She will also be in Ireland with her
daughters
in August.
Samuel Beckett
.
Then came a first collision, the Great War; and since then we have become a little still, a little frightened.
Yet most are drunken with the intoxication ofspeed, though a few are trying to attach the careering world to some subjective absolute of the Beautiful or the Useful (which is like hoping to break one's fall by pulling at one's own garters).
(ArlandUssher.
"Three Essays," Nineteenth Century and After 124.
742 [December 1938] 736-737)
SB comparesUssher's images to those ofFrench politician and writer Edouard Herriot (1872-1957), who studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure. The source ofthe phrase "obsolete vitamins ofromanticism" is not known. SB gaveUssher's essays to George Reavey.
2 Geer van Velde's exhibition at Guggenheim Jeune; it is not known what SB intends by "hand-paintings. "
3 Mrs. Koenig,whoknewUssherinBerlin,hasnotbeenidentified.
4 EdwardMorrison(1897-1968),aphysiciantrainedatTrinityCollegeDublinand practicing at this time in London; his anti-Semitic attitude is evident in a letter to Ussher written on 7 January 1939 (TCD, MS 9037/2597), decryingUssher's intention to
house Jewish refugees in Ireland.
De Hems Pub, 11 Macclesfield Street, Soho, London, called attention to its specialty
with oyster shells on its walls.
Morrison's authorship ofa version ofthe Pentateuch is SB's invention.
Lazarus Aaronson, who was Jewish.
Frederick Augustus Voigt (1892-1957), Editor of Nineteenth Century and After
from 1936 to 1946 and a regular commentator on the BBC. Voigt's anti-Nazi stance was articulated in his book Unto Caesar: On Political Tendencies in Modem Europe (1938).
The London catering firm ofJ. Lyons and Co. was begun by the Salmon and Gluckstein families (Isador Gluckstein, 1851-1920; Montague Gluckstein, 1854-1922; Barney Salmon, 1829-1897; Alfred Salmon, 1868-1928); they collaborated with Joseph Lyons (1847-1917) whose name was adopted for the company.
"Erse" (the Irish language) is linked by Morrison to the spelling of"arse" used by Geoffrey Chaucer.
5 Scottish novelist Charles Hilton Brown (1890-1961), whose short stories were frequently broadcast by the BBC.
6 FrederickVoigt'sWorldAffairstalkontheBBCon9May1938,"TheRomeTalks. " was the first that followed SB's meeting with him on 5 May. It is not known what he may have incorporated in it from SB's conversation, and there is no quotation ofthe comic poem in Gaelic by Brian Merriman (c. 1745-1805). Voight must have declaimed the opening ofThe Midnight Court (Cuirt an Mheadhon Oidhche, 1780) that evening, for it was not part ofhis radio talk.
623
12 May 1938, Ussher
12 May 1938, Ussher
7 Gerard Norman Reddin (1896-1942), a lawyer and playwright, active with the Irish Theatre in Dublin and a founding Director of the Gate Theatre .
Cissie Sinclair and her two youngest daughters were returning from South Africa via London to Dublin. German artist Otto Julius Carl Fleck (1902-1960) studied at the Kassel Academy under Ewald Dulberg and knew the Sinclairs when they lived in Kassel; he later worked as an art restorer with several major collections in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and had an exhibition of his work in 1938 in Johannesburg.
8 There is no evidence that Leventhal was a candidate for Provost at Trinity College Dublin at this time, although he was working editorially with the TCD review Hennathena.
SB's interest in Sade makes this a likely subject; however, Hennathena did not publish an essay by SB. The Marquis de Sade has sometimes been referred to as "le divin marquis. " although here SB, inexplicably, uses the feminine form.
Ethna Maccarthy published the translation ofan untitled poem from the German by Stefan George that begins "Wir schreiten aufund ab im reichen flitter . . . "("Under the beech trees we patrolled . . . "), within the section of poetry entitled "Kottabistae" (Hennathena. 51 [May 1938] 152-153).
9 VoightlaterpublishedthreeessaysbyUssherinNineteenthCenturyandAfter(see n. 1 above).
10 SB's set ofthe complete works ofKant: 5 January 1938, n. 13. "De nobis ipsis silemus" (Of ourselves we are silent). SB quotes from the epigraph to Kant's First Critique of Reason (Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kants Werke III, Kritik der Reinen Vemunft, ed. Albert Garland [Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1922] [unpaginated]).
11 "Ew. Wohlgeb. " ([Ehrwiirden Wohlgeboren]. most noble sir), "ergebenster Diener"(most humble servant).
THOMAS McGRE EVY LONDON
26! ! ! May [1938]
6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
Dear Tom
Forgive my not writing before. It has been people, people,
people, until I wonder what horrible thing has happened to me that I have so little peace any more. Peggy turned up & had a lot to say about some contract with van Velde. Then
624
he turned up, with his account. You know how interested I am in such things. I told Peggy what you thought of the Reavey con tretemps. She seems to have cooled off on the matter. Van Velde does not seem to realise what she has done for him and I must say, after having heard both sides of the business, that he seems to have been rather unwarrantedly avaricious. He is naif enough to think that his market value in London is now considerable & that people like Mesens & Zwemmer have a real interest in his painting. I understand that he wants security to work undis turbed for a year, but to press for 250 guineas instead of 250 pounds is a pettiness that doesn't fit in at all with the rest of him. Anyhow I am tired of the whole thing. 1
I had rather shocking news from Frank about mother. Apparently she was reading in bed by candle-light (it is so pathetic to think of her going back to the candle for no reason that I can imagine except that that was how she read in bed 30 years ago), fell asleep over the book & woke up to find the sheets on fire. She succeeded in putting it out but seems to have burnt her hands badly. Of course she kept it from me. I feel sorry for her often to the point of tears. That is the part that was not analysed away, I suppose.
Jean is due in 5 weeks. 2 Frank writes rapturously of lying about in the garden in the sun among the sweet pea & the roses. Happy youth.
Have seen practically nothing of Brian. The last occasion, about a week ago, I had an appointment to meet him at the Rond Point & found him instead in the bar of the Coupole with McCalmon [for McAlmon] & Co. , excitedly loquacious. He remarked to me when at last I got him away that he found those people "very important", the amalgam of emotion & intel ligence "very important", & appeared not to like it when I said
625
26 May {1938}, McGreevy
26 May {1938}, McGreevy
I could find no trace of either emotion or intelligence. On Tuesday he went down to the Vallee de Chevreuse to stay with
McCalmon. I am sorry to see him moving in that direction. His conversation is derogating to the kind of thing one said at 17, - if I'm not dead in 2 years I'll join the foreign legion, etc. I have forgotten the answers. 3
I have not seen the Duncans at all & never go near the Flore or Zeyer. I suppose I must have them to tea. 4 Helen, Giorgio & Peggy were round to see the place yesterday & we dined at Villa Scheffer & went out afterwards. I haven't seen the parents for over a week. The last time was at a party given by Helen, the
usual crowd plus Nino Frank, who declaimed the Italian trans
lation of Anna Livia. Then all the old songs & the old stupors.
Quel ennui. Helen & Giorgio have not spoken much of you. Last
night he was recalling with brandy melancholy the times in
1928-9 when you were so often round at Rue Huysmanns (for
5
when they get up, keep it on till they go out, & tum it on again when they come in. One morning it waked me at 7 a. m. I must put up with it.
I am very tired & have been feeling the left side a little.
Nothing to worry about but rather discouraging. Nothing in
the way of work but a long poem in French that you would not
6
But you would not agree with me.
I enjoyed our afternoon very much indeed, and have often
9
Huysmans].
A terrible wireless has started next door. They tum it on
likeIfear. GallimardrejectedMurphy. 7
I have read Sartre's Nausee & find it extraordinarily good. 8
thoughtsinceoftheSaliba&theToulouse-Lautrecs. Bymyself I have not the energy to get to these places.
626
26 May {1938], McGreevy
I wrote about a fortnight ago to Pelorson putting off an
engagement & asking him to name any other day. Since then
I have heard nothing from him, except the 5! h no. ofVolontes, 1
considerably more ignominious than any of the former ones. 0
God love thee. Remember ifyou are coming to Paris, & ifit
can be managed without offence to the Lur�ats, there is a wel
11
12
Ever Sam
ALS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; tom left edge, 1938 added in AH; TCD, MS 10402/162. Dating: from birth of Frank Beckett's daughter Caroline on 26June 1938.
1 Because of her interest in SB, Guggenheim agreed to show Geer van Velde's work. The good sales of the paintings in the exhibition were probably due to her generosity: his "paintings were bought up by Peggy under assumed names" (Weld, Peggy, 161).
The contretemps between Reavey and Peggy Guggenheim is undocumented.
Belgian artist, writer, and gallery director Edouard Leon Theodore Mesens (1903-1971) was Director of the London Gallery, 28 Cork Street, from 1938 to 1940; he had been among the organizers of the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London, and he edited London Bulletin (1938-1940). Dutch-born art dealer Anton Zwemmer (1892-1979) was the owner of the fine art bookstore and gallery Zwemmer's; Zwemmer·s became "the rendez-vous of painters, poets, novelists" (Geoffrey Grigson, Anton Zwemmer: Tributes from Some of his Friends on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday [London: privately printed, 1962] 7-8; rpt. Geoffrey Grigson, Recollections: Mainly of Writers & Artists [London: Chatto and Windus / Hogarth Press, 1984] 39).
Geer van Velde's expectation that he would be paid in guineas rather than in pounds meant a difference of 250 shillings; possibly the gallery listed prices for his paintings in guineas, producing this misunderstanding. At that time it was customary in auc tions for a bidder to pay in guineas and for the vendor to be paid in pounds (with the auctioneer or the dealer retaining the difference).
2 Jean and Frank Beckett's daughter Caroline was born on 26June 1938.
3 TheCafeduRondPointisconnectedwiththetheatreofthesamename(onwhat is now Avenue Franklin Roosevelt). Possibly SB meant Cafe de La Rotonde, 105 Boulevard du Montparnasse, which is just across the street from the Coupole, 102 Boulevard du Montparnasse.
627
come for you here.
Love to Hester & Dilly.
26 May {1938}, McGreevy
Robert McA! mon's companions have not been identified; at that time McA! mon lived in Dampierre in the Vallee de Chevreuse, which was then in the department of Seine-et-Oise; since 1974 it is in the department ofYvelines.
4 AlanandBelindaDuncan,whowerewithSBwhenhewasstabbedwhilewalking from the Cafe Zeyer, were also habitues of the Cafe de Flore.
5 Helen and Giorgio Joyce, together with Peggy Guggenheim, visited SB's new apartment. The Joyces' home was on Villa Scheffer.
Nino Frank and Joyce had done the Italian translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" from Finnegans Wake, the section for which SB and Peron had drafted a French translation.
"Que! ennui" (What a bore).
Giorgio Joyce had occupied an apartment in the Rue Huysmans.
6 It is not known to which of the "Poemes 38-39" SB refers, or if he refers to another that was unpublished.
7 SB's news of Gallimard's rejection of Murphy had been received indirectly: a letter from Routledge to George Reavey on 9 May 1938 indicated that Gallimard had sent a letter to SB c/o Routledge in London, which was received on 9 May 1938, opened by mistake, and then sent on to George Reavey (UoR, Routledge 1733). The Gallimard rejection letter has not been found, and it is not known if SB actually saw it.
8 LaNausee(1938;Nausea)byJean-PaulSartre(1905-1980).
9 SB may refer to the topics raised in conversation with McGreevy during the period when he was in London for the opening of the Geer van Velde Exhibition (early May 1938).
There had been a Toulouse-Lautrec Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings from the Albi Museum at the Knoedler Gallery, London, from 19 January to 10 February 1938; McGreevy reviewed it in"Shows in Short," The Studio 115. 541 (April 1938) 223. Although it is not known if McGreevy had been in Paris, an exhibition of French painting from Corot to Toulouse-Lautrec, La Peinture fram;aise en Suisse, opened on 18 May 1938 at the Gazette des Beaux-Arts gallery.
McGreevy's interest in the Sicilian painters Antonio de Saliba (c. 1466 - c. 1535) and Pietro de Saliba (fl. 1497-1530) is not documented. The brothers were part of the workshop of their uncle Antonello da Messina and often copied his work. (Gioacchino Barbera, "The Life and Works of Antonello da Messina" in Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master, ed. Gioacchino Barbera [NewYork: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006] 30). One of the few documented works of Pietro de Saliba is Christ at the Column (Budapest, Szepmiiveszeti Muzeum, 1156); it is a copy of the painting by Antonello da Messina in the Louvre (R. F. 1992-10).
10 Volontes 5 (May 1938) published: Pierre Gueguen,"Interim"; Paul Ibos,"Cribles"; Eugene Jolas, "Teletype"; Henry Miller, "L'Oeil cosmologique"; Georges Pelorson, "Le Theatre et ! es moeurs"; Raymond Queneau, "De Jean Coste et ! 'experience poetique" and"Paisan qui va-t-en ville"; Camille Schuwer,"Sujets de poemes impossibles"; and Dr. Madeleine Violet, "Lumiere et sante: un dispensaire d'hygiene infantile a Menilmontant. "
11 McGreevyoftenstayedwithhisfriendJeanLur�atwhenhevisitedParis. 12 HesterDowdenandherfriendGeraldineCummins(Dilly).
628
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
15/6/38 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
DearTom
Thanks for your letter and Inquirer.
Nothing ofnote here. Aaronson & his girl passed through, on
their way back from Dijon, where he says there are Konrad
Witzes. I always regret not having seen the Museum when I had
the chance, but I was with Frank, who refused to go to Albi
from Toulouse another time! I ate with them near St. Lazare. He
was stupefied by futilities of Wireless Jennings [for Jenkins],
whose article in the last Bulletin was in the best traditionalist
2
passingthecustomsattheGaredesBatignolles. Noduty. Sofar I have no shelves to receive them. The one estimate from a carpenter I got was so high that I couldn't think of giving him the work, & I shall have to try & rig up something myself.
Peggy Guggenheim is here with car but I have not been
seeing her. Nor the van Veldes for that matter. Nor the Joyces.
The last time I dined with the parents, about a fortnight ago,
they had a dreadful Swiss woman, proprietress of the Fouquets
4
After not having seen Brian for some time I dined with him last Monday. He has turned to Gouaches, for which he appears to have some talent. He had had a cheerful letter from Denis. He is giving a cocktail party next Friday in one of the
629
15June 1938, McGreevy
1
tradition.
My books arrived, 3 crates, and I had a tedious afternoon
3
of Zurich, & her son. 11 y a des limites.
[. . . ]
15 June 1938, McGreevy
Americans' flats; I tried to get out of it but fear in the end I shall
5
A subscription list has been opened to buy a picture & present it
to the Jeu de Paume. I noticed that Laugier & Lur�at had both
subscribed. The picture in question is a very fine one, far & away
the best in the show. There is also a very beautiful sculpture in
the little garden in front of the gallery. I met him once a couple
6
offering to go over from mid-July to mid-August & this time suits
her. She has let Cooldrinagh from beginning of September for
4 months & will spend that time I suppose in her little house
7
have to go. He is leaving here at end of month.
I went to Otto Freundlich's exhibition at Jeanne Bucher[']s.
ofmonthsago&foundhimverysympathetic. IwrotetoMother
On the way back I shall bring my bike, 8
at Greystones harbour.
take boat to St. Malo and ride across the peninsula and the Loire
toSt. BrevinwherePeronisspendinghisholidays. Asyoucan imagine I am not anxious to go to Ireland, but as long as mother lives I shall go every year.
I continue to be comfortable here, though the noises - babies & wireless - break my heart some times.
I enclose the last few poems in French. When I have enough
9
offended at my not having contrived to see her.
up in vain!
She will also be in Ireland with her daughters in August.
Love ever Sam
Ascension
a travers la mince cloison ce jour 011 un enfant
630
I thought of taking them to Eluard.
Not a word from Geoffrey. My cousin Sheila wrote not at all
10
I told her I rang
prodigue a sa fa�on
rentra dans sa famille j'entends la voix
elle est emue elle commente la coupe du monde de football
toujours trop jeune
en meme temps par la fenetre ouverte par les airs tout court
sourdement
la houle des fideles
son sang gicla avec abondance
sur les draps sur les pois de senteur sur son mec
de ses doigts infects il ferma les paupieres sur les grands yeux verts etonnes
en re<;:oit-il une colombe aussi souvent que moi
LaMouche
entre le monde et moi la vitre
vide sauf elle
ventre a terre
sanglee dans ses boyaux noirs
antennes affolees ailes liees
pattes crochues bouche su<;:ant a vide sabrant l'azur s'ecrasant contre l'invisible sous mon pouce impuissant elle fait chavirer la mer et le ciel serein
15 June 1938, McGreevy
631
15 June 1938, McGreevy
Priere
musique de ! 'indifference
coeur temps air feu sable
du silence eboulement d'amours couvre leurs voix
et que je ne m'entende plus
me taire
ALS; 2 leaves, 5 sides; TCD, MS 10402/163. Note: although "Ascension," "La Mouche," and "Priere" are included with MS 10402/155, it is unlikely that they were originally enclosed with /155 because the folds on the poems do not match those of the letter. However, the folds and the bum/water damage on left margin of the enclosure do match those on the present MS 10402/163.
1 McGreevy'sletteranditsenclosurehavenotbeenfound.
2 LazarusAaronson'scompanionwasDorothyLewin(n. d. )whobecamehissecond wife.
The paintings in the collection of the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Dijon by Konrad Witz are a double-sided panel from the Altarpiece ofthe Mirror ofSalvation (see 26 March 1937, n. 5): The Emperor Augustus and the Sibyl ofTibur (D 161 A) and Saint Augustin (D 161B).
In 1931 SB had stopped in Dijon with his brother as they traveled back to Paris from the south ofFrance; he wrote to McGreevy in the first week ofAugust: "We went slowly back to Paris by Digne, Grenoble, Annecy, Dijon, Troyes" (after 2 August 1931 - 8 August 1931, TCD, MS 10402/12). By this point in their travels, as SB indicates with his reference to Albi, which is 47 miles northeast ofToulouse, Frank Beckett was not interested in pursuing SB's interests in art.
SB conflates the monthly newspaper entitled The Herbert Jenkins' Wireless [London] with Humphrey Jennings, whose article "The Iron Horse" asserts: "The 'abstract' painter identifies himselfor the person in his picture with a machine"; he concludes: "The point ofcreating pseudomachines was not as an exploitation ofmachinery but as a 'profanation' of'Art' parallel to the engineers' 'profanation' of the primitive 'sacred places' of the earth" (London Bulletin 3 Uune 1938] 22, 27-28).
3 TheGaredesBatignollesatRuedeRomeandRueCardinet,Paris17,nexttothe Gare aux Marchandises, where freight was cleared through Customs.
4 PeggyGuggenheim,GeerandLisivanVelde,JamesandNoraJoyce. TheJoyces' dinner guests from Zurich have not been identified.
"11 y a des limites. " (There are limits. )
5 AsCoffeywrotetoGwyneddReavey,hisfriend(andlaterwife)BridgetRosalind Baynes (1914-1996), a fabric designer, "showed me how to gouache so I did one and to my surprise it is now hanging from a pin in her room" (27 May 1938, TxU).
Denis Devlin's letter to Brian Coffey has not been found. Writing to George Reavey on 27 May 1938, Coffey mentioned plans for "a cocktail party" for his birthday on 8 June, and plans to be in London in July (TxU).
632
20June 1938, Reavey
6 The retrospective exhibition of work by German artist Otto Freundlich• (1878-1943) was organized in honor of his sixtieth birthday at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher-Myrbor (then at 9 ter Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris 6) from 17 June 1938. The subscription was undertaken for Freundlich's 1935 painting Preparatory Cartoonfor the Homage to the Peoples of Color (Centre d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, AM 1353D; the mosaic triptych based on this painting, Homage to the Peoples ofColor [1938], is in the Musee de Pontoise, DF 1968. 1. 41/42/43) (Gerhard Leistner and Thorsten Rodiek, Otto Freundlich: Ein Webereiter der abstrakten Kunst [Regensburg: Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, 1994] 227; Christophe Duvivier, 18 August 2006). The sculpture in the garden was Ascension (1929; Pompidou AM 1982-124).
7 Greystones:3April1938,n. 12.
8 St. MaloonthenortherncoastofBrittany. AlfredPeronandhisfamilywerein
St. Brevin, at the outlet of the Loire River.
9 Thepoemsenclosed,"Ascension,""LaMouche,"and"Priere,"wereamongthose published (with variations) as "Poemes 38-39," Les Temps Modernes, 288-293, and later in Samuel Beckett, Poemes, suivi de mirlitonnades (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1978) 10-12.
SB had translated Paul Eluard's poems for This Quarter; many were reprinted in Reavey's selection ofEluard's poetry, Thoms of Thunder. Eluard was widely published in literary journals such as Mesures, La Nouvelle Revue Franfaise, Soutes, Minotaure, tran sition, Proverbe, and L'Humanite (Violaine Vanoyeke, Paul Eluard: le poete de la liberte [Paris: Editions Julliard, 1995] 400-401).
10 Geoffrey Thompson, whom SB had seen in London in early May; Sheila Page, SB's cousin who lived in Surrey.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
20/6/38 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear Georges
Thanks for letter & 50 fr. Geer had just paid me as it happens.
1
I shall send you a cheque in a few days. 2
Had a pleasant trip to Chartres with Geer, Lisl & Peggy.
All well here, except no work. Only a few more French poems.
When I have enough I thought of sending them to Eluard. Have not submitted Murphy elsewhere since rejection by Gallimard.
633
They are none the less welcome.
Please put me down for 3 ordinary copies of 3rd Person.
3
20 June 1938, Reavey
A MissJulie Reman ofEditorial Department ofLongman Green
& Co. N. Y. C. was over here. I did not see her but it appears that
Miss Reeder ofthe American Library spoke to her a lot about More
Pricks & Murphy, as a result ofwhich she left a message asking me
to send her the books, which I have done. Not that I remember
4
Alan Duncan had a very bad haemorrhage about a fortnight
6
I am going to Dublin to see my mother about the middle of next month & will probably stay a month. Then I may cross to St. Malo with a bike and spend a week or so in Brittany with Peron. Will you be here before going south in September? I hope so.
If this is not too far from Montparnasse and you don't mind the glorious absence of telephone, I hope you will stay
7
Ever Sam
My poem in transition was all wrong also. Also the article on Dennis [for Denis]. 8
ALS; 1 leaf (folded), 3 sides; enclosure, order form for Third Person; TxU. 1 Reavey'slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound.
2 Brian Coffey, Third Person, Europa Poets 7 (London: Europa Press, 1938). SB's enclosed order form for Coffey's collection of poems is dated 21 June 1938.
3 Geer and Lisi van Velde, Peggy Guggenheim, and SB took a midnight drive to Chartres to see the Cathedral by moonlight (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 264, 674).
4 Julie Reman (n. d. ) was with New York publisher Longman, Green and Company. Murphy had not been submitted to the firm previously.
634
whether Murphy has already been rejected by her firm or not.
No further news ofSade. 5
ago-butnotfromlungsitappears. HewasinAmericanhospi tal for X Ray, ofwhich he had not result when I last saw him. In the meantime he is up & about & soaking as usual.
with me.
Love to Gwynedd,
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Dorothy M. Reeder (n. d. ), who had worked with the American Library in Paris since 1929, was its Director from 1937 through May 1941; Brian Coffey mentions to George Reavey that she was being helpful in suggesting outlets for his book:
Miss Reeder says that I should send order forms to all the smaller american[sic] libraries and has promised to let me have the list ofthem[. . . ] Miss Reeder will herself place a lot ofcopies once she sees the book. She has read the MS and loves it. But she wants to place the book in the Library and she would place any other Europa books there you cared to send her. Or rather let me, say, give them to her from you (ifyou do not know her) and I'll ask her to put them on her shelves. (23 June 1938, TxU)
5 After SB's provisional acceptance ofJack Kahane's proposal to translate Sade's Les 120Joumees de Sodome, there had been no further word from Kahane (see 8 March 1938, n. 3).
6 AlanDuncansufferedfromtheeffectsofgassinginWorldWarI.
7 SBreferstohisnewapartmentat6RuedesFavorites.
8 SB refers to "Ooftish," which was originally entitled "Whiting" (see 14 [August 1937] to Cissie Sinclair and 14 August 1937 to Thomas McGreevy); it was published in transition 27 (April-May 1938) 33.
No manuscript ofSB's review "Denis Devlin" has been found to compare with that published in transition.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
Thursday [4 August 1938]
Cooldrinagh [Foxrock, Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
Many thanks for your letter. It seems a long time since I
wrote to you.
I got your message all right in Paris, but only about 15 mins.
before your train was due to leave. I'm glad you had a lively time of sorts down south & hope you are feeling the benefit now of
1
no more so than usual. She has let Cooldrinagh from September to December and will spend those months in the little house she has at Greystones. Then if she finds that she does not miss Cooldrinagh too much she will probably sell it.
635
the change.
I found everything as usual here. Mother very nervous, but
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Frank Jean & infant all well. I spend [for spent] the last week-end with them in South Donegal, a place called Rosbeg on the Atlantic, and enjoyed the walking & bathing. 2 Jean is very heavy after the birth and not feeding the baby herself doesn't help to get back to normal.
Brian is over & I was speaking to him to-day on the phone.
He announces he is spending 2 months in Ireland - "to work".
The thin edge of the axe. I lunch with him to-morrow at the
3
has a magnificent new picture - "Helen" - launching the ships,
with a kneeling figure superbly drawn that made me associate at
once with Bassano, not that the figure resembles any of his
particularly, but because of same extraordinary tenderness &
distinction of handling. The sky and sea & ships are really ter
rific, Delacroix plus substance, depth and a courage more than
of conviction, of certainty, absolutely natural & unrhetorical.
4
I shall be leaving for home in a fortnight or 3 weeks. My idea originally was to take the bicycle with me & join Peron in Brittany, taking boat from Southampton to St. Malo, but I don't expect to have either the money or the energy. I haven't even a
636
Bail[e]y.
I called on the Yeatses this afternoon & saw them both. He
Iwasreallyknockedallofaheap. Heisanxiousforanexhibi tion in England and was interested when I mentioned the Guggenheim Gallery. He spoke very warmly of your essay, as something that stood on its own feet as a piece of aesthetics and required no profuse illustration from him. I was sorry to hear that Routledge had not taken it up. 5 Going out together to buy the evening paper & taking leave of me on the step he said "It must be 6 or 7 years since I first walked out of the house with you to buy the evening paper and 6 or 7 years should mean a lot to me, but they don't seem to & it doesn't matter. "
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
return ticket to London. In any case I shall pause there a couple
6
in the bowdlerized Larousse edition, which bored me, and
Tristram Shandy, which irritated me in spite of its qualities.
Dr Johnson is back in my consciousness & I hope to settle down
to it when I get back to Paris. It appears Seumas O'Sullivan is
7
Cissie & family are back. She rather worse than when she
left, Sonny apparently well & working resentfully for Little
8 Go. [•••]
I shall be glad to get back to . . unclenchedness. Sinclair is not here & there have been no repercussions ofthe case so far,
9
rather like the learned Swan of Streatham I imagine, with a novel coming from Houghton Mifflin in the autumn entitled Mt. Venus. 10 All the old people & the old places, they make me feel like an amphibian detained forcibly on dry land, very very dry land.
Mother brought me to-day from the Horse Show the Abbey Theatre's festival pamphlet with Introduction by Lennox R. and Lafayettes of all the heroes from W. B. to A. E. Malone. Or do these remain the correct limiting terms? I cannot easily believe there is nothing lower than A. E. Malone. Series of excursions and lectures are announced, the valley ofthe Boyne & Higgins on Yeats etc. 11
I had lunch with Geoffrey & Ursula on the way through.
He is working from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. , with short intervals to
snatch food, and complains of poverty. He & Bion take piano
ofdays on the way through.
I seem to have read nothing for months but Vigny's Journal
collaborating with Gogarty on a biography ofGoldsmith.
but it is the old toxins & the old day soil.
Mary Manning is here on holiday, grown tedious & precious,
lessons.
12
637
Thursday [4 August 1938}, McGreevy
I am very sorry to hear about Raven's sister. Give him my
13
ALS; 2 leaves, 6 sides; TCD MS 10402/166. Dating: dated in AH as "5-8-38," but Thursday was 4 August 1938. In SB to George Reavey, 5 August 1938, SB reports that he is "lunching with Brian to-day," that he saw Jack [Yeats] the day before, and that he hopes to attend the first night ofYeats's Purgatory at the Abbey on the next Wednesday (TxU). Purgatory opened Wednesday. 10 August 1938; the Abbey Festival program lists an excursion to the Boyne Valley on 7 August 1938; the Horse Show was held from 2 to 6 August 1938.
1 SBhadplannedtoleaveParison19July,stoppinginLondononhiswaytoDublin; McGreevy may have passed through Paris before SB left (SB to McGreevy, 13 July 1938, TCD, MS 10402/164). On 20 July 1938, McGreevy sent a postcard to George Reavey from Cavaliere, Var (TxU).
2 SBaccompaniedFrankandJeanBeckett,whosedaughterCarolinewasbornon 26 June 1938, on a weekend in Rosbeg, Co. Donegal, a resort on Dawros Bay.
3 Brian Coffey spent August and September in Ireland prior to his wedding in London in October; in a letter to George Reavey on 2 August 1938, Coffey presented plans to circulate his book among patrons and booksellers (TxU). The Bailey: 21 February 1938, n. 8.
4 JackYeatsandhiswifeCottie. InYeats'spaintingHelen(Pyle499;TelAvivMuseum 2372). Helen stands on a quay as if launching a ship, while "a figure kneeling beside her writes on a wax tablet placed on the ground" (Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings, I, 455). SB compares Helen to paintings by Jacopo Bassano and by Eugene Delacroix (ne Ferdinand-Eugene-Victor Delacroix, 1798-1863).
5 PeggyGuggenheim'smemoirgivestheimpressionthatSBhadalreadysuggested an exhibition ofYeats's painting at Guggenheim Jeune, but thatYeats did not think his work was appropriate for her gallery (Guggenheim, Out ofthis Century: Confessions ofan Art Addict, 163-164).
McGreevy's Jack B. Yeats had not been accepted by Routledge.
6 Withregardtotheseplans:15June1938,n. 8.
7 Alfred de Vigny, Journal d'un poete, ed. Leon-Adolphe Gauthier-Ferrieres (Paris: Bibliotheque Larousse, 1913; rpt. 1919, 1920); the Journal was composed of extracts from the personal papers of Comte Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863) originally published by Louis Ratisbonne (1867).
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions ofTristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767).
SB's long-considered play on Samuel Johnson, extant only as the fragment "Human Wishes. "
638
love, & to Hester & to Dilly. God's blessing
Ever Sam
5 August 1938, Reavey Although there are notes in the SeumasO'Sullivan papers on the subject ofOliver
Goldsmith, no such biography was published (TCD, MS 4056, 4260-4299, 4630-4649).
8 Cissie Sinclair had returned from South Africa in June. Morris Sinclair was resuming his studies at Trinity College Dublin. "Little Go" was the unofficial name of the Final Freshman examination at TCD.
9 SB refers to Harry Sinclair, in whose libel suit against Gogarty SB testified in November 1937.
10 Poet, biographer, and critic Anna Seward was a member of Lichfield's intellec tual circle and known as the "Swan of Lichfield" (Norma Clarke, "Anna Seward: Swan, Duckling or Goose? " New Rambler E. 7 [2003/2004] 54). SB transfers the appellation to Hester Thrale, whose home was in Streatham, and thence to Mary Manning Howe, whose novel Mount Venus was published in autumn 1938.
11 The annual Dublin Horse Show is a major social event of early August. The Abbey Theatre Festival (6 to 20 August 1938) included a lecture on 8 August by drama critic and journalist Andrew E. Malone (ne Laurence Patrick Byrne. 1888-1939) on the early history of the Abbey Theatre, a lecture on 11 August by F. R. Higgins on W. B. Yeats, as well as productions of several plays by Yeats: Cathleen ni Houlihan, Purgatory, and On Baile's Strand. The photographic studio Lafayette, 32 Westmoreland Street, Dublin, was credited with several portraits in the program, for which Lennox Robinson wrote the introduction ("Abbey Theatre Festival Souvenir" [19381).
SB comparesUssher's images to those ofFrench politician and writer Edouard Herriot (1872-1957), who studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure. The source ofthe phrase "obsolete vitamins ofromanticism" is not known. SB gaveUssher's essays to George Reavey.
2 Geer van Velde's exhibition at Guggenheim Jeune; it is not known what SB intends by "hand-paintings. "
3 Mrs. Koenig,whoknewUssherinBerlin,hasnotbeenidentified.
4 EdwardMorrison(1897-1968),aphysiciantrainedatTrinityCollegeDublinand practicing at this time in London; his anti-Semitic attitude is evident in a letter to Ussher written on 7 January 1939 (TCD, MS 9037/2597), decryingUssher's intention to
house Jewish refugees in Ireland.
De Hems Pub, 11 Macclesfield Street, Soho, London, called attention to its specialty
with oyster shells on its walls.
Morrison's authorship ofa version ofthe Pentateuch is SB's invention.
Lazarus Aaronson, who was Jewish.
Frederick Augustus Voigt (1892-1957), Editor of Nineteenth Century and After
from 1936 to 1946 and a regular commentator on the BBC. Voigt's anti-Nazi stance was articulated in his book Unto Caesar: On Political Tendencies in Modem Europe (1938).
The London catering firm ofJ. Lyons and Co. was begun by the Salmon and Gluckstein families (Isador Gluckstein, 1851-1920; Montague Gluckstein, 1854-1922; Barney Salmon, 1829-1897; Alfred Salmon, 1868-1928); they collaborated with Joseph Lyons (1847-1917) whose name was adopted for the company.
"Erse" (the Irish language) is linked by Morrison to the spelling of"arse" used by Geoffrey Chaucer.
5 Scottish novelist Charles Hilton Brown (1890-1961), whose short stories were frequently broadcast by the BBC.
6 FrederickVoigt'sWorldAffairstalkontheBBCon9May1938,"TheRomeTalks. " was the first that followed SB's meeting with him on 5 May. It is not known what he may have incorporated in it from SB's conversation, and there is no quotation ofthe comic poem in Gaelic by Brian Merriman (c. 1745-1805). Voight must have declaimed the opening ofThe Midnight Court (Cuirt an Mheadhon Oidhche, 1780) that evening, for it was not part ofhis radio talk.
623
12 May 1938, Ussher
12 May 1938, Ussher
7 Gerard Norman Reddin (1896-1942), a lawyer and playwright, active with the Irish Theatre in Dublin and a founding Director of the Gate Theatre .
Cissie Sinclair and her two youngest daughters were returning from South Africa via London to Dublin. German artist Otto Julius Carl Fleck (1902-1960) studied at the Kassel Academy under Ewald Dulberg and knew the Sinclairs when they lived in Kassel; he later worked as an art restorer with several major collections in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and had an exhibition of his work in 1938 in Johannesburg.
8 There is no evidence that Leventhal was a candidate for Provost at Trinity College Dublin at this time, although he was working editorially with the TCD review Hennathena.
SB's interest in Sade makes this a likely subject; however, Hennathena did not publish an essay by SB. The Marquis de Sade has sometimes been referred to as "le divin marquis. " although here SB, inexplicably, uses the feminine form.
Ethna Maccarthy published the translation ofan untitled poem from the German by Stefan George that begins "Wir schreiten aufund ab im reichen flitter . . . "("Under the beech trees we patrolled . . . "), within the section of poetry entitled "Kottabistae" (Hennathena. 51 [May 1938] 152-153).
9 VoightlaterpublishedthreeessaysbyUssherinNineteenthCenturyandAfter(see n. 1 above).
10 SB's set ofthe complete works ofKant: 5 January 1938, n. 13. "De nobis ipsis silemus" (Of ourselves we are silent). SB quotes from the epigraph to Kant's First Critique of Reason (Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kants Werke III, Kritik der Reinen Vemunft, ed. Albert Garland [Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1922] [unpaginated]).
11 "Ew. Wohlgeb. " ([Ehrwiirden Wohlgeboren]. most noble sir), "ergebenster Diener"(most humble servant).
THOMAS McGRE EVY LONDON
26! ! ! May [1938]
6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
Dear Tom
Forgive my not writing before. It has been people, people,
people, until I wonder what horrible thing has happened to me that I have so little peace any more. Peggy turned up & had a lot to say about some contract with van Velde. Then
624
he turned up, with his account. You know how interested I am in such things. I told Peggy what you thought of the Reavey con tretemps. She seems to have cooled off on the matter. Van Velde does not seem to realise what she has done for him and I must say, after having heard both sides of the business, that he seems to have been rather unwarrantedly avaricious. He is naif enough to think that his market value in London is now considerable & that people like Mesens & Zwemmer have a real interest in his painting. I understand that he wants security to work undis turbed for a year, but to press for 250 guineas instead of 250 pounds is a pettiness that doesn't fit in at all with the rest of him. Anyhow I am tired of the whole thing. 1
I had rather shocking news from Frank about mother. Apparently she was reading in bed by candle-light (it is so pathetic to think of her going back to the candle for no reason that I can imagine except that that was how she read in bed 30 years ago), fell asleep over the book & woke up to find the sheets on fire. She succeeded in putting it out but seems to have burnt her hands badly. Of course she kept it from me. I feel sorry for her often to the point of tears. That is the part that was not analysed away, I suppose.
Jean is due in 5 weeks. 2 Frank writes rapturously of lying about in the garden in the sun among the sweet pea & the roses. Happy youth.
Have seen practically nothing of Brian. The last occasion, about a week ago, I had an appointment to meet him at the Rond Point & found him instead in the bar of the Coupole with McCalmon [for McAlmon] & Co. , excitedly loquacious. He remarked to me when at last I got him away that he found those people "very important", the amalgam of emotion & intel ligence "very important", & appeared not to like it when I said
625
26 May {1938}, McGreevy
26 May {1938}, McGreevy
I could find no trace of either emotion or intelligence. On Tuesday he went down to the Vallee de Chevreuse to stay with
McCalmon. I am sorry to see him moving in that direction. His conversation is derogating to the kind of thing one said at 17, - if I'm not dead in 2 years I'll join the foreign legion, etc. I have forgotten the answers. 3
I have not seen the Duncans at all & never go near the Flore or Zeyer. I suppose I must have them to tea. 4 Helen, Giorgio & Peggy were round to see the place yesterday & we dined at Villa Scheffer & went out afterwards. I haven't seen the parents for over a week. The last time was at a party given by Helen, the
usual crowd plus Nino Frank, who declaimed the Italian trans
lation of Anna Livia. Then all the old songs & the old stupors.
Quel ennui. Helen & Giorgio have not spoken much of you. Last
night he was recalling with brandy melancholy the times in
1928-9 when you were so often round at Rue Huysmanns (for
5
when they get up, keep it on till they go out, & tum it on again when they come in. One morning it waked me at 7 a. m. I must put up with it.
I am very tired & have been feeling the left side a little.
Nothing to worry about but rather discouraging. Nothing in
the way of work but a long poem in French that you would not
6
But you would not agree with me.
I enjoyed our afternoon very much indeed, and have often
9
Huysmans].
A terrible wireless has started next door. They tum it on
likeIfear. GallimardrejectedMurphy. 7
I have read Sartre's Nausee & find it extraordinarily good. 8
thoughtsinceoftheSaliba&theToulouse-Lautrecs. Bymyself I have not the energy to get to these places.
626
26 May {1938], McGreevy
I wrote about a fortnight ago to Pelorson putting off an
engagement & asking him to name any other day. Since then
I have heard nothing from him, except the 5! h no. ofVolontes, 1
considerably more ignominious than any of the former ones. 0
God love thee. Remember ifyou are coming to Paris, & ifit
can be managed without offence to the Lur�ats, there is a wel
11
12
Ever Sam
ALS; 4 leaves, 4 sides; tom left edge, 1938 added in AH; TCD, MS 10402/162. Dating: from birth of Frank Beckett's daughter Caroline on 26June 1938.
1 Because of her interest in SB, Guggenheim agreed to show Geer van Velde's work. The good sales of the paintings in the exhibition were probably due to her generosity: his "paintings were bought up by Peggy under assumed names" (Weld, Peggy, 161).
The contretemps between Reavey and Peggy Guggenheim is undocumented.
Belgian artist, writer, and gallery director Edouard Leon Theodore Mesens (1903-1971) was Director of the London Gallery, 28 Cork Street, from 1938 to 1940; he had been among the organizers of the 1936 Surrealist Exhibition in London, and he edited London Bulletin (1938-1940). Dutch-born art dealer Anton Zwemmer (1892-1979) was the owner of the fine art bookstore and gallery Zwemmer's; Zwemmer·s became "the rendez-vous of painters, poets, novelists" (Geoffrey Grigson, Anton Zwemmer: Tributes from Some of his Friends on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday [London: privately printed, 1962] 7-8; rpt. Geoffrey Grigson, Recollections: Mainly of Writers & Artists [London: Chatto and Windus / Hogarth Press, 1984] 39).
Geer van Velde's expectation that he would be paid in guineas rather than in pounds meant a difference of 250 shillings; possibly the gallery listed prices for his paintings in guineas, producing this misunderstanding. At that time it was customary in auc tions for a bidder to pay in guineas and for the vendor to be paid in pounds (with the auctioneer or the dealer retaining the difference).
2 Jean and Frank Beckett's daughter Caroline was born on 26June 1938.
3 TheCafeduRondPointisconnectedwiththetheatreofthesamename(onwhat is now Avenue Franklin Roosevelt). Possibly SB meant Cafe de La Rotonde, 105 Boulevard du Montparnasse, which is just across the street from the Coupole, 102 Boulevard du Montparnasse.
627
come for you here.
Love to Hester & Dilly.
26 May {1938}, McGreevy
Robert McA! mon's companions have not been identified; at that time McA! mon lived in Dampierre in the Vallee de Chevreuse, which was then in the department of Seine-et-Oise; since 1974 it is in the department ofYvelines.
4 AlanandBelindaDuncan,whowerewithSBwhenhewasstabbedwhilewalking from the Cafe Zeyer, were also habitues of the Cafe de Flore.
5 Helen and Giorgio Joyce, together with Peggy Guggenheim, visited SB's new apartment. The Joyces' home was on Villa Scheffer.
Nino Frank and Joyce had done the Italian translation of"Anna Livia Plurabelle" from Finnegans Wake, the section for which SB and Peron had drafted a French translation.
"Que! ennui" (What a bore).
Giorgio Joyce had occupied an apartment in the Rue Huysmans.
6 It is not known to which of the "Poemes 38-39" SB refers, or if he refers to another that was unpublished.
7 SB's news of Gallimard's rejection of Murphy had been received indirectly: a letter from Routledge to George Reavey on 9 May 1938 indicated that Gallimard had sent a letter to SB c/o Routledge in London, which was received on 9 May 1938, opened by mistake, and then sent on to George Reavey (UoR, Routledge 1733). The Gallimard rejection letter has not been found, and it is not known if SB actually saw it.
8 LaNausee(1938;Nausea)byJean-PaulSartre(1905-1980).
9 SB may refer to the topics raised in conversation with McGreevy during the period when he was in London for the opening of the Geer van Velde Exhibition (early May 1938).
There had been a Toulouse-Lautrec Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings from the Albi Museum at the Knoedler Gallery, London, from 19 January to 10 February 1938; McGreevy reviewed it in"Shows in Short," The Studio 115. 541 (April 1938) 223. Although it is not known if McGreevy had been in Paris, an exhibition of French painting from Corot to Toulouse-Lautrec, La Peinture fram;aise en Suisse, opened on 18 May 1938 at the Gazette des Beaux-Arts gallery.
McGreevy's interest in the Sicilian painters Antonio de Saliba (c. 1466 - c. 1535) and Pietro de Saliba (fl. 1497-1530) is not documented. The brothers were part of the workshop of their uncle Antonello da Messina and often copied his work. (Gioacchino Barbera, "The Life and Works of Antonello da Messina" in Antonello da Messina: Sicily's Renaissance Master, ed. Gioacchino Barbera [NewYork: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006] 30). One of the few documented works of Pietro de Saliba is Christ at the Column (Budapest, Szepmiiveszeti Muzeum, 1156); it is a copy of the painting by Antonello da Messina in the Louvre (R. F. 1992-10).
10 Volontes 5 (May 1938) published: Pierre Gueguen,"Interim"; Paul Ibos,"Cribles"; Eugene Jolas, "Teletype"; Henry Miller, "L'Oeil cosmologique"; Georges Pelorson, "Le Theatre et ! es moeurs"; Raymond Queneau, "De Jean Coste et ! 'experience poetique" and"Paisan qui va-t-en ville"; Camille Schuwer,"Sujets de poemes impossibles"; and Dr. Madeleine Violet, "Lumiere et sante: un dispensaire d'hygiene infantile a Menilmontant. "
11 McGreevyoftenstayedwithhisfriendJeanLur�atwhenhevisitedParis. 12 HesterDowdenandherfriendGeraldineCummins(Dilly).
628
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
15/6/38 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
DearTom
Thanks for your letter and Inquirer.
Nothing ofnote here. Aaronson & his girl passed through, on
their way back from Dijon, where he says there are Konrad
Witzes. I always regret not having seen the Museum when I had
the chance, but I was with Frank, who refused to go to Albi
from Toulouse another time! I ate with them near St. Lazare. He
was stupefied by futilities of Wireless Jennings [for Jenkins],
whose article in the last Bulletin was in the best traditionalist
2
passingthecustomsattheGaredesBatignolles. Noduty. Sofar I have no shelves to receive them. The one estimate from a carpenter I got was so high that I couldn't think of giving him the work, & I shall have to try & rig up something myself.
Peggy Guggenheim is here with car but I have not been
seeing her. Nor the van Veldes for that matter. Nor the Joyces.
The last time I dined with the parents, about a fortnight ago,
they had a dreadful Swiss woman, proprietress of the Fouquets
4
After not having seen Brian for some time I dined with him last Monday. He has turned to Gouaches, for which he appears to have some talent. He had had a cheerful letter from Denis. He is giving a cocktail party next Friday in one of the
629
15June 1938, McGreevy
1
tradition.
My books arrived, 3 crates, and I had a tedious afternoon
3
of Zurich, & her son. 11 y a des limites.
[. . . ]
15 June 1938, McGreevy
Americans' flats; I tried to get out of it but fear in the end I shall
5
A subscription list has been opened to buy a picture & present it
to the Jeu de Paume. I noticed that Laugier & Lur�at had both
subscribed. The picture in question is a very fine one, far & away
the best in the show. There is also a very beautiful sculpture in
the little garden in front of the gallery. I met him once a couple
6
offering to go over from mid-July to mid-August & this time suits
her. She has let Cooldrinagh from beginning of September for
4 months & will spend that time I suppose in her little house
7
have to go. He is leaving here at end of month.
I went to Otto Freundlich's exhibition at Jeanne Bucher[']s.
ofmonthsago&foundhimverysympathetic. IwrotetoMother
On the way back I shall bring my bike, 8
at Greystones harbour.
take boat to St. Malo and ride across the peninsula and the Loire
toSt. BrevinwherePeronisspendinghisholidays. Asyoucan imagine I am not anxious to go to Ireland, but as long as mother lives I shall go every year.
I continue to be comfortable here, though the noises - babies & wireless - break my heart some times.
I enclose the last few poems in French. When I have enough
9
offended at my not having contrived to see her.
up in vain!
She will also be in Ireland with her daughters in August.
Love ever Sam
Ascension
a travers la mince cloison ce jour 011 un enfant
630
I thought of taking them to Eluard.
Not a word from Geoffrey. My cousin Sheila wrote not at all
10
I told her I rang
prodigue a sa fa�on
rentra dans sa famille j'entends la voix
elle est emue elle commente la coupe du monde de football
toujours trop jeune
en meme temps par la fenetre ouverte par les airs tout court
sourdement
la houle des fideles
son sang gicla avec abondance
sur les draps sur les pois de senteur sur son mec
de ses doigts infects il ferma les paupieres sur les grands yeux verts etonnes
en re<;:oit-il une colombe aussi souvent que moi
LaMouche
entre le monde et moi la vitre
vide sauf elle
ventre a terre
sanglee dans ses boyaux noirs
antennes affolees ailes liees
pattes crochues bouche su<;:ant a vide sabrant l'azur s'ecrasant contre l'invisible sous mon pouce impuissant elle fait chavirer la mer et le ciel serein
15 June 1938, McGreevy
631
15 June 1938, McGreevy
Priere
musique de ! 'indifference
coeur temps air feu sable
du silence eboulement d'amours couvre leurs voix
et que je ne m'entende plus
me taire
ALS; 2 leaves, 5 sides; TCD, MS 10402/163. Note: although "Ascension," "La Mouche," and "Priere" are included with MS 10402/155, it is unlikely that they were originally enclosed with /155 because the folds on the poems do not match those of the letter. However, the folds and the bum/water damage on left margin of the enclosure do match those on the present MS 10402/163.
1 McGreevy'sletteranditsenclosurehavenotbeenfound.
2 LazarusAaronson'scompanionwasDorothyLewin(n. d. )whobecamehissecond wife.
The paintings in the collection of the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Dijon by Konrad Witz are a double-sided panel from the Altarpiece ofthe Mirror ofSalvation (see 26 March 1937, n. 5): The Emperor Augustus and the Sibyl ofTibur (D 161 A) and Saint Augustin (D 161B).
In 1931 SB had stopped in Dijon with his brother as they traveled back to Paris from the south ofFrance; he wrote to McGreevy in the first week ofAugust: "We went slowly back to Paris by Digne, Grenoble, Annecy, Dijon, Troyes" (after 2 August 1931 - 8 August 1931, TCD, MS 10402/12). By this point in their travels, as SB indicates with his reference to Albi, which is 47 miles northeast ofToulouse, Frank Beckett was not interested in pursuing SB's interests in art.
SB conflates the monthly newspaper entitled The Herbert Jenkins' Wireless [London] with Humphrey Jennings, whose article "The Iron Horse" asserts: "The 'abstract' painter identifies himselfor the person in his picture with a machine"; he concludes: "The point ofcreating pseudomachines was not as an exploitation ofmachinery but as a 'profanation' of'Art' parallel to the engineers' 'profanation' of the primitive 'sacred places' of the earth" (London Bulletin 3 Uune 1938] 22, 27-28).
3 TheGaredesBatignollesatRuedeRomeandRueCardinet,Paris17,nexttothe Gare aux Marchandises, where freight was cleared through Customs.
4 PeggyGuggenheim,GeerandLisivanVelde,JamesandNoraJoyce. TheJoyces' dinner guests from Zurich have not been identified.
"11 y a des limites. " (There are limits. )
5 AsCoffeywrotetoGwyneddReavey,hisfriend(andlaterwife)BridgetRosalind Baynes (1914-1996), a fabric designer, "showed me how to gouache so I did one and to my surprise it is now hanging from a pin in her room" (27 May 1938, TxU).
Denis Devlin's letter to Brian Coffey has not been found. Writing to George Reavey on 27 May 1938, Coffey mentioned plans for "a cocktail party" for his birthday on 8 June, and plans to be in London in July (TxU).
632
20June 1938, Reavey
6 The retrospective exhibition of work by German artist Otto Freundlich• (1878-1943) was organized in honor of his sixtieth birthday at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher-Myrbor (then at 9 ter Boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris 6) from 17 June 1938. The subscription was undertaken for Freundlich's 1935 painting Preparatory Cartoonfor the Homage to the Peoples of Color (Centre d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, AM 1353D; the mosaic triptych based on this painting, Homage to the Peoples ofColor [1938], is in the Musee de Pontoise, DF 1968. 1. 41/42/43) (Gerhard Leistner and Thorsten Rodiek, Otto Freundlich: Ein Webereiter der abstrakten Kunst [Regensburg: Museum Ostdeutsche Galerie, 1994] 227; Christophe Duvivier, 18 August 2006). The sculpture in the garden was Ascension (1929; Pompidou AM 1982-124).
7 Greystones:3April1938,n. 12.
8 St. MaloonthenortherncoastofBrittany. AlfredPeronandhisfamilywerein
St. Brevin, at the outlet of the Loire River.
9 Thepoemsenclosed,"Ascension,""LaMouche,"and"Priere,"wereamongthose published (with variations) as "Poemes 38-39," Les Temps Modernes, 288-293, and later in Samuel Beckett, Poemes, suivi de mirlitonnades (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1978) 10-12.
SB had translated Paul Eluard's poems for This Quarter; many were reprinted in Reavey's selection ofEluard's poetry, Thoms of Thunder. Eluard was widely published in literary journals such as Mesures, La Nouvelle Revue Franfaise, Soutes, Minotaure, tran sition, Proverbe, and L'Humanite (Violaine Vanoyeke, Paul Eluard: le poete de la liberte [Paris: Editions Julliard, 1995] 400-401).
10 Geoffrey Thompson, whom SB had seen in London in early May; Sheila Page, SB's cousin who lived in Surrey.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
20/6/38 6 Rue des Favorites Paris 15me
dear Georges
Thanks for letter & 50 fr. Geer had just paid me as it happens.
1
I shall send you a cheque in a few days. 2
Had a pleasant trip to Chartres with Geer, Lisl & Peggy.
All well here, except no work. Only a few more French poems.
When I have enough I thought of sending them to Eluard. Have not submitted Murphy elsewhere since rejection by Gallimard.
633
They are none the less welcome.
Please put me down for 3 ordinary copies of 3rd Person.
3
20 June 1938, Reavey
A MissJulie Reman ofEditorial Department ofLongman Green
& Co. N. Y. C. was over here. I did not see her but it appears that
Miss Reeder ofthe American Library spoke to her a lot about More
Pricks & Murphy, as a result ofwhich she left a message asking me
to send her the books, which I have done. Not that I remember
4
Alan Duncan had a very bad haemorrhage about a fortnight
6
I am going to Dublin to see my mother about the middle of next month & will probably stay a month. Then I may cross to St. Malo with a bike and spend a week or so in Brittany with Peron. Will you be here before going south in September? I hope so.
If this is not too far from Montparnasse and you don't mind the glorious absence of telephone, I hope you will stay
7
Ever Sam
My poem in transition was all wrong also. Also the article on Dennis [for Denis]. 8
ALS; 1 leaf (folded), 3 sides; enclosure, order form for Third Person; TxU. 1 Reavey'slettertoSBhasnotbeenfound.
2 Brian Coffey, Third Person, Europa Poets 7 (London: Europa Press, 1938). SB's enclosed order form for Coffey's collection of poems is dated 21 June 1938.
3 Geer and Lisi van Velde, Peggy Guggenheim, and SB took a midnight drive to Chartres to see the Cathedral by moonlight (see Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 264, 674).
4 Julie Reman (n. d. ) was with New York publisher Longman, Green and Company. Murphy had not been submitted to the firm previously.
634
whether Murphy has already been rejected by her firm or not.
No further news ofSade. 5
ago-butnotfromlungsitappears. HewasinAmericanhospi tal for X Ray, ofwhich he had not result when I last saw him. In the meantime he is up & about & soaking as usual.
with me.
Love to Gwynedd,
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Dorothy M. Reeder (n. d. ), who had worked with the American Library in Paris since 1929, was its Director from 1937 through May 1941; Brian Coffey mentions to George Reavey that she was being helpful in suggesting outlets for his book:
Miss Reeder says that I should send order forms to all the smaller american[sic] libraries and has promised to let me have the list ofthem[. . . ] Miss Reeder will herself place a lot ofcopies once she sees the book. She has read the MS and loves it. But she wants to place the book in the Library and she would place any other Europa books there you cared to send her. Or rather let me, say, give them to her from you (ifyou do not know her) and I'll ask her to put them on her shelves. (23 June 1938, TxU)
5 After SB's provisional acceptance ofJack Kahane's proposal to translate Sade's Les 120Joumees de Sodome, there had been no further word from Kahane (see 8 March 1938, n. 3).
6 AlanDuncansufferedfromtheeffectsofgassinginWorldWarI.
7 SBreferstohisnewapartmentat6RuedesFavorites.
8 SB refers to "Ooftish," which was originally entitled "Whiting" (see 14 [August 1937] to Cissie Sinclair and 14 August 1937 to Thomas McGreevy); it was published in transition 27 (April-May 1938) 33.
No manuscript ofSB's review "Denis Devlin" has been found to compare with that published in transition.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
Thursday [4 August 1938]
Cooldrinagh [Foxrock, Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
Many thanks for your letter. It seems a long time since I
wrote to you.
I got your message all right in Paris, but only about 15 mins.
before your train was due to leave. I'm glad you had a lively time of sorts down south & hope you are feeling the benefit now of
1
no more so than usual. She has let Cooldrinagh from September to December and will spend those months in the little house she has at Greystones. Then if she finds that she does not miss Cooldrinagh too much she will probably sell it.
635
the change.
I found everything as usual here. Mother very nervous, but
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
Frank Jean & infant all well. I spend [for spent] the last week-end with them in South Donegal, a place called Rosbeg on the Atlantic, and enjoyed the walking & bathing. 2 Jean is very heavy after the birth and not feeding the baby herself doesn't help to get back to normal.
Brian is over & I was speaking to him to-day on the phone.
He announces he is spending 2 months in Ireland - "to work".
The thin edge of the axe. I lunch with him to-morrow at the
3
has a magnificent new picture - "Helen" - launching the ships,
with a kneeling figure superbly drawn that made me associate at
once with Bassano, not that the figure resembles any of his
particularly, but because of same extraordinary tenderness &
distinction of handling. The sky and sea & ships are really ter
rific, Delacroix plus substance, depth and a courage more than
of conviction, of certainty, absolutely natural & unrhetorical.
4
I shall be leaving for home in a fortnight or 3 weeks. My idea originally was to take the bicycle with me & join Peron in Brittany, taking boat from Southampton to St. Malo, but I don't expect to have either the money or the energy. I haven't even a
636
Bail[e]y.
I called on the Yeatses this afternoon & saw them both. He
Iwasreallyknockedallofaheap. Heisanxiousforanexhibi tion in England and was interested when I mentioned the Guggenheim Gallery. He spoke very warmly of your essay, as something that stood on its own feet as a piece of aesthetics and required no profuse illustration from him. I was sorry to hear that Routledge had not taken it up. 5 Going out together to buy the evening paper & taking leave of me on the step he said "It must be 6 or 7 years since I first walked out of the house with you to buy the evening paper and 6 or 7 years should mean a lot to me, but they don't seem to & it doesn't matter. "
Thursday {4 August 1938}, McGreevy
return ticket to London. In any case I shall pause there a couple
6
in the bowdlerized Larousse edition, which bored me, and
Tristram Shandy, which irritated me in spite of its qualities.
Dr Johnson is back in my consciousness & I hope to settle down
to it when I get back to Paris. It appears Seumas O'Sullivan is
7
Cissie & family are back. She rather worse than when she
left, Sonny apparently well & working resentfully for Little
8 Go. [•••]
I shall be glad to get back to . . unclenchedness. Sinclair is not here & there have been no repercussions ofthe case so far,
9
rather like the learned Swan of Streatham I imagine, with a novel coming from Houghton Mifflin in the autumn entitled Mt. Venus. 10 All the old people & the old places, they make me feel like an amphibian detained forcibly on dry land, very very dry land.
Mother brought me to-day from the Horse Show the Abbey Theatre's festival pamphlet with Introduction by Lennox R. and Lafayettes of all the heroes from W. B. to A. E. Malone. Or do these remain the correct limiting terms? I cannot easily believe there is nothing lower than A. E. Malone. Series of excursions and lectures are announced, the valley ofthe Boyne & Higgins on Yeats etc. 11
I had lunch with Geoffrey & Ursula on the way through.
He is working from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. , with short intervals to
snatch food, and complains of poverty. He & Bion take piano
ofdays on the way through.
I seem to have read nothing for months but Vigny's Journal
collaborating with Gogarty on a biography ofGoldsmith.
but it is the old toxins & the old day soil.
Mary Manning is here on holiday, grown tedious & precious,
lessons.
12
637
Thursday [4 August 1938}, McGreevy
I am very sorry to hear about Raven's sister. Give him my
13
ALS; 2 leaves, 6 sides; TCD MS 10402/166. Dating: dated in AH as "5-8-38," but Thursday was 4 August 1938. In SB to George Reavey, 5 August 1938, SB reports that he is "lunching with Brian to-day," that he saw Jack [Yeats] the day before, and that he hopes to attend the first night ofYeats's Purgatory at the Abbey on the next Wednesday (TxU). Purgatory opened Wednesday. 10 August 1938; the Abbey Festival program lists an excursion to the Boyne Valley on 7 August 1938; the Horse Show was held from 2 to 6 August 1938.
1 SBhadplannedtoleaveParison19July,stoppinginLondononhiswaytoDublin; McGreevy may have passed through Paris before SB left (SB to McGreevy, 13 July 1938, TCD, MS 10402/164). On 20 July 1938, McGreevy sent a postcard to George Reavey from Cavaliere, Var (TxU).
2 SBaccompaniedFrankandJeanBeckett,whosedaughterCarolinewasbornon 26 June 1938, on a weekend in Rosbeg, Co. Donegal, a resort on Dawros Bay.
3 Brian Coffey spent August and September in Ireland prior to his wedding in London in October; in a letter to George Reavey on 2 August 1938, Coffey presented plans to circulate his book among patrons and booksellers (TxU). The Bailey: 21 February 1938, n. 8.
4 JackYeatsandhiswifeCottie. InYeats'spaintingHelen(Pyle499;TelAvivMuseum 2372). Helen stands on a quay as if launching a ship, while "a figure kneeling beside her writes on a wax tablet placed on the ground" (Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings, I, 455). SB compares Helen to paintings by Jacopo Bassano and by Eugene Delacroix (ne Ferdinand-Eugene-Victor Delacroix, 1798-1863).
5 PeggyGuggenheim'smemoirgivestheimpressionthatSBhadalreadysuggested an exhibition ofYeats's painting at Guggenheim Jeune, but thatYeats did not think his work was appropriate for her gallery (Guggenheim, Out ofthis Century: Confessions ofan Art Addict, 163-164).
McGreevy's Jack B. Yeats had not been accepted by Routledge.
6 Withregardtotheseplans:15June1938,n. 8.
7 Alfred de Vigny, Journal d'un poete, ed. Leon-Adolphe Gauthier-Ferrieres (Paris: Bibliotheque Larousse, 1913; rpt. 1919, 1920); the Journal was composed of extracts from the personal papers of Comte Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863) originally published by Louis Ratisbonne (1867).
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions ofTristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767).
SB's long-considered play on Samuel Johnson, extant only as the fragment "Human Wishes. "
638
love, & to Hester & to Dilly. God's blessing
Ever Sam
5 August 1938, Reavey Although there are notes in the SeumasO'Sullivan papers on the subject ofOliver
Goldsmith, no such biography was published (TCD, MS 4056, 4260-4299, 4630-4649).
8 Cissie Sinclair had returned from South Africa in June. Morris Sinclair was resuming his studies at Trinity College Dublin. "Little Go" was the unofficial name of the Final Freshman examination at TCD.
9 SB refers to Harry Sinclair, in whose libel suit against Gogarty SB testified in November 1937.
10 Poet, biographer, and critic Anna Seward was a member of Lichfield's intellec tual circle and known as the "Swan of Lichfield" (Norma Clarke, "Anna Seward: Swan, Duckling or Goose? " New Rambler E. 7 [2003/2004] 54). SB transfers the appellation to Hester Thrale, whose home was in Streatham, and thence to Mary Manning Howe, whose novel Mount Venus was published in autumn 1938.
11 The annual Dublin Horse Show is a major social event of early August. The Abbey Theatre Festival (6 to 20 August 1938) included a lecture on 8 August by drama critic and journalist Andrew E. Malone (ne Laurence Patrick Byrne. 1888-1939) on the early history of the Abbey Theatre, a lecture on 11 August by F. R. Higgins on W. B. Yeats, as well as productions of several plays by Yeats: Cathleen ni Houlihan, Purgatory, and On Baile's Strand. The photographic studio Lafayette, 32 Westmoreland Street, Dublin, was credited with several portraits in the program, for which Lennox Robinson wrote the introduction ("Abbey Theatre Festival Souvenir" [19381).
