No More Learning

In Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu the Baron de Charlus frequents pissotieres (street urinals) for the purpose of soliciting.
8 RichardAldington.
9 ReferencetoacircularfromaphotographerMissKayVaughan(n. d. ),44ADover Street, London Wl.
"Cochon fine" (house brandy); "cine cochon" (blue film).
10 Inhis"DoctrineofSufferingoftheWorld,"Schopenhauerwrites:"Lifeisatask to be worked off; in this sense defunctus is a fine expression" (Studies in Pessimism in Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, tr. E. F. J. Payne. II ! Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974] 300). SB uses "defunctus" as the final word in Proust, The Dolphin Books (! London: Chatto and Windus, 1931] 72; pagination is identical in Proust [New York: Grove Press, 19571).
PHILIPPE SOUPAULT PARIS
5/7/30 [for 5 August 1930]
Ecole Normale Rue d'tnm45 Paris Se
Cher Monsieur Soupault
Voici enfin. Deux copies, dans le cas que Bifur en voudrait
1
une.
Mais je ne voudrais pas publier cela, pas meme un frag­
ment, sans l'au[t]orisation de Monsieur Joyce lui-meme, qui
pourrait tres bien trouver cela vraiment trap mal fait et trap
2
Cordialement
s/ Samuel Beckett
TLS; 1 leaf, 1 side; enclosure: TMS with AN; 2 leaves, 2 sides of preliminary translation into French ofJoyce's "Anna Livia Plurabelle"; CtY, James Joyce collection, GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/102; photocopy OkTIJ, Ellmann collection.
38
eloignedel'original. Plusj'ypenseplusjetrouvetoutcelabien pauvre. Enfin, tel quel, je vous l'envoie.
5 July 1930 {for 5 August 1930}, Soupault
The typescript enclosure ends: "Patain de foudre! En voila du pourprauperisme! " It is possible: (1) that more pages were originally enclosed; (2) that the translation was continued by SB, with or without Peron (an argument that might be made for main­ taining the date as 5 July 1930); or (3) that the translation was completed by others to whom it was not attributed. Proof pages from Bifur, date stamped 16 October 1930, incorporate the few AN corrections on the original typescript; the proof pages are themselves heavily corrected (GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/103; http:/fbeinecke/libraiy. yale. edu/dl_crosscollex/default. htm, and Folder 641, Broadside case). This proof indi­ cates that the translation was done by "M. Perron and S. Beckett," but this is changed to read "AR. Peron. "
A further, though unsigned, typescript reflects the changes made on the Bifur proof (GEN MSS 112, Series 11/5/104; this is ten pages long. although paginated to 9 because two pages are marked "7").
Dating: the editors have dated this letter as 5 August 1930, based on the contextual sequence of undated letters from[? 17 July 1930] to[7 August 1930].
5/7/30 [for 5 August 1930) Ecole Normale Rue d'Ulm45
Paris Se
Dear Monsieur Soupault
Here at last. Two copies, in case Bifur wanted one. But I
would not wish to publish this, not even a fragment, without permission from Mr Joyce himself, who might very well find it
2
1 SB and Alfred Peron prepared the preliminaiy French translation of the "Anna Livia Plurabelle" section of Joyce's Work in Progress for publication in Bifer(TM; 2 Leaves, 2 sides; CtY, James Joyce collection, GEN MSS 112, Series II, 5/102); photocopy, OkTIJ, Ellmann collection).
2 Adrienne Monnier (1892-1955), proprietor of La Maison des Amis des Livres, the Paris bookshop, wrote: "This translation . . . went to the stage of being set in type . . . but it did not go to the stage of being approved for printing, for while Joyce was veiy satisfied with the result when he was consulted, he got it into his head to team seven persons together under his guidance . . . That was to have the
39
1
allreallytoobadlydoneandtoofarfromtheoriginal. Themore I think of it, the more I find it all very poor stuff. Anyhow, such as it is, I send it to you.
Best wishes
Samuel Beckett
5 July 1930 [for 5 August 1930}, Soupault
pleasure of saying my 'Septuagint"' (The Very Rich Hours ofAdrienne Monnier ! New York: Scribner-. 1976] 167).
Revision began with regular weekly sessions in November 1930 and continued into the spring, with Soupault as the "driving force behind the translation" (Paul Leopoldovitch Leon [1893-1942] toRogerVitrac [1899-1953], 30December 1932 inJamesJoyce and Paul Leon, TheJamesJoyce - Paul Leon Papers in The National Library ofIreland: A Catalogue, compiled by Catherine Fahy ! Dublin: National Library of Ireland, 1992] 120).
Philippe Soupault described the process in "A Propos de la traduction d'Anna Livia [forLivie] Plurabelle" (La Nouvelle Revue Franr;aise, 36. 212 ll May 1931] 633-636); although written as "Livia" in the title ofthis essay, throughout the essay, and as the heading for the translation itself, the title is given as "Anna Livie Plurabelle. "The translation is attributed to SamuelBeckett, Alfred Perron (for Peron), IvanGoll,Eugene (forEugene)
Jolas, Paul L. Leon, Adrienne Monnier, and Philippe Soupault, in collaboration with the author (La Nouvelle Revue Fral'l{aise, 36. 212 ll May 1931] 637-646). For more detail about the translation process: "Traduttore . . . Traditore? " in Maria Jolas, ed. , A James Joyce Yearbook (Paris: Transition Press, 1949) 171-178; this reprints Soupault's memoir from his Souvenirs deJamesJoyce (Algiers:Editions Fontaine, 1943), andEugeneJolas's account of the translation process from the manuscript of his then unpublished autobiogra­ phy, Man from Babel, ed. Andreas Kramer and Rainer Rumod, Henry McBride Series in Modernism and Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
THOMAS McGREEVY T ARBERT, CO. KERRY
7/7/30 [for 7 August 1930]
E. N. S. [Paris]
DearTom
Here is the Corbiere and the baronial nausea. You see I
exaggerated as usual. Vinegar not cowpiss. I hope you will not be too disappointed. Alas I cannot find the words of Dante, and I have been all through it. I am sony but it is hopeless when I don't know where to look. I am sending you my copy of Laforgue. 1
The Proust is crawling along though I have not started to write anything. 17000 words is the hell of a lot, and I can't see myself doing so much. 2 Alfy is gone. I am going to write to him now that I cannot go on with the translation alone. I can't do it. And then to that bastard Soupault that I will sign no contract.
40
7 July 1930 [for 7 August 1930}, McGreevy
I sent him two copies of what we had already done, one for Joyce
and one for Bifur if Joyce is not too disgusted by the chasm of
feeling and technique between his hieroglyphics and our bastard
French. 3 But I will not go on alone. It can't be done, and I am tired
enough and have enough to do without that. I was reading
d'Annunzio on Giorgione again and I think it is all balls and
mean nasty balls. I was thinking of Keats and Giorg[i]one's two
young men - the Concert and the Tempest - for a discussion of
Proust's floral obsessions. D'A. seems to think that they are
merely pausing between fucks. Horrible. He has a dirty juicy
squelchy mind, bleeding and bursting, like his celebrated pome­
granates. 4 My head was a torrent of ideas and phrases last night or
rather this morning in bed, but it did me no good as I could
neither go to sleep nor get up and put them down. My shoe
exploded this afternoon in the Boul Mich so I had to go in and
buy a pair. I left them in the shop and felt relieved when I got
away without them. Saw A. and B. last night. Napoleon Danton
and Louis quatorze[']s red heels! 5 Dining with Nancy tomorrow.
6
TLS; I leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/7. Dating: Nancy Cunard was in Paris through the middle ofAugust; she wrote to Louise Morgan on 13 August 1930: "These are the last days here thank God. Then off [ . . . ] into the car and so down Pyreneenwards [ . . . [ If Beckett goes to London on his way to Dublin I'll make so bold as to send him you. He's a grand person" (CtY, Beinecke, GEN MSS 80, series v, 36/361).
1 SB sent his copy of Corbiere's Les Amours jaunes and of the poems of Laforgue. Although it is not known which edition ofLaforgue he sent to McGreevy, or whether McGreevy returned the book, according to James KnowIson SB owned the 1903 edition ofLaforgue's Poesies (Paris: Mercure de France) at the time ofhis death.
2 SB'sessayturnedouttobeaboutthesamelengthasotherbooksintheChattoand Windus Dolphin Books series.
3 NeitherSB'slettertoPeron,norafurtherlettertoSoupaulthasbeenfound.
41
She says Little Red Riddensnood is selling, but I don't believe her. God bless, hurry up back.
sf Sam
7 July 1930 [for 7 August 1930), McGreevy
4 llfuoco (1900) by the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938) includes a discussion ofthe three figures in The Concert (Palazzo Pitti, Florence), then attributed to Italian painter Giorgione (ne Zorzi da Castelfranco, also known as Zorzon, c. 1477-1510). but now attributed to Titian (ne Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1485-1576). D'Annunzio's character Stelio Effrena lectures on the painting, describing the gaze exchanged between the musician at the harpsichord and the older man on the right, who gently touches his shoulder; the other figure in the painting, a man on the left in a plumed hat, is described by D'Annunzio as an apparently detached onlooker. Stelio says that "Giorgione seems to have created [him] under the influence ofa ray reflected from the stupendous Hellenic myth whence the ideal form ofHermaphrodite arose" (Il
fuoco: I romanzi del Melagrano in Prose di romanzi, II, ed. Ezio Raimondi, Annamaria Andreoli, and Niva Lorenzini [Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore. 1989] 247; The Flame of Life: The Romances of the Pomegranate, tr. Kassandra Vivaria (Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1900] 62-63). In Proust, SB quotes a passage from llfuoco that captures the sensuous nature of the supposed onlooker, and compares him with another onlooker in Giorgione's painting, The Tempest (Venice: Accademia) (see Ilfuoco, 248; The Flame ofLife, 63; Beckett, Proust, 70). D'Annunzio does not discuss The Tempest in this context, although the painting is mentioned in passing in his essay on Giorgione ("Dell'arte di Giorgio Barbarelli," Prose scelte [Milan: Fratelli Treves, Editori, 1924] 17-22).
SB alludes to the gushing red juice of the crushed pomegranate in Ilfuoco (311; The Flame of Life, 142). Stelio Effrena takes the pomegranate as his personal emblem: suggesting the "idea of things rich and hidden," it is an image of sexuality throughout the novel (llfuoco, 207, 209-211; The Flame ofLife, 13).
In his essay, SB contrasts Proust's "floral obsessions" with those ofD'Annunzio and Keats; SB concludes that "there is no collapse of the will in Proust, as there is for example in Spenser and Keats and Giorgione" (Proust, 68-70).
5 Alan and Belinda Duncan. SB refers to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), the beheaded Jacobin leader Georges Jacques Danton (1759-1794). and Louis XIV (1628-1715), but his suggestion is unclear.
6 SBreferstoWhoroscopeas"LittleRedRiddensnood. " THOMAS McGREEVY
LE LAVANDOU, V AR
251h August [1930]
E. N. S. [Paris]
My dear Tom
Bronowski wrote me asking for your address. Said he
wanted more poems. I sent it to him. Was that all right? He says he is using three turds from my central lavatory. But alas
42
not the twice round & pointed ones. I started writing this
grace of Black & White. I can't do the fucking thing. I don't
25 August {1930}, McGreevy
1
morning, worked like one inspired for 21⁄2 hours, then tore
everything up and made a present of it to the panier. Since I
have been moistening the Schone Lippen, having first taken
the precaution to provoke salivary hyper-secretion by the
2
know whether to start at the end or the beginning - in a word
should the Proustian arse-hole be considered as entree or
sortie - libre in either case. Anyhow I don't know what to [sic]
or where I am, but I'll write 17000 words before I leave, even
though my observations may have as little variety and none of
3
nice explanation of the temptation to write one[']s nominative
letters across the frieze-fesses. Stimulation of the will. Since
the fesses as fesses as Platonic Idea- have no action on the
Thing in Itself (God help it! ), they will bloody well have a
reaction. I am going now to try his 'Aphorismes sur la Sagesse
de la Vie', that Proust admired so much for its originality and
guarantee of wide reading- transformed. His chapter in Will &
Representation on music is amusing & applies to P. , who cer­
tainly read it. [(]It is alluded to incidentally in A. La R. ) A noble
bitch observes to the Duchesse de Guermantes: 'Relisez ce
que S. dit sur la Musique. ' Duchesse snarls & sneers: 'Relisez!
Relisez! <;:a alors, c'est trop fort! ', because she had the snobism
4
Henry says: dear priest says this is fine church. Well I don't like the dam thing, I like a church as a building. When has he
5
43
thesincerityofOrlando'swoodcarvings. Schopenhauerhasa
of ignorance.
[ . . . ] Cards from Nancy & Henry from Albi and Moissac.
been reading the cohesion theory ofArthur, or spittle by spittle. I said in my condemned preamble that the philosopher consid­ ered the public as a convenient spit[t]oon for his syllogisms, &
25 August {1930}, McGreery
that Mr George Shaw might be considered as called rather than
6
he had the intelligence of an ivory testicle. 7
Well, amuse-toi bien, and write soon, because if Ruddy is
depressed I am suppressed. Much Love
Sam
Meilleures amities au menage.
ALS; I leaf, 4 sides; TCD, 10402/8. Dating: McGreevy left Paris for London before 14 July 1930 and was in London on 14 July 1930 on his way to Dublin (Prentice to Aldington, 15 July 1930, ICSo, Aldington 68/5/12); by 16 August 1930 he was back in Paris (Pilling, A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 26), and afterwards was expected to visit Aldington in Le Lavandou (Aldington to Derek Patmore, 9 August 1930, indicates his route and that he was expected: JCSo, VFM 9). SB gave the manuscript of Proust to Prentice on 17 September 1930 (Prentice to Aldington, 17 September 1930, ICSo, 68/5/12).
1 SBwrote"<laboratory>lavatory. "
Jacob Bronowski included four poems by Thomas McGreevy in The European Caravan: "Aodh Ruadh 6 Domhnaill,""Homage to Marcel Proust,""Homage to Jack Yeats," and "Golders Green" (493-496). Poems by SB in The European Caravan are:"Hell Crane to
Starling,""Casket of Pralinen for the Daughter of a Dissipated Mandarin,""Text," and "Yoke of Liberty" (475-480); Pilling surmises that"Yoke of Liberty" was not yet selected
(A Samuel Beckett Chronology, 26).
SB uses words from an untitled ode on the public lavatory that he wrote as a student
at Trinity College:
There is an expert there who can
Encircle twice the glittering pan
In flawless symmetry to extend
Neatly pointed at each end.
(Gerald Pakenham Stewart, The Rough and the Smooth:
An Autobiography [Walkanae: Heritage, 1994] 22)
2 "Panier" (the bin). "Schone Lippen" (beautiful lips). Black & White, a brand of
Scotch whisky.
3 "Sortie" (exit):"libre" (free): the reference to a standard shop sign,"entree libre" (in effect, feel free to enter without buying).
Orlando's verses to Rosalind are hung on trees in Shakespeare's As You Like It. 44
chosen. ButIhaven'tgotthehearttojeeranymore. Bronowski rejected Ruddy's poems, who immediately wrote to know who was Mr Buggeroffski or Buggerin-Andoffski, and if
8
4 "Frieze" refers to the decorative architectural element between the architrave and cornice of a building, and "fesses" refers to the horizontal line marking the center of an escutcheon; in the sense suggested by Schopenhauer's example below, SB refers to a need to leave one's initials as a mark of visitation on an architectural feature of a monument.
In Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Schopenhauer distinguishes those who are capable of taking pleasure in the beautiful from those "wholly incapable of the pleasure to be found in pure knowledge" who are "entirely given over to willing. " As an example of the latter's need to "in some way excite their will," he observes that they write their names at places that they visit in order "to affect the place, since it does not affect them" (The World as Will and Representation, I, tr. E. F. J. Payne [Indian Hills, CO: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958] 314; with appreciation to Michael Maier for his assistance with this allusion).
Schopenhauer "viewed the will as the thing in itself " ("Ding an Sich"), a notion that SB abbreviates in his later Philosophy Notes as "TI! " (David E.
Cartwright, Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer's Philosophy [Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2005] 171, 181; see also reference to TCD, MS 10967/252, by Matthew Feldman, Beckett's Books: A Cultural History ofSamuel Beckett's 'Interwar Notes' [New York: Continuum, 2006] 49). Schopenhauer wrote that "aesthetic satisfaction everywhere rests on the appre­ hension of a (Platonic) idea" (The World as Will and Representation, II, tr. E. F. J. Payne [Indian Hills, CO: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958] 414).
While SB may have borrowed a copy from Jean Beaufret, the library of the Ecole Normale Superieure had a copy of Schopenhauer's Aphorismes sur la sagesse dans la vie in Parerga et Paralipomena, tr. J. -A. Cantacuzene (Paris: Felix Akan, 1914).
Schopenhauer's chapter on music is "On the Metaphysics of Music" in The World as Will and Representation, II, 447-457; music is also discussed in I, 256-266.
In Proust's Le Temps retrouve, the Marquise de Cambremer says: "'Relisez ce que Schopenhauer dit de la musique"' ("You must re-read what Schopenhauer says about music"); the remark made by the Duchesse de Guermantes is: "'Relisez est un chef­ d'oeuvre! Ah! non, �a. par exemple, ii ne faut pas nous la faire'" ("Re-read is pretty rich, I must say. Who does she think she's fooling? "(A la recherche du temps perdu, IV, ed.
Jean-Yves Tadie, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1989] 569; Time Regained in In Search of Lost Time, VI, tr. Andreas Mayor and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright [New York: Modem Library, 1993) 444-445). SB mis-remembers the response by the Duchess de Guermantes as '"Relisez! Relisez! <;:a alors, c'est trap fort! '" ("Re-read! Re-read! Really, that's a bit much! ").
5 Nancy Cunard and Henry Crowder wrote to SB from the Midi-Pyrenees, northeast of Toulouse. Albi is known for the thirteenth-century Cathedral of Ste. Cecile; the mass of the exterior contrasts with the lavish interior decorations by Italian painters and a mural of the LastJudgment painted by unknown Flemish artists (1474-1484).
Moissac is known for its Romanesque abbey church of St. Pierre, with seventy-six well-preserved capitals and four cloister-walks, as well as a depiction of St. John's vision of the Apocalypse on the south portal.
In the first volume of The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer discusses cohesion as a universal force of nature, along with gravitation and impene­ trability (125, 214, 533). In the second volume, Schopenhauer writes: "For architec­ ture, considered only asfine art, the Ideas of the lowest grades of nature, that is gravity, rigidity, and cohesion, are the proper theme, but not . . . merely regular form,
45
25 August {1930}, McGreevy
25 August {1930}, McGreevy
proportion, and symmetry. These are . . . properties of space, not Ideas; therefore they cannot be the theme of fine art" (The World as Will and Representation, 414).
"Arthur, or spittle by spittle" makes play with the rhythm of a famous title, Eric, or Little by Little (Frederic William Farrar, Elie, or Little by Little: The Story of Roslyn School [Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 18581). An edifying tale of school life, the book was popular in its day, but later became a by-word for virtuous claptrap.
6 SBreferstohisdiscardedfalsestarttoProust.
SB cites Matthew 20:16 and 22:14, with reference to Shaw's habit of prefacing his plays with extended discussions of his political and philosophical positions. Shaw himself explained: "'When the subject of a play is a large one, there is a great deal about it that cannot be put on the stage though it can be said in an essay'" (Bernard Shaw, The Complete Prefaces, Bernard Shaw, 1, 1889-1913, ed. Dan H. Laurence and Daniel]. Leary [London: The Penguin Press, 1993] vii).
7 Although Bronowski rejected Rudmose-Brown's poems for inclusion in The European Caravan, he wrote a mollifying preface to Rudmose-Brown's essay, "Grace Withheld from Jean Racine" which was published (558-564): "He is a scholarly critic whose work should influence the younger Irish critics: and, although of a pre-war generation, stands out as having anticipated the direction of much contem­ porary French and English criticism" (558).
8 "Amuse-toibien"(enjoyyourself).
"Meilleures amities au menage" (Love to the whole houseful of you); McGreevy is with an Aldington house party in Le Lavandou.
SAMUEL PUTNAM FRANCE
[? before 9 September 1930)
45 Rue d'illm [Paris)
Dear Putnam
I pneued Leon and rang him up again. No reply and out
again. The best thing for Bronowski to do is to write to M. Paul Leon, 27 rue Casimir[-]Perier, Paris, & make an offer specifying
1
cation with Leon, his tel. is Littre 88. 89. But he never seems to
be at home. I would go and see him ifI had a second. I am
working all day & most of the night to get this fucking Proust
2
thepassagehewantstouse. Ifyouwanttogetintocommuni­
finished.
46
How are things? Must try & arrange a proper booze before I return - like a constipated Eurydice to the shades of shit.
Yours ever
Sam Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl11/1/9. Enclosed with undated letter [before 9 September 1930] from Putnam to Bronowski. Dating: see n. 1. SB completed the MS of Proust before 15 September 1930, when he wrote to Charles Prentice to make an appointment to deliver the manuscript in London on 17 September 1930.
1 Jacob Bronowski sought permission to publish an excerpt from Joyce's Wysses for the English and Irish section of The European Caravan that he was editing. Athough he had written to Sylvia Beach to ask about the "copyright position of Ulysses" in the United States, Bronowski reported to Putnam that he was "still at sea with Joyce's
to the Shakespeare shop and find out [ . . . ] precisely how we would stand" (30 August [1930], NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COl11/1/23). Bronowski wrote again to Putnam on 9 September 1930 about the matter, but this letter crossed in the mail with Putnam's reply to the first: "I have done my utmost about Joyce, without avail. Beckett likewise has tried. We simply have been unable to get into touch with J. 's agent, a chap by the name of Leon [for Leon]. I enclose a letter from B. [eckett] with regard to this" (undated letter [before 9 September 1930], NjP, New Review Correspondence of Samuel Putnam, COlll/1/23).
The present letter from Beckett was that enclosure.
The American rights were at issue because The European Caravan was to be published
in New York. The Joyce extract in The European Caravan (from the "Proteus" chapter of Wysses) was drawn from, but is not identical to, the text as published in The Little Review Garnes Joyce, "Ulysses: Episode III," The Little Review, 5. 1 [May 1918] 31-45); The Little Review was published from 1914 to 1929 by Margaret Anderson (1886-1973) and Jane Heap (1887-1964), and so a request for permission would have required contacting them. Paul Leon was Joyce's assistant.
2 SB planned to leave for Ireland a few days later, to assume duties at Trinity College Dublin.
15 September 1930, Prentice
material" and asked Putnam to "
g£
CHARLES PRENT! CE, LONDON
15/9/30
CHA TTO AND WINDUS
Ecole Normale 45 Rue d'Ulm Paris ve
47
15 September 1930, Prentice
Dear Mr Prentice
Could I see you for a moment Wednesday morning or after­
noon, and hand you over my 'Proust' for your Dolphin Series? Thomas McGreevy assures me that you will not consider this
1
toDublin-arrivingTuesdayevening. Couldyouleavewordfor me there?
Sincerely yours Samuel Beckett
ALS; 1 leaf, 1 side; date stamped received 16-9-30; UoR, MS 2444, CW 24/9.
1 SB wrote to McGreevy: "I saw Prentice this morning and handed over Proust. He was charming, but I have a feeling he won't touch it for Chatto & Windus, that it isn't scholarly & primo secundo enough. However there it is and off my hands at last" (Weds. evening [17 September 1930J, TCD, MS 10402/9).
2 Garland'sHotel,15-17SuffolkStreet. London. ! twasdestroyedbybombsin1943. THO MAS Mc GREEVY
suggestion as an impertinence.
I will be staying at Garlands hotel for two nights on my way
2
PAR! S
5/10/30
Cooldrinagh [Co. Dublin]
My dear Tom,
Delighted to get your letter. Do write again. This life is
terrible and I dont understand how it can be endured. Quip -
that most foul malady - Scandal & KINDNESS. The eternally
invariable formulae of cheap quip and semi-obscene entirely
contemptible potin chez Ruddy & in the Common Room Club,
and Kindness here at home, pumped into me at high pressure.
1
I am getting my rooms (Fry's) ready at the top of 39. Perhaps things will be better when I get in there. But the Ruddy vico
48
seems to be a dead end. If I could merely listen to him talking
philosophy or Motin & the Precieux, things would be easy. But
all his old anti-isms are flourishing and I am tired of them: you
know what they are - priests and soldiers & the Romantics -
mainly. And then the enduring & unendurable QUIP, far worse
2
5 October 1930, McGreevy
than the Giraudoux astuce. I like Ruddy toujours and very much as you know, but how am I to give him that impression when he quiptificates in the midst of his adorers. - And live? I know it means a row, sooner than later, if one can make a row. A rowdiness I suppose you might call it. Looking vaguely round college I know there is nothing but loneliness, and perhaps that is the most satisfactory conclusion I have reached since coming back to Ireland - although God knows it was sufficiently clear & necessary in abstracto in Paris. I have done nothing so far except a little examining - and am on again this afternoon & to-morrow & Friday. It is really something to lean up against, this sense that j'en aurai pour un an au maximum. 3 I can only hope to read a few books in that time. How can one write here, when every day vulgarises one's hostility and turns anger into irritation & petu­ lance? [ . . . )
Thanks for the Prentice revelations. I have not heard a word from him, although he promised to write and let me have his opinion. Looking at the thing again, the end is terribly hurried,
4 butIcan'tdoanythingtoitnow. (. . . )
Won't you let me know about your Eliot. I wish I could have read it before leaving. Did you get in the Nobiscum peregrina­ tor? 5 Have you any further plans or are you sticking to Formes for the winter? 6 I suppose there is no chance of your coming to Dublin? I saw a lone 'poetic comedy' by Austin Clarke, the 'Hunger Demon', at the Gate. Truly pernicious. And a revival of Dervorgilla by the old poisse Gregory. A gutter snippet. Vulgarly conceived & vulgarly written and of course reinforced by the
49
5 October 1930, McGreevy
ineffable bitch Crowe, playing the regal lover like Frau Lot
7
a moment, but so far la main m'en manque.
I wrote to the Bowsprit, but have had no reply. Please
God he has had enough of a miserable sinner whose interest in the conditions of the artistic experience is fragmentary & intermittent.
Do write again. I needn't tell you I will miss you too, and all that life in Paris that was an approximation to something reasonable.
Much love Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; TCD, MS 10402/11.
1 SB speaks of "potin chez Ruddy" (gossip at Ruddy's) and gatherings in the Common Room at Trinity College Dublin. SB's rooms were at 39 New Square, Trinity College; they had been occupied previously by Professor of Natural Philosophy Matthew Wyatt Joseph Fry (1864-1943), who was appointed Senior Lecturer of TCD in 1927, the highest academic officer in the college after the Provost.
2 The Ruddy "vico" (It. , way). SB enjoyed hearing Rudmose-Brown discoursing on the French poet Pierre Motin (1566-1610) and the Precieux, a seventeenth­ century "movement" originating with Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet (1588-1665) and her salon.
Rudmose-Brown's "anti-isms" are evident in his memoirs: "I accept no dogma and deny none" (31); "the greatest good is, for me, the greatest possible degree ofindivid­ uaI liberty. That is why I am neither Fascist, nor Communist, Imperialist nor Socialist" (Leventhal. ed. , "Extracts from the Unpublished Memoirs of the Late T. B. Rudmose­ Brown," 33).
"Astuce" (clever-clever). Jean Giraudoux (ne Hippolyte-Jean Giraudoux, 1882-1944), French novelist and playwright.
3 "Toujours"(still). "j'enauraipourunanaumaximum"(I'llonlyhaveayearofitto do at most).
4 McGreevyhadbeenincorrespondencewithPrenticeinearlyOctober1930about the terms of publication of his book on Eliot in the Chatto and Windus The Dolphin Books series.
5 McGreevy did include "Nobiscum peregrinatur" (Lat. , comes along with us), a quotation that SB may have suggested to him: "Schopenhauer remarked that
50
petrified into a symbolic condemnation of Free Trade.
I want to inflict myself on Lennox Robinson & Jack Yeats, for
8
14 October 1930, Prentice
Americans might say of their own vulgarity what Cicero said of science, 'Nobiscum peregrinatur"' (McGreevy, Thomas Steams Eliot, 4). Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC).
6 See 1 March 1930, n. 1. In a letter received by Charles Prentice on 2 December 1930, McGreevy wrote: "Formes has busted, is all over. There was a row over policy and theEditor resigned and the proprietor thought it was a good opportunity to cut the losses he's been talking so much about. I'm undecided yet what to do" (UoR, MS 2444, ON 41/2); later, funding was found to permit Formes to continue for a further three months (Charles Prentice to Richard Aldington, 18 December 1930, lCSo, Aldington 68/5/13).
7 IrishpoetanddramatistAustinClarke•(neAugustineJosephClarke,1896-1974). His play, The Hunger Demon, was produced by the GateTheatre from 27 September to 4 October 1930; the play had been published under the title The Son of Leaming (1927).
The AbbeyTheatre revived Dervorgilla (1907), an Irish folkplay by Lady Gregory (nee Isabella Augusta Persse, 1852-1932); presented with The Courting ofMary Doyle by Irish playwrightEdward McNulty (1856-1943), it was performed from 29 September to 4 October 1930. Irish actressEileen Crowe (1899-1978).
The author of over forty plays, Lady Gregory was a founder of the Irish Literary Theatre (1899-1901) and the AbbeyTheatre (1904).
"Poisse" (slang, bad luck, punning on "Persse").
8 Lennox Robinson• (neEsme Stuart Lennox Robinson, 1886-1958), producer­ director at the AbbeyTheatre. "La main m'en manque" (I haven't the hand for it), SB's variation on the familiar "le coeur m'en manque" (I haven't the heart for it).
CHARLES PRENTICE, CHATTOAND WINDUS LONDON
14/10/30 Cooldrinagh Foxrock
Co Dublin
Dear Mr Prentice
Thank you very much for your letter and the trouble you
have taken over my essay. I am perfectly satisfied with the terms of your contract and would be glad to sign it at your earliest convenience. I find it necessary to avail myself of your very
generous offer to pay me an advance of20 pounds on the signing
of the agreement.
1
51
14 October 1930, Prentice
No, of course the library rats wouldn't buy a swagger edition
stained by such an attribution. But wouldn't the drawing­
room rattesses love to expose a more declamatory testimonial
than a 2/- pamphlet? Or is the race of undershot Proustian leche­
fesses extinct? Don't take any notice of this bad-tempered
2
lation. It might go there ifl stuck on a scandalous biography. 3 I
4
I was greatly encouraged and reassured by the nice things
you said about the book, because I really had no idea at all what
kind of impression it would make. I wrote the conclusion in a
5
would that make it too long? I would like to develop the paral­
lel with Dostoievski and separate Proust's intuitivism from
6
TLS; 1 leaf, 1 side; date stamped received 15-10-30; UoR, MS 2444CW 24/9.
1 OnbehalfofChattoandWindus,PrenticehadwrittentoSBon10October1930 accepting Proust for publication and giving the terms; the advance of £20 covered the sale of "about 2000 copies" (UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 130/193).
2 Prentice had explained that certain of The Dolphin Books were printed in two editions, the "cheap one at 2/-, bound in paper boards" and the "Large-Paper edition" published for collectors; he noted, however, that such special editions were not selling well, and as SB's name was "not yet before the collecting and bibliophilic public," he advised publishing Proust only in the 2/- edition (10 October 1930, UoR, MS 2444CW letterbook 130/193).
"Leche-fesses" (arse-lickers).
3 Prentice'sletterhadindicatedthatSBwouldretainUSandtranslationrights, but added thatChatto and Windus would be happy to represent the book in the United States and in serial publication for an agent's fee of 10 percent; Prentice suggested that it not be serialized in England (10 October 1930, UoR, MS 2444CW letterbook 130/194).
52
irrelevancy.
I am afraid the U. S.