No More Learning

"Mievre" (childishly vapid).
The Marquis de Sade (ne Donatien-Alphonse-Fran�ois, Comte de Sade, 1740-1814), wrote, for example, in La Nouvelle Justine ou, Les Malheurs de la vertu (1797): "l'impossibi­ lite d'outrager la nature est, selon moi, le plus grand supplice de l'homme" (the impossibility of an outrage against nature is, for me, man's greatest torment) (Marquis de Sade, Oeuvres completes du Marquis de Sade, VI, ed. Annie Le Brun and Jean-Jacques Pauvert [Paris: Pauvert, 1987] 281).
AE's Seascape: The Gully (Municipal Gallery ofModern Art, now the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, no. 243) shows two female figures upon a rock, surrounded by the rush and eddy ofthe surf.
19 "Degueulade"(longpuke).
20 Manet'sUnBarauxFolies-BergerewasonexhibitattheNationalGalleryfromthe collection of Samuel Courtauld from 1 March 1934. The painting had been in such poor condition that, when shown in the Manet Exhibition in Paris (1932), it was placed in a specially designed box that controlled conditions; after two years ofrestoration by Kennedy North, it was lent to the National Gallery (Frank Rutter, "Manet's 'Bar aux Folies-Bergere,"' Apollo 19. 113 [May 19341 244-247).
226
Sunday {16 September 1934}, McGreevy
Les Parap! uies (The Umbrellas; National Gallery 3268) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was part of the Hugh Lane bequest to the National Gallery that was disputed because of an unwitnessed codicil that altered his bequest to the National Gallery of London in favor of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin.
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT,CO. KERRY
Sunday [16 September 1934) 34 Gertrude Street London S. W. 10
My dear Tom
Glad you had such a pleasant time at Dunquin & that your
Mother is happy. I feel your holiday has been a great success so far & may it end with the beam in your mind that will make such
1
morning. Unfortunately he is only staying the week-end. But he will be telling you his plans himself. It seems on the cards that you will cross together -- 2
I am all right, belting along with the covey with great free­ dom of indecency & conviction. No work for myself -
I do not see any possibility of relationship, friendly or unfriendly, with the unintelligible, and what I feel in Cezanne is precisely the absence of a rapport that was all right for Rosa or Ruysdael for whom the animising mode was valid, but would have been false for him, because he had the sense of his incom­ mensurability not only with life of such a different order as land­ scape but even with life of his own order, even with the life - one feels looking at the self-portrait in the Tate, not the Cezanne chauve but with the big hat - operative in himself. 3 I can under­ stand the humility in terms of "there but for the grace of G. "
227
a difference to you.
Geoffrey is crossing Friday next & I am seeing him Saturday
Sunday {16 September 1934], McGreevy
or "there but for the disgrace ofthis old bastard", humility before
the doomed & the assumed, but before the panoplies of blank­
ness . . . comprends pas. No doubt I exaggerate the improbability
of turning into landscape one very fine day, is that why the
Ghirlandaio Dafne means so much to me? " But from one's
own ragbag of dissociations to the pantheistic monism of the
5
stituted the devoir de discretion for the folie pour rien should be so true now: "La vie d'un homme etait une suite de hasards. Maintenant la civilisation a chasse le hasard, plus d'imprevu. "6
I must think of Rousseau as a champion of the right to be
alone and as an authentically tragic figure in so far as he was
denied enjoyment ofthe right, not only by a society that consid­
ered solitude as a vice (il n'y a que le mechant qui soit seul) but by
the infantile aspect, afraid of the dark, of his own constitution.
And he knew it himself, that he would always fall for a show of
tenderness as being more like the genuine uterine article than
the face ofeven the Ile de St. Pierre: "Mon plus grand malheur fut
7
how to trim his sails between the two positions he would have
suffered less. And why not whimper under the bougie? 8 I haven't
read the Contrat, but I suppose [J! ! i� at least is an attempt to
resolve the dichotomy or make the passage between its terms
9
Metamorphoses is a saut too perilleux altogether. Alas that Stendhal's thesis that the world had lost its energy when it sub­
toujoursdenepouvoirresisteraux'caresses'". Ifhehadknown
lessofagauntlet&moreofaright-of-way. Butalwaystheback ground of promeneur solitaire, micturating without fear or favour in a decor that does not demand to be entertained, & I think the freedom ample enough to allow of that would not object to Diderot's unbuttoning himself in a select public. A society that can be induced to put up with the "douceur du desoeuvrement" will put up with anything. 10
228
Sunday {16 September 1934}, McGreevy
Herewith divil the much better than nothing. Shall send a quid to-morrow or next day to await you chez Geoffrey. 11
Love ever Sam -
Haven't yet been round to see Hester. 12
ALS; 2 leaves. 4 sides; PS, upper left top margin ofside 1, written perpendicularly to the page; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq. , Tarbert, Limerick, Irish Free State; pm 16-9-34, London; TCD, MS 10402/64. Dating: pm; 16 September 1934 was Sunday.
1 Dunquin,Co. Kerry,isacliff-topvillageoverlookingtheBlasketIslands,nearthe Dingle Peninsula.
2 McGreevy returned to London from Dublin by 22 September (McGreevy to his mother, 23 September 1934, TCD, MS 10381/71). Geoffrey Thompson.
3 SBreferstoaPortraitofCezanne(1879-1882,Venturi366,inthecollectionofLord Ivor Spencer Churchill), on loan to the Tate Gallery from February 1934 to February 1935 Oane Ruddell, Tate GalleryArchive, 23 March 1994). Cezanne's Self-Portrait with Olive Wallpaper (sometimes called Cezanne chauve, 1880-1881, Venturi 365) was acquired by the Tate in 1926 through the Courtauld Fund, but is now in the National Gallery, London (NGL 4135).
4 SBwrote"<his>intermsof. "
"Comprends pas" ([! ] don't understand).
Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio (c. 1448-1494) did no painting of Daphne.
SB may be referring to Apollo and Daphne (1470-1480, NGL 928), painted byAntonio Pollaiuolo (c. 1432-1498), which depicts the dynamics ofthe chase just asApollo has seized Daphne, whose arms have turned to tree branches so that she cannot be carried off by him. "Dafne" is the Italian spelling of"Daphne. "
5 TheMetamorphosesofOvid(nePubliusOvidiusNaso,43BC-AD? 17). "Pantheistic monism" is a term used by Baruch Spinoza (also Benedict de Spinoza, 1632-1677).
"Saut" (leap); "perilleux" (dangerous); SB separates the constituents of "saut peril­ leux" (acrobat's leap).
6 BeforeheseducesMathilde(Mlle. delaMole),Julienconsiders:"Sonpremierdevoir etait la discretion" (His first duty was to be discreet) (Stendhal, Le Rouge et le noir: chronique du XIXe siecle [Paris; Llbrairie Gamier Freres, 1925; rpt. 1928] 360; Red and Black, ed. and tr. RobertM. Adams,NortonCriticalEditions[NewYork:W. W. Norton&Co. ,1969]290). In themarginofhiseditionofLeRougeetlenoir,SBnoted:"Beyle's[']Foliepourrien· . . . isme" ([Paris: Librairie Gamier Freres, 1925] 360; see also Pilling, ed. , Beckett's Dream Notebook, 127-130; with appreciation to Mark Nixon). "Folie pour rien" (madness for its own sake).
"La vie d'un homme etait une suite de hasards. Maintenant la civilisation a chasse le hasard, plus d'imprevu" ("The life of a man was one continual train of dangers. Nowadayscivilization. . . [has]eliminateddanger,andtheunexpectedneverhappens") (Le Rouge et le noir [1928] 329; Red and Black, 265-266). SB adds the underscore of"etait. "
7 SBcitesDenisDiderot'sLeFilsnature! (1757),whereConstancesays,"]'enappelle a votre coeur, interrogez-le, et ii vous dira que l'homme de bien est dans la societe, et
229
Sunday {16 September 1934}, McGreevy
qu'il n'y a que le mechant qui soit seul" (I appeal to your heart; that oracle will answer, "The virtuous man reveres society; [only] the wicked . . . avoids it") (Le Fils nature! et les Entretiens sur "Le Fils nature! ," ed. Jean-Pol Caput [Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1970] 82; D()111a! , or the Test of Virtue: A Comedy, tr. unattributed [London: privately printed, 1767[ 47).
In the fifth promenade of Les Reveries du promeneur solitaire (1782; The Reveries of the Solitary Walker), Rousseau wrote of his visit to the island of St. -Pierre in Lac de Bienne, north of Neuchatel, Switzerland, where he took a walking tour from 12 September to 25 October 1765.
In Confessions, Book 8, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote: "Mon plus grand malheur fut toujours de ne pouvoir resister aux caresses" (It has always been my greatest misfor­ tune not to be able to resist flattery) Gean-Jacques Rousseau, Oeuvres completes, I, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1959] 371; Confessions. tr. Angela Scholar [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000] 362). SB adds the single quotation marks around "caresses. "
8 SBreferstothe"bougie"orcatheterwithwhichRousseauwastreatedtorelieve the painful effects of intermittent urine retention. The treatment itself was far from painless.
9 Rousseau'sDuContratsodal,ouPrindpesdudroitpolitique(1762;TheSoda! Contractor Prindples ofPolitical Right) and his novel Emile ou de ! 'education (1762; Emile or On Education). SB wrote "<reconcile the> resolve. " He wrote "<it possible for a man to> the
passage. "
10 Rousseau's meditations, Les Reveries du promeneur solitaire. "Douceur du desoeuvrement" (sweet pleasures of idleness).
11 "Divil" (Ir. colloq. , devil, e. g. "divil the bit" [nothing at all]). SB enclosed a "quid" with his letter of 18 September [1934] to McGreevy, "Chez Geoffrey" (at Geoffrey Thompson's home), 36 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin (TCD, MS 10402/65).
12 Hester Dowden.
THEEDI TOR, POETRY MAGAZINE CH ICAGO
[1 November 1934)
In the magic the Homer dusk
past the red spire of sanctuary
I null and she royal hulk
hasten to the violet lamp to the thin K'in music ofthe bawd.
230
DORTMUNDER1
{1 November 1934), Poetry Magazine
She stands before me in the bright stall sustaining the jade splinters
the scarred signaculum of purity quiet the eyes the eyes black till the plagal east shall resolve the long night phrase.
Then as a scroll, folded,
and the glory of her dissolution enlarged in me, Habbakuk, mard of all sinners. Schopenhauer is dead and the bawd puts her lute away.
MOLY2
The lips of her desire are grey and parted like a silk loop threatening
a slight wanton wound.
She preys wearily
on sensitive wild things
proud to be torn
by the grave crouch of her beauty. But she will die and her snare tendered so patiently
to my vigilant sorrow
will break and hang
in a pitiful crescent.
ECHO'S B0NES3
asylum under my tread all this day their muffled revels as the flesh breaks breaking without fear or favour wind
231
{1 November 1934}, Poetry Magazine
the gantelope of sense and nonsense run taken by the worms for what they are
ENUEG4
Exeo in a spasm
tired of my darling's red sputum
from the Portobello Private Nursing Home
its secret things
and toil to the crest ofthe surge ofthe steep perilous bridge and lapse down blankly under the scream of the hoarding into a black west
throttled with clouds.
Above the mansions the algum-trees the mountains
my head sullenly
clot of anger
skewered aloft strangled in the cang of the wind bites like a dog against its chastisement.
I trundle along rapidly now on my ruined feet flush with the livid canal;
at Parnell Bridge a dying barge
carrying a cargo of nails and timber
rocks itself softly in the foaming cloister of the lock; on the far bank a gang of down and outs would seem
to be mending a beam.
Then for miles only wind
and the weals creeping alongside on the water
and the world opening up to the south
across a lamentable parody of champaign land to the
mountains
232
{1 November 1934}, Poetry Magazine
and the stillborn evening turning a filthy green manuring the night fungus
and the mind annulled
wrecked in wind.
I splashed past a little wearish old man,
Democritus,
scuttling along between a crutch and a stick,
his stump caught up horribly, like a claw, under his breech, smoking.
Then because a field on the left suddenly went up in a blaze ofshoutingandurgentwhistlingandscarletandblueganzies I stopped and climbed a bank to look at the game.
A child fidgeting at the gate called up:
"Would we be let in Mister? "
"Certainly" I said "you would. "
But, afraid, he set off down the road.
"Well" I called after him "why wouldn't you go on in? " "Oh" he said, knowingly,
"I was in that field before and I got put out. "
So on,
derelict,
as from a bush of gorse on fire in the mountain after dark, or, in Sumatra, the jungle hymen,
the still flagrant rafflesia.
Next:
a pitiful family of grey verminous hens
perished out in the sunk field
trembling, half asleep, against the closed door of a shed, with no visible means of roosting.
233
{1 November 1934], Poetry Magazine
The great mushy toadstool
green-black,
oozing up after me,
soaking up the tattered sky like an ink of pestilence, in my skull the wind going fetid,
the water . . .
Next:
on the hill down from the Fox and Geese into Chapelizod
a small malevolent goat, exiled on the road, remotely pucking the gate of his field;
the Isolde Stores a great perturbation of sweaty heroes, endimanches,
come hastening down for a pint of nepenthe or moly or
half and half
from watching the hurlers above in Kilmainham.
Blotches of drowned yellow in the pit of the Liffey; the fingers of the ladders hooked over the parapet, soliciting;
a slush of vigilant gulls in the grey spew of the sewer.
Ah! the banner
the banner of meat bleeding
on the silk of the seas and the arctic flowers! (they do not exist)
TMSS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; enclosing letter not extant; env to The Editor, "POETRY," 232 East Erie Street. Chicago, ILL. , U. S. A. ; pm 1-11-34, London; SB's name and address at lower right margin side 1 and side 3 (only that on side 3 shown here); date stamped received Nov 8, 1934; AN on env. by other hands: /1) Efllusia; /2) The long one seems pure Joycean, but might be worth taking; /3) [in Haniet Monroe's hand[ Maybe I feel lukewarmish; ICU, Zabel Papers, Box 1/F 5. Dating; from pm.
234
{1 November 1934}, Poetry Magazine
1 Variants in this text of"Dortmunder" with respect to the version published in Echo's Bones 119]: 1. 3 "null and" replaced by "null she"; 1. 10 "Then" replaced by "then"; 1. 13 "dead and" replaced by "dead, the. "
2 "Moly"waspublishedinTheEuropeanCaravan(480)as"YokeofLiberty";variants between the 1931 version and this text: line 5, "she" corrected to "She"; line 11, "tamed and watchful sorrow" replaced by "vigilant sorrow. "
3 Variantsbetweenthistextof"Echo'sBones"andtheversionpublishedinEcho's Bones and Other Predpitates [36]: line 2. "breaks" replaced by "falls"; line 5, "worms" replaced by "maggots. "
4 "Enueg"wasfirstpublishedas"Enueg1"inEcho'sBones(1935)[12-15]. Ithadbeen submitted to Seumas O'Sullivan for Dublin Magazine by 27 November 1931 (TCD, MS 4644) and rejected before 20 December 1931. A carbon copy ofthe poem was found among the papers ofRichard Aldington, together with the poem then called "Enueg 2"; the poems came to Aldington before SB renamed "Enueg 2" as "Serena 1," that is before 4 November 1932 (ICSo, Collection 74/1/2; SB to McGreevy, TCD, MS 10402/35).
SB sent a group of his poems to Chatto and Windus (rejected 27 July 1932), to the Hogarth Press (rejected mid-August 1932), then to Rickword (mid-August 1932, with no reply), and possibly to The Bookman (16 August 1934, which rejected a poem by 27 August 1934): no manuscript versions of these submissions have been found. Then SB submitted this version ofthe poem to Poetry Magazine, on 1 November 1934.
235
1935 19/20January By 29 January
3 February
8 February 14 February 26 February
15 March
20April 4May 20May 23-31 July
1 August
By 7 August 20August
By 8 September 18 September
SB returns to London, traveling with Frank Beckett. Sends story "Lightning Calculation" to Lovat
Dickson's Magazine; it is returned immediately. Geoffrey Thompson arrives in London to assume
position at Bethlem Royal Hospital.
SB sends "Lightning Calculation" to Life and Letters. Lucia Joyce in London until 16 March.
SB attends the opening of an exhibition of paint­ ings by Estella Solomons, Mary Duncan, and Louise Jacobs at Arlington Gallery, London.
Modifies the title of his collection of poems to
Echo's Bones and Other Precipitates.
Easter holiday in Dublin. SB visits Jack B. Yeats. Returns to London.
SB's mother visits England: together they tour Porlock Weir, Stratford, Wells, Lynmouth, Winchester, Bath, Gloucester, and Rugby.
On his own, SB visits Samuel Johnson's birthplace, Lichfield.
Sends his poem "Da Tagte Es" to Dublin Magazine. Begins Murphy.
Sees Nuala Costello in London.
Visits Geoffrey Thompson and goes "round" the ward with him.
237
CHRONOLOGY 1935
Chronology 1935
October 2 October
13 October 2 November
December
By 25 December
Receives proofs ofEcho's Bones and Other Predpitates. Dines with Bion and attends C. G. Jung's third
Tavistock Institute lecture.
Receives Reavey's prospectus for Echo's Bones.
Acts as best man at wedding of Geoffrey and Ursula Thompson, West Lulworth.
Publication of Echo's Bones.
SB returns to Dublin. Ill with pleurisy.
238
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
1/1/35 Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
My dear Tom
Thanks for your letter, & for sending papers. Hope the 10/­
got through all right. Sorry to hear about Dilly. Have you had to move to Miss Dawkins? 1
The best days have been these spent walking with the dogs. One was specially lovely, over the fields from here across the 3 Rock & 2 Rock & back by Glencullen & the Lead Mines.
It was so still that from the top of2 Rock I could hear a solitary accordeon [sic] played down near the Glencullen river, miles away. I thought of a Xmas morning not long ago standing at the back of the Scalp with Father, hearing singing coming from the Glencullen Chapel. 2 Then the white air you can see so far through, giving the outlines without the stippling. Then the pink & green sunset that I never find anywhere else and when it was quite dark a little pub to rest & drink gin in.
[. . . ]
Jack Yeats rang up on Saturday, but I was already on my way to Howth. Apparently he was exquis to Mother on the phone. I must call round. Boss is working in Harry's shop, while Harry still vacates the fort in the Langham. It seems a miracle is required, & Boss awaits it confidently. 3
Yesterday evening I received an astonishing letter from one John Coghlan, Berkeley Road, Dublin, forwarded from Chattos,
239
1 January 1935, McGreevy
in praise of the Proust which he had been reading, and inquir­
ing if I had written anything else. M. P. T. K. will change his tune.
I was highly gratified, especially as it cheered up Mother. I had
things out with her, mildly & cautiously, & now things are much
more satisfactory. [. . . ] I fear the analysis is going to tum out a
failure. The heart has not been very good since coming over, &
I had one paralyzing attack at Cissie's, the worst ever. Bion is
4
a dying fire that I could not decently do more than make a
5
ceived. I must look him up however, if only to pump him on the subject of the gallery. Nobody seems to know anything
6
Irish Times. Why doesn't he go to bed with them & get rid of it
7
cially. 8
Dublin is as ever only more so. You ask for a fish & they give
you a piece of bog oak. The form & features of the Gaelic bureau­ crat are already highly stylicised. I have justified my visit by
9
Junge Kunst series. Do you know his work? I only did from one picture the Boss had in Germany. 10 I find it very interesting. But I think you would jib at the German canister.
240
now a dream habitue.
I found Con & Ethna in such romantic chiaroscuro over
bow & depart. Heureuse Jeunesse. Sean O'Sullivan rang up, but I was not in, or at least that was the impression he re­
about it.
I suppose you saw Francis Stuart's noble quadruped in the
that way. He looks more & more like Percy Ussher.
I have been reading The Mill on the Floss. It is at least superior to Shakespeare's Histories. She seems to have under­ stood infancy after her fashion. The humour is seedy. What a lot Dickens took from her. The facetious columnist espe­
stealing back my little Larousse.
Nancy Sinclair showed me a very nice Campendonk in the
1 January 1935, McGreevy
Apologise to Hester for my stupid note. I was laid out that day. I shall look forward to playing the Ravel. Schone Griisse to
11
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; [black edged env, does not match stationery[ to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea, London; pm 1-1-35, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/67.
1 Hester Dowden's friend, Irish playwright and novelist Geraldine Dorothy Cummins (known as Dilly, 1890-1969), had come to stay in Hester Dowden's home, 15 Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea, London SW3, so that McGreevy was obliged to move to another house, that of George Henry Dawkins who lived at 22 Cheyne Walk.
2 SBdescribeslandmarksofCountyDublin:themountainsThreeRockandTwo Rock, which are named for their outcroppings. The town of Glencullen (1. 75 miles northwest of Two Rock, 4. 5 miles west of Bray) and the Lead Mines in Carrickgollogan, which are marked by an abandoned rock chimney (3. 75 miles west-northwest of Two Rock, and 2. 5 miles west of Bray), were on the return route to Foxrock. A descrip­ tion of the Scalp: 13 May [1933], n. 14.
3 "Exquis" (delightful).
Boss and Cissie Sinclair Jived in Howth. Boss was working at Harris & Sinclair,
dealers in works of art, 47 South Nassau Street; the firm was managed by Hany Sinclair. When he was in London, Hany Sinclair Jived at the Langham Hotel, Portland Place, London Wl (Morris Sinclair, 13 March 1991).
4 JohnCoghlanhasnotbeenidentified. MorePricksThanKicks. "Habitue" (turns up regularly).
5 A. J. LeventhalandEthnaMaccarthy. "Heureusejeunesse"(happyyouth).
6 Thomas Bodkin resigned as Director of The National Gallery of Ireland, effective 1 March 1935, at a special meeting of the Board on 28 December 1934 ("National Gallery of Ireland, Resignation of Dr. Bodkin," The Irish Times 29 December 1934: 4).
7 FrancisStuart'spoem,"ARacehorseattheCurragh"(TheIrishTimes29December 1934: 5).
8 TheMillontheRoss(1860)byGeorgeEliot(pseud. ofMaryAnnEvans,1819-1880). SB may refer to the character Jefferson Brick, a war correspondent for the New York RowdyJournal in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844) by Dickens.
9 ThePetitLarousse,aFrenchdictionaryandencyclopedia.
10 The book on German expressionist Heinrich Campendonk (1889-1957) was by Georg Biermann, Heinrich Campendonk, Junge Kunst (Leipzig: Verlag von Klinkhardt und Biermann, 1921). The Sinclairs owned Campendonk's painting A Dream (Morris Sinclair, 20 September 1990; private collection, on long-term loan to the Courtauld Institute ofArt Gallery, London, LP. 2002. xx. 16).
241
Hester & Dilly & Raven. Love ever
1 January 1935, McGreevy
11 SB's note toHester Dowden has not been found. For Ravel's "Pavane," see 24 February 1931, n. 4. "Schone Griisse" (warm greetings).
ThomasHolmes Ravenhill (known as Raven, 1881-1952) studied medicine at the University of Birmingham; he conducted pioneering research in high-altitude medi­ cine as a medical officer in Chile and served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1914 to 1918. After the war, he left medicine and became a painter, lodging inHester Dowden's house in Chelsea for over twenty years (Bentley, Far Horizon: A Biography of Hester Dowden, 58; J. B. West, "T. H. Ravenhill andHis Contributions to Mountain
Sickness",Journal ofApplied Physiology 80. 3 [March 1996J 715-724). THOMAS McGREEVY
TAR BERT, CO. KERRY
29/1 [1935]
34 Gertrude St [London] S. W. 10
My dear Tom
I have your news from Hester whom I saw last Sunday.
I know how awful it must be for you to have it drag on and on. There is nothing to say. I can only hope you have found some means of patience & comfort. 1
I came back with Frank last Sunday week. He returned, & Geoffrey arrived, on the Tuesday morning. Geoffrey went back on the Wednesday night. He has secured a post at an asylum near Beckenharn, & will be corning over at the end of this week to stay three months at least, for which I am very grateful, as you can imagine. I have resumed with Bion and am feeling better, in spite of all the symptoms, which left me more or less alone during the holiday, having come flocking back. It is a kind of confirmation of the analysis. 2
I had tea & a long conversation with Raven Sunday after­ noon in his studio. But he is impossible to talk with. He has obviously been through it. He does not seem to have emerged altogether.
242
Perhapshecouldputmeinthewayofsometranslations. The National Gallery after the "5th in Christendom" ("Amateur" in
29January {1935}, McGreevy
Hester looks very well and apparently her concert was a great success. I am invited to dine there this evening and try the
3
short & very tenuous. I think it would probably stand a better chance with the Evening Standard. I mean to try & see Muir.
4
5
It is an enormous relief being back in London. I miss you
acutely. I had to go with a party of Frank's to "Young England,"
and so was obliged to sit it out, an exasperation beyond all
description. I should look up Maccarthy, but dread the trend
6
Volpone, which opens superbly. The longueurs of culture are at least an improvement on the longueurs offacility. What a pity
7
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, Tarbert, Limerick, Co. Kerry, Irish Free State; pm 29-1-35, London; TCD, MS 10402/69.
1 McGreevy'smotherwasill.
2 SBandFrankBeckettarrivedinLondonon20January.
Geoffrey Thompson came to London on 22 January to be interviewed for a position at the Bethlem Royal Hospital near Beckenham; he began there on 4 February 1935. Study of psychiatric medicine was not possible in Dublin, as SB wrote to McGreevy: "Geoffrey says a psychoanalyst would be run out of the town. ls that really possible? By the doctors themselves in the first place, he says" (18 January 1935, TCD, MS 10402/68).
3 Hester Dowden was a concert pianist; this concert has not been identified. "Infanta": see 24 February 1931, n. 4.
243
Infanta.
I have sent a new short story to Lovat Dickson. It is very
Irish Times) is like the 15 acres after a cabbage allotment.
[. . . ]
of conscientious solicitude it sets up inside me.
I have read Jonson's two Everyman & Poetaster & begun
the lexicographical f keeps creeping in so often. God love thee
Yours ever Sam
29 January {1935}, McGreevy
4 HoratioHenryLovatDickson(1902-1987),Australian-bornLondonpublisherand biographer, was Associate Editor ofFortnightly Review (1929-1932), Editor ofReview of Reviews (1930-1932), Editor ofLovat Dickson's Magazine (1934-1937), a journal devoted to short stories, and Managing Editor ofLovat Dickson Ltd. (1932-1938). SB submitted "Lightning Calculation" to Lovat Dickson (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 50-51; Cohn, A Beckett Canon, 70-71; unpublished manuscript of "Lightning Calculation," BIF, UoR, MS 2902).
The Evening Standard, London newspaper (1827 to present, under various titles).
The translations ofScottish-born poet and literary critic Edwin Muir (1887-1959), done with his wife Willa Muir (nee Anderson, 1890-1970), included books by Lion Feuchtwanger (1889-1958), Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946), Franz Kafka (1883-1924), and Heinrich Mann (1871-1950), published by the London publishers Martin Secker, Routledge, and Gollancz. Muir had reviewed SB's More Pricks Than Kicks in "New Short Stories," The Listener 12. 268 (4 July 1934) 42.
5 In response to the news of Thomas Bodkin's resignation as Director of the National Gallery ofIreland, a letter to The Irish Times signed "Amateur" pays tribute to his leadership, indicating that "Our Gallery ranks fifth in the world," and wonders whether Bodkin might stay ifoffered "an adequate emolument" ("Dr. Bodkin," The Irish Times 12January 1935: 6).
"The fifteen acres" refers to the broad open space in Dublin's Phoenix Park, by contrast to the small plots of land leased to non-landowners so that they could grow their own produce (MacThomais, Me Jewel and Darlin' Dublin, 111; Declan Kiberd, 12 September 2006).
6 YoungEngland,apatrioticmelodramabyWalterReynolds(1851-1941),proprietor ofthe Theatre Royal (Leeds), was voted by critics as "the worst show that had opened in London in 20 years"; it rapidly developed a cult following and "a quarter ofa million people saw the play," including a person who "boasted of150 visits" ("'Wrong Door, Wrong Door,"' Time [25 December 1939] 24-25; "Daly's Theatre: 'Young England,"' The Times 22 January 1935: 10; "The Victoria Palace: Shows," www. victoriapalacetheatre. co. uk [History]. 24 July 2005).
Desmond Maccarthy.
7 Everyman in his Humour (1598), Everyman out of his Humour (1599), Poetaster (1601), Volpone (1606): plays ofBenJonson (1572-1637).
The long "s" ("f") was the standard representation of the letter "s" in roman fonts until the late 1700s in English.
THOMAS McGREEVY TARBERT, CO. KERRY
8/2 [1935]
244
34 Gertrude St [London] S. W. 10
8 February {1935}, McGreevy
My dear Tom
It is good news that you have the translation, even of a little
sensationalist like M. Also that you are keeping well. You ought to get out a bit more. Have you only your married sister with you now? 1
Of myself there is nothing to tell, except that the feeling of relief & vitality of the first week after my return has quite gone, & now I feel beyond description worthless, sordid & incapaci­ tated. Basta. 2
I heard Maryjo Prado play at Hester's last Sunday week.
The Footner turned up. I don't like her. Hester says she is intel­
ligent. I feel her Jansenist precieuse. The Prado played some
things well, a Rameau gavotte & variations that I did not
know, Scriabin, the Vie de Brevet, Prokoviev's [for Prokofiev's]
Tentations Diaboliques [for "Suggestion Diabolique"], & some
flashy Dohnyani [for Dohnanyi]. But her Chopin & Debussy
were dragged out by the scruff of the neck, very disagreeable.
She sits perched up above the keyboard like Mme. Mahieu at
the seat of custom. Her left hand in the Scriabin was extremely
scrupulous & good. I suppose now I must go to her concert at the
3
I had lunch with Hester & Raven last Sunday afternoon, & played
duets with her afterwards. The Infanta could go quite well. She
offered me a latch+key to come in & practise whenever I liked,
but I contrived to parry this kindness. Since then I have not been
round. I get terribly tired of all the psychic evidence, wonder
what it has to do with the psyche as I experience that old bastard.
4
is so enormous that I wonder is he writing seriously or in parody. And yet I go on reading it. I have finished with Adler. Another
245
Aeolian Hall next Thursday. Mr Prado was sehr sympathisch.
Also the dogs & cats.
Am reading the Cousine Bette. The bathos ofstyle & thought
8 February {1935}, McGreevy
one track mind. Only the dogmatist seems able to put it across. 5
I wish you were to talk pictures, though I know you don't like
talking much of the Dutchmen. I thought Teniers was the last
word in Netherland drawing till I looked into the Brouwers, alas
so scarce. I found a lovely one in the Victoria & Albert, a man
playing a lute. The one in the National, with the woman pulling
the man's hair, is invisible. Their only other is in what the
6
attendant calls the "reference section".
Do they employ some
journalist, I wonder, to invent these expressions. Also in the
V.