9 George Furlong had been Director of the National Gallery
ofIreland
since 1 October 1935.
Samuel Beckett
Now I did not dislike Cecil nor grudge him his
dipsos, any more than I liked him or approved it. And I cannot
do him the injury of imagining that his feeling for me was any
more precise. Now that he has noted on his music paper my
address in town and my telephone number in the country, I do
not say that an affective tissue is out of the question. But my
8
Mauriac with relish.
Jack Yeats created in a very short time some magnifi
cent works for his exhibition, now in full Fragonard, at the Rembrandt Galleries, Vigo Street. And the Irish Times accuses reception of his new prose work, The Amaranthers. 10 Walking
328
jealousy and dislike could only be of his talent.
Sean I do not see. Not only is he a veronicist, but he reads
9
25 March 1936, Ussher along Stephen's Green, N. , I quoted to him L. D. 's quatrain begin
ning: "What wonder if the poet . . " It made him feel that death
11
any precise affliction, unless it be a sebaceous cyst in my anus, which happily a fart swept away before it became operable.
I am obliged to read in Trinity College Library, as Amoldus Geulincx is not available elsewhere. I recommend him to you most heartily, especially his Ethica, and above all the second section of the second chapter of the first tractate, where he disquires on his fourth cardinal virtue, Humility, contemptus negativus sui ipsius. 12
Humiliter, Simpliciter, Fideliter,13 s/ Sam
TLS; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
1 "AlterFreundundEgo"(Ger. ,oldfriendand;Lat. ,self). SBplayswith"alter"(Ger. , old; Lat. , other).
Arland Ussher's family home, Cappagh, was 5 miles from Dungarvan and Cappoquin, thirty miles from Waterford, in Co. Waterford.
2 Joe Hone and friends are invoked in SB's allusion to the Kildare Street Club, 1-3 Kildare Street, Dublin. In Parnell and His Island (1886), George Moore wrote that the Kildare Street Club represented "all that is respectable" and described it as "a sort of oyster-bed into which all the eldest sons of the landed gentry fall as a matter of course. There they remain spending their days, drinking sherry and cursing Gladstone" (Thomas Pakenham and Valerie Pakenham, eds. , Dublin: A Travellers' Companion [New York: Atheneum, 1988] 219).
SB uses "II Traviato" (man misled) to describe Joe Hone. SB's joke is based on the title of the opera La traviata by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).
3 RobertIsaacKahan(1895-1951),whowasdescribedbyArlandUssherasa"Dublin literary friend" (Arland Ussher to Stanley Cooke-Smith, 15 January 1957, private collection).
4 A. J. ["Con"]Leventhal.
5 "Bei"(Ger. ,atthehomeof).
Cecil Salkeld's triple concerto, verse play, and poems have not been identified; T. S. Eliot edited The Criterion and was on the staff of Faber and Faber.
6 Eisenstein's film General Line used the technique of simultaneous montage to create the "vision of a gigantic stud bull [that] suddenly appears over the cows"
329
would only change charades into dumbcrambo.
Since my double dry pleurisy at Xmas time I cannot point to
25 March 1936, Ussher
(RudolfArnheim, Film, tr. L. M. Sieveking and Ian F. D. Morrow [London: Faber and
Faber, 1933] 125).
7 "Naturanaturata"(creatednature,inthiscase,humanity);seeSB'sPhilosophy
Notes taken on Spinoza (TCD, MS 10967/188; quoted by Feldman, Beckett's Books, 51). 8 "Town"referstoSB'sroomatBeckettandMedcalf,6ClareStreet:"country"to
the family home in Foxrock.
9 Sean O'Sullivan was known for his portraits. SB may refer to the image of Christ's face purportedly retained on the cloth offered him by St. Veronica on the journey to Calvary. French Catholic writer Frarn;:ois Mauriac (1885-1970).
10 Jack B. Yeats's exhibition: see 5 March 1936, n. 7. "Accuses reception" (Gallicism for "acknowledges receipt").
Jack B. Yeats's The Amaranthers (London: Heinemann, 1936} was announced under "Publications Received" (The Irish Times 21 March 1936: 7).
11 "A Thought ofSuicide" by John Lyle Donaghy (1902-1942): "What wonder ifa poet grow tired / Ofa charade unendingly conspired, / Ifweary mid a mental whore dom / He seek at length a change ofboredom" (Into the Light, and Other Poems [Dublin: The Cuala Press, 1934] 82).
Dumbcrambo is a game in which one set ofplayers has to guess a word proposed by the other set; after being told what it rhymes with, a designated player acts out the word in dumb show until teammates guess it correctly.
12 Geulincx, Ethica (1665), in his Opera Philosophica, III, ed. Land (1-271). In the first tractate, the second section of chapter two addresses humility: "Requiritur ergo ad Humilitatem contemptus negativus sui ipsius, quo quis de se non laboret, se non curet, nullam sui, prae Amore Rationis, rationem ducat" (29) (Therefore, in the search for humility one must deny oneself, not work for oneself, not care for oneself, [desire] nothing for oneselfexcept the love ofreason which leads to reason [tr. AvW]}.
See also the analysis of "contemptus negativus sui ipsius" by McMillan and Fehsenfeld, Beckett in the Theatre, 53-54.
13 "Humiliter,simpliciter,fideliter"(meekly,simply,truly),fromThomasaKempis (De imitatione Christi, I: v, 10; The Imitation ofChrist, ed. Rhys, 10, Ingram, 7).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
2/5 [1936] [Dublin] [no greeting]
Afraid I can't manage the Eluard at the moment, as I am up
1
to my eyes in other work.
330
With regard to translations of mine you are using: will you please insert a note to the effect that they have already appeared in This Quarter of such a date. 2
What did you do about Transition? Have you heard anything from them since? When is it expected to appear? 3
Thanks for 2 further Bones. 5 lines of faint damn in Dublin
4
Yours S.
APCI; 1 leaf, 2 sides; env to George Reavey Esq, European Literary Bureau, 30 Red Lion Square, London W. C. 1; pm 4-5·36, Dublin; AN AH pencil, 2 May '36; TxU. Dating: from pm. Place: from pm.
1 ReaveyhadaskedSBtotranslatePaulEluard'spoemfromLaRosepublique(1934), "La Personnalite toujours neuve" (A Personality Always New) for publication in Thoms of Thunder, but as Reavey reported to Eluard on 12 May 1936: "]'ai demand[e] Beckett mais ii n'a pas eu le temps de la faire si vite non plus" (I asked for Beckett but he did not have the time to do it so quickly either [TxU]). The translation of "La Personnalite toujours neuve" had been begun by British poet David Gascoyne {1916-2001), but neither he nor Reavey was satisfied with it (Lake, No Symbols Where None Intended, 32-34). In Thoms ofThunder only a fragment, the last 13 ofthe 126 lines ofthe poem, was published; Gascoyne was indicated as translator (55).
SB's "other work" is Murphy; as he wrote to McGreevy, 9 April [1936]: "Murphy wont move for me at all. 1 get held up over the absurdest difficulties ofdetail. But I sit before it most day ofmost days" (TCD, MS 10402/93).
2 InThomsofThunder,ReaveyreprintedsomeofSB'stranslationsofEluard'spoems that were first published in This Quarter 5. 1 (September 1932) 86-98: "Lady Love," "The Invention," "Scarcely Disfigured," "Scene," "All-Proof: Universe-Solitude," and "Out of Sight in the Direction of My Body" (1, 8, 36, 37-38, 40-41, 42). Reavey's editorial foreword acknowledges This Quarter, and SB's translations are initialed in Thoms of Thunder.
3 ThreepoemsfromEcho'sBones,"Malacoda,""Enueg2,"and"Dortmunder,"were reprinted in transition 24 Uune 1936) 8-10.
4 Echo'sBoneswasreviewedwithotherbooksofpoetrybyD. C. S. -T. ,DublinMagazine 11. 2(April-June1936)77-80: "IamsomewhatbewilderedbySamuelBeckett. Bewildered, but impressed. " The reviewer quotes from SB's poem "The Vulture," and writes:
That poem and "Enueg I" and "Enueg II" are real to me. The flight from emotion in "Enueg I" is a very real thing. Mr. Beckett finds himself, I think, in those poems. And perhaps in "Alba. " Others, because ofhis idiom, - a
331
2 May {1936}, Reavey
Mag. Sonst nix.
Sorry I can't oblige.
2 May {1936}, Reavey
very private, personal idiom -1 am not at all sure of. There is a confusion of accidental phenomena that leaves me adrift. Adrift; but, in spite of myself, impressed. (78)
"Sonst nix" (Ger. colloq. , nothing else).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
6/5/36 6 Clare Street Dublin
Dear George
In your first communication re Jolas you did not say anything
about their wanting "from 6 to 10" pages in addition to the
1
of about 2000 words on the censorship in Ireland, commissioned
about this time 2 years ago by the Bookman & still inedit. They can
have that, always on the same understanding, that they pay me
2
I regret very much about the Eluard. It would take a lot of
time, & if I do not finish what I am doing within the next few
3
forward to availing myself of it.
I trust you have no objection to noting after my Eluard
4
1 With regard to the poems: see 2 May 1936, n. 3. On 9 April 1936, SB wrote to McGreevy that he had told Reavey that transition could publish any ofthe poems from Echo's Bones (TCD, MS 10402/93).
332
poems. Lookingthroughmyessuie-culdereserveIfindanarticle
for it. I shall forward it to you in a day or two, mis au jour.
days, I never shall.
Thank you very much for your proffer of sanctuary. I look
translations their provenance & date. I would be gratified. Yours
[no signature]
TL; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
Although the letter from Maria Jolas• (1895-1987) to Reavey has not been found, it is clear from other correspondence between Eugene and MariaJolas during March 1936 that the short prose piece solicited from Beckett through Reavey for transition was a "prose sketch" to appear among the collection of "paramyths," this being the theme of the next issue of transition (Lois MoreOverbeck and Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, "In Defense of the Integral Text," Notes Diverse Halo, Special issue, SBT/A 16 [2006] 354-355).
2 InAugust1934,TheBookmanhadcommissionedSBtowriteanarticleoncensor ship in Ireland. SB wrote "Censorship in theSaorstat," but it was not published by The Bookman (see 8September 1934, n. 9).
AlthoughSB refers to the "inedit" (unpublished) essay as an "essuie-cul de reserve" (spare burnt), he revised it, "mis au jour" (brought up to date), to include mention of the Irish censorship list of 30 September 1935, on which his More Pricks Than Kicks appeared as number 465.
3 TheEluardtranslation:see2May1936,n. 1. SB was trying to finish the manuscript of Murphy.
4 ReaveyrepublishedsomeofSB'sEluardtranslationsfromThisQuarter(see2May 1936, n. 2), and acknowledged their previous publication in his editorial foreword (Eluard, Thorns ofThunder, vii).
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
Cooldrinagh Foxrock
Co. Dublin.
DearTom
I had a line from Mary Manning this morning in which she
says that she is writing to you and will speak to Howe pere. With a little management the job should come off. Would you object
1
7 May 1936, McGreevy
to asking Joyce for a chit? It appears they adore him at Harvard. Jack Yeats brought up the subject of the picture, & though I was too broke even to make an offer at the time, I since bor rowed £10 which he accepted as a first instalment, the remain ing £20 to follow God knows when, & have now got the picture. Mother & Frank can't resist it much after the Sligo watercolour.
333
7/5/36
7 May 1936, McGreevy
It is nice to have Morning on one's wall that is always morning, and a setting out without the coming home. 2
Transition have guaranteed payment for the poems & want
"6 pages" in addition. I put the old censorship article au jour &
sent it. The difficulty of my own book having been banned since
I wrote the article I got over by giving my registered number,
3
furniture at the Spring Show, in the Irish Times.
I read The Arnaranthers which he gave me & would like to
review it for the Dublin Mag. except that I don't like asking favours of Seumas. I agree it is a lovely book, its latebra all
5
sacrifice, but I declined. I have been & am very busy with
6
I had a long letter from Coffey some time ago, most of which
7
indeed have no inclination to leave the light & the sea for a city. We seem to have settled down at home to a kind of reciprocal gentleness & reserve that is the best we can do. [. . . ]
I was talking to a custodian in the Gallery, who said they
would all die for Furlong with the greatest of pleasure. His
diligence does not yet appear in the public rooms, but it appears
he has gone through the cellar with a fine comb, painted under
the roof somewhere, acquired a large Correggio (David &
Goliath), itches to rehang the Dutch rooms, & intends to remove
the Jordaens altogether. A new landscape by de Vries is up, very
9
with all becoming modesty.
All Forlorn is now giving his appreciation of indigenous
4
bright. L'Ile des Paradisiers.
Reavey asked me to translate another poem for his Eluard
Murphy,whichgetsnearitsfirstendatleastatlast. Itwillbe very short, thanks be to God.
I could not see, let alone read.
So far as I can see I shall be here till the autumn at least, &
8
correct & dull.
334
7 May 1936, McGreevy
The Academy opening seems to have been wonderful, with Higgins behind the scenes debating with someone before the microphone & Montgomery comparing the beautiful pictures there to the ugly ones he has to look at in Molesworth St. 10
I have seen absolutely no one for the past fortnight, unless Maurice Sinclair came out. He is laid out after Schol. but seems to
11
have done well.
A Paris gallery wrote to Harry Sinclair about the
painting of Salvado, enclosing photographs. Perhaps they would
like to present one to the Municipal. Sinclair says he has found a
12
ALS; 1 leaf. 4 sides; letterhead; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, London S. W. 3; pm 9·5-36, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/94.
1 SB had written to Mary Manning Howe on behalf of McGreevy: "asking her to substitute you for me in her Harvard scheme & giving her your address. I know she will do all she can & that you will hear from her soon" (15 April [1936], TCD, MS 10402/ 94). Mary Manning's father-in-law, Mark Anthony DeWolfe Howe: see 25 March 1936, n. 3.
From 1933 to 1935 there were three senior honors theses on Joyce written by Harvard students. Among attributes of "The Harvard Man" was that he "knows his James Joyce" ("Genus Harvardiensis," Harvard Crimson 29 January 1930: 2).
2 SB refers to A Morning by Jack B. Yeats (Pyle 482; NGI 4628). On Yeats's Sligo watercolor Comer Boys: 5 May 1935, n. 4. The allusion to Thomas a Kempis: 10 March [1935], n. 3.
3 Forinformationaboutthepoemsandtransition'srequestforadditionalmaterial from SB: SB to Reavey, 6 May 1936, n. 1 and n. 3.
"Censorship in the Saorstat" was augmented with a paragraph about the "618 books and 11 periodicals" listed as banned by the Register "as on 30th September 1935"; SB closes the essay by writing: "My own registered number is 465, number four hundred and sixty-five, ifl may presume to say so. /We now feed our pigs on sugarbeet pulp. It is all the same to them" (Beckett, Disjecta, 87-88).
4 Sean O'Faolain wrote "Irish Modes in Furniture: Novel Development of Folk· Motif," The Irish Times 7 May 1936: 6.
5 SBdidaskSeumasO'SullivanifhecouldreviewYeats'snovelTheAmaranthersfor Dublin Magazine (see 13 May [19361).
Boucher, in the voice of one who hears a cuckoo on Xmas Eve. Love ever
Sam
L·ne des Paradisiers (The Isle of Birds of Paradise); reference not found.
335
7 May 1936, McGreevy
6 Eluard, Thoms ofThunder.
7 Brian Coffey's handwriting was unusually small. His letter toSB has not been found.
8 SB had mentioned the possibility of travel to Germany in early summer in his letter to McGreevy of 29 January 119361.
9 George Furlong had been Director of the National Gallery ofIreland since 1 October 1935.
SB refers to David Slaying Goliath (NG! 980) by Italian artist Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639), not Antonio Allegri Correggio (c. 1494-1534), which had been pur chased for the National Gallery ofIreland in 1936. The paintings in the collection of the National Gallery ofIreland by Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) were St. Peter Finding the Tribute Money (NG! 38), The Church Triumphant (NG! 46), and The Supper at Emmaus (NG! 57). In 1934 the National Gallery of Ireland acquired Landscape with Figures (NG! 972) by Dutch painter Roelof Jansz de Vries (1631-1681).
10 The Royal Academy of Arts opened its 168th exhibition on 4 May 1936. James Montgomery, whose law offices were at 13South MolesworthStreet and whose office as Official Film Censor was at 34 South Molesworth Street, probably compared the pictures in the exhibition to those at the LeinsterStudio at 3South Molesworth
Street.
11 MorrisSinclairandtheScholarshipexamination:25March1936,n. 5.
12 Catalanpainter,ceramicist,andstained-glassartistJacintoSalvado(1892-1983) studied in Barcelona, Marseille, and Paris, and was active in Paris in the 1920s; a friend of Derain and Picasso, he was depicted by Picasso in Portrait of Jacinto Salvado as Harlequin (Basel Ktinstmuseum, G 1967. 9).
HarrySinclair: Friday lc. 18 to 25 July 1930]. n. 4. SB mentions the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (now the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane), perhaps remembering that McGreevy had arranged for Luri;:at to make such a gift.
French painter Frani;:oisBoucher (1703-1770).
SEUMAS O'SULLIVAN DUBLIN
13/5/[1936]
[Dublin]
[no greeting]
Many thanks for book. It is good of you to let me do it. Fear I have no poems at the moment, but if anything turns
up between now & then I shall send it to you.
336
1
Next Sunday I am not free but perhaps that day week. Yours
SB
APCI; 1 leaf, 2 sides; env to Editor, DUBLIN MAGAZINE, 2 Crow Street, DUBLIN; pm 14-5-36, Dublin; TCD, MS 4630-49/1346. Dating and place: from pm and Beckett to McGreevy, 23 May 1936.
1 O'Sullivan sent SB a copy of The Amaranthers by Jack Yeats for review in Dublin Magazine (see 7 May 1936).
23 May {1936}, McGreevy
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
23/5 [1936]
Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom IwasverygladtohearfromJBYoftheproposedwork. He
showed me some photographs of his pictures. They do not lose so much as I expected, not even the later ones. I feel the book will give you little trouble & much pleasure_ And to have some thing specific in hand will make you feel better. Tell me more about it in your next letter.
Did I tell you I got the Amaranthers from S. ' OS. [for S. O'S. ] by return of post, with an exceedingly amiable note asking for poems & why I did not go & see them. He allows me only 500 words. How can one be anything but dense with so little space? 2
I have set Murphy on fire at last & 2000 words should polish it off. It is really a most unsavoury & not very honest work. I am not sure that Chatto's are so unlikely to take it. I shall send
copies to Charles & Parsons simultaneously. I would be glad to
1
be saved the trouble of hawking it round.
3
337
23 May {1936], McGreery
I met Bobby Childers, younger son of Erskine, married to Christabel, younger daughter of Mrs Manning, for the first time the other night. He looks after the Irish Press machinery. Talks in a high urgent English voice about[? volts, amts], & the political arena. Attends turf-cutting competitions & lives in Bushy Park Rd. next to Luce. 4 We shall never be in Delphi together.
No news at all from Geoffrey, & his brother Alan has had none for a long time. A friend called Stewart, who shared rooms with me for a time in Trinity, just home with wife from a Cisindian province, writes from Putney. Will he be seeing me at the Scholars' Dinner! Leventhal, a decade behind, or in front, is also looking forward to getting drunk gratis. I prefer to stay sober at my own expense. 5
I bathed twice at 40 Foot this week, in spite of the east wind.
The only other was a reverend Father McGrath, red all over with
ingrowing semen & exposure, whom I used to meet with father
in the Turkish Baths. The last time I saw him was nearly three
6
not say what is wrong. 7
I keep seeing the water & woods of Elsheimer & the round
backs of the sheep of Geertgen. Bryan's Dictionary of Painters, published at £7. 17. 6, is going in Green's for £4. 17. 6. Ifl had the
8
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, London S. W. 3; pm 23 May 1936, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/96.
1 McGreevyhadproposedtodoastudyofthepaintingofJackB. Yeats.
2 SB's review was published as "An Imaginative Work! " Dublin Magazine 11. 3 Uuly-September 1936) 80-81.
338
years ago, at our front door, calling to console.
Charles writes he is going to London to see doctors. He does
money I would buy it. Write soon
Love ever Sam
3 Charles Prentice, who had proved such a sympathetic reader ofBeckett's work, was no longer with Chatto and Windus (see 8September 1935, n. 4); Ian Parsons was in Prentice's position with the firm.
4 RobertAldenChilders(knownasBobby,1911-1996),whosewifewasChristabel Manning (1910-1988), the daughter ofSusan Manning (c. 1874-1960); Bobby was the son oflrish nationalist Robert Erskine Childers (known as Erskine, 1870-1922), and his older brother was Erskine Hamilton Childers (also known as Erskine, 1905-1974), President oflreland (1973-1974).
Bobby and Christabel Childers lived at 12 Bushy Park Road; they were immediate neighbors ofA. A. Luce, 13 Bushy Park Road, Rathgar. SB wrote" <voice> English voice. "
5 Geoffrey and his brother. Alan H. Thompson (1906-1974), were both friends of SB's from school days at Portora RoyalSchool in Enniskillen, and from Trinity College Dublin. Alan Thompson was appointed Assistant Physician and Pathologist to the
Richmond Hospital in 1932.
Gerald PakenhamStewart (1906-1998) shared rooms withSB at TCD in 1926 when
they were bothScholars ofthe House;Stewart became an Assistant Commissioner in the Indian CivilService, Assam. where he met and married his wife ElisabethScott (1912-1971). Putney is in southwest London.
Con Leventhal (TCD BA Mod. in French and German, 1920) was elected toSchol. in 1916.
6 The 40 Foot is the name given to the nude bathing place, at that time for men only, inSandycove, Co. Dublin; it was named for the 40th Regiment ofFoot.
It is not known to which Father McGrathSB refers. William Beckett died on 26 June 1933.
7 CharlesPrentice.
8 SB recalls paintings by Elsheimer and Geertgen in the National Gallery, London (see 20 February 1935, n. 6 and n. 7). Michael Bryan (1757-1821) prepared Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, 1816; it was revised and enlarged in five volumes by George C. Williamson (London: G. Bell, 1903-1905; 4th edn. , 1926-1934).
THOM AS M cGREEVY LONDON
9/6/36 Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
It's a long time since I heard from you. I hope you had no
serious trouble with the bronchitis. Write very soon & tell me how you are.
339
9June 1936, McGreevy
9 June 1936, McGreevy
I have finished Murphy, meaning I have put down last words of first version. Now I have to go through it again. It reads something horrid. One should have a continuity-girl, like regisseurs. l
I wrote review ofAmaranthers for Seumas. Only 500 words.
2
got it.
I wrote a fierce stinger to Reavey last night. I was really
furious. He wrote saying my censorship article had arrived too
late for transition, & that mention was made of it in the first of
Mrs Jolas's letters that he sent me. He did no such thing. He
quoted an extract from her letter, in which there was no request
for a prose contribution but only for permission to use some
poems from Echo's Bones. He sent me her second letter, reiter
ating request for prose contribution, whereupon I sent the
4
There must be something the matter with Charles. 6 I have written two letters without reply. The last I heard from him he spoke of London & doctors.
I was at Seumas O'Sullivan's about 3 weeks ago. He men tioned he had heard from you, & that he would very much like to publish some of your criticism. Curtis was there, organising the
review of his new history book. Bethel & Sophy were there, he
7
I was tired & it is bad. I compared him with Ariosto.
Maurice Sinclair failed Schol. by a few marks. First man out. 3 And about 5 times as intelligent as the best of them that
articlebyreturnofpost. Thenhesendsmeprospectusofthe Eluard poems. Thorns ofThunder! ! ! I object to my name appear ing near such an abomination. I object to Mr Read's bloody preface. I object to the suggestion conveyed by the blurb that I am performing at the new Burlington BAVE. I was not consulted on any of these matters. Blast his little Antrim Road Soul. 5
slugger than ever, she very nice. I went with Cissie.
340
9June 1936, McGreevy Susan Manning says that Mary says that her pa-in-law says
8
I have been bathing & am frightfully tired this evening. The
fellow I shared rooms with in College, & was in school with, &
who now runs some Garden of Oriss[a] in Assam for the I. C. S. ,
came out for lunch to-day, with his wife, cat-eyed, New Zealand &
9
While I was bathing a filthy little mongrel got into a profound coil with our old bitch, now in the height ofheat. I, & the act, were surrounded by a ring of guffawing boys, naked, urging me not to interfere, nor spoil sport, etc. I had to carry the two of them, without assistance, into the sea, & hold them under till the glans contracted. Then I had to bring her down to a dog abortionist on the upper Dargle Road, & pay 7/6 to have her washed out. 10 And still she may drop a litter ofmonsters. And she is ten, fat & decrepit.
Furlong has weeded out the Italian room & improved. The
Pordenone has been cleaned & brought down to a visible height &
is excellent, as I always suspected. The new Gentileschi (£ 600) is
awful. There is an excellent Guercino Joseph & Child that I had
11
street, & he said no copy of the Bones had reached them for
review. Though I gave Reavey the name of who to send it to.
I sent him a copy, but no review so far. Same man told me that
Hillis was married, had been for months. Now perhaps he can
12
"Difference between Eliot & Yeats; one says something beauti fully, the other nothing very beautifully. "13
341
thathehasnotheardfromyou. Didyounotwrite? Ihopeyou are not letting it slide.
d'accent. They all became horribly hearty. "I am not sure" he said, "but I think I am a pragmatist. "
not seen before.
I met a man from the LT. I knew, one day by chance in the
return my Princesse de Cleves.
Have you done anything at the Yeats book? [? Rute] Tierney:
9 June 1936, McGreevy
I owe Coffey a letter for months. Haven't the energy to go &
14
find out in the library what he wants to know.
15 16
Not a word from Geoffrey, for about 3 months.
Went down one day to Newcastle to see Boss Sinclair. Fear
there is no improvement. Hackett called on him.
Did you see a copy of "Ireland To-day", the latest rag.
O'Faolain & Co. Dentist John Dowling on JBY is exquisite. Says
17
ALS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, LONDON S. W. 3. ; pm 10 June 1936, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/98.
1 "Regisseurs"(assistantstofilmortheatredirector).
2 In his review of The Amaranthers by Jack B. Yeats, SB writes: "The irony is Ariostesque [. . . ] The discontinuity is Ariostesque" ("An Imaginative Work! " 80).
3 Morris Sinclair was top of the list of those whose marks fell below the cut-off point in this competitive examination for Scholarship (Schol. ).
4 Although Reavey had communicated transition's interest in SB's poems, there is no evidence that Reavey had conveyed transition's initial request for a prose piece, specifically for a "paramyth" (see 6 May 1936, n.
dipsos, any more than I liked him or approved it. And I cannot
do him the injury of imagining that his feeling for me was any
more precise. Now that he has noted on his music paper my
address in town and my telephone number in the country, I do
not say that an affective tissue is out of the question. But my
8
Mauriac with relish.
Jack Yeats created in a very short time some magnifi
cent works for his exhibition, now in full Fragonard, at the Rembrandt Galleries, Vigo Street. And the Irish Times accuses reception of his new prose work, The Amaranthers. 10 Walking
328
jealousy and dislike could only be of his talent.
Sean I do not see. Not only is he a veronicist, but he reads
9
25 March 1936, Ussher along Stephen's Green, N. , I quoted to him L. D. 's quatrain begin
ning: "What wonder if the poet . . " It made him feel that death
11
any precise affliction, unless it be a sebaceous cyst in my anus, which happily a fart swept away before it became operable.
I am obliged to read in Trinity College Library, as Amoldus Geulincx is not available elsewhere. I recommend him to you most heartily, especially his Ethica, and above all the second section of the second chapter of the first tractate, where he disquires on his fourth cardinal virtue, Humility, contemptus negativus sui ipsius. 12
Humiliter, Simpliciter, Fideliter,13 s/ Sam
TLS; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
1 "AlterFreundundEgo"(Ger. ,oldfriendand;Lat. ,self). SBplayswith"alter"(Ger. , old; Lat. , other).
Arland Ussher's family home, Cappagh, was 5 miles from Dungarvan and Cappoquin, thirty miles from Waterford, in Co. Waterford.
2 Joe Hone and friends are invoked in SB's allusion to the Kildare Street Club, 1-3 Kildare Street, Dublin. In Parnell and His Island (1886), George Moore wrote that the Kildare Street Club represented "all that is respectable" and described it as "a sort of oyster-bed into which all the eldest sons of the landed gentry fall as a matter of course. There they remain spending their days, drinking sherry and cursing Gladstone" (Thomas Pakenham and Valerie Pakenham, eds. , Dublin: A Travellers' Companion [New York: Atheneum, 1988] 219).
SB uses "II Traviato" (man misled) to describe Joe Hone. SB's joke is based on the title of the opera La traviata by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).
3 RobertIsaacKahan(1895-1951),whowasdescribedbyArlandUssherasa"Dublin literary friend" (Arland Ussher to Stanley Cooke-Smith, 15 January 1957, private collection).
4 A. J. ["Con"]Leventhal.
5 "Bei"(Ger. ,atthehomeof).
Cecil Salkeld's triple concerto, verse play, and poems have not been identified; T. S. Eliot edited The Criterion and was on the staff of Faber and Faber.
6 Eisenstein's film General Line used the technique of simultaneous montage to create the "vision of a gigantic stud bull [that] suddenly appears over the cows"
329
would only change charades into dumbcrambo.
Since my double dry pleurisy at Xmas time I cannot point to
25 March 1936, Ussher
(RudolfArnheim, Film, tr. L. M. Sieveking and Ian F. D. Morrow [London: Faber and
Faber, 1933] 125).
7 "Naturanaturata"(creatednature,inthiscase,humanity);seeSB'sPhilosophy
Notes taken on Spinoza (TCD, MS 10967/188; quoted by Feldman, Beckett's Books, 51). 8 "Town"referstoSB'sroomatBeckettandMedcalf,6ClareStreet:"country"to
the family home in Foxrock.
9 Sean O'Sullivan was known for his portraits. SB may refer to the image of Christ's face purportedly retained on the cloth offered him by St. Veronica on the journey to Calvary. French Catholic writer Frarn;:ois Mauriac (1885-1970).
10 Jack B. Yeats's exhibition: see 5 March 1936, n. 7. "Accuses reception" (Gallicism for "acknowledges receipt").
Jack B. Yeats's The Amaranthers (London: Heinemann, 1936} was announced under "Publications Received" (The Irish Times 21 March 1936: 7).
11 "A Thought ofSuicide" by John Lyle Donaghy (1902-1942): "What wonder ifa poet grow tired / Ofa charade unendingly conspired, / Ifweary mid a mental whore dom / He seek at length a change ofboredom" (Into the Light, and Other Poems [Dublin: The Cuala Press, 1934] 82).
Dumbcrambo is a game in which one set ofplayers has to guess a word proposed by the other set; after being told what it rhymes with, a designated player acts out the word in dumb show until teammates guess it correctly.
12 Geulincx, Ethica (1665), in his Opera Philosophica, III, ed. Land (1-271). In the first tractate, the second section of chapter two addresses humility: "Requiritur ergo ad Humilitatem contemptus negativus sui ipsius, quo quis de se non laboret, se non curet, nullam sui, prae Amore Rationis, rationem ducat" (29) (Therefore, in the search for humility one must deny oneself, not work for oneself, not care for oneself, [desire] nothing for oneselfexcept the love ofreason which leads to reason [tr. AvW]}.
See also the analysis of "contemptus negativus sui ipsius" by McMillan and Fehsenfeld, Beckett in the Theatre, 53-54.
13 "Humiliter,simpliciter,fideliter"(meekly,simply,truly),fromThomasaKempis (De imitatione Christi, I: v, 10; The Imitation ofChrist, ed. Rhys, 10, Ingram, 7).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
2/5 [1936] [Dublin] [no greeting]
Afraid I can't manage the Eluard at the moment, as I am up
1
to my eyes in other work.
330
With regard to translations of mine you are using: will you please insert a note to the effect that they have already appeared in This Quarter of such a date. 2
What did you do about Transition? Have you heard anything from them since? When is it expected to appear? 3
Thanks for 2 further Bones. 5 lines of faint damn in Dublin
4
Yours S.
APCI; 1 leaf, 2 sides; env to George Reavey Esq, European Literary Bureau, 30 Red Lion Square, London W. C. 1; pm 4-5·36, Dublin; AN AH pencil, 2 May '36; TxU. Dating: from pm. Place: from pm.
1 ReaveyhadaskedSBtotranslatePaulEluard'spoemfromLaRosepublique(1934), "La Personnalite toujours neuve" (A Personality Always New) for publication in Thoms of Thunder, but as Reavey reported to Eluard on 12 May 1936: "]'ai demand[e] Beckett mais ii n'a pas eu le temps de la faire si vite non plus" (I asked for Beckett but he did not have the time to do it so quickly either [TxU]). The translation of "La Personnalite toujours neuve" had been begun by British poet David Gascoyne {1916-2001), but neither he nor Reavey was satisfied with it (Lake, No Symbols Where None Intended, 32-34). In Thoms ofThunder only a fragment, the last 13 ofthe 126 lines ofthe poem, was published; Gascoyne was indicated as translator (55).
SB's "other work" is Murphy; as he wrote to McGreevy, 9 April [1936]: "Murphy wont move for me at all. 1 get held up over the absurdest difficulties ofdetail. But I sit before it most day ofmost days" (TCD, MS 10402/93).
2 InThomsofThunder,ReaveyreprintedsomeofSB'stranslationsofEluard'spoems that were first published in This Quarter 5. 1 (September 1932) 86-98: "Lady Love," "The Invention," "Scarcely Disfigured," "Scene," "All-Proof: Universe-Solitude," and "Out of Sight in the Direction of My Body" (1, 8, 36, 37-38, 40-41, 42). Reavey's editorial foreword acknowledges This Quarter, and SB's translations are initialed in Thoms of Thunder.
3 ThreepoemsfromEcho'sBones,"Malacoda,""Enueg2,"and"Dortmunder,"were reprinted in transition 24 Uune 1936) 8-10.
4 Echo'sBoneswasreviewedwithotherbooksofpoetrybyD. C. S. -T. ,DublinMagazine 11. 2(April-June1936)77-80: "IamsomewhatbewilderedbySamuelBeckett. Bewildered, but impressed. " The reviewer quotes from SB's poem "The Vulture," and writes:
That poem and "Enueg I" and "Enueg II" are real to me. The flight from emotion in "Enueg I" is a very real thing. Mr. Beckett finds himself, I think, in those poems. And perhaps in "Alba. " Others, because ofhis idiom, - a
331
2 May {1936}, Reavey
Mag. Sonst nix.
Sorry I can't oblige.
2 May {1936}, Reavey
very private, personal idiom -1 am not at all sure of. There is a confusion of accidental phenomena that leaves me adrift. Adrift; but, in spite of myself, impressed. (78)
"Sonst nix" (Ger. colloq. , nothing else).
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
6/5/36 6 Clare Street Dublin
Dear George
In your first communication re Jolas you did not say anything
about their wanting "from 6 to 10" pages in addition to the
1
of about 2000 words on the censorship in Ireland, commissioned
about this time 2 years ago by the Bookman & still inedit. They can
have that, always on the same understanding, that they pay me
2
I regret very much about the Eluard. It would take a lot of
time, & if I do not finish what I am doing within the next few
3
forward to availing myself of it.
I trust you have no objection to noting after my Eluard
4
1 With regard to the poems: see 2 May 1936, n. 3. On 9 April 1936, SB wrote to McGreevy that he had told Reavey that transition could publish any ofthe poems from Echo's Bones (TCD, MS 10402/93).
332
poems. Lookingthroughmyessuie-culdereserveIfindanarticle
for it. I shall forward it to you in a day or two, mis au jour.
days, I never shall.
Thank you very much for your proffer of sanctuary. I look
translations their provenance & date. I would be gratified. Yours
[no signature]
TL; 1 leaf, 1 side; TxU.
Although the letter from Maria Jolas• (1895-1987) to Reavey has not been found, it is clear from other correspondence between Eugene and MariaJolas during March 1936 that the short prose piece solicited from Beckett through Reavey for transition was a "prose sketch" to appear among the collection of "paramyths," this being the theme of the next issue of transition (Lois MoreOverbeck and Martha Dow Fehsenfeld, "In Defense of the Integral Text," Notes Diverse Halo, Special issue, SBT/A 16 [2006] 354-355).
2 InAugust1934,TheBookmanhadcommissionedSBtowriteanarticleoncensor ship in Ireland. SB wrote "Censorship in theSaorstat," but it was not published by The Bookman (see 8September 1934, n. 9).
AlthoughSB refers to the "inedit" (unpublished) essay as an "essuie-cul de reserve" (spare burnt), he revised it, "mis au jour" (brought up to date), to include mention of the Irish censorship list of 30 September 1935, on which his More Pricks Than Kicks appeared as number 465.
3 TheEluardtranslation:see2May1936,n. 1. SB was trying to finish the manuscript of Murphy.
4 ReaveyrepublishedsomeofSB'sEluardtranslationsfromThisQuarter(see2May 1936, n. 2), and acknowledged their previous publication in his editorial foreword (Eluard, Thorns ofThunder, vii).
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
Cooldrinagh Foxrock
Co. Dublin.
DearTom
I had a line from Mary Manning this morning in which she
says that she is writing to you and will speak to Howe pere. With a little management the job should come off. Would you object
1
7 May 1936, McGreevy
to asking Joyce for a chit? It appears they adore him at Harvard. Jack Yeats brought up the subject of the picture, & though I was too broke even to make an offer at the time, I since bor rowed £10 which he accepted as a first instalment, the remain ing £20 to follow God knows when, & have now got the picture. Mother & Frank can't resist it much after the Sligo watercolour.
333
7/5/36
7 May 1936, McGreevy
It is nice to have Morning on one's wall that is always morning, and a setting out without the coming home. 2
Transition have guaranteed payment for the poems & want
"6 pages" in addition. I put the old censorship article au jour &
sent it. The difficulty of my own book having been banned since
I wrote the article I got over by giving my registered number,
3
furniture at the Spring Show, in the Irish Times.
I read The Arnaranthers which he gave me & would like to
review it for the Dublin Mag. except that I don't like asking favours of Seumas. I agree it is a lovely book, its latebra all
5
sacrifice, but I declined. I have been & am very busy with
6
I had a long letter from Coffey some time ago, most of which
7
indeed have no inclination to leave the light & the sea for a city. We seem to have settled down at home to a kind of reciprocal gentleness & reserve that is the best we can do. [. . . ]
I was talking to a custodian in the Gallery, who said they
would all die for Furlong with the greatest of pleasure. His
diligence does not yet appear in the public rooms, but it appears
he has gone through the cellar with a fine comb, painted under
the roof somewhere, acquired a large Correggio (David &
Goliath), itches to rehang the Dutch rooms, & intends to remove
the Jordaens altogether. A new landscape by de Vries is up, very
9
with all becoming modesty.
All Forlorn is now giving his appreciation of indigenous
4
bright. L'Ile des Paradisiers.
Reavey asked me to translate another poem for his Eluard
Murphy,whichgetsnearitsfirstendatleastatlast. Itwillbe very short, thanks be to God.
I could not see, let alone read.
So far as I can see I shall be here till the autumn at least, &
8
correct & dull.
334
7 May 1936, McGreevy
The Academy opening seems to have been wonderful, with Higgins behind the scenes debating with someone before the microphone & Montgomery comparing the beautiful pictures there to the ugly ones he has to look at in Molesworth St. 10
I have seen absolutely no one for the past fortnight, unless Maurice Sinclair came out. He is laid out after Schol. but seems to
11
have done well.
A Paris gallery wrote to Harry Sinclair about the
painting of Salvado, enclosing photographs. Perhaps they would
like to present one to the Municipal. Sinclair says he has found a
12
ALS; 1 leaf. 4 sides; letterhead; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, London S. W. 3; pm 9·5-36, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/94.
1 SB had written to Mary Manning Howe on behalf of McGreevy: "asking her to substitute you for me in her Harvard scheme & giving her your address. I know she will do all she can & that you will hear from her soon" (15 April [1936], TCD, MS 10402/ 94). Mary Manning's father-in-law, Mark Anthony DeWolfe Howe: see 25 March 1936, n. 3.
From 1933 to 1935 there were three senior honors theses on Joyce written by Harvard students. Among attributes of "The Harvard Man" was that he "knows his James Joyce" ("Genus Harvardiensis," Harvard Crimson 29 January 1930: 2).
2 SB refers to A Morning by Jack B. Yeats (Pyle 482; NGI 4628). On Yeats's Sligo watercolor Comer Boys: 5 May 1935, n. 4. The allusion to Thomas a Kempis: 10 March [1935], n. 3.
3 Forinformationaboutthepoemsandtransition'srequestforadditionalmaterial from SB: SB to Reavey, 6 May 1936, n. 1 and n. 3.
"Censorship in the Saorstat" was augmented with a paragraph about the "618 books and 11 periodicals" listed as banned by the Register "as on 30th September 1935"; SB closes the essay by writing: "My own registered number is 465, number four hundred and sixty-five, ifl may presume to say so. /We now feed our pigs on sugarbeet pulp. It is all the same to them" (Beckett, Disjecta, 87-88).
4 Sean O'Faolain wrote "Irish Modes in Furniture: Novel Development of Folk· Motif," The Irish Times 7 May 1936: 6.
5 SBdidaskSeumasO'SullivanifhecouldreviewYeats'snovelTheAmaranthersfor Dublin Magazine (see 13 May [19361).
Boucher, in the voice of one who hears a cuckoo on Xmas Eve. Love ever
Sam
L·ne des Paradisiers (The Isle of Birds of Paradise); reference not found.
335
7 May 1936, McGreevy
6 Eluard, Thoms ofThunder.
7 Brian Coffey's handwriting was unusually small. His letter toSB has not been found.
8 SB had mentioned the possibility of travel to Germany in early summer in his letter to McGreevy of 29 January 119361.
9 George Furlong had been Director of the National Gallery ofIreland since 1 October 1935.
SB refers to David Slaying Goliath (NG! 980) by Italian artist Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639), not Antonio Allegri Correggio (c. 1494-1534), which had been pur chased for the National Gallery ofIreland in 1936. The paintings in the collection of the National Gallery ofIreland by Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) were St. Peter Finding the Tribute Money (NG! 38), The Church Triumphant (NG! 46), and The Supper at Emmaus (NG! 57). In 1934 the National Gallery of Ireland acquired Landscape with Figures (NG! 972) by Dutch painter Roelof Jansz de Vries (1631-1681).
10 The Royal Academy of Arts opened its 168th exhibition on 4 May 1936. James Montgomery, whose law offices were at 13South MolesworthStreet and whose office as Official Film Censor was at 34 South Molesworth Street, probably compared the pictures in the exhibition to those at the LeinsterStudio at 3South Molesworth
Street.
11 MorrisSinclairandtheScholarshipexamination:25March1936,n. 5.
12 Catalanpainter,ceramicist,andstained-glassartistJacintoSalvado(1892-1983) studied in Barcelona, Marseille, and Paris, and was active in Paris in the 1920s; a friend of Derain and Picasso, he was depicted by Picasso in Portrait of Jacinto Salvado as Harlequin (Basel Ktinstmuseum, G 1967. 9).
HarrySinclair: Friday lc. 18 to 25 July 1930]. n. 4. SB mentions the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (now the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane), perhaps remembering that McGreevy had arranged for Luri;:at to make such a gift.
French painter Frani;:oisBoucher (1703-1770).
SEUMAS O'SULLIVAN DUBLIN
13/5/[1936]
[Dublin]
[no greeting]
Many thanks for book. It is good of you to let me do it. Fear I have no poems at the moment, but if anything turns
up between now & then I shall send it to you.
336
1
Next Sunday I am not free but perhaps that day week. Yours
SB
APCI; 1 leaf, 2 sides; env to Editor, DUBLIN MAGAZINE, 2 Crow Street, DUBLIN; pm 14-5-36, Dublin; TCD, MS 4630-49/1346. Dating and place: from pm and Beckett to McGreevy, 23 May 1936.
1 O'Sullivan sent SB a copy of The Amaranthers by Jack Yeats for review in Dublin Magazine (see 7 May 1936).
23 May {1936}, McGreevy
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
23/5 [1936]
Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom IwasverygladtohearfromJBYoftheproposedwork. He
showed me some photographs of his pictures. They do not lose so much as I expected, not even the later ones. I feel the book will give you little trouble & much pleasure_ And to have some thing specific in hand will make you feel better. Tell me more about it in your next letter.
Did I tell you I got the Amaranthers from S. ' OS. [for S. O'S. ] by return of post, with an exceedingly amiable note asking for poems & why I did not go & see them. He allows me only 500 words. How can one be anything but dense with so little space? 2
I have set Murphy on fire at last & 2000 words should polish it off. It is really a most unsavoury & not very honest work. I am not sure that Chatto's are so unlikely to take it. I shall send
copies to Charles & Parsons simultaneously. I would be glad to
1
be saved the trouble of hawking it round.
3
337
23 May {1936], McGreery
I met Bobby Childers, younger son of Erskine, married to Christabel, younger daughter of Mrs Manning, for the first time the other night. He looks after the Irish Press machinery. Talks in a high urgent English voice about[? volts, amts], & the political arena. Attends turf-cutting competitions & lives in Bushy Park Rd. next to Luce. 4 We shall never be in Delphi together.
No news at all from Geoffrey, & his brother Alan has had none for a long time. A friend called Stewart, who shared rooms with me for a time in Trinity, just home with wife from a Cisindian province, writes from Putney. Will he be seeing me at the Scholars' Dinner! Leventhal, a decade behind, or in front, is also looking forward to getting drunk gratis. I prefer to stay sober at my own expense. 5
I bathed twice at 40 Foot this week, in spite of the east wind.
The only other was a reverend Father McGrath, red all over with
ingrowing semen & exposure, whom I used to meet with father
in the Turkish Baths. The last time I saw him was nearly three
6
not say what is wrong. 7
I keep seeing the water & woods of Elsheimer & the round
backs of the sheep of Geertgen. Bryan's Dictionary of Painters, published at £7. 17. 6, is going in Green's for £4. 17. 6. Ifl had the
8
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, London S. W. 3; pm 23 May 1936, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/96.
1 McGreevyhadproposedtodoastudyofthepaintingofJackB. Yeats.
2 SB's review was published as "An Imaginative Work! " Dublin Magazine 11. 3 Uuly-September 1936) 80-81.
338
years ago, at our front door, calling to console.
Charles writes he is going to London to see doctors. He does
money I would buy it. Write soon
Love ever Sam
3 Charles Prentice, who had proved such a sympathetic reader ofBeckett's work, was no longer with Chatto and Windus (see 8September 1935, n. 4); Ian Parsons was in Prentice's position with the firm.
4 RobertAldenChilders(knownasBobby,1911-1996),whosewifewasChristabel Manning (1910-1988), the daughter ofSusan Manning (c. 1874-1960); Bobby was the son oflrish nationalist Robert Erskine Childers (known as Erskine, 1870-1922), and his older brother was Erskine Hamilton Childers (also known as Erskine, 1905-1974), President oflreland (1973-1974).
Bobby and Christabel Childers lived at 12 Bushy Park Road; they were immediate neighbors ofA. A. Luce, 13 Bushy Park Road, Rathgar. SB wrote" <voice> English voice. "
5 Geoffrey and his brother. Alan H. Thompson (1906-1974), were both friends of SB's from school days at Portora RoyalSchool in Enniskillen, and from Trinity College Dublin. Alan Thompson was appointed Assistant Physician and Pathologist to the
Richmond Hospital in 1932.
Gerald PakenhamStewart (1906-1998) shared rooms withSB at TCD in 1926 when
they were bothScholars ofthe House;Stewart became an Assistant Commissioner in the Indian CivilService, Assam. where he met and married his wife ElisabethScott (1912-1971). Putney is in southwest London.
Con Leventhal (TCD BA Mod. in French and German, 1920) was elected toSchol. in 1916.
6 The 40 Foot is the name given to the nude bathing place, at that time for men only, inSandycove, Co. Dublin; it was named for the 40th Regiment ofFoot.
It is not known to which Father McGrathSB refers. William Beckett died on 26 June 1933.
7 CharlesPrentice.
8 SB recalls paintings by Elsheimer and Geertgen in the National Gallery, London (see 20 February 1935, n. 6 and n. 7). Michael Bryan (1757-1821) prepared Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, 1816; it was revised and enlarged in five volumes by George C. Williamson (London: G. Bell, 1903-1905; 4th edn. , 1926-1934).
THOM AS M cGREEVY LONDON
9/6/36 Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
It's a long time since I heard from you. I hope you had no
serious trouble with the bronchitis. Write very soon & tell me how you are.
339
9June 1936, McGreevy
9 June 1936, McGreevy
I have finished Murphy, meaning I have put down last words of first version. Now I have to go through it again. It reads something horrid. One should have a continuity-girl, like regisseurs. l
I wrote review ofAmaranthers for Seumas. Only 500 words.
2
got it.
I wrote a fierce stinger to Reavey last night. I was really
furious. He wrote saying my censorship article had arrived too
late for transition, & that mention was made of it in the first of
Mrs Jolas's letters that he sent me. He did no such thing. He
quoted an extract from her letter, in which there was no request
for a prose contribution but only for permission to use some
poems from Echo's Bones. He sent me her second letter, reiter
ating request for prose contribution, whereupon I sent the
4
There must be something the matter with Charles. 6 I have written two letters without reply. The last I heard from him he spoke of London & doctors.
I was at Seumas O'Sullivan's about 3 weeks ago. He men tioned he had heard from you, & that he would very much like to publish some of your criticism. Curtis was there, organising the
review of his new history book. Bethel & Sophy were there, he
7
I was tired & it is bad. I compared him with Ariosto.
Maurice Sinclair failed Schol. by a few marks. First man out. 3 And about 5 times as intelligent as the best of them that
articlebyreturnofpost. Thenhesendsmeprospectusofthe Eluard poems. Thorns ofThunder! ! ! I object to my name appear ing near such an abomination. I object to Mr Read's bloody preface. I object to the suggestion conveyed by the blurb that I am performing at the new Burlington BAVE. I was not consulted on any of these matters. Blast his little Antrim Road Soul. 5
slugger than ever, she very nice. I went with Cissie.
340
9June 1936, McGreevy Susan Manning says that Mary says that her pa-in-law says
8
I have been bathing & am frightfully tired this evening. The
fellow I shared rooms with in College, & was in school with, &
who now runs some Garden of Oriss[a] in Assam for the I. C. S. ,
came out for lunch to-day, with his wife, cat-eyed, New Zealand &
9
While I was bathing a filthy little mongrel got into a profound coil with our old bitch, now in the height ofheat. I, & the act, were surrounded by a ring of guffawing boys, naked, urging me not to interfere, nor spoil sport, etc. I had to carry the two of them, without assistance, into the sea, & hold them under till the glans contracted. Then I had to bring her down to a dog abortionist on the upper Dargle Road, & pay 7/6 to have her washed out. 10 And still she may drop a litter ofmonsters. And she is ten, fat & decrepit.
Furlong has weeded out the Italian room & improved. The
Pordenone has been cleaned & brought down to a visible height &
is excellent, as I always suspected. The new Gentileschi (£ 600) is
awful. There is an excellent Guercino Joseph & Child that I had
11
street, & he said no copy of the Bones had reached them for
review. Though I gave Reavey the name of who to send it to.
I sent him a copy, but no review so far. Same man told me that
Hillis was married, had been for months. Now perhaps he can
12
"Difference between Eliot & Yeats; one says something beauti fully, the other nothing very beautifully. "13
341
thathehasnotheardfromyou. Didyounotwrite? Ihopeyou are not letting it slide.
d'accent. They all became horribly hearty. "I am not sure" he said, "but I think I am a pragmatist. "
not seen before.
I met a man from the LT. I knew, one day by chance in the
return my Princesse de Cleves.
Have you done anything at the Yeats book? [? Rute] Tierney:
9 June 1936, McGreevy
I owe Coffey a letter for months. Haven't the energy to go &
14
find out in the library what he wants to know.
15 16
Not a word from Geoffrey, for about 3 months.
Went down one day to Newcastle to see Boss Sinclair. Fear
there is no improvement. Hackett called on him.
Did you see a copy of "Ireland To-day", the latest rag.
O'Faolain & Co. Dentist John Dowling on JBY is exquisite. Says
17
ALS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, LONDON S. W. 3. ; pm 10 June 1936, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/98.
1 "Regisseurs"(assistantstofilmortheatredirector).
2 In his review of The Amaranthers by Jack B. Yeats, SB writes: "The irony is Ariostesque [. . . ] The discontinuity is Ariostesque" ("An Imaginative Work! " 80).
3 Morris Sinclair was top of the list of those whose marks fell below the cut-off point in this competitive examination for Scholarship (Schol. ).
4 Although Reavey had communicated transition's interest in SB's poems, there is no evidence that Reavey had conveyed transition's initial request for a prose piece, specifically for a "paramyth" (see 6 May 1936, n.
