5th Earl ofListowel; 1906-1997), and Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950); in 1929 Hugh Sykes [Davies] (1909-1984) replaced Empson as Editor. George Reavey• (1907-1976), also at Cambridge, published in the journal.
With George Reavey, Maida Castelhun Darnton (1872-1940), and Samuel Putnam, Bronowski was compiling and editing The European Caravan.
5 PrinceAntoineBibesco(1878-1951)wastheRomanianenvoyinLondon,alife long friend ofMarcel Proust, and a dramatist. It is not known what McGreevy had begun to translate for Bibesco, but possibly it was his play Laquelle . . . ? (1930). Although unacknowledged as such, McGreevy was translator ofLe Destin de Lord Thomson of Cardington (Lord Thomson of Cardington, a Memoir and Some Letters [London: Jonathan Cape, 19321) by Princesse Marthe Lucie Bibesco (nee Lahovary, also pseud. Lucile Decaux, 1886-1973), Romanian-born novelist, biographer, and travel writer, a cousin by marriage to Antoine Bibesco.
6 McGreevy'sdoctorwasHenriLaugier.
7 ProustspentseveralyearstranslatingandannotatingtheworksoftheEnglishart
critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900): Sesame and Lilies (1865-1869) as Sesame et les
37
{before 5 August 1930], McGreevy
lys (1906) and The Bible of Amiens (1885) as La Bible d'Amiens (1904). Poet and woman of letters, Anna de Brancovan, Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (1876-1933). Journal /ntime (1883-1884) by Henri-Frederic Amie! (1821-1881), Swiss poet and philosopher, Professor of Aesthetics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Geneva.
In Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu the Baron de Charlus frequents pissotieres (street urinals) for the purpose of soliciting.
8 RichardAldington.
8
I had a terrible l1⁄2 h(our] with Alan & B. in the usual kip.
I was sitting there with Alfy (whom they know) & Pelorson, and
of course they had to be invited to our table. Then the noble
captain & traducer turned on his salivary glands and his supply
of Shaw texts, and was a camelot on the strength of the 141h's
bunting. He went on & on & Alfy heaped fuel on the flame by
disagreeing. Pelorson collapsed spontaneously on the banquette
and I observed a terrible silence that will never be forgiven
9
Fortunately Louis le Cardonnel was there & the exquisite
Therive. Pelorson was delighted. Therive left without paying
for his beer, and the fat Chestertonian individual refused angrily
to pay for him. 10 Pelorson was in an extraordinary state of
excitement & hilarity. Really he is charming - specially alone.
Ican'tstarttheProust. Cursethishurryanyhow. Didthey mention it in London? I know what will happen: that the German trip will be sacrificed to no purpose, and that I will creep away at the last moment without having done any thing - Joyce or Proust. At least I have finished reading the bastard.
by Rathmines. It is more impossible every time I see them.
Yesterday we were up all night. At last we bought a bottle of
champagne a la Charlus, and brought it up here with his gram
ophone & played Tristan & Isolde & the Oiseau de Feu. Poor
11
A long cheerless letter but very friendly from Ruddy. He
can't find a publisher for a book he wants to write on Racine.
Could anything be done with Chatto & Windus? I bought the
Larousse edition & tried to read Esther. What is wrong with me?
12
Pelorson! What an unhappy person. II n'y a que cela he said.
I find chevilles everywhere, and I never did before in Racine.
I had a nice friendly card from Peggy from the North Sea, where she is with the Boche Hausfreund & Cissie & the youngest
girl. 13 I was very glad. I sent the pome to the Boss. 14 26
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreevy
A letter from Lucia too. I don't know what to do. She is
unhappy she says. Now that you are gone there is no one to
talk to about that. I dare not go to Wales, and I promised I would
15
if they were there on my way through.
There is no solution. What terrible instinct prompts them to have the genius of beauty at the right - or the wrong - moment!
But it is impossible. To-morrow I will get your book & send it along. I forwarded to
I have not seen Mario but will to-morrow evening. We are bring[ing] the Bowsprit
Tarbert a bulky letter from Jack Yeats I think.
16
out for a spree.
Yes, I was in time for Angelo. He was to have come this
afternoon & I hurried back to find a note saying he had to go
17
about his papers to the consulat.
The light has collapsed again & they won't come & mend.
The room is full of candles. Love
Sam
Alfy dit que les Japonais aiment beaucoup a enculer des
canards agonisants, a cause du duvet, parait-il. 18
Gaudin is colle, poor creature, & he wanted to get married.
Reclame pour moi! 19
ALS; 5 leaves; 10 sides; PS upper right margin, side 1; TCD. MS 10402/2. Dating: SB's reference to the strength of the 14th's bunting indicates Bastille Day. A letter fromJack B. Yeats to McGreevy in Paris on 14July 1930 ("I expect Paris in the summer is rather stuffy," enclosing reviews of Yeats's show in London [TCD, MS 10381/111]) was for warded by SB to Tarbert, Ireland. In July 1930, the Joyces were in Wales, but they returned to England on 28 July (see [before 5 August 1930], n. 3). The Apes of God had been published by June 1930. Nancy Cunard was in London from 15 July through at least 21 July 1930, when she attended a dinner party in honor of George Moore. Hence the date of this letter is probably Thursday 17July 1930.
1 OnhiswayfromParistohisfamilyhomeinTarbert,McGreevypassedthrough London. From November 1925 to February 1927, McGreevy had been Assistant Editor of The Connoisseur, a Journal of the Arts (1901-1992), London.
SB canceled "Criterion" and inserted above it "Connoisseur. "
27
Thursday{? 17 July 1930}, McGreevy
2 Alfred Remy Peron• (1904-1945) entered the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1924 and was agrege d'anglais by 1929; he first met SB when he was Lecteur in French at Trinity College Dublin (1926-1928), and they were together at the ENS in 1929. Peron was working with SB on the French translation of the "Anna Livia Plurabelle" chapter of Joyce's Work in Progress, which had been first published separately in English Uames Joyce, Anna Livia Plurabelle ! New York: Crosby Gaige, 19281). Philippe Soupault was directing the translation originally intended for publication in the Paris journal Bifer (May 1929 - June 1931), edited by Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes (1887-1974).
3 MarieLezine(knownasMania,1900-1988);shemarriedPeronin1930.
Ethna Mary Maccarthy" (1903-1959). SB's contemporary in Modem Languages at Trinity College Dublin, figures as a beloved in SB's poem, "Alba," and in Dream ofFair to Middling Women. "'Salaud qui m'a fait rater ma vie'" (bastard who ruined my life).
"Desabuses" (disillusioned ones); "jemenfoutiste" (don't-give-a-damnish); "jusquau boutiste" (no-half-measures-ish).
4 SB alludes to the "accidiosi" (slothful) in Dante's Divine Comedy, but seems to confuse them with the "lussuriosi" (lustful). Those souls "driven by the wind" in the Comedy are the Lustful in Inferno Canto V, and more briefly the Incontinent in Inferno Canto XI (line 71). The "accidiosi" appear in Canto VII ofinferno, but as they are under slime, no wind can reach them: "'Tristi fummo / ne l'aere dolce che dal sol s'allegra, / portando dentro accidioso fummo: / or ci attristiam ne la belletta negra"' ("'We were sullen in the sweet air that is gladdened by the sun, bearing in our hearts a sluggish smoke; now we are sullen in the black-mire'") (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Inferno Canto VII, lines 121-124; Dante, The Divine Comedy, I, Inferno).
5 BastilleDay,theFrenchnationalholidaycelebratedon14July.
SB wrote Whoroscope on 15June and submitted it that night to the competition of the Hours Press for the best poem on time. With Richard Aldington, Nancy Cunard' (1896-1965), English writer. journalist and publisher of the Hours Press (1928-1934), had selected SB's Whoroscope (Paris: Hours Press, 1930) as the winner. To Louise Morgan (1883-1964) Cunard wrote a letter dated only with the time, "3 a. m. " (in AH
June 1930):
We found a poem, a beauty, by a poet - so much so that it must be printed by itself. Irishman of 23, Ecole Normale here, that's all I know, but am seeing him tomorrow. Richard says many of the allusions are to Descartes! . ] I shouldn't have known. Much in it none of us will ever know, and the whole thing so good it proves again the rest doesn't matter.
Will you announce please that the Hours Press prize for best Time poem is awarded to Samuel Beckett. Poem called "The Eighth Day"[. . . ] (CtY, GEN MSS 80, series V, 36/861)
The exact date of publication is uncertain, probably between 1 and 8July 1930. In a card to Morgan dated Mon. [30 June 1930], Cunard wrote "Beckett is� good (not a Honey! ) Doing his poem tomorrow - will send - do insert note of Prize winning. " Louise Morgan was an Editor of Everyman; an announcement of the award included notice that the poem would be published "almost immediately in an edition consisting of100 signed and 300 unsigned copies at 5s. and ls. respectively" ("Books and Authors, Everyman 75 [3July 1930] 728). Writing on Saturday [6July 1930], Cunard indicates:
28
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreery
"Will be sending you Beckett's Poem Tues" (CtY, GEN MSS 80, series V, 36/361). See also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 116-118, and Nancy Cunard, These Were the Hours: Memories ofMy Hours Press, Reanville and Paris, 1928-1931 [Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press; London: Feffer and Simons, 1969] 109-111).
Nancy Cunard's companion and assistant at Hours Press was the American jazz pianist Henry Crowder" (1895-1954).
"Coucherie" (fun between the sheets).
6 SB wrote "From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore: for Henry Crowder to Sing" (Henry Crowder, Henry-Music [Paris: Hours Press, 1930] [6, 12-141). The opening phrase ofSB's poem is "Rahab ofthe holy battlements," an allusion to Rahab, the harlot of Jericho Uoshua 2; see Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 305). Henry Crowder played the piano at Les Cigognes, 187 Rue de la Croix-Nivert, Paris 15. In his memoir, Crowder writes of SB: "Nancy became very interested in this man and he did have a very charming person ality" (Henry Crowder and Hugo Speck, As Wonderful as All That? : Henry Crowder's Memoir ofHis Affair with Nancy Cunard 1928-1935, ed. Robert L. Allen [Navarro, CA: Wild Trees Press, 1987] 76).
7 NancyCunardwasinLondonfrom15Julythroughatleast21July1930(Nancy Cunard to Louise Morgan, Saturday [6 July 1930], CtY, GEN MSS 80, series V, 36/861; Evelyn Waugh, The Diaries ofEvelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976] 323).
Nancy Cunard's letter to SB from London has not been found. Nancy Cunard, Parallax (London: Hogarth Press, 1925) 11.
The Apes ofGod (1930) by Wyndham Lewis (ne Percy Wyndham Lewis, 1882-1957) was published in June.
The Cantos ofEzra Loomis Pound (1885-1972) were then an ongoing literary work of which two sections had been published in limited editions: A Draft ofXVI Cantos ofEzra Pound: For the Beginning of a Poem of Some Length, initials by Henry Strater (Paris: Three Mountains Press, 1925), and A Draft ofthe Cantos 17-27 of Ezra Pound, initials by Gladys Hynes (London: J. Rodker, 1928).
8 Richard Aldington conveyed McGreevy's suggestion that SB prepare a mono graph on Proust for The Dolphin Books series to his friend and publisher Charles Prentice' (c. 1892-1949) ofChatto and Windus; Prentice agreed that SB should submit his manuscript for consideration (Prentice to Richard Aldington, 20 June 1930, ICSo, Aldington 68/5/11). Although McGreevy intimated to SB that there was some urgency, the work was not a commission; perhaps, rather, it was incumbent on SB to complete some work of scholarship in lieu of a doctoral thesis before returning to teach at Trinity College Dublin in the autumn.
9 Alan Duncan (a pensioned veteran ofWorld War I), Belinda Duncan (who was from Rathmines, Co. Dublin), Alfred Peron, Georges Pelorson. George Bernard Shaw's texts were published in a Collected Edition (London: Constable, 1930). "Camelot" (hawker).
10 French symbolist poet Louis le Cardonnel (1862-1936) became a priest in 1896 and is primarily known for religious poetry. "The Fat Chestertonian" may refer to le Cardonnel.
Andre Therive (ne Roger Puthoste [other pseuds: Candidus d'lsaurie, Romain Mctier, Zadoc Monteil), 1891-1967) was a conservative and influential critic for the French
29
Thursday[? 17July1930}, McGreevy
newspaper Le Temps (1861-1942); he wrote on the crisis ofthe postwar novel, criticiz ing the tendency toward aestheticism, hermeticism, and snobbery (Benoit Le Roux, Andre Therive et ses amis en 14-18 [Saint-Brieuc: B. Le Roux, 1987] 18).
11 LeBarondeCharlusisamajorcharacterinProust'sAlarecherchedutempsperdu. The opera of Wilhelm Richard Wagner (1813-1883), Tristan und Isolde (1865; Tristan and Isolde), and L'Oiseau de Feu (1910; The Firebird) by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971).
"II n'y a que cela" (There is nothing else).
12 Rudmose-BrownhadpublishedacriticaleditionofRacine'sAndromaque(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917), but he did not publish a book-length critical study ofJean Racine (1639-1699). Racine's tragedy Esther (1689).
"Chevilles" (padding, superfluous words).
13 PeggySinclair,hermotherCissie,andheryoungestsister,Deirdre(b. 1920,m. Hamilton), were with the "Boche Hausfreund. " "Boche" (French soldiers' epithet for a German), "Hausfreund" (Ger. , friend of the family).
14 SBmayhavesentBossSinclairacopyofhisfirstbookpublication,Whoroscope,or his poem "Casket ofPralinen for a Daughter ofa Dissipated Mandarin"; the latter has many allusions to SB's experiences in Kassel. (See discussion by Harvey, Samuel Beckett, 273-274, 277-296. )
15 In May 1930 SB had informed Lucia Joyce that he was not romantically inter· ested in her (Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 111). SB's uneasiness with Lucia Joyce is evident in Georges Pelorson's account ofan awkward lunch he attended with SB and Lucia (Georges Belmont, Souvenirs d'outre-monde: Histoire d'une naissance [Paris: Calmann· Levy, 2001] 170-173). In July, Lucia Joyce was with her family in Wales at the Grand Hotel, Llandudno, until they returned to England on 28 July 1930 (letter from Joyce to Valery Larbaud in James Joyce, Letters of]ames Joyce, III, ed. Richard Ellmann [New York: Viking Press, 1966] 201).
16 Irish painter and writer Jack Butler Yeats• (1871-1957) wrote to McGreevy in Paris on 14 July 1930, enclosing reviews of his London exhibition (TCD, MS 10381/111).
17 Mario and Angelo were waiters at the Cochon de Lait, 7 Rue Corneille, Paris 6 (interview with SB, November 1989); McGreevy was tutoring Mario.
18 "AlfyditqueJesJaponaisaimentbeaucoupaenculerdescanardsagonisants,a cause du duvet, parait-il. " (Alfy says the Japanese love to bugger dying ducks, on account ofthe down, it appears. )
19 AugustinGaudin(1905-1987)enteredtheEcoleNormaleSuperieurein1926to study English, but spent 1926-1927 and 1928-1929 at King's College, London. Gaudin completed the Dipl6me d'etudes superieures in June 1929, and was in residence at the ENS in 1929-1930, taking the agregation examination in 1930. "Gaudin is colle" (Gaudin has failed). "Reclame pour moi! " (Publicity for me! ) refers to SB's role in tutoring Gaudin for the exam. In 1932 Gaudin married Elsie Shillito (n. d. ), who graduated from King's College in 1927. After a long and successful career in France, Gaudin became Proviseur (Head) of the Lycee Fram;:ais de Landres.
30
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930}, McGreevy
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930]
Ecole . . . [Paris]
My dear Tom
Your letter came this morning and this evening I saw Mario
and he gave me the 200 fr. Shall I send them to you as they are or
change them & send or keep them for your return? Alas! I cannot
avail myself of your invitation. I saw Laugier this afternoon and
1
and it seems more & more unlikely that I can finish it before
I leave. Perhaps so, when Peron & Pelorson have gone. We
(Peron) are galloping through A. L. P. It has become comic now.
2
pleasing thing has happened - but I cannot write about it. It must
keep. And when I see you it will be decided, one way or another. 3
Harry Sinclair turned in the other morning. He was very
hospitable & stood me dinner twice at the Hotel Bristol, where
I tasted the best wine - Chablis Moutonne 1926 - that I have ever
tasted, and alas also suffered the 5 acts of Louise at the Opera
4
In this particular aspect of Ruddy's case, I am not confusing
human affection with literary appreciation. I think he can write
the book on Racine that nobody else can write, - a book that you
would never like (even if the author was anonymous), but that
for me would represent at last the truth, no, not the truth, but a
5
arrangedaboutthecaffeine. TheProustspreadsmore&more,
I suppose that is the only attitude.
I wish you were here that I could talk to you. A rather di[s]
Comique. Hehasgoneawaynow. Hewasaskingforyou.
courageousappreciation(howrare). IhadaletterfromPinker
31
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930], McGreevy
(who is he) expressing the usual eyewash and giving a list of his
6
I saw Alan & Belinda the other night with Pelorson. He is
applying for Assistant Curatorship of some museum in Belfast -
backed by O'Brien & God knows whom. Oh, he is all of a
do-da! And Belinda too, with the possibility of a car and back to
the land. Don't spread it, because it might have been a confi
dence, although I don't think so. 7 Angelo is gone, and Mario and
the other are all smiles and willingness. The Bowsprit comes &
talks abstractions every second day, and deniche books for me in
8
with 80 kilos weight of Burns Carlyle Scott und so weiter.
I won't forget your offer. I haven't the courage to accept it - nor the courage to flee to Italy, as I could, and let Trinity go to hell & all its works.
The acceptance of this thing makes flight & escape more & more complicated, because if I chuck Dublin after a year, I am not merely chucking Dublin - definitely - but my family, and causing them pain. I suppose I may as well make
up my mind to be a vegetable. 10
A letter from Lucia . . calm. I sent the Penman Whoroscope.
I am glad you are happy at home, & can understand why. I fear there is no equivalent waiting for me in Trinity. Perhaps I may prepare something - but do something . . . no.
Apes of God is truly pitiful. If that is satire a child's petu
lance is satire. But the more I think about the gulls the more
I disagree with your 'visual mechanics. ' Better than that. Yes, the
12
day. Have you read it? I will send it to you, Ruddy can't stand him, so perhaps you will like it. It is the best novel I have read modernly after the shell-shocked triangle! 13 I am reading
32
clients - a list that I am afraid did not impress me.
thelibrary. TheScotsmanishere,thoughIhavenotseenhim,
9
11
didacticism is regrettable.
I sent Frank 'La Beaute sur la Terre' of Ramuz for his birth
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930}, McGreevy
Schopenhauer. Everyone laughs at that. Beaufret & Alfy etc. But I am not reading philosophy, nor caring whether he is right or wrong or a good or worthless metaphysician. An intellectual justification of unhappiness - the greatest that has ever been attempted - is worth the examination ofone who is interested in Leopardi & Proust rather than in Carducci & Barres. 14
Let me know about the 200 & bon travail & bon sommeil & tante belle cose. 15
Sam
ALS; 4 leaves, 8 sides; TCD, MS 10402/3. Dating: the Fridays after 17 July 1930 and before Frank Beckett's birthday on 26 July are 18 July and 25 July. This letter follows SB to McGreevy [? 17 July 1930]: The Apes of God was received from Nancy Cunard; a letter was received from Rudmose-Brown seeking a publisher for a book on Racine; Robert I. Brown arrived in Paris in July and oversaw delivery of his books (see n. 9 below); Charpentier's opera Louise was performed on 10 and 22 July 1930; Alan Duncan had applied for a position in Belfast and by 8 August 1930 was among four final candidates u. c. Nolan, Director, Ulster Museum, 4 August 1993).
That SB and Peron are "galloping through A. L. P. " suggests that this letter precedes that to Soupault dated 5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930] when two pages of translation were sent to Soupault.
1 McGreevyhadinvitedSBtojoinhimlaterinthesummerwhenhetraveledtosee Richard Aldington at Aiguebelle near Le Lavandou on the Cote d'Azur, France.
Henri Laugier• (1888-1973) was Professor of Physiology at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (1929-1936) and a physician. A prescription was necessary to purchase caffeine.
2 SBstayedonthroughthesummerattheEcoleNormaleSuperieuretoworkonhis study of Proust and the translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" with Peron.
3 Thecircumstanceisnotknown.
4 Henry Morris Sinclair (known as Harry, 1882-71938) was the twin brother of William Sinclair and the proprietor of Harris and Sinclair, Antique Plate, Jewellery and Works ofArt, 47 Nassau Street, Dublin.
The Hotel Bristol, 112 Rue du Faubourg St. -Honore, Paris 8. The opera Louise by Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956) was performed at the Opera Comique on 10 July and 22 July; Louise has four, not five acts, but Act II has two parts.
5 "Racine pleases me more than any other dramatist," wrote Rudmose-Brown in his memoirs: "I have never . . . really cared for what ought to be, or what might be. Mine has been the scientific (or artistic) turn of mind, interested in what is, and why it is . . . I have never been deceived by the cant and slogans and shibboleths ofpoliticians and moralists: but I have never been indignant at the folly and corruption ofthe world"
33
Friday [c. 18 to 25 July 1930), McGreery
(A. J. Leventhal, ed. ,"Extracts from the Unpublished Memoirs of the Late T. B. Rudrnose Brown," Dublin Magazine 31. 1 Uanuary-March 1956\ 32).
6 James Ralph Seabrooke Pinker (fl. 1900-1950), of Messrs James B. Pinker and Sons, London, literary agents for Richard Aldington and Thomas McGreevy.
7 Duncan applied for the position of Assistant in the Ulster Art Gallery and Museum in Belfast in June 1930; by 8 August 1930, of the thirty-six applicants who had been considered, four, including an Irishman living in Paris, were selected for interviews (Nolan, 4 August 1993).
The Irish portrait painter Derrnod O'Brien (1865-1945) was President of the Royal Hibernian Academy (1910-1945) and President of the United Arts Club, Dublin.
8 Jean Beaufi:et. "Deniche" (digs out).
9 When Robert I. Brown arrived in Paris in July 1930, he oversaw delivery of his books to the Ecole Norrnale Superieure. but he did not reside at the ENS until October. His books did not include volumes of Scottish writers Robert Burns (1759-1796), Walter Scott (1771-1832), or Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) (Robert I. Brown, 5 August 1994).
"Und so weiter" (and so forth).
10 McGreevy,whowasnowinIreland,plannedtospendlateAugustandthefirst weeks of September in Aiguebelle.
11 SBmayhavesentWhoroscopetoJoyceinLlandudno,Wales,ortohishomeinParis, 2 Square Robiac. Whoroscope was announced as forthcoming on 30 June 1930 and was probably published between 1 and 8 July 1930 ("Our London Letter," The Irish Independent: 8; SB to McGreevy Thursday [? 17 July 1930], n. 5; Cunard, These Were the Hours, 210).
12 InTheApesofGodbyWyndhamLewis,thecharacterHoraceZagreusspeaksabout satire withJulius Ratner, saying:"To be a true satirist Ratner you must remain upon the surface of existence . . . You must never go underneath it" ([London: Arthur Press, 1930; rpt. Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1981\ 451).
Although"gulls"arementionedinTheApesofGod,itisprobablethatSBisresponding to McGreevy's comment on the image of"gulls" in Nancy Cunard's poem, Parallax, a passage that SB had praised in his previous letter to McGreevy [? 17 July 1930].
13 ThebirthdayofSB'sbrotherFrankEdwardBeckett•(1902-1954)was26July. La Beaute sur la terre (1927; Beauty on Earth) was written by Swiss-born novelist Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947). The"shell-shocked triangle" probably refers to the following novels ofWorldWar I: Henri Barbusse (1874-1935), Le Feu,joumal d'une escouade (1916; Under Fire); Georges Duhamel (ne Denis Thevenin, 1884-1966), La Vie des martyrs (1917; The New Book of Martyrs); Roland Dorgeles (ne Roland Lecavele, 1885-1973), Les Croix de bois (1919; Wooden Crosses); the first two were awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1917 and 1918 respectively.
14 GermanphilosopherArthurSchopenhauer(1788-1869)discusseshappinessas "mere abolition of a desire and extinction of a pain" in his essay"On the Suffering of the World"; he adds that, if one's fellow man is seen as a"fellow sufferer," it"reminds us of what are the most necessary of all things; tolerance, patience, forbearance and
34
{before 5 August 1930}, McGreevy
charity, which each of us needs and which each of us therefore owes" (Essays and Aphorisms,ed. andtr. R. J. HollingdaleL! ondon:Penguin,1970]42,50).
Jean Beaufret and Alfred Peron.
Italian poet GiacomoLeopardi (1798-1837); for SB's student notes onLeopardi: TCD,
MS 10971/9. For further discussion ofLeopardi's influence on SB, see C. J. Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski, The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader's Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought (New York: Grove Press, 2004) 316-317.
SB refers to Italian poet and Professor in Classics at the University of Bologna (1860-1904) Giosue Carducci (1835-1907); for SB's student reading notes: TCD, MS 10965 and MS 10965a.
Maurice Barres (1863-1923), French novelist, journalist, politician, fervent and anti-semitic Nationalist, was author of two trilogies of novels, Le Culte du moi (1888-1891; The Cult ofEgo) and Le Roman de l'energie nationale (1897-1902; The Novel of NationalEnergy).
15 "Bon travail & bon sommeil" (work well & sleep well); "tante belle cose" (It. , all good wishes).
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
[before 5 August 1930]
Ecole Normale [Paris]
Dear Tom
I cannot find the phrase you want, but may yet. I thought
I knew where it was, but was wrong as usual. Have you no idea. I
1
I have not put pen to paper on Proust. But I will, & then I hope it will go quickly. I am reading him all again before starting & it tires me a lot. I am supposed to be going on with the Joyce too, alone now that Alfy has gone, God help & save me. I can't do the bloody thing. It's betrayal as well as everything else.
35
thoughtitwasamongstthenegligent,butitwasnot. Whatpoem do you mean? Every second poem of Laforgue is about jeunes ti. Hes & couvents. I will send you my volume of Laforgue. I will look in Corbiere and send it along. 2 Anything I can do I am only too glad to do. But you may be sure I will do it all wrong & badly.
{before 5 August 1930/, McGreevy [. . . ]
I heard from Lucia. I never think of her now. I think they have left Llandudno for Oxford. 3 I saw Bronowski. A talkative
4
Reavey bought a new ribbon for my typewriter & that works very
well now. When are you coming back? Hurry up in the name of
God. Sorry to hear about the Bibesco. Surely he'll pay all the
same? 5 I had a card from Angelo from Piedmont, and was very
glad. I saw your doctor & he gave me some bloody stuffthat isn't
6
them. I am looking forward to pulling the balls off the critical &
poetical Proustian cock. He adored Ruskin & the Comtesse de
Noailles and thought Amie! was a forerunner! I am going to
write a poem about him too, with Charlus's lavender trousers
7
information I can. Have you heard from Aldington? 8 You sent on
an offer of a complimentary photographical seance from one
Miss Vaughan! It'd be better for a man to be dead! When you
come we will drink 2 bottles of Chambertin & half a bottle of
9
Schopenhauer says defunctus is a beautiful word - as long as one does not suicide. 10 He might be right.
Love Sam
ALS; I leaf. 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/4. Dating: Jacob Bronowski was editing the English and Irish sections of The European Caravan for Samuel Putnam; Bronowski was in Paris 31 July to 3 August 1930, and again, overnight, on 16 August as he returned to London (Bronowski to Putnam, 28 July 1930; Bronowski to Putnam, 14 August 1930 [NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl 11/1/23]). SB may have met Bronowski
36
shit. I think I like Putnam & Reavey. But possibly not much.
bad,butI'dratherhavecaffeine. Theyneverdowhatyouask
inaGothicpissotiere. Iwillwriteagainto-morrowandgiveall
cochonfine&findacinecochon. Youareunwisetoleaveme your 200. You know I will spend it. I brought my shoes to a shop and they refused to mend them, but I can still wear them on very dry days. Another pair too I had they refused to mend.
[before 5 August 1930), McGreevy
at either of these times, but early August 1930 is more likely. The Joyces were in Llandudno during late June and much ofJuly; Joyce wrote to Valery Larbaud from England on 28 July 1930 and to Stanislaus Joyce from Oxford on 3 August 1930 Uoyce, Letters ofJames Joyce, III, 512, 201). SB's surmise that the Joyces are back in Oxford would confirm a date toward the end ofJuly or early August.
1 The Princes who have been negligent of salvation are found in Canto VII of Dante's Purgatory. McGreevy does not cite Dante in his Thomas Stearns Eliot: A Study, The Dolphin Books (London: Chatto and Windus, 1931); he does quote from Dante in his poem "Fragments" (1931) (Thomas MacGreevy, Collected Poems ofThomas MacGreevy: An Annotated Edition, ed. Susan Schreibman [Dublin: Anna Livia Press; Washington DC: The Catholic University ofAmerica Press, 1991] 38, 140-142).
2 Several poems by French poet Jules Laforgue (1860-1887) are quoted in McGreevy's Thomas Stearns Eliot, 30-33: "Figurez-vous un peu" (Derniers vers), "Petition," "Petite priere sans pretentions," and "Le bon apotre" (a section that is also part of"Le Condie Feerique"). McGreevy seeks a poem with allusion to a convent; the untitled twelfth poem ofthe Derniers vers takes as its headnote (in English) a portion of Hamlet's speech to Ophelia, beginning: "Get thee to a nunn'ry" (Shakespeare, Hamlet, in The Riverside Shakespeare: The Complete Works, General and Textual ed. G. Blakemore Evans, assisted by J. J. M. Tobin, 2nd edn. [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997] III. i. 120-129; all subsequent Shakespeare citations are from this text). McGreevy discusses the influence on Eliot of French poet Tristan Corbiere (ne Edouard-Joachim Corbiere, 1845-1875), quoting from Corbiere's poem "Vesuves et Cie," published in Les Amours jaunes (1873) (McGreevy, Thomas Stearns Eliot, 25-26).
3 TheJoycefamilylefttheGrandHotel,Llandudno,fortheRandolphHotel,Oxford, about 1 August 1930 (Danis Rose, The Textual Diaries of]amesJoyce [Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1995] 188).
4 Polish-born mathematician and scientist Jacob Bronowski· (1908-1974) was an Editor ofthe Cambridge University undergraduate journal Experiment (1928-1931), begun by William Empson (1906-1984), William Hare (ne William Francis Hare, Lord Ennismore; from 1931, the 5th Earl ofListowel; 1906-1997), and Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950); in 1929 Hugh Sykes [Davies] (1909-1984) replaced Empson as Editor. George Reavey• (1907-1976), also at Cambridge, published in the journal.
With George Reavey, Maida Castelhun Darnton (1872-1940), and Samuel Putnam, Bronowski was compiling and editing The European Caravan.
5 PrinceAntoineBibesco(1878-1951)wastheRomanianenvoyinLondon,alife long friend ofMarcel Proust, and a dramatist. It is not known what McGreevy had begun to translate for Bibesco, but possibly it was his play Laquelle . . . ? (1930). Although unacknowledged as such, McGreevy was translator ofLe Destin de Lord Thomson of Cardington (Lord Thomson of Cardington, a Memoir and Some Letters [London: Jonathan Cape, 19321) by Princesse Marthe Lucie Bibesco (nee Lahovary, also pseud. Lucile Decaux, 1886-1973), Romanian-born novelist, biographer, and travel writer, a cousin by marriage to Antoine Bibesco.
6 McGreevy'sdoctorwasHenriLaugier.
7 ProustspentseveralyearstranslatingandannotatingtheworksoftheEnglishart
critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900): Sesame and Lilies (1865-1869) as Sesame et les
37
{before 5 August 1930], McGreevy
lys (1906) and The Bible of Amiens (1885) as La Bible d'Amiens (1904). Poet and woman of letters, Anna de Brancovan, Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (1876-1933). Journal /ntime (1883-1884) by Henri-Frederic Amie! (1821-1881), Swiss poet and philosopher, Professor of Aesthetics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Geneva.
In Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu the Baron de Charlus frequents pissotieres (street urinals) for the purpose of soliciting.
8 RichardAldington.
