When is it
expected
to appear?
Samuel Beckett
I have written to Eisenstein asking him would
he take me on at the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography
if I went over. I have had no reply. Shall probably go soon
4
foralesson. Iexpecthimtogetinwithease. Hehasdugoutsome more Italian books for me, including the Storie Fiorentine, which
pleases me greatly; and I found some for myself at Webb's, left in
by some little Jez called Boyle or Doyle, lepping fresh from Florence,
including the accounts of Dante by the Villani, Boccaccio, Aretino
& Manetti brought together in one volume. 6 I have been reading
wildly all over the place, Goethe's Iphigenia & then Racine's
to remove the taste, Chesterfield, Boccaccio, Fischart, Ariosto &
Pope! "Is there no bright reversion in the sky" is lovely. Pope says
7
Frank had to go down to Galway so I went with him, just two
nights & a day there, a pick day, the Corrib shining & foaming,
and the light coming through the Connaught walls like filigree.
On the way back we stopped at Clonmacnoise, which is inde
8
countless ways. If things do not improve I fear he will not last long. He lent me a rather dull work by one Greene [for Green] called Minuet on 18th century in France & England. Some inter esting information about Retif however. I have asked Brian to get me his Paysan-Paysanne & Monsieur Nicolas, but nothing
324
herfather-in-lawisamugwump. Jen'enferairien. Murphygoes
whether or no. I read Pudovkin's new book and disliked it. Maurice Sinclair up for Schol. comes out perhaps once a week
5
bright or white, Goethe golden and Hugo vermeil.
scribably beautiful, as site & monument.
Poor Ruddy is in a bad way again, inextricably worried in
so far. Devlin I see has gone to Zurich. I lunched with him
25 March 1936, McGreevy
9
one day and he was upset by the postponement of his poems,
which I think is very bad of Reavey, & wrote & told him as
much. I wont appear after a preface by Herbert Reid [for Read].
The roubles of Geheimrat Roberts don't interest me. But I was
at the Salkeld's last night, when Blanaid told me she had been in
5 or 6 times to Combridge for my poems, & that they had written
for them to Reavey as often in vain. He says he has sent out
copies for review. 10 I don't believe him. I saw Cecil's poems for
the first time and was immensely impressed. He was dithering
11
think ofit with nostalgia.
indirectly that he is "idyllically" happy. The bewitching Eileen Hennessey has married Ganly the brother of the Ganly who is engaged to Bridget [for Brigid] O'Brien. And she also is idyllically happy. 13
My anus has been giving me a good deal of trouble and I still come to the boil out of my sleep, but otherwise am all right, and nothing matters very much. Frank is going to Llandudno for Easter and I shall try to arrange excursions for mother, to get her away from the house while it is being springcleaned. 14 She keeps well, while her friends and friends' friends die off all round.
Love
s/ Sam
TIS; 1 leaf, 1 side; A env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, London SW 3; pm 25-3-36, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/92.
1 McGreevy's enclosure has not been identified.
2 FrankBeckett,BeckettandMedcalf.
3 Mary Manning Howe was neither an agent for SB nor a reader for the Boston company Houghton Mifflin who were her own publishers.
325
in bed with a triple concerto and slap up full length verse play. Was it my old room you occupied at Mrs Frost's? I do not
12
No news at all from Geoffrey, except
25 March 1936, McGreevy
Mary Manning Howe's father-in-law was Mark Anthony DeWolfe Howe (1864-1960), Harvard graduate and Editor of the Alumni publication to 1913, a writer of biography and an Editor of The Atlantic Monthly; his wife Fanny Huntington Quincy Howe
(1879-1933) was a descendant of Josiah Quincy(1772-1864), President of Harvard from 1829 to 1845(The New York Times 1March 1967: 43). SB did not apply to Harvard: "Je n'en ferai rien"(I shall do no such thing). In his next letter toMcGreevy, 9April 119361, SB says: "I shall certainly suggest you for Harvard. All one needs apparently is a chit from Joyce, whom the proudest in Mass. adore" (TCD, MS 10402/93).
4 Murphywasstillincomplete.
SB did not receive a reply to his letter of 2 March 1936 to Eisenstein.
Vsevolod Pudovkin's Film Acting: A Course of Lectures delivered at the State Institute of
Cinematography, Moscow, tr. IvorMontagu(London: G. Newnes, 1935).
5 Morris Sinclair met SB to study for the Scholarship examination, among the most valued of awards open to students of Trinity College Dublin. Scholars are members of the Corporation of the College. receive commons and reduced room and tuition fees, and hold their Scholarships through the end of the June quarter of the fifth year following their election or until the awarding of a Master of Arts degree (Thom's Directory of Ireland for the Year 1936 [Dublin: Alex. Thom and Co. , 1936] 482).
6 AswellasthebooksgiventohimbyCissieSinclair(see29January1935[for1936), n. 14), SB had bought others at George Webb's, Dublin booksellers, 5 & 6 Crampton Quay. Francesco Guicciardini(1483-1540) wrote Storiefiorentine dal 1378 al 1509(1509; Florentine Histories); there was a 1931 edition of this book (Bari: G. Laterza & Figli).
"Jez" (Dublin slang. Jesuit). The former owner of the books may have been Fr. Francis Boyle (20 September 2005, Fergus O'Donoghue SJ, Archivist, The Society of Jesus. Ireland). "Lepping fresh" (Dublin slang, describing freshly caught fish).
Giovanni Villani. Filippo Villani, Giovanni Boccaccio, Leonardo Aretino, and Giannozzo Manetti. Le vite di Dante, intro. and notes by G[iuseppe] L[andol Passerini
(Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1917).
7 Goethe,IphigenieaufTauris(writtenasprosein1779,andreshapedasblankverse, 1786-1787; Iphigenia in Tauris); Racine Iphigenie (1674). Lord Chesterfield (Philip Donner Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, 1694-1773), noted for his Letters to his Son, Letters to Lord Huntingdon (1774). SB's specific reading in Boccaccio at this time is not known. German satirist and literacy opponent of the counter-reformation Johann Fischart
(called Mentzer, 1547-1590) adapted Gargantua (as Geschichtklitterung, 1575) by Rabelais. ForAriosto: see 5 March 1936, n. 4.
SB cites from "Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady" by Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
8 LoughCorrib,thesecondlargestlakeinIreland,is24milesnorthwestofGalway; the province of Connaught includes Connemara, Lough Corrib, and Clonmacnoise. Stone walls form the boundary of many fields. Clonmacnoise, a monastery founded by St. Ciaran in 548, is one of the most celebrated oflreland's holy places and was a center of learning in theMiddleAges; the site, on a plain south ofAthlone beside the Shannon River, includes a cathedral, eight church ruins, two round towers and three sculpted high crosses.
9 Rudmose-Brown had been recovering from illness, and was not teaching in Trinity College that term.
F[rederick] C[harles] Green. Minuet: A Critical Survey ofFrench and English Literary Ideas in the Eighteenth Century(London: J. M. Dent, 1935); the chapter on Nicolas-Edme Retif(known
326
25 March 1936, Ussher
as Retif de la Bretonne, 1734-1806) is entitled "The Leopard's Spots. " Retif wrote Le Paysan perverti (1775), La Paysanne pervertie (1784), and Monsieur Nicolas (1794-1797).
Brian Coffey was then in Paris.
10 DenisDevlinwasinZurichwiththeIrishDepartmentofExternalAffairs;when he wrote to GeorgeReavey on 19April 1936 from the HotelEden au Lac, Zurich, he noted that he had been abroad a month (TxU).
Devlin's impatience with the postponed publication ofIntercessions and SB's letter to Reavey: 12 March [1936], n. 2. For SB's distress that Herbert Read had been invited to write the preface for Thoms ofThunder: 5 March 1936, n. 9.
The negative response of Michael Roberts to Echo's Bones: 12 March 1936, n. 1.
Reavey had sent review copies ofEcho's Bones to the Times Literary Supplement, Time and Tide, New Statesman & Nation, English Review, The Criterion, Scrutiny, Life and Letters Today, The Spectator, Dublin Magazine, The Dublin Review, Cambridge Review, The Observer, The Sunday Times (see Lake, ed. , No Symbols Where None Intended, 30).
11 Although better known as a painter and engraver, Irish artist Cecil ffrench Salkeld (1904-1969) was also a poet, playwright, and publisher of Gayfield Press; in 1921 he studied art in Kassel under Ewald Diilburg, and worked in Germany through late 1925 (see S. B. Kennedy, "An IncisiveAesthetic," Irish Arts Review 21. 2 ! Summer 2004] 90-95). None of the writing mentioned by SB has been published or identified.
12 Mrs. Frost,SB'slandladyinLondonat34GertrudeStreet,S. W. 10.
13 Geoffrey Thompson had recently married. In 1936Eileen Patricia Margaret Hennessey (1904-1983) married William Percy Ganly (1910-1974), a brother of Andrew Ganly, the fiance of Brigid O'Brien.
14 From 8 to 15 April 1936, Frank Beckett was in Llandudno, Wales (SB to McGreevy, 9April 11936]; SB to McGreevy, 15April 11936]; TCD, MS 10402/93 and 94).
ARLAND USSHER
CAPPAGH, CO. WATERFORD
25/3/36 Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
Alter Freund und Ego
I thank you for your letter, & Heaven that Cappa[gh] has not
1
his Old Dutch, Old London, Salvation Army & Sherry Party. He looks as I remember him, Il Traviato, in a world not worth the whetting. 2 All the family had had colds.
327
strained your quality.
Faces set steadfastly towards the Kildare Street Club, Joe &
25 March 1936, Ussher
Kah[a]n, having found Seville provincial, has now left Gib. [raltar]. 3
4
Bei Blanaid Salkeld last night. Cecil was vibrating in
bed, with triple concerto, full length verse play, from which
he read me an extract, in which the phrase occurs: "Love is a
gift refused. This is perversion. " His mother shewed me his
poems, which I liked immensely on rapid perusal, and advised
him to submit to TSE. I do not remember ever having seen any
of them before. 5 One in which the rime mouth-drouth occurs
repeatedly is most remarkable, like the bull let loose among
the cows in Eisenstein's General Line, a reference which I con
fess only occurs to me this moment, in the calm light of March
6
evening at the Sinclairs' you paved the way for one of your
explosions of reality, I allude of course to your laugh, whereby
you are separated not only from the lower but also from the
7
Con you know.
windscaughtuplikesleepingdaffodils. Iunderstandthatone
higher forms of natura naturata,
with a remark to the effect
that the mutual dislike of Cecil & me was the mutual jealousy
of two drunks. 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.
he take me on at the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography
if I went over. I have had no reply. Shall probably go soon
4
foralesson. Iexpecthimtogetinwithease. Hehasdugoutsome more Italian books for me, including the Storie Fiorentine, which
pleases me greatly; and I found some for myself at Webb's, left in
by some little Jez called Boyle or Doyle, lepping fresh from Florence,
including the accounts of Dante by the Villani, Boccaccio, Aretino
& Manetti brought together in one volume. 6 I have been reading
wildly all over the place, Goethe's Iphigenia & then Racine's
to remove the taste, Chesterfield, Boccaccio, Fischart, Ariosto &
Pope! "Is there no bright reversion in the sky" is lovely. Pope says
7
Frank had to go down to Galway so I went with him, just two
nights & a day there, a pick day, the Corrib shining & foaming,
and the light coming through the Connaught walls like filigree.
On the way back we stopped at Clonmacnoise, which is inde
8
countless ways. If things do not improve I fear he will not last long. He lent me a rather dull work by one Greene [for Green] called Minuet on 18th century in France & England. Some inter esting information about Retif however. I have asked Brian to get me his Paysan-Paysanne & Monsieur Nicolas, but nothing
324
herfather-in-lawisamugwump. Jen'enferairien. Murphygoes
whether or no. I read Pudovkin's new book and disliked it. Maurice Sinclair up for Schol. comes out perhaps once a week
5
bright or white, Goethe golden and Hugo vermeil.
scribably beautiful, as site & monument.
Poor Ruddy is in a bad way again, inextricably worried in
so far. Devlin I see has gone to Zurich. I lunched with him
25 March 1936, McGreevy
9
one day and he was upset by the postponement of his poems,
which I think is very bad of Reavey, & wrote & told him as
much. I wont appear after a preface by Herbert Reid [for Read].
The roubles of Geheimrat Roberts don't interest me. But I was
at the Salkeld's last night, when Blanaid told me she had been in
5 or 6 times to Combridge for my poems, & that they had written
for them to Reavey as often in vain. He says he has sent out
copies for review. 10 I don't believe him. I saw Cecil's poems for
the first time and was immensely impressed. He was dithering
11
think ofit with nostalgia.
indirectly that he is "idyllically" happy. The bewitching Eileen Hennessey has married Ganly the brother of the Ganly who is engaged to Bridget [for Brigid] O'Brien. And she also is idyllically happy. 13
My anus has been giving me a good deal of trouble and I still come to the boil out of my sleep, but otherwise am all right, and nothing matters very much. Frank is going to Llandudno for Easter and I shall try to arrange excursions for mother, to get her away from the house while it is being springcleaned. 14 She keeps well, while her friends and friends' friends die off all round.
Love
s/ Sam
TIS; 1 leaf, 1 side; A env to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 15 Cheyne Gardens, London SW 3; pm 25-3-36, Dublin; TCD, MS 10402/92.
1 McGreevy's enclosure has not been identified.
2 FrankBeckett,BeckettandMedcalf.
3 Mary Manning Howe was neither an agent for SB nor a reader for the Boston company Houghton Mifflin who were her own publishers.
325
in bed with a triple concerto and slap up full length verse play. Was it my old room you occupied at Mrs Frost's? I do not
12
No news at all from Geoffrey, except
25 March 1936, McGreevy
Mary Manning Howe's father-in-law was Mark Anthony DeWolfe Howe (1864-1960), Harvard graduate and Editor of the Alumni publication to 1913, a writer of biography and an Editor of The Atlantic Monthly; his wife Fanny Huntington Quincy Howe
(1879-1933) was a descendant of Josiah Quincy(1772-1864), President of Harvard from 1829 to 1845(The New York Times 1March 1967: 43). SB did not apply to Harvard: "Je n'en ferai rien"(I shall do no such thing). In his next letter toMcGreevy, 9April 119361, SB says: "I shall certainly suggest you for Harvard. All one needs apparently is a chit from Joyce, whom the proudest in Mass. adore" (TCD, MS 10402/93).
4 Murphywasstillincomplete.
SB did not receive a reply to his letter of 2 March 1936 to Eisenstein.
Vsevolod Pudovkin's Film Acting: A Course of Lectures delivered at the State Institute of
Cinematography, Moscow, tr. IvorMontagu(London: G. Newnes, 1935).
5 Morris Sinclair met SB to study for the Scholarship examination, among the most valued of awards open to students of Trinity College Dublin. Scholars are members of the Corporation of the College. receive commons and reduced room and tuition fees, and hold their Scholarships through the end of the June quarter of the fifth year following their election or until the awarding of a Master of Arts degree (Thom's Directory of Ireland for the Year 1936 [Dublin: Alex. Thom and Co. , 1936] 482).
6 AswellasthebooksgiventohimbyCissieSinclair(see29January1935[for1936), n. 14), SB had bought others at George Webb's, Dublin booksellers, 5 & 6 Crampton Quay. Francesco Guicciardini(1483-1540) wrote Storiefiorentine dal 1378 al 1509(1509; Florentine Histories); there was a 1931 edition of this book (Bari: G. Laterza & Figli).
"Jez" (Dublin slang. Jesuit). The former owner of the books may have been Fr. Francis Boyle (20 September 2005, Fergus O'Donoghue SJ, Archivist, The Society of Jesus. Ireland). "Lepping fresh" (Dublin slang, describing freshly caught fish).
Giovanni Villani. Filippo Villani, Giovanni Boccaccio, Leonardo Aretino, and Giannozzo Manetti. Le vite di Dante, intro. and notes by G[iuseppe] L[andol Passerini
(Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1917).
7 Goethe,IphigenieaufTauris(writtenasprosein1779,andreshapedasblankverse, 1786-1787; Iphigenia in Tauris); Racine Iphigenie (1674). Lord Chesterfield (Philip Donner Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, 1694-1773), noted for his Letters to his Son, Letters to Lord Huntingdon (1774). SB's specific reading in Boccaccio at this time is not known. German satirist and literacy opponent of the counter-reformation Johann Fischart
(called Mentzer, 1547-1590) adapted Gargantua (as Geschichtklitterung, 1575) by Rabelais. ForAriosto: see 5 March 1936, n. 4.
SB cites from "Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady" by Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
8 LoughCorrib,thesecondlargestlakeinIreland,is24milesnorthwestofGalway; the province of Connaught includes Connemara, Lough Corrib, and Clonmacnoise. Stone walls form the boundary of many fields. Clonmacnoise, a monastery founded by St. Ciaran in 548, is one of the most celebrated oflreland's holy places and was a center of learning in theMiddleAges; the site, on a plain south ofAthlone beside the Shannon River, includes a cathedral, eight church ruins, two round towers and three sculpted high crosses.
9 Rudmose-Brown had been recovering from illness, and was not teaching in Trinity College that term.
F[rederick] C[harles] Green. Minuet: A Critical Survey ofFrench and English Literary Ideas in the Eighteenth Century(London: J. M. Dent, 1935); the chapter on Nicolas-Edme Retif(known
326
25 March 1936, Ussher
as Retif de la Bretonne, 1734-1806) is entitled "The Leopard's Spots. " Retif wrote Le Paysan perverti (1775), La Paysanne pervertie (1784), and Monsieur Nicolas (1794-1797).
Brian Coffey was then in Paris.
10 DenisDevlinwasinZurichwiththeIrishDepartmentofExternalAffairs;when he wrote to GeorgeReavey on 19April 1936 from the HotelEden au Lac, Zurich, he noted that he had been abroad a month (TxU).
Devlin's impatience with the postponed publication ofIntercessions and SB's letter to Reavey: 12 March [1936], n. 2. For SB's distress that Herbert Read had been invited to write the preface for Thoms ofThunder: 5 March 1936, n. 9.
The negative response of Michael Roberts to Echo's Bones: 12 March 1936, n. 1.
Reavey had sent review copies ofEcho's Bones to the Times Literary Supplement, Time and Tide, New Statesman & Nation, English Review, The Criterion, Scrutiny, Life and Letters Today, The Spectator, Dublin Magazine, The Dublin Review, Cambridge Review, The Observer, The Sunday Times (see Lake, ed. , No Symbols Where None Intended, 30).
11 Although better known as a painter and engraver, Irish artist Cecil ffrench Salkeld (1904-1969) was also a poet, playwright, and publisher of Gayfield Press; in 1921 he studied art in Kassel under Ewald Diilburg, and worked in Germany through late 1925 (see S. B. Kennedy, "An IncisiveAesthetic," Irish Arts Review 21. 2 ! Summer 2004] 90-95). None of the writing mentioned by SB has been published or identified.
12 Mrs. Frost,SB'slandladyinLondonat34GertrudeStreet,S. W. 10.
13 Geoffrey Thompson had recently married. In 1936Eileen Patricia Margaret Hennessey (1904-1983) married William Percy Ganly (1910-1974), a brother of Andrew Ganly, the fiance of Brigid O'Brien.
14 From 8 to 15 April 1936, Frank Beckett was in Llandudno, Wales (SB to McGreevy, 9April 11936]; SB to McGreevy, 15April 11936]; TCD, MS 10402/93 and 94).
ARLAND USSHER
CAPPAGH, CO. WATERFORD
25/3/36 Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
Alter Freund und Ego
I thank you for your letter, & Heaven that Cappa[gh] has not
1
his Old Dutch, Old London, Salvation Army & Sherry Party. He looks as I remember him, Il Traviato, in a world not worth the whetting. 2 All the family had had colds.
327
strained your quality.
Faces set steadfastly towards the Kildare Street Club, Joe &
25 March 1936, Ussher
Kah[a]n, having found Seville provincial, has now left Gib. [raltar]. 3
4
Bei Blanaid Salkeld last night. Cecil was vibrating in
bed, with triple concerto, full length verse play, from which
he read me an extract, in which the phrase occurs: "Love is a
gift refused. This is perversion. " His mother shewed me his
poems, which I liked immensely on rapid perusal, and advised
him to submit to TSE. I do not remember ever having seen any
of them before. 5 One in which the rime mouth-drouth occurs
repeatedly is most remarkable, like the bull let loose among
the cows in Eisenstein's General Line, a reference which I con
fess only occurs to me this moment, in the calm light of March
6
evening at the Sinclairs' you paved the way for one of your
explosions of reality, I allude of course to your laugh, whereby
you are separated not only from the lower but also from the
7
Con you know.
windscaughtuplikesleepingdaffodils. Iunderstandthatone
higher forms of natura naturata,
with a remark to the effect
that the mutual dislike of Cecil & me was the mutual jealousy
of two drunks. 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.
