SB mentions two sculptures by Wilhelm
Lehmbruck
(1881-1919): Female Torso (B 87) and Large Kneeling Woman (on loan from Frau Lehmbruck) (Barron, ed.
Samuel Beckett
Heiner and Ilse were visiting Dublin.
"K6rperlich nicht ganz auf der H6he" (physically not up to it).
Austrian-born Jewish physicist Hans Motz (1909-1987) earned a Master of Science in 1935 from Trinity College Dublin.
3 "Dequoiecrire"(thewherewithaltowrite).
4 In a letter to McGreevy, a fragment [before 23 July 1937], SB wrote: "JBY gets Watteauer & Watteauer. The latest is entitled Boucicault & Bianconi, separated by a waterfall, in a glade by moonlight" (In Memory of Boudcault and Bianconi; Pyle 498; NG! 4206; TCD MS 10402/129). In his study Jack B. Yeats, McGreevy took up this state ment by SB:
A few months ago Samuel Beckett wrote me that he had been looking at some recent works by Jack Yeats. "He grows Watteauer and Watteauer. " [. . . ] the association held its own in my mind and when I had got over the surprise of having to co-relate the actual images which the works of the two painters had left in my memory, I found myself establishing points of similarity, not in their techniques but in their human approach. (MacGreevy,Jack B. Yeats, 14-15)
Thursday was Jack Yeats's "at-home" evening.
5 SB'spoem"Whiting"wasalsoenclosedin14August1937toMcGreevy,withonly slight variations: line 1 in this letter reads "Offer" whereas when enclosed to McGreevy it reads "offer"; line 10 in this letter reads "requited & unrequited," whereas, when enclosed to McGreevy it reads "requited and unrequited. " The changes in the poem sent to McGreevy were retained in the poem when published as "Ooftish" in transition 27 (April-May 1938) 33.
6 "Dein"(your).
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
14! ! ! August 37
538
Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
14 August 1937, McGreevy
Dear Tom
I used to pretend to be working at something, going about
with the preoccupied look & de quoi ecrire, but I really don't any more. I had the Johnson thing fairly clear in my mind, but with
1
Frank came out ofthe home this day week and bathing him,
driving him about, dressing him & so on has filled some of my
time. He is almost quite well again & will not, as he feared he
might, have to postpone his wedding on 25th inst. The honey
moon stands also, motoring in Scotland. I think they are think
ing also of crossing to the Hebrides. Which reminds me I must
give him the Dr's Western Isles. He seems very happy & serene
2
Cissie & family left Wednesday morning. I drove them to the
boat. I had a letter this morning from Southampton, all having
gone well. In about another month I shall realize they are gone.
The last 3 mornings I have been in the Gallery. They have a
big ugly new Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, the Finding of
Cyrus, very bad Rubens indeed, whereas the Elijah invoking
fire (do you remember it? ) seems to me fairly good Rubens.
Furlong seems to have a passion for the considered enormities
3
The Paris Bordone Portrait is really superb, nearly as good as the
lovely one in Munich - more reticent - but I don't understand
how they saddle him with the St. George. The big Oliverio has
disappeared. The 2 big Moretto Saints were looking marvellous
4
539
notthinkingaboutitithasgoneobscureagain. Perhapsitgets clearer elsewhere.
about it all. Your Leonardo came & he was very pleased.
oftheSettecento. ThebigPeruginoisbackagain,overcleaned.
also. I think he must have looked hard at the Durer Apostles. How I wish we could have a few hours together in the newly hung Italian rooms. You would get a shock & here & there the pleasure of something for the first time. Of course the Dutch
14 August 1937, McGreevy
pictures are to all intents & purposes lost to the Gallery. 5 But that wd. not trouble you the way it does me.
There always seems something on Thursday to prevent me
6
pathy & antipathy, meeting & parting, joy & sorrow.
I am so glad it went well with Geoffrey. He owes me I don't know how many letters. I had a card from George & Gwynedd
from Florence.
540
fromgoingtoseeJBY. WhatIfeelhegetssowell,dispassion ately, not tragically like Watteau, is the heterogeneity ofnature & the human denizens, the unalterable alienness of the 2 phe nomena, the 2 solitudes, or the solitude & the loneliness, the lone liness in solitude, the impassable immensity between the solitude that cannot quicken to loneliness & the loneliness that cannot lapse into solitude. There is nothing of the kind in Constable, the landscape shelters or threatens or serves or destroys, his nature is really infected with "spirit", ultimately as humanised & romantic as Turner's was & Claude's was not & Cezanne's was not. 7 God knows it doesn't take much sensitiveness to feel that in Ireland, a nature almost as inhumanly inorganic as a stage set. And perhaps that is the final quale of Jack Yeats's painting, a sense of the ultimate inorganism of everything. Watteau stressed it with busts & urns, his people are mineral in the end. A painting of pure inorganic juxtapositions, where nothing can be taken or given & there is no possibility of change or exchange. I find something terrifying for example in the way Yeats puts down a man's head & a woman's head side by side, or face to face, the awful acceptance of 2 entities that will never mingle. And do you remember the picture of a man sitting under a fuchsia hedge, reading, with his back turned to the sea & the thunder clouds? 8 One does not realize how still his pictures are till one looks at others, almost petrified, a sudden suspension of the performance, of the convention of sym
14 August 1937, McGreevy
Are they back yet? 9
I see little of Brian & nothing of Denis. I ran into Brian one day on his way to meet the assistant state prosecutor of Washington. Yes, he send [for sent] me the poem you mention. I liked it all but the Elizabethan beginning, appallingly "Ye olde". He said it was a transcription from Florio's Montaigne. I urged him to change it. I want to see Denis to arrange about the reviews of his poems. I raised the wind & sent George the price of 3 copies. Nothing so far. 10
The enclosed you will probably find merely disagreeably
11
trivial.
with it. It came straight the way it is.
I see no point in making it less direct or fiddling about
God love thee. Write again soon.
Can you not cut out the Swiss trip & come over. Ever
Sam
If you see Charles give him my love & tell him I'm writing-12
ALS; 3 leaves, 5 sides; TMS enclosure of"Whiting," 1 leaf, 1 side (see n. 11, below); TCD, MS 10402/131. Although ruled out by internal evidence, this enclosure is placed with TCD, MS 10402/113.
1 "Dequoiecrire"(thewherewithaltowrite).
2 FrankBecketthadinjuredhishand;hisweddingwasplannedfor25August1937. Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775).
Paul Valery, Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vind, tr. Thomas McGreevy
(London: J. Rodker, 1929).
3 Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664), Shepherdess Finding the Infant Cyrus (NG! 994). Elijah Invoking, by Prayer, the Sacred Fire from Heaven (NG! 357) was attributed to Castiglione in the 1932 catalogue of the National Gallery of Ireland, but later was given to Giacinto Diano (1731-1804); it was identified from 1956 as The Dedication ofthe Temple atJerusalem (National Gallery ofIreland: Catalogue ofthe Oil Pictures in the General Collection [1932] 18; Dr. Marie Bourke, Keeper, National Gallery oflreland, 16 October 1998).
4 Perugino'sPieta(NG! 942)hadbeencleanedandrestoredinVienna(see17July [1936], n. 6).
541
14 August 1937, McGreevy
SB compares Portrait ofa Man (NG! 779) by Paris Bordone (1500-1571) to his Portrait of a Man in Munich (Alte Pinakothek 512). St. George and the Dragon (NG! 779) is attributed to Bordone by the National Gallery ofIreland.
The Virgin and Child Enthroned between Angels (NG! 480) is the larger of the two paintings in the National Gallery ofIreland by Venetian painter Alessandro Oliverio (fl. 1532-1544), it appears under his name in National Gallery of Ireland: Catalogue of the Oil Pictures in the General Collection (1932), but thereafter is entitled Madonna and Child, Enthroned between Angels and given to the Venetian School (National Gallery of Ireland: Catalogue of Pictures of the Italian Schools [Dublin: Stationery Office, (1956)] 75-76).
Saint Bartholomew (NG! 80) and Saint John the Evangelist (NG! 78) were attributed to Alessandro Bonvicino Moretto (ne c. 1498-1554) in National Gallery ofIreland: Catalogue of the Oil Pictures in the General Collection (1932); however, these paintings were later reattributed to II Talpino (ne Enea Salmeggia, c. 1565-1626), School of Bergamo. SB invokes Albrecht Diirer's St. John and St. Peter and St. Paul and St. Mark in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (545 and 540).
5 Prior to Furlong's rehanging of the collection, the Dutch paintings had been hung along one wall and the Italian along another in the large hall in the gallery; afterwards, the Italian pictures were shown with greater space, and the Dutch pictures were moved from a suite of well-lit rooms to a section of the basement (Curran, "The National Gallery Revisited," 66).
6 JBYisJackB. Yeats.
7 SBreferstoJohnConstable. JosephTumer{l775-1851),ClaudeLorrain,andPaul Cezanne.
8 A Storm/ Gallshion (Pyle 477, private collection; see Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonne ofthe Oil Paintings, I, 432).
9 GeoffreyThompson.
George and Gwynedd Reavey were on their honeymoon on the Continent.
10 Inhisletterof7July[1937]toMcGreevy,SBmentionedthatheoftensawBrian Coffey in the library: "I take him out for a drink or a cup of coffee & he educates me"
{TCD, MS 10402/128).
Denis Devlin.
The Assistant State Prosecutor ofWashington has not been identified, nor has the
poem that Coffey had written that was based on Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Montaigne Done into English, tr. John Florio, 3 vols. {1693). Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
{1533-1592); John Florio (1553-1625).
Denis Devlin's collection ofpoems Intercessions: SB to McGreevy, 4 August 1937, n. 6
and n. 7.
11 SB's poem "Whiting" was enclosed but is not reprinted here as it was also enclosed with 14 [August 1937] to Cissie Sinclair (see n. 5 ofthat letter for the two slight variations between the enclosed texts).
SB told Lawrence Harvey that the poem was stimulated by a sermon given by Canon Henry C. Dobbs, All Saints' Church, Blackrock, which also argues for its composition in August 1937 when SB was in Dublin (Harvey. Samuel Beckett, 156).
12 McGreevyplannedtoleaveon21AugusttotravelwithHesterDowdenbycarto Vienna; SB wrote to him on 25 August 1937: "Sat. evening I thought ofyou setting out
542
19 August {1937}, McGreevy
on your journey & wished a different journey for you -A short one, into the west from where you were" (TCD, MS 10402/134).
Charles Prentice. Placement ofpostscript: on three lines to right ofclosing and signature.
THOMAS McGREEVY EN ROUTE TO MUNICH
19th Aug. [1937] Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
The modem pictures are divided between the Neue
Staatsgalerie (Konigsplatz, opposite the Glyptothek) & the
1
former would hardly repay you a visit, being altogether 19th
century German, though there are excellent Bocklin's, Hans v.
Marees, Leibl's, Triibner's and Schuch's, especially of the last
named[,] 3 wonderful still-lifes - Apples, Peonies & Asparagus. 2
But the Deutsches Museum is well worth a visit for the Van Gogh
Self-Portrait, the Cezannes & Lautrecs. Also there are Renoirs,
3
When you enter the Courtyard of the Museum you tum to the
left for the library. The pictures, very provisionally hung[,] are on
the second floor. To get to the French pictures you walk straight
through from the entrance door as far as you can go. They begin
on the back wall with I think the Van Goghs. Then you recede
back through them towards the entrance door again. Then I
think ifyou are wise you go out, though elsewhere there are (or
were, before the latest purge) Munch's [for Munch's], Marc's,
Kokoschka's, two good Lehmbruck's, Barlach's, & Hodler's includ
ing the famous & I think very bad Lebensmiide, really a sentimen
4
be preferred to a morning in the Alte Pinakothek.
Library of the Deutsches Museum on the Museumsinsel. The
Courbets, I think a Matisse still life, & 4 rather dull Maillols.
talversionofDiirer'sApostles. Soaltogetherwellworthaquick look round, though it is au <liable, but not for a moment I think to
5
543
19 August {1937}, Mccreery
I had a card from Percy Ussher from Budapest, the Peasant Brueghel Altes Ehepaar. 6 I think he is now in Vienna. I hope the trip rests you. I fear you will be on the strain with Hester & bored with all the driving.
It is a great relief to me that you liked the poem. I had an
afternoon with Brian yesterday. & he liked it too. All I knew was
that it did not violate my gout as it went down. Of course I can't
7
8
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/106. Dating: Thomas McGreevy went with Hester Dowden to Vienna: Charles Prentice to McGreevy, 24 August 1937 (TCD, MS 8092/110), and Prentice to McGreevy, 3 September 1937, addressed to Brussels acknowledging McGreevy's letter from Vienna and the news that Hester made the journey without tiring (TCD, MS 8092/111).
1 The configuration of museums in Munich: SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 March 1937, n. 2.
ThecollectionthatSBdescribesintheLibraryoftheDeutschesMuseumonMuseum Island was a temporary display since the Deutsches Museum primarily held exhibits of science and technology (see 25 March 1937, n. 7 and n. 8).
2 SB'susageherevaries,sometimesshowingapainter'spictureswithanapostro phe (Leibl's), sometimes without (Cezannes).
Of paintings in the Neue Staatsgalerie by Swiss-German painter Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901), Hans von Man�es. Wilhelm Leib! . German painter Wilhelm Triibner (1851-1917). and Viennese painter Carl Schuch (1846-1903), SB specifically mentions Schuch's Still Life with Apples, Wine Glass, and PewterJug (8563), Peonies (8599), and Still Life with Asparagus (8907).
3 SB'snotesonthepaintingsthatinterestedhimintheLibraryoftheDeutsches Museum (at that time provisionally hung on the second floor) are in his travel diary (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93, 95).
The Cezannes, particularly The Railway Cutting, as well as Van Gogh's self-portrait and his other paintings in the collection: 25 March 1937, n. 7.
Of the paintings by French artists Renoir, Jean-Desire-Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), and Henri Matisse (1869-1954) in the collection, SB specifically mentions Matisse's Still Life with Geranium (8669) (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93).
In his diary, SB mentions Youth (B. 53), Flora (B. 154), Bust ofMadame Maurice Denis (B. 54), and Auguste Renoir (B. 59) by Aristide Maillol, and Portrait of Georges de Villechenon (8667) and In the Loge (8666) by Toulouse-Lautrec (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 95).
544
ventilate it anywhere, except perhaps in Transition. No more now. Shall write you again to Vienna.
Gute Reise & Viel Vergniigen. Love to Hester. Ever
Sam
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
4 Inhisdiary,SBmentionsMunch'sPeasantwithHorse(9037,removedas"entartet" in 1937; now, private collection) and Young Woman on the Veranda (9267; now in private collection); he notes Marc's Deer in the Reeds (9598) and Red Deer II (8923, removed as "entartet" in 1937; returned to the collection in 1940 and "ordered to be kept under 'lock and key"') (Annegret Hoberg and Isabelle Jansen, Franz Marc: The Complete Works, I, The Oil Paintings [London: Philip Wilson, 2004] 213; BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93).
Paintings by Kokoschka mentioned by SB in his diary were Venice (9328) and Landscape in the Dolomites (8985; now Leopold Museum, Vienna, no. 624).
SB mentions two sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919): Female Torso (B 87) and Large Kneeling Woman (on loan from Frau Lehmbruck) (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 114, 292).
In his diary, SB refers to an unidentified sculpture of a shepherd, one of many by Ernst Barlach, and Barlach's sculpture The Death (B 155) (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93; Carl Dietrich Carls, Ernst Barlach [New York; Frederick A. Praeger, 1969] 81. 212).
Of paintings by Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), SB writes in his diary particularly about Die Lebensmiiden (9446) which he compares to Diirer's Apostles (see 25 March 1937, n. 9).
5 "Au<liable"(milesout).
6 ArlandUssher,whowasinBudapest,sentSBacardofAnOldCouple(nowPeasants with a Pitcher, Galerie Alter Meister, Budapest, 559); it was originally thought to be by Pieter Bruegel (here called not "the elder," but "the Peasant" to distinguish him from his sons), whose name is inscribed on the painting ("Petrvs Brvegel F. "), but it is now attributed to "a Flemish or German Master, second half of the 16th century" (Ildik6 Ember, Zsuzsa Urbach, and Annamaria Gosztola, Old Masters' Gallery: Summary Catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, II, Early Nether! andish, Dutch and Flemish Paintings [Budapest: Szepmiiveszeti Muzeum, 2000] 69).
7 SBshowedBrianCoffeythepoemthencalled"Whiting. " "Gout" (taste).
8 "GuteReise&vie! Vergniigen"(Haveagoodtripandmuchfun).
MARY MANNING HOWE BUFFALO, NEW YORK
30! ! ! Aug. 1937
Dear Mary
Cooldrinagh, Foxrock,
Co. Dublin
500 thanks for your note. And photographs. You look petil
lante. And Susan beyond good & evil.
1
545
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
No I have heard nothing from Doubledeal Doran. Reavey has been treacle mooning all over the Mediterranean with his new Welsch vase. 2 Supremely happy. They are all supremely happy. Can it be the free coition, do you think?
It gave me great pleasure to hear that I had a German girl. Do you think you could get me her name & address? Their conduct of the fore-period is unique.
I have no news at all likely to interest you. Percy is in
Vienna. McGreevy in Buda Pest. The Sinclairs on their way to
South Africa. Leventhal not seen (by me) for months. (He has
been made editor of Hermathena! ). Jack Yeats do [for ditto]. 3 I do
nothing, with as little shame as satisfaction. It is the state that
suits me best. I write the odd poem when it is there, that is the
only thing worth doing. There is an ecstasy of accidia - willless
4
in a grey tumult of idees obscures. There is an end to the temptation of light, its polite searchings & consolations. It is good for children & insects. There is an end of making up one['Js mind, like a pound of tea, an end of patting the butter of con sciousness into opinions. The real consciousness is the chaos, a grey commotion of mind, with no premises or conclusions or problems or solutions or cases or judgments. I lie for days on the floor, or in the woods, accompanied & unaccompanied, in a coenaesthesia of mind, a fullness of mental self-aesthesia that is entirely useless. The monad without the conflict, lightless & darkless. I used to pretend to work, I do so no longer. I used to dig about in the mental sand for the lugworms of likes & dislikes, I do so no longer. The lugworms of understanding.
Do not envy me, do not pity me.
I saw the Gilmores twice. Was at a party there one night. Arrived with Sean O'Sullivan, full of whiskey. All the usual, general bathe in pool towards morning. Then went one
546
afternoon alone and drove them into town. The Reddins were invited to the party but Kenneth wouldn't go & wouldn't let Norahgo. 5
The Gilmores are on the right track. After a bit one wouldn't mind the filth & discomfort. One would want less & less. That is the right direction.
Had a couple of mildly amusing evenings with Sean & 2 American women from N. Y. City, foreskin hats, cellophane slick
6
I applied for the job at Cape Town & won't hear I suppose till late Autumn. I hear your Buffalo Bill has been & gone. 7
Many pains are better than one. Love
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; letterhead; TxU.
1 MaryManningHoweandherinfantdaughterSusan. "Petillante"(sparkling).
2 SB refers to New York publishers Doubleday Doran, who had been considering the manuscript of Murphy.
George and Gwynedd Reavey were on their honeymoon.
3 A. J. Leventhal was not appointed Assistant Editor of the Trinity College Dublin review Hennathena: A Series of Papers on Literature, Science and Philosophy by Members of Trinity College, Dublin until 1957; in June 1937, William Alexander Goligher was named Editor of Hennathena (Eileen Kelly, TCD, 17 August 2005).
4 "Accidia"(It. ,torpor,sloth). "ldeesobscures"(obscureideas).
5 CharlieGilmoreandLilianDonaghylivedtogetherinthecottageofJoeCampbell in Co. Wicklow (see 7 July 1936, n. 9). SB described the evening in a letter to Thomas McGreevy, 23 August 1937: "I borrow & go on the blind. The last was last Saturday at a party in the Glencree valley. The Gilmores - Charlie & Lilian once Donaghy. I lost my lovely hat, my watch & half a bottle ! of] J. J. And cut my head bathing in [4]0 foot at 2 a. m. " (TCD, MS 10402/133; left side of page torn).
Kenneth Reddin (see 7 August 1936, n. 8, and 13 April 1937, n. 1) and Norah Reddin (nee Ringwood, n. d. ).
6 SeanO'Sullivan;thetwowomenfromNewYorkhavenotbeenidentified.
547
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
ers&hardheads. Nothinghadevenbeenthere. Americangirls are irresistible, the charm of the inorganic.
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
7 InhislettertoThomasMcGreevy,25August1937,SBhadwritten:"Ihadabrief& formal acknowledgement of application from Cape Town. How I dread getting that job" (TCD, MS 10402/134).
SB's allusion to the showman of the Wild West, William F. Cody (known as Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917). probably points to the Chairman of theEnglish department of the University of Buffalo: SB to Thomas McGreevy, 4 August 1937, n. 8.
THOMAS M cGREEVY LONDON
Sep. 21� [1937] Cooldrinagh [Foxrock, Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
Thanks for your letter. I was laid up for about 10 days with
gastric flu (so called) and it is only in these last few days that I feel up to even my poor normal level of energy again. The first day I went out in the car I collided with a lorry. My car is finished but I myself was not hurt. As I have only the compulsory mini mum 3rd party insurance my only chance of compensation is to claim off the other people, where I think my chance of succeed ing is very small. I was tired of the car anyway & meant to give it up & buy a bike.
Frank & wife got back from honeymoon last week. He
seems to have stood the course very well. At present they are
living at Cooldrinagh, as the house in Killiney will not be
evacuated till Oct. 1st. I was glad to hear he had sent you a card
1
to-be-spoken, but if it only depends on him it will work out. He
has plenty of practice in the matter of humouring the woman.
2
fromScotland. Thereissomethingruefulabouthimandanever
I ran into Raven yesterday in Leinster Street. I had not known he was over. We had a quick cup of coffee. I wanted him to lunch with me to-day but he rang up this morning to
548
say he couldn't manage it. He was very nice and I think sorry that we had not a little more time together. Someone had told him I was away or inaccessible . . .
Denis's poems came. There are lovely fragments, like the
last stanza of the Statue & Perturbed Burghers, & here & there
in the Eiffel Tower one, but I feel them adventitious and am on
the whole rather disappointed. The few lines that I quoted in
the Bookman article remain I think as good as anything in the
book. The Bacchanal I find very very bad, the worst kind of
Whitman-Kipling-aling pietinement sur place. As for the
images, they seem to be not so much uncontrolled as cut adrift
from the imaged altogether, doing a kind of Gymkana [for
Gymkhana] all on their own. If it was deliberate it wouldn't
matter. But the process is obviously one of working up the
perceived, when it is not a screen for the failure to perceive,
according to the usual mechanism. Because it seems an alto
gether perceptive, sensuous, instinctive & immediate talent,
not at all conceptive or even meditative. When he gets meta
physical it is awful. Brian says he can't observe accurately &
perhaps he can't. I don't think it matters. Perception is one
thing & observation another. The stanza I mention is material
exquisitely perceived, and I think the only image is in the first
line, & it a mild one. I got the book for review from S. O'S. and
shall not bother very much about the aspects of it that I can't
commend. But I would rather not have to write about it at all.
When I last saw Sheehy it was understood that you were doing
3
evidence for St. J. G. on commission. I have not yet seen the verbatim report but by all accounts it was sublime, the high point being reached when he described the verses complained
549
21 September {1937}, McGreevy
it for Ireland ToDay.
Higgins, because he is going to USA with the Abbey, gave his
21 September {1937), McGreevy
of and others not yet complained of as Folklore! Pokornography! The hearing proper is not expected to come on before
4
Italy, and could if necessary give my evidence for Harry on commission also. But I hope it will not come to this. Bad witness & all as no doubt I am, I think I could be of more use to him in the box.
Brian is in Sligo with father & sister, returns on Thursday for
a day or two, & then goes to Antrim with his sister. I had a long
letter from him yesterday, with all the pros & cons for Denis
alphaed betaed gammaed & deltaed. To-day a letter from
5
When I was ill I found the only thing I could read was
6
Mother's plan of letting Cooldrinagh for a long period is temporarily off. She discovered that one of the tenants was tubercular. But I think we shall persuade her simply to go away for a holiday, perhaps to friends in London. I would prob ably remain on in Cooldrinagh with the cook & the dog.
No news from Cissie Sinclair since the P. C. from Cape Town. No sign from Reavey either. I was pleased that Denis & Brian
550
November. IfIgetthejobinCapeTown,&havinggotitaccept it, two conditions unlikely to be satisfied, I shall go straight to
Charles,sayingyourtriphaddoneyougood. Hekeepsremark ably cheerful.
Schopenhauer. EverythingelseItriedonlyconfirmedthefeeling of sickness. It was very curious. Like suddenly a window opened on a fug. I always knew he was one ofthe ones that mattered most to me, and it is a pleasure more real than any pleasure for a long time to begin to understand now why it is so. And it is a pleasure also to find a philosopher that can be read like a poet, with an entire indifference to the apriori forms of verification. Although it is a fact that judged by them his generalisation shows fewer cracks than most generalisations.
liked Murphy. 7 I think it was perfectly genuine in each case. I still feel absurdly easy in my mind about its being pub lished sooner or later, and to my surprise still anxious that it should be.
God love thee. Write soon again. Ever
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 8 sides; TCD, MS 10402/136. Dating: A "37" is added in AH; Frank Beckett back from his honeymoon; F. R. Higgins's "verbatim" taken on 13 and 14 September 1937.
1 FrankandJeanBecketthadboughtahouseinKilliney.
2 ThomasHolmesRavenhill.
3 InhisreviewofDenisDevlin'sIntercessions,SBmakesparticularreferencetothe final stanza of "The Statue & Perturbed Burghers," "Communication from the Eiffel Tower," and "Bacchanal" (Intercessions, 13-14, 32-47, 26).
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and Rudyard Kipling.
"Pietinement sur place" (marking time).
Brian Coffey.
SB had quoted the third stanza of Devlin's poem "Est Prodest" (lines 51-57) in his
essay "Recent Irish Poetry," 236; its first line is "Phrases twisted through other" (Devlin, Intercessions, 52).
Edward Sheehy was on the staff of Ireland To-Day (see 26 April 1937, n. 12).
4 F. R. Higgins,DirectoroftheAbbeyTheatre,gavehistestimonyintheSinclairvs. Gogarty and Cowan Rich suit on commission of Henry J. Moloney at the offices of Arthur Cox, Solicitor, 42 St.
"K6rperlich nicht ganz auf der H6he" (physically not up to it).
Austrian-born Jewish physicist Hans Motz (1909-1987) earned a Master of Science in 1935 from Trinity College Dublin.
3 "Dequoiecrire"(thewherewithaltowrite).
4 In a letter to McGreevy, a fragment [before 23 July 1937], SB wrote: "JBY gets Watteauer & Watteauer. The latest is entitled Boucicault & Bianconi, separated by a waterfall, in a glade by moonlight" (In Memory of Boudcault and Bianconi; Pyle 498; NG! 4206; TCD MS 10402/129). In his study Jack B. Yeats, McGreevy took up this state ment by SB:
A few months ago Samuel Beckett wrote me that he had been looking at some recent works by Jack Yeats. "He grows Watteauer and Watteauer. " [. . . ] the association held its own in my mind and when I had got over the surprise of having to co-relate the actual images which the works of the two painters had left in my memory, I found myself establishing points of similarity, not in their techniques but in their human approach. (MacGreevy,Jack B. Yeats, 14-15)
Thursday was Jack Yeats's "at-home" evening.
5 SB'spoem"Whiting"wasalsoenclosedin14August1937toMcGreevy,withonly slight variations: line 1 in this letter reads "Offer" whereas when enclosed to McGreevy it reads "offer"; line 10 in this letter reads "requited & unrequited," whereas, when enclosed to McGreevy it reads "requited and unrequited. " The changes in the poem sent to McGreevy were retained in the poem when published as "Ooftish" in transition 27 (April-May 1938) 33.
6 "Dein"(your).
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
14! ! ! August 37
538
Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
14 August 1937, McGreevy
Dear Tom
I used to pretend to be working at something, going about
with the preoccupied look & de quoi ecrire, but I really don't any more. I had the Johnson thing fairly clear in my mind, but with
1
Frank came out ofthe home this day week and bathing him,
driving him about, dressing him & so on has filled some of my
time. He is almost quite well again & will not, as he feared he
might, have to postpone his wedding on 25th inst. The honey
moon stands also, motoring in Scotland. I think they are think
ing also of crossing to the Hebrides. Which reminds me I must
give him the Dr's Western Isles. He seems very happy & serene
2
Cissie & family left Wednesday morning. I drove them to the
boat. I had a letter this morning from Southampton, all having
gone well. In about another month I shall realize they are gone.
The last 3 mornings I have been in the Gallery. They have a
big ugly new Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, the Finding of
Cyrus, very bad Rubens indeed, whereas the Elijah invoking
fire (do you remember it? ) seems to me fairly good Rubens.
Furlong seems to have a passion for the considered enormities
3
The Paris Bordone Portrait is really superb, nearly as good as the
lovely one in Munich - more reticent - but I don't understand
how they saddle him with the St. George. The big Oliverio has
disappeared. The 2 big Moretto Saints were looking marvellous
4
539
notthinkingaboutitithasgoneobscureagain. Perhapsitgets clearer elsewhere.
about it all. Your Leonardo came & he was very pleased.
oftheSettecento. ThebigPeruginoisbackagain,overcleaned.
also. I think he must have looked hard at the Durer Apostles. How I wish we could have a few hours together in the newly hung Italian rooms. You would get a shock & here & there the pleasure of something for the first time. Of course the Dutch
14 August 1937, McGreevy
pictures are to all intents & purposes lost to the Gallery. 5 But that wd. not trouble you the way it does me.
There always seems something on Thursday to prevent me
6
pathy & antipathy, meeting & parting, joy & sorrow.
I am so glad it went well with Geoffrey. He owes me I don't know how many letters. I had a card from George & Gwynedd
from Florence.
540
fromgoingtoseeJBY. WhatIfeelhegetssowell,dispassion ately, not tragically like Watteau, is the heterogeneity ofnature & the human denizens, the unalterable alienness of the 2 phe nomena, the 2 solitudes, or the solitude & the loneliness, the lone liness in solitude, the impassable immensity between the solitude that cannot quicken to loneliness & the loneliness that cannot lapse into solitude. There is nothing of the kind in Constable, the landscape shelters or threatens or serves or destroys, his nature is really infected with "spirit", ultimately as humanised & romantic as Turner's was & Claude's was not & Cezanne's was not. 7 God knows it doesn't take much sensitiveness to feel that in Ireland, a nature almost as inhumanly inorganic as a stage set. And perhaps that is the final quale of Jack Yeats's painting, a sense of the ultimate inorganism of everything. Watteau stressed it with busts & urns, his people are mineral in the end. A painting of pure inorganic juxtapositions, where nothing can be taken or given & there is no possibility of change or exchange. I find something terrifying for example in the way Yeats puts down a man's head & a woman's head side by side, or face to face, the awful acceptance of 2 entities that will never mingle. And do you remember the picture of a man sitting under a fuchsia hedge, reading, with his back turned to the sea & the thunder clouds? 8 One does not realize how still his pictures are till one looks at others, almost petrified, a sudden suspension of the performance, of the convention of sym
14 August 1937, McGreevy
Are they back yet? 9
I see little of Brian & nothing of Denis. I ran into Brian one day on his way to meet the assistant state prosecutor of Washington. Yes, he send [for sent] me the poem you mention. I liked it all but the Elizabethan beginning, appallingly "Ye olde". He said it was a transcription from Florio's Montaigne. I urged him to change it. I want to see Denis to arrange about the reviews of his poems. I raised the wind & sent George the price of 3 copies. Nothing so far. 10
The enclosed you will probably find merely disagreeably
11
trivial.
with it. It came straight the way it is.
I see no point in making it less direct or fiddling about
God love thee. Write again soon.
Can you not cut out the Swiss trip & come over. Ever
Sam
If you see Charles give him my love & tell him I'm writing-12
ALS; 3 leaves, 5 sides; TMS enclosure of"Whiting," 1 leaf, 1 side (see n. 11, below); TCD, MS 10402/131. Although ruled out by internal evidence, this enclosure is placed with TCD, MS 10402/113.
1 "Dequoiecrire"(thewherewithaltowrite).
2 FrankBecketthadinjuredhishand;hisweddingwasplannedfor25August1937. Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775).
Paul Valery, Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vind, tr. Thomas McGreevy
(London: J. Rodker, 1929).
3 Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664), Shepherdess Finding the Infant Cyrus (NG! 994). Elijah Invoking, by Prayer, the Sacred Fire from Heaven (NG! 357) was attributed to Castiglione in the 1932 catalogue of the National Gallery of Ireland, but later was given to Giacinto Diano (1731-1804); it was identified from 1956 as The Dedication ofthe Temple atJerusalem (National Gallery ofIreland: Catalogue ofthe Oil Pictures in the General Collection [1932] 18; Dr. Marie Bourke, Keeper, National Gallery oflreland, 16 October 1998).
4 Perugino'sPieta(NG! 942)hadbeencleanedandrestoredinVienna(see17July [1936], n. 6).
541
14 August 1937, McGreevy
SB compares Portrait ofa Man (NG! 779) by Paris Bordone (1500-1571) to his Portrait of a Man in Munich (Alte Pinakothek 512). St. George and the Dragon (NG! 779) is attributed to Bordone by the National Gallery ofIreland.
The Virgin and Child Enthroned between Angels (NG! 480) is the larger of the two paintings in the National Gallery ofIreland by Venetian painter Alessandro Oliverio (fl. 1532-1544), it appears under his name in National Gallery of Ireland: Catalogue of the Oil Pictures in the General Collection (1932), but thereafter is entitled Madonna and Child, Enthroned between Angels and given to the Venetian School (National Gallery of Ireland: Catalogue of Pictures of the Italian Schools [Dublin: Stationery Office, (1956)] 75-76).
Saint Bartholomew (NG! 80) and Saint John the Evangelist (NG! 78) were attributed to Alessandro Bonvicino Moretto (ne c. 1498-1554) in National Gallery ofIreland: Catalogue of the Oil Pictures in the General Collection (1932); however, these paintings were later reattributed to II Talpino (ne Enea Salmeggia, c. 1565-1626), School of Bergamo. SB invokes Albrecht Diirer's St. John and St. Peter and St. Paul and St. Mark in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (545 and 540).
5 Prior to Furlong's rehanging of the collection, the Dutch paintings had been hung along one wall and the Italian along another in the large hall in the gallery; afterwards, the Italian pictures were shown with greater space, and the Dutch pictures were moved from a suite of well-lit rooms to a section of the basement (Curran, "The National Gallery Revisited," 66).
6 JBYisJackB. Yeats.
7 SBreferstoJohnConstable. JosephTumer{l775-1851),ClaudeLorrain,andPaul Cezanne.
8 A Storm/ Gallshion (Pyle 477, private collection; see Pyle. Jack B. Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonne ofthe Oil Paintings, I, 432).
9 GeoffreyThompson.
George and Gwynedd Reavey were on their honeymoon on the Continent.
10 Inhisletterof7July[1937]toMcGreevy,SBmentionedthatheoftensawBrian Coffey in the library: "I take him out for a drink or a cup of coffee & he educates me"
{TCD, MS 10402/128).
Denis Devlin.
The Assistant State Prosecutor ofWashington has not been identified, nor has the
poem that Coffey had written that was based on Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Montaigne Done into English, tr. John Florio, 3 vols. {1693). Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
{1533-1592); John Florio (1553-1625).
Denis Devlin's collection ofpoems Intercessions: SB to McGreevy, 4 August 1937, n. 6
and n. 7.
11 SB's poem "Whiting" was enclosed but is not reprinted here as it was also enclosed with 14 [August 1937] to Cissie Sinclair (see n. 5 ofthat letter for the two slight variations between the enclosed texts).
SB told Lawrence Harvey that the poem was stimulated by a sermon given by Canon Henry C. Dobbs, All Saints' Church, Blackrock, which also argues for its composition in August 1937 when SB was in Dublin (Harvey. Samuel Beckett, 156).
12 McGreevyplannedtoleaveon21AugusttotravelwithHesterDowdenbycarto Vienna; SB wrote to him on 25 August 1937: "Sat. evening I thought ofyou setting out
542
19 August {1937}, McGreevy
on your journey & wished a different journey for you -A short one, into the west from where you were" (TCD, MS 10402/134).
Charles Prentice. Placement ofpostscript: on three lines to right ofclosing and signature.
THOMAS McGREEVY EN ROUTE TO MUNICH
19th Aug. [1937] Foxrock [Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
The modem pictures are divided between the Neue
Staatsgalerie (Konigsplatz, opposite the Glyptothek) & the
1
former would hardly repay you a visit, being altogether 19th
century German, though there are excellent Bocklin's, Hans v.
Marees, Leibl's, Triibner's and Schuch's, especially of the last
named[,] 3 wonderful still-lifes - Apples, Peonies & Asparagus. 2
But the Deutsches Museum is well worth a visit for the Van Gogh
Self-Portrait, the Cezannes & Lautrecs. Also there are Renoirs,
3
When you enter the Courtyard of the Museum you tum to the
left for the library. The pictures, very provisionally hung[,] are on
the second floor. To get to the French pictures you walk straight
through from the entrance door as far as you can go. They begin
on the back wall with I think the Van Goghs. Then you recede
back through them towards the entrance door again. Then I
think ifyou are wise you go out, though elsewhere there are (or
were, before the latest purge) Munch's [for Munch's], Marc's,
Kokoschka's, two good Lehmbruck's, Barlach's, & Hodler's includ
ing the famous & I think very bad Lebensmiide, really a sentimen
4
be preferred to a morning in the Alte Pinakothek.
Library of the Deutsches Museum on the Museumsinsel. The
Courbets, I think a Matisse still life, & 4 rather dull Maillols.
talversionofDiirer'sApostles. Soaltogetherwellworthaquick look round, though it is au <liable, but not for a moment I think to
5
543
19 August {1937}, Mccreery
I had a card from Percy Ussher from Budapest, the Peasant Brueghel Altes Ehepaar. 6 I think he is now in Vienna. I hope the trip rests you. I fear you will be on the strain with Hester & bored with all the driving.
It is a great relief to me that you liked the poem. I had an
afternoon with Brian yesterday. & he liked it too. All I knew was
that it did not violate my gout as it went down. Of course I can't
7
8
ALS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; TCD, MS 10402/106. Dating: Thomas McGreevy went with Hester Dowden to Vienna: Charles Prentice to McGreevy, 24 August 1937 (TCD, MS 8092/110), and Prentice to McGreevy, 3 September 1937, addressed to Brussels acknowledging McGreevy's letter from Vienna and the news that Hester made the journey without tiring (TCD, MS 8092/111).
1 The configuration of museums in Munich: SB to Thomas McGreevy, 7 March 1937, n. 2.
ThecollectionthatSBdescribesintheLibraryoftheDeutschesMuseumonMuseum Island was a temporary display since the Deutsches Museum primarily held exhibits of science and technology (see 25 March 1937, n. 7 and n. 8).
2 SB'susageherevaries,sometimesshowingapainter'spictureswithanapostro phe (Leibl's), sometimes without (Cezannes).
Of paintings in the Neue Staatsgalerie by Swiss-German painter Arnold Bocklin (1827-1901), Hans von Man�es. Wilhelm Leib! . German painter Wilhelm Triibner (1851-1917). and Viennese painter Carl Schuch (1846-1903), SB specifically mentions Schuch's Still Life with Apples, Wine Glass, and PewterJug (8563), Peonies (8599), and Still Life with Asparagus (8907).
3 SB'snotesonthepaintingsthatinterestedhimintheLibraryoftheDeutsches Museum (at that time provisionally hung on the second floor) are in his travel diary (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93, 95).
The Cezannes, particularly The Railway Cutting, as well as Van Gogh's self-portrait and his other paintings in the collection: 25 March 1937, n. 7.
Of the paintings by French artists Renoir, Jean-Desire-Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), and Henri Matisse (1869-1954) in the collection, SB specifically mentions Matisse's Still Life with Geranium (8669) (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93).
In his diary, SB mentions Youth (B. 53), Flora (B. 154), Bust ofMadame Maurice Denis (B. 54), and Auguste Renoir (B. 59) by Aristide Maillol, and Portrait of Georges de Villechenon (8667) and In the Loge (8666) by Toulouse-Lautrec (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 95).
544
ventilate it anywhere, except perhaps in Transition. No more now. Shall write you again to Vienna.
Gute Reise & Viel Vergniigen. Love to Hester. Ever
Sam
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
4 Inhisdiary,SBmentionsMunch'sPeasantwithHorse(9037,removedas"entartet" in 1937; now, private collection) and Young Woman on the Veranda (9267; now in private collection); he notes Marc's Deer in the Reeds (9598) and Red Deer II (8923, removed as "entartet" in 1937; returned to the collection in 1940 and "ordered to be kept under 'lock and key"') (Annegret Hoberg and Isabelle Jansen, Franz Marc: The Complete Works, I, The Oil Paintings [London: Philip Wilson, 2004] 213; BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93).
Paintings by Kokoschka mentioned by SB in his diary were Venice (9328) and Landscape in the Dolomites (8985; now Leopold Museum, Vienna, no. 624).
SB mentions two sculptures by Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919): Female Torso (B 87) and Large Kneeling Woman (on loan from Frau Lehmbruck) (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 114, 292).
In his diary, SB refers to an unidentified sculpture of a shepherd, one of many by Ernst Barlach, and Barlach's sculpture The Death (B 155) (BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 93; Carl Dietrich Carls, Ernst Barlach [New York; Frederick A. Praeger, 1969] 81. 212).
Of paintings by Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), SB writes in his diary particularly about Die Lebensmiiden (9446) which he compares to Diirer's Apostles (see 25 March 1937, n. 9).
5 "Au<liable"(milesout).
6 ArlandUssher,whowasinBudapest,sentSBacardofAnOldCouple(nowPeasants with a Pitcher, Galerie Alter Meister, Budapest, 559); it was originally thought to be by Pieter Bruegel (here called not "the elder," but "the Peasant" to distinguish him from his sons), whose name is inscribed on the painting ("Petrvs Brvegel F. "), but it is now attributed to "a Flemish or German Master, second half of the 16th century" (Ildik6 Ember, Zsuzsa Urbach, and Annamaria Gosztola, Old Masters' Gallery: Summary Catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, II, Early Nether! andish, Dutch and Flemish Paintings [Budapest: Szepmiiveszeti Muzeum, 2000] 69).
7 SBshowedBrianCoffeythepoemthencalled"Whiting. " "Gout" (taste).
8 "GuteReise&vie! Vergniigen"(Haveagoodtripandmuchfun).
MARY MANNING HOWE BUFFALO, NEW YORK
30! ! ! Aug. 1937
Dear Mary
Cooldrinagh, Foxrock,
Co. Dublin
500 thanks for your note. And photographs. You look petil
lante. And Susan beyond good & evil.
1
545
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
No I have heard nothing from Doubledeal Doran. Reavey has been treacle mooning all over the Mediterranean with his new Welsch vase. 2 Supremely happy. They are all supremely happy. Can it be the free coition, do you think?
It gave me great pleasure to hear that I had a German girl. Do you think you could get me her name & address? Their conduct of the fore-period is unique.
I have no news at all likely to interest you. Percy is in
Vienna. McGreevy in Buda Pest. The Sinclairs on their way to
South Africa. Leventhal not seen (by me) for months. (He has
been made editor of Hermathena! ). Jack Yeats do [for ditto]. 3 I do
nothing, with as little shame as satisfaction. It is the state that
suits me best. I write the odd poem when it is there, that is the
only thing worth doing. There is an ecstasy of accidia - willless
4
in a grey tumult of idees obscures. There is an end to the temptation of light, its polite searchings & consolations. It is good for children & insects. There is an end of making up one['Js mind, like a pound of tea, an end of patting the butter of con sciousness into opinions. The real consciousness is the chaos, a grey commotion of mind, with no premises or conclusions or problems or solutions or cases or judgments. I lie for days on the floor, or in the woods, accompanied & unaccompanied, in a coenaesthesia of mind, a fullness of mental self-aesthesia that is entirely useless. The monad without the conflict, lightless & darkless. I used to pretend to work, I do so no longer. I used to dig about in the mental sand for the lugworms of likes & dislikes, I do so no longer. The lugworms of understanding.
Do not envy me, do not pity me.
I saw the Gilmores twice. Was at a party there one night. Arrived with Sean O'Sullivan, full of whiskey. All the usual, general bathe in pool towards morning. Then went one
546
afternoon alone and drove them into town. The Reddins were invited to the party but Kenneth wouldn't go & wouldn't let Norahgo. 5
The Gilmores are on the right track. After a bit one wouldn't mind the filth & discomfort. One would want less & less. That is the right direction.
Had a couple of mildly amusing evenings with Sean & 2 American women from N. Y. City, foreskin hats, cellophane slick
6
I applied for the job at Cape Town & won't hear I suppose till late Autumn. I hear your Buffalo Bill has been & gone. 7
Many pains are better than one. Love
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 3 sides; letterhead; TxU.
1 MaryManningHoweandherinfantdaughterSusan. "Petillante"(sparkling).
2 SB refers to New York publishers Doubleday Doran, who had been considering the manuscript of Murphy.
George and Gwynedd Reavey were on their honeymoon.
3 A. J. Leventhal was not appointed Assistant Editor of the Trinity College Dublin review Hennathena: A Series of Papers on Literature, Science and Philosophy by Members of Trinity College, Dublin until 1957; in June 1937, William Alexander Goligher was named Editor of Hennathena (Eileen Kelly, TCD, 17 August 2005).
4 "Accidia"(It. ,torpor,sloth). "ldeesobscures"(obscureideas).
5 CharlieGilmoreandLilianDonaghylivedtogetherinthecottageofJoeCampbell in Co. Wicklow (see 7 July 1936, n. 9). SB described the evening in a letter to Thomas McGreevy, 23 August 1937: "I borrow & go on the blind. The last was last Saturday at a party in the Glencree valley. The Gilmores - Charlie & Lilian once Donaghy. I lost my lovely hat, my watch & half a bottle ! of] J. J. And cut my head bathing in [4]0 foot at 2 a. m. " (TCD, MS 10402/133; left side of page torn).
Kenneth Reddin (see 7 August 1936, n. 8, and 13 April 1937, n. 1) and Norah Reddin (nee Ringwood, n. d. ).
6 SeanO'Sullivan;thetwowomenfromNewYorkhavenotbeenidentified.
547
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
ers&hardheads. Nothinghadevenbeenthere. Americangirls are irresistible, the charm of the inorganic.
30 August 1937, Manning Howe
7 InhislettertoThomasMcGreevy,25August1937,SBhadwritten:"Ihadabrief& formal acknowledgement of application from Cape Town. How I dread getting that job" (TCD, MS 10402/134).
SB's allusion to the showman of the Wild West, William F. Cody (known as Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917). probably points to the Chairman of theEnglish department of the University of Buffalo: SB to Thomas McGreevy, 4 August 1937, n. 8.
THOMAS M cGREEVY LONDON
Sep. 21� [1937] Cooldrinagh [Foxrock, Co. Dublin]
Dear Tom
Thanks for your letter. I was laid up for about 10 days with
gastric flu (so called) and it is only in these last few days that I feel up to even my poor normal level of energy again. The first day I went out in the car I collided with a lorry. My car is finished but I myself was not hurt. As I have only the compulsory mini mum 3rd party insurance my only chance of compensation is to claim off the other people, where I think my chance of succeed ing is very small. I was tired of the car anyway & meant to give it up & buy a bike.
Frank & wife got back from honeymoon last week. He
seems to have stood the course very well. At present they are
living at Cooldrinagh, as the house in Killiney will not be
evacuated till Oct. 1st. I was glad to hear he had sent you a card
1
to-be-spoken, but if it only depends on him it will work out. He
has plenty of practice in the matter of humouring the woman.
2
fromScotland. Thereissomethingruefulabouthimandanever
I ran into Raven yesterday in Leinster Street. I had not known he was over. We had a quick cup of coffee. I wanted him to lunch with me to-day but he rang up this morning to
548
say he couldn't manage it. He was very nice and I think sorry that we had not a little more time together. Someone had told him I was away or inaccessible . . .
Denis's poems came. There are lovely fragments, like the
last stanza of the Statue & Perturbed Burghers, & here & there
in the Eiffel Tower one, but I feel them adventitious and am on
the whole rather disappointed. The few lines that I quoted in
the Bookman article remain I think as good as anything in the
book. The Bacchanal I find very very bad, the worst kind of
Whitman-Kipling-aling pietinement sur place. As for the
images, they seem to be not so much uncontrolled as cut adrift
from the imaged altogether, doing a kind of Gymkana [for
Gymkhana] all on their own. If it was deliberate it wouldn't
matter. But the process is obviously one of working up the
perceived, when it is not a screen for the failure to perceive,
according to the usual mechanism. Because it seems an alto
gether perceptive, sensuous, instinctive & immediate talent,
not at all conceptive or even meditative. When he gets meta
physical it is awful. Brian says he can't observe accurately &
perhaps he can't. I don't think it matters. Perception is one
thing & observation another. The stanza I mention is material
exquisitely perceived, and I think the only image is in the first
line, & it a mild one. I got the book for review from S. O'S. and
shall not bother very much about the aspects of it that I can't
commend. But I would rather not have to write about it at all.
When I last saw Sheehy it was understood that you were doing
3
evidence for St. J. G. on commission. I have not yet seen the verbatim report but by all accounts it was sublime, the high point being reached when he described the verses complained
549
21 September {1937}, McGreevy
it for Ireland ToDay.
Higgins, because he is going to USA with the Abbey, gave his
21 September {1937), McGreevy
of and others not yet complained of as Folklore! Pokornography! The hearing proper is not expected to come on before
4
Italy, and could if necessary give my evidence for Harry on commission also. But I hope it will not come to this. Bad witness & all as no doubt I am, I think I could be of more use to him in the box.
Brian is in Sligo with father & sister, returns on Thursday for
a day or two, & then goes to Antrim with his sister. I had a long
letter from him yesterday, with all the pros & cons for Denis
alphaed betaed gammaed & deltaed. To-day a letter from
5
When I was ill I found the only thing I could read was
6
Mother's plan of letting Cooldrinagh for a long period is temporarily off. She discovered that one of the tenants was tubercular. But I think we shall persuade her simply to go away for a holiday, perhaps to friends in London. I would prob ably remain on in Cooldrinagh with the cook & the dog.
No news from Cissie Sinclair since the P. C. from Cape Town. No sign from Reavey either. I was pleased that Denis & Brian
550
November. IfIgetthejobinCapeTown,&havinggotitaccept it, two conditions unlikely to be satisfied, I shall go straight to
Charles,sayingyourtriphaddoneyougood. Hekeepsremark ably cheerful.
Schopenhauer. EverythingelseItriedonlyconfirmedthefeeling of sickness. It was very curious. Like suddenly a window opened on a fug. I always knew he was one ofthe ones that mattered most to me, and it is a pleasure more real than any pleasure for a long time to begin to understand now why it is so. And it is a pleasure also to find a philosopher that can be read like a poet, with an entire indifference to the apriori forms of verification. Although it is a fact that judged by them his generalisation shows fewer cracks than most generalisations.
liked Murphy. 7 I think it was perfectly genuine in each case. I still feel absurdly easy in my mind about its being pub lished sooner or later, and to my surprise still anxious that it should be.
God love thee. Write soon again. Ever
Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 8 sides; TCD, MS 10402/136. Dating: A "37" is added in AH; Frank Beckett back from his honeymoon; F. R. Higgins's "verbatim" taken on 13 and 14 September 1937.
1 FrankandJeanBecketthadboughtahouseinKilliney.
2 ThomasHolmesRavenhill.
3 InhisreviewofDenisDevlin'sIntercessions,SBmakesparticularreferencetothe final stanza of "The Statue & Perturbed Burghers," "Communication from the Eiffel Tower," and "Bacchanal" (Intercessions, 13-14, 32-47, 26).
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and Rudyard Kipling.
"Pietinement sur place" (marking time).
Brian Coffey.
SB had quoted the third stanza of Devlin's poem "Est Prodest" (lines 51-57) in his
essay "Recent Irish Poetry," 236; its first line is "Phrases twisted through other" (Devlin, Intercessions, 52).
Edward Sheehy was on the staff of Ireland To-Day (see 26 April 1937, n. 12).
4 F. R. Higgins,DirectoroftheAbbeyTheatre,gavehistestimonyintheSinclairvs. Gogarty and Cowan Rich suit on commission of Henry J. Moloney at the offices of Arthur Cox, Solicitor, 42 St.
