Andre Gide's novel, Les Caves du Vatican (1914; The Caves of the Vatican),
explores
an "acte gratuit" (a gratuitous act) which takes the form ofa crime.
Samuel Beckett
Dating: SB lived at this address in 1934.
27/1/24 [for 1934] 48 Paulton's Square S. W. 3
1
of pleasure, and I hope that you will send me many more like
that. I had no difficulty in making it out. So you see your
missives, expressed, I make so bold as to say, with a lucidity
little short of that of the Grimm brothers, in no way troubled
the very imperfect understanding that I have of the German
2
Dear Sonny,
Your letter, received this morning, gave me a great deal
language. So set to, without stint - weekly, at the least. Delighted to hear that life is looking kindly on you, notwith standing the rather green climate of your humanities, and that that strange quadruped with the inverted humps is keeping up his serenity. That animal has always inspired in me a certain anxiety, which is that the very quietistic life that he leads might
180
27January 1924 [for 1934}, Mortis Sinclair
drive him one of these days to throw himself, like the Biblical
swine, into the sea. That would be a matter for regret. You might
perhaps do well to engage him on this subject. Explain to him
that ennui is the most bearable of all ills, being the commonest,
and that it is better to be down in the dumps than to have a
bellyful of lobsters. If at first he looks unwilling to let himself
be persuaded, all you have to do is to get hold of him by his weak
side, that is his vanity (for every horse is exceedingly vain), by
making out to him that the curve of his spine would have made
Botticelli's mouth water, and that it would be a great pity, nay it
would be criminal, if he deprived the Howthians of such a tri
3
him: 'What matter whether you are good, / Be beautiful and be
sad', that will be, make no doubt ofit, the end ofhis resistance. He
will give in. He will condescend to be beautiful. It is even possible
that his sadness, absorbed into the awareness of his dorsal rhap
sody, which thanks to you he has just acquired, will vanish
altogether. But since sadness always adds to beauty, since it is
the eternal, invariable element of what Baudelaire calls the
'divine cake', in my view at least, I would prefer our horse to
remain faithful to the pouting, melancholic attitudes that I have
4
Cissie tells me that that you are on to Bach. Poor wretch! You, I mean, not Bach, who never was that. I have had to put up with a huge composition by him, humorously entitled: Suite
181
umphofsinuousness. Andif,bywayofconclusion,yousayto
always known him to have. However all that may be, and on re-reading what I have just, with such difficulty, put into words, I note that I do not give a tuppenny damn for the horse, his destiny, his inverted humps, or the aesthetes of Howth. Let him drown if he wants to. May he have a slow death, with the most frightful pains, in his field, on his back, with his four legs up in the air. I have no further interest in him whatsoever. No more of him.
27 January 1924 [for 1934), Morris Sinclair
for Orchestra, conducted by the ignoble Furtwangler, who, it appears, has had the better part of his nudity covered with
5
himself be led by his brass-players, who blow as only
beer-drinkers can, while making with his little left hand very
daring gestures towards his first violins, who fortunately paid
not the least attention to them, and swinging the soft fleshi
ness ofhis posterior as ifhe longed to go the lavatory. Hardly
had I recovered from this assault when he had the imperti
nence to launch into Schumann's Fourth Symphony, which is
less like a symphony than like an overture begun by Lehar,
completed by Goering, and revised by Johnny Doyle (if not
his dog), and which is not really worth thinking about,
6
interwovenswastikas. Hehasthecharmingmodestyofletting
Needless to say that the murderous Furtwangler, with the connivance of his damned souls, was victorious, ifmassacring a score that has certainly never been alive can count as a victory. To make nothing out of nothing, and take three-quarters of an hour over it, now there is an achievement! Then finally he was able to go to the lavatory. But instead of staying there for the rest of his life, he came back, followed by his assistant executioners, in order to tear into tatters, in front of us, Beethoven's 7th. Mr Furtwangler, like the good Nazi he is, cannot tolerate mysteries, and it was rather like a fried egg, or, ifyou prefer, like a foot put in it, that he presented this music. He played the last movement like the most elegant of Standchen. He had a rapturous reception. Not
let alone launching into.
only did he button up that poor symphony to the point of strangulation, but he took the liberty of giving it a colourful
7
buttonhole. And with what, in God's name? A Wurstchen. Three times a week I give myselfover to probing the depths with my psychiatrist, which has already, I think, done me some
182
27January 1924 [for 1934], Morris Sinclair
good, in the sense that I can keep a little calmer, and that the
panic attacks in the night are less frequent and less acute. But
the treatment will necessarily be long, and I may have months
more of it yet. I am not complaining, I regard myself as very
fortunate to have been able to embark on it, it is the only thing
that interests me at the moment, and that is how it should be,
for these sorts of things require one to attend to them to the
8
exclusion of virtually anything else. As a result, I have not the leisure, even ifI had the desire, to do anything whatever in the way ofliterature. And perhaps that too is as it should be. I've already done far too much, little and yet too much, never having had any idea about anything. Apart from the gropings that I've spoken of, and a great number of moments spent standing in front ofpictures, I stay at home, where I am quite comfortable, draped in an armchair in front ofmy radiator, passing the time until I can go to bed, which is an operation I can carry out a little more confidently than a month ago. And that is all. A phase like any other.
Regards, fond regards to the family. Get them to write, I would like a letter from Boss, and write yourself.
Yours Sam
1 SB's cousin Morris Sinclair was known in the family as "Sunny," although SB often used "Sonny," alluding to "Sonne" (sun).
2 Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm (see 23 March 1929, n. 2). Morris Sinclair observed, "the Grimm brothers [ . . . J collected many of their folk tales from an old woman who lived in a hamlet just south of Kassel" (Morris Sinclair, 28 November 1993).
3 InhislettertoSB. MorrisSinclairhaddescribedthishorseinafieldonHowth. Botticelli (ne Allesandro di Mariano di Felipepi, c. 1444-1510).
4 "Madrigal triste," a poem by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), opens with the lines: "Que m'importe que tu sois sage? / Sois belle! et sois triste! " ("What does it matter to me that you are wise? / Be lovely - and be sad! ") (Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres completes, I, ed. Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris:
183
27 January 1924 {for 1934}, Morris Sinclair
Gallimard, 1975-1976] 137-138; Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, The Flowers ofEvil, tr. Richard Howard [Boston: David R. Godine, 1982] 170-171).
SB also refers to Baudelaire's prose poem, "Le Gateau," in which a shared piece of bread becomes "gateau" to two brothers who fight over it, until it disappears (Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris in Oeuvres completes, I. 297-299).
5 On 22 January 1934, Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954) conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at Queen's Hall. London: the concert comprised Bach's Suite for Orchestra no. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067, Schumann's Symphony no. 4 in D minor, op. 120, and Beethoven's Symphony no. 7 in A major, op. 92.
SB alludes to Furtwangler's decision to remain in Germany and to his continuing dealings with the Nazi regime (for full discussion of the latter: Hans-Hubert Schonzeler, Furtwangler [London: Gerald Duckworth, 1990] 48-90).
"Hakenkreuze" (swastikas).
6 Schumann's Symphony no. 4 was recorded by Furtwangler with the Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon, LPE 17 170). Franz Lehar (1870-1948), Hungarian-born Viennese composer and conductor, was best known for his operettas, especially The Meny Widow, and his military marches.
Hermann Goering (1893-1946), President of the Reichstag (1932) and later Commander of the Luftwaffe.
SB's reference to Johnny Doyle is not certain and may be generic. He may refer to J. C. Doyle (n. d. ), a vocalist famous for his renditions oflrish songs ("Well-Known Dublin Singer," Irish Times 10 November 1930: 4); or, asMorris Sinclair has suggested, he may refer toJ. M. Doyle,apostmanintheBailypostaldistrict(Howth,Co. Dublin)wheretheSinclairs lived when they returned from Germany to Dublin (Morris Sinclair, 5 November 1994).
7 "Standchen"(serenade),"Wiirstchen"(sausage).
8 SBhadrecentlybegunpsychotherapywithWilfredRuprechtBion•(1897-1979). Although SB consistently uses the term "analysis," as Lois Oppenheim has observed, Bion was not yet qualified as a psychoanalyst (Lois Oppenheim, "A Preoccupation with Object-Representation: the Beckett-Rion Case Revisited," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 82. 4 [2001] 768).
NUALA COSTELLO LONDON
27/2/34 48 Paulton's Sq. [London] S. W. 3
Dear Nuala1
It's a great handicap to me in all my anabases and stases that I
can't express myself in a straightforward manner, and that I cannot behave in a way that has the most tenuous propriety of
184
27 February 1934, Costello
relationship to circumstance. A great handicap. I regret it very
much, more than I can ever hope to be able to tell. But there it is.
One is not what one is not. Not for doing, I find in my Dante, but
for not doing, is Virgil in Limbo, though honoured above the
deadbom that are there, and above the throngs of men and
women who exercised all the virtues at top pressure save only
the theological group with which they were not familiar that
are there also, with a roving commission as far as the purgatorial
Eden, where he withdraws and the ladies take over. 2 Well I might
do worse than find myself as it were polarised between
Democritus and Heraclitus for all eternity, in a place where sigh
ing is out of melancholy and not out of torment. I would be
familiar with the position. There seems to be contradiction inher
ent in the idea of Democritus doing anything so romantic, and
indeed of Heraclitus doing anything so restrained, as sighing, but
one must not mind that. 3 There is really nothing that one should
mind, or if there is I should be interested to know what for
4
foundhisdivulgationsalwayssomehowunsatisfactory. Perhaps
the author ofthe Coloured Dorne would know, he might look it up
for me in his Saint Teresa; or perhaps Mr R. B. Barry would know,
he might find it in one of the Inns of Court, the Middle Temple
Library say, which possesses some curious works on witchcraft; or
if none of those know, perhaps the petrified asp at the junction of
d'Olier, College, Pearse and Townsend Streets, if I have not for
gotten my Dublin, might be persuaded to pronounce on the ques
tion, or the wild waves of the outfall at the Pigeon House, or even
the noble etron which on the night ofmy departure I remarked in
6
example. Perhaps Curtis would know. I have asked Percy and
5
CollegeGreenandwhichisstilltherenodoubt. Butifnoneof these or cognate authoritie[s] know, or knowing decline to tell, then I must just stay as I am, and console myself as best I can with
185
27 February 1934, Costello
the thought that I have been saved the trouble of moving. For the
essence of all anabasis, I mean of all anabasis of good quality, is to
be sought in its purity from destination and hence from schedule.
That follows on most naturally, does it not, from what I have been
saying, while from it again in its turn, if indeed the word turn has
any sense in the context, I mean from this delicious conception of
movement as gress, pure and mere gress, one arrives like a bird to
its nest, though nest scarcely seems to be the right word in such a
passage, at an elucidation of the crime immotive that never
occurred and never could to Gide or to any ofhis kidney, or indeed
to any person within earshot of the ringing grooves save only to
myself, who I assure you could not be induced to part with it for
love or money or any other incitement whatever, on account ofits
inestimable antiphlogistic properties that exceed anything of the
kind I ever tried, and I have tried everything, from cold water to
7
Also I would like to correct now while I think of it an error that occurred I seem to remember in my last letter to you, where I
8
reduce blushing to Guinness as an anterotic.
I did not call on you after all, the weather made it impossible.
spoke of changing for Harley Street and the Zoological Gardens. Of course one does not change, one alights. Alight for Monkey Hill, alight for the Wild Asses House, Small Rodents House, Small Cats House, Fellows Tea Pavilion, for the Adders, the Brush Turkies [for Turkeys], the Prairie Dogs and Waders, alight for the Gnus Paddock, the Goat Hills, the Gazellez [for GazellesJ Sheds and the Racoons [for Raccoons] Cages, for the Swine, the Lemurs, the Civets and the Birds of Prey, alight for Karin Stephen, Melanie Klein, Creighton Miller [for Crichton-Miller] and Burt White, alight to them that sprawl in darkness and in the shadow of - resurrec tion. 9 Or go on to Hampstead and have a drink at the Spaniards, and look at your brother the fly, oh the Spanish fly, moving out of
186
darkness into light, et sqq. Where do the cantharides go in the
winter time? Amn't I after telling you, some go to Hampstead and
the rest do like the swallows do, rush into a coagulum and drown
10
Yes, I wrote two little poems, one after a brief interview with the Author of the Strange Necessity (positively surprising my dear), and the other after profound and prolonged communion with the strange (not to be believed my dear) flora and fauna of my sunken garden, and ut infra respectively they gallop along:
There once was a woman called West Whose distinction it was to be blest
With so unremitting
A sense of the fitting
That she seldom, if ever, undressed.
(Until she met Wells, and then I supposed she had to. ) 12 This poemetto has been well received in certain quarters. This other, which I now propose to you but only after some hesitation, and in a regular little storm of scraping and bowing and moping and mowing believe me, less well:
27 February 1934, Costello
themselves in a dewpond. Mass suicide, Percy knows all about it. Hence we arrive at the couplet that deserves the Croix de Guerre, or perhaps better the Dunmow Flitch:
Light and sweetness, sweetness and light,
11
Obliterate gloom, engender delight.
Mammon's bottoms,
La Goulue's, mine, a cob's, Whipt, caressed,
My mother's breast.
But God's
A goat's, an ass's,
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27 February 1934, Costello
Alien beauty,
The Divine Comedy.
You don't care for it. I don't care for it much myself. But that it is a poem and not verse, that it is a prayer and not a collect, I have not the slightest doubt, not the slightest.
It is hard to believe what you say ofDublin, that the youth, the talent and harmosity are flown. I bought yesterday a bottle of ink
(Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " "Oh thank you kindly, sir", he said, ''I'll have a bottle of ink. ")
from a lady ofClonmel extraction and who dared not cook herself up with the vain hope of ever setting foot again in Fishguard. 14
But then in the next breath you quote Percy, and indeed the
passage was so real to me as I read it that I had to take out my
handkerchief. Now I think you will be put to the pin o[f] your
collarette to make Percy drinking coffee and saying things like
that consist with Dublin bereft. I am thinking that I might well
employ these long, sober (Kia-ora and the wildest scenes ofvirtue)
evenings in writing a True-born Jackeen on the model of Defoe's
True-born Englishman, though ofcourse infinitely more amusing
15
13
and competent.
My velleities of self-diffusion in this stew of LETTERS have
He shall have it then hot from the vinegar.
been repulsed with the traditional contumely, so now I'm sulking and won't play. The book won't be out for a month at least. Can't
16
So I read the last word in obscenities in the British Museum, to whose incredible central sanctum I have
188
get it taken in U. S. A.
gained admittance on the strength of an irrepressible anxiety to
"consult the lesser know[n] French and Italian texts that are not
available elsewhere", and then walk home across the string of
Parks beginning with the Horse Guards, shivering and my feet in
marmalade, past the celebrated pelicans that really have a most
charitable expression and whose inward eye they deign to extra
vert and bliss of solitude interrupt readily at any time to feed (for
who knows when they may have to disembowel themselves at a
moment's notice? ), and eat the most expensive egg that money
can buy, though it is surely a strange thing that a rich man would
be in and out of heaven twenty times over while you would be
looking for a duck's egg in Old Chelsea, and perhaps this is the
moment to mention that I am a Bigendian, not instinctively but
by education. Instinctively I am a Smallendian, with the result
that when I am tired or my mind clouded these two wretched
affinities, the civilised for the large, and the primitive for the
17
and dare not ifl could, for ifl did the second state of this man . . .
18
My obeisances where obeisances are due, and thee I
embrace, as Sordello Virgil, la 've il minor s'appiglia, and if
19
1 NualaCostello•(1907-1984)beganpostgraduatestudyattheSorbonnein1929;in Paris, she met Lucia Joyce, and, through Giorgio and Helen Joyce, met SB (Patrick
189
27 February 1934, Costello
small, end ofthe egg, come into conflict and the egg is not eaten. No, I think I am all set now to give Liffey's stinking tide a long long miss, and indeed for the moment I have no choice in the matter, but must remain on here as long as this treatment lasts, and God knows how long that will be, probably more months than I like to contemplate. Anyhow I can't stop now,
So my life is the complete Comedie a tiroirs-vides.
you write me a very nice letter I'll give you the reference. A toi
sf Sam TLS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; Costello.
27 February 1934, Costello
O'Dwyer, "Letters from Paris," The Great Tuam Annual [1991] 73, 75). Of her, SB had written to McGreevy: "I met a Miss Costello (where is the accent? ) once met chez Giorgio's flitch, when Shem was there and Colum and all the galere, affiancee then but now disponible, and she frightened me back into my ame des glaces. Who is she? " (7 September [1933], TCD, MS 10402/54). "Galere" (crew); "affiancee" (SB's conflation of "affianced" and "fiancee"); "disponible" (available); "ame des glaces" (soul of ice).
Helen Fleischman (nee Kastor, 1894-1963) married Giorgio Joyce in December 1930; Padraic Colum (1881-1972), Irish-American writer and critic.
2 InDante'sInferno,VirgilisamongthehonoredinLimbo,thefirstCircleofHell, because as a pagan he could not ascend to Paradise. Virgil is allowed to lead Dante on his journey through the Circles ofHell and through Purgatory; when he withdraws, he saystoDante:'"perch'iotesovratecoronaemitrio"' ("thereforeoverthyself! crown and mitre thee") (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto XXVII, line 142; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 357).
Dante is led farther by the fair lady culling flowers, Matilda, and by Beatrice; these two lead him into Paradise. In keeping with his statement that "I can't express myselfin a straightforward manner," SB refers directly not to the locus classicus in which Limbo is depicted, Inferno Canto N, but to Virgil's account of himself delivered to Sordello in Purgatorio Canto VII, line 25: "'Non per far, ma per non fare"' ("Not for doing, but for not doing") (Dante, La Divina Commedia; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95).
3 SBwrote"Democritus<sighing>doing. "
In Inferno N, lines 136-138, the pre-Socratic philosophers Democritus (c. 460-c. 370 BC) and Heraclitus are presented. Democritus is reputed to have laughed at human folly, and Heraclitus is reputed to have wept at it; SB imagines himself"polarized between" the two extremes. SB cites from Purgatorio VII, lines 29-30: "ove i lamenti / non suonan come guai, ma son sospiri" (where the laments have no sound ofwailing but are sighs) (Dante, La Divina Commedia; Dante. The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95, 97).
4 EdmundCurtis,ProfessorofModernHistoryatTrinityCollegeDublinfrom1914 to 1943, was author ofThe Normans in Lower Italy (1912), A History ofMediaeval Ireland from 1110 to 1513 (1923), and, at that time, was writing A History of Ireland (1936).
5 SBmayhaveaskedthisquestioninconversation.
6 Francis Stuart• (ne Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart, 1902-2000), Australian born Irish writer, author of The Coloured Dome (1932) and Women and God (1931). Stuart was influenced by his reading of Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism (1912) and studied the lives of the saints. The "most important of all, to him, [was] St. Therese of Lisieux," according to his biographer Geoffrey Elborn: "Stuart speculated that ifSt. Therese 'had not been a nun what a lover she would have made. ' This interpretation formed part of the foundation for Stuart's belief that the search for fulfilment through women was part of the same longing for a passionate relationship with God" (Geoffrey Elborn, Francis Stuart: A Life [Dublin: Raven Arts Press, 1990] 73-74).
Ralph Brereton-Barry (1899-1943) graduated from Trinity College Dublin and was called to the Irish Bar in 1922, and to the English Bar (Gray's Inn) in 1933. As a member of one of the four Inns of Court, he would have had access to the library ofthe Middle Temple, whose Rare and Antiquarian historical collections include some books and tracts on witchcraft; however, there is no current collection as such (Stuart Adams, Library, Middle Temple, London, 1 April 2005).
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27 February 1934, Costello
ThejunctionofD'Olier,College,Pearse,and TownsendstreetsisonthewestsideofTCD. Pigeon House: 25 January 1931, n. 6.
"Etron" (turd).
7 "Gress"(movement;anounderivedfrom"gressus,"supineofLat. verb"gradior, gradi, gressus" [to walk, to step]).
"Crime immotive" (unmotivated crime).
Andre Gide's novel, Les Caves du Vatican (1914; The Caves of the Vatican), explores an "acte gratuit" (a gratuitous act) which takes the form ofa crime.
SB quotes from the poem "Locksley Hall" by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): "Forward, forward let us range, / Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change" (Tennyson: A Selected Edition, Incorporating the Trinity College Manuscripts, ed. Christopher Ricks [Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1989] 192).
Guinness stout.
8 SB'spreviouslettertoNualaCostellohasnotbeenfound. HarleyStreet,London Wl, has a concentration ofphysicians' consulting rooms; it is off Marylebone Road, near Regent's Park station at the southeast side of Regent's Park; the Zoological Gardens, off Prince Albert Road, near Primrose Hill, were on the northeast side of Regent's Park.
9 WithinSB'slistofanimalhousesinRegent'sParkZoo,heincludespractitioners whose rooms might be found in the vicinity of nearby Harley Street: psychiatrist Karin Costelloe Stephen (1889-1953); psychoanalysts Melanie Klein (1882-1960) and Hugh Crichton-Miller (1877-1959); and surgeon and gynaecologist Harold J. Burt-White (1901-1952) who was much in the news on account ofreckless driving and a divorce case.
10 The Spaniards Inn, Hampstead Heath (see 8 October 1932, n. 5).
An aphrodisiac, "Spanish fly," also known as cantharides. The dried bodies ofthe Lytta vesicatoria (also Cantharis vesicatoria) beetle, or blister beetle, are a natural inflam matory agent. Most cantharides pass the winter as coarctate larvae.
"Et sqq. " (Lat. , and the following [abbreviation for et sequentes]).
In conversation with SB, Arland Ussher may have observed a similarity between the mass deaths of beetles and swallows, or this may be SB's invention. There was a contemporary occasion for such comparison, for in 1931, swallows died in massive numbers when their migration patterns were severely disrupted by storms in the Alps (see The Times 5, 7, 25, and 28 September 1931).
11 The Dunmow Flitch award was given to the "Happiest Couple. " The expression "eating Dunmow bacon" was used of happily married couples, who had lived long together and never quarreled. It alludes to the custom begun in 1104: "Any person going to Dunmow, in Essex, and humbly kneeling on two sharp stones at the church door, might claim a flitch ofbacon ifhe could swear that for 12 months and a day he had never had a household brawl or wished himselfunmarried" (Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, rev. Adrian Room,16th edn. [New York, HarperResource-HarperCollins, 1999] 373). The Flitch Trials still are held in Little Dunmow before a jury ofsix spinsters and six bachelors.
12 RebeccaWest,StrangeNecessity(1928). Westhadanaffairintheautumnof1913 with H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946), and a child by him, the writer Anthony West (1914-1987). SB's "interview" with Rebecca West is not documented.
"Ut infra" (as below).
191
27 February 1934, Costello
13 "La Goulue" (greedy woman), the Moulin Rouge performer Louise Weber (1870-1929), whose nickname came from out-drinking anyone in the bar; she and her performing partner,Jacques Renaudin (nicknamed Valentin le Desosse, 1843-1907), were depicted by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) in his poster Moulin Rouge - La Goulue.
14 Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, 30 miles northwest of Waterford. Fishguard, Wales, on the Irish Sea, the ferryport to Rosslare, County Wexford, Ireland.
15 Kia-Ora is an orange fruit drink, originally lemon, created in Australia and marketed in Britain since 1913; "Kia-Ora" (Maori, good health).
Whether SB's proposal of a "TruebornJackeen" was in jest, or, asJohn Pilling asserts, a fictional project using Irish materials later abandoned, James Knowlson indicates that SB did make notes on Irish history for Joyce ('"For Interpolation': Beckett and English Literature," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 16 12006] 223); Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 638, n. 49; Everett Frost and Jane Maxwell, "TCD MS 10971/2: Irish History," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 1612006] 126).
"Jackeen" (Anglo-Irish, a self-assertive, worthless fellow). Defoe's satirical poem was "The True-Born Englishman" (1701).
16 MorePricksThanKickswaspublishedbyChattoandWinduson24May1934,held up while Charles Prentice attempted to find a publisher in the United States. He first contacted the publisher of Joyce at Viking Press, Benjamin W. Huebsch (1876-1964), who declined (Prentice to Huebsch, 23 January 1934 [UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/ 175]; Prentice to SB, 23 January 1934 IUoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/177]; Huebsch to Prentice, 31 January 1934 [UoR, MS 2444 CW 57/21). Prentice then sent uncorrected proofs to Stanley Marshall Rinehart (1897-1969), who offered to forward them to his publishing partner John Farrar (1896-1974) (Prentice to Rinehart, 1 February 1934; Prentice to Rinehart, 7 February 1934; UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/307 and 1378).
Having had no final word from Rinehart/Farrar, Prentice sent More Pricks Than Kicks to New York publishers, Harrison Smith and Robert Haas (1932-1936), as he wrote to SB on 4 April 1934:
So, unless we click with Smith & Haas, or unless you would like us to try another Yank, I am rather inclined to think that the manufacture of the book should be put in hand when we hear from Smith & Haas, whatever their decision is. But just as you like. I don't want to hurry you a bit. The object of this letter is simply to find out what your own opinion is. (UoR, MS2444. CW letterbook 155/91)
17 SB'sreadingintheBritishMuseum:22July1932.
SB describes his walk across London parks from Trafalgar Square in the direction of Chelsea: the Horse Guards' Parade, St. James's Park, Green Park, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens. The lake in St. James's Park is a sanctuary for ducks and pelicans.
Marmalade (anything soft, squishy). Reference to Matthew 19:24: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. " SB refers to Jonathan Swift's "A Voyage to Lilliput" in Gulliver's Travels (1726), in which Catholics are caricatured as Big-Endians and Protestants as Small-Endians,
according to which end of a boiled egg should be broken first.
18 SBreferstohistherapywithBion. SBmayalludetoMatthew12:45andLuke11:26, which both write: "the last state ofthat man is worse than the first. " Or he may allude to the
192
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
"second state of man" discussed by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) in Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell: Drawnfrom Things Heard and Seen, in which "Our Second State of Man After Death" is one in which "we are given access to the deeper reaches of our minds, or our intentions and thoughts" (tr. George F. Dole, with notes by George F. Dole, Robert H. Kirven, and Jonathan Rose, The New CenturyEdition of the Works ofEmanuel Swedenborg, series ed. Jonathan Rose jWest Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000] 380).
"Comedie a tiroirs-vides" (a play with lots of sub-plots, more commonly, a "roman a tiroirs" [a novel with lots of sub-plots]; SB catches up the literal meaning of "tiroirs" ]drawers of a chest] and adds "vides" [empty]).
19 Sordello embraces Virgil twice. With the first embrace, Sordello recognizes Virgil as a fellow Mantuan: "'O Mantovano, io son Sordello / de la tua terra! ' e l'un l'altro abbracciava" ("O Mantuan, I am Sordello of thy city. " And the one embraced the other) (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto VI, lines 74-75; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II. Purgatorio. tr. Sinclair. 85). With the second, Sordello recognizes Virgil in humility: "la 've 'l minor s'appiglia" (clasping where the inferior does) (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto VII, line 15 ]SB writes"ii" for"'! "]; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95). SB quotes the reference from Canto VIL
MORRIS SINCLAIR DUBLIN
4/3/34 48 Paulson's Square [London]
Cher Ami
Sais rassure. Les peccadilles d'omission n'ont pas d'emprise
sur moi. Je veux dire que j'y suis tellement sujet moi-meme que leur manifestation chez autrui ne peut que me chauffer le coeur, chose dont j'ai assez besoin en ce moment. Merci done de ta lettre qui, pour s'etre fait attendre, ne m'a pas mains charme ! 'esprit et egaye la solitude, et merci aussi de la coupure, ou je trouve que ce vieux chameau paranoi:aque n'est pas suffisam[m] ent maltraite. Mais c'est tout de meme un commencement --
Tuasdelachancedepouvoirjouerdansunorchestre,quelque moche qu'il puisse etre. C'est une occasion nonpareille pour te familiariser avec les details d'une partition--Je n'ai jamais pu me reconcilier avec la Symphonie Pastorale ou j'ai ! 'impression que Beethoven a verse tout ce qu'il avait de vulgaire, de facile et
193
4 March 1934, Mortis Sinclair
d'enfantin (et c'etait beaucoup). pour en finir avec une fois pour
1
Arte, dont j'ai deja parle a Cissie et sur lequel partant je ne revien
drai maintenant pas-- Mais un autre, donne par le Quatuor Busch,
qui presente actuellement dans une serie de cinq concerts tous les
quatuors pour cordes de Beethoven, vaut la peine qu'on y fasse
2
Septieme; le second de 1800; et le troisieme de 1825. C'est pour
celui-ci que je suis alle et je peux dire que je n'ai ete nullement
der;u- - Bien que ce ne soit que l'avant-dernier de ses quatuors il a
pour Finale la derniere composition qui soit venue de sa main, un
Allegro incomparablement beau. Mais c'est la Cavatina qui precede
immediatement cet Allegro qui m'a le plus frappe - mouvement
qui en calme finalite et intensite depasse tout ce que j'ai jamais
entendu du venerable Ludwig et dont je ne l'aurais pas cru
capable - vraiment si tu ne connais pas ce Quatuor deja (B Mol
Mineur, op. 130) [for (si bemol majeur, op. 130)]. tu ferais bien de te
4
toutes. JaientenduunsuperbeconcertdonneparleQuatuorPro
allusion. Leprogrammesecomposaitdetroisquatuors,lepremier ("Harfen") de 1809, c'est a dire je crois, entre la Pastorale et la
3
le procurer. Le demier concert de la serie est pour samedi le dixsept, rete de notre infecte Patrice, et je viens de me garantir en quelque degre contre le souvenir de ses cochonneries zoologiques et botaniques en achetant un billet. 11 yaura le dernier Quatuor en F (op. 135) avec le celebre "Schwer Gefasste Entschluss":
allegro
jJ
II JI;II
Es muss sein! Es muss sein! 5
grave
arP�r,11cj Muss es sein?
Puis quelques jours plus tard, le 20 je crois, il ya Jacques Thibaud
avec un programme formidable - embrassant la Chaconne de
Vitali, le concerto en A du kleiner Wolferl, et une galaxie
6
d'Espagnols. Mais meme en commern;:ant deja a faire des 194
economies, je ne sais si je vais pouvoir me le payer. C'est vrai ment une tempete de musique a Londres en ce moment, un tel embarras de richesses que si l'on pouvait se les payer tous on aurait de la peine a choisir entre les concerts qui ont lieu le meme jour. Mais voila par exemple une [for un] dilemme qui ne me trouble pas! Helas!
Il n'est pas possible d'exprimer les etranges douceurs que je ressens a l'approche du printemps, et si c'est la une phrase qui invite le ridicule tant pis pour moi. Positivementje ne l'aijamais regarde venir avec tant d'impatience et tant de soulagement. Et j'y pense comme a une victoire emportee sur la nuit, les cauche mars, les sueurs, la panique et la folie, et aux crocus et aux narcisses comme aux gages d'une vie au moins tolerable, deja goutee mais dans un passe si lointain que toute trace, etjusqu'au souvenir, en etait presque perdus. Que les puissances veuillent que je ne m'y trompe pas - la peninsule doit etre radieuse. Et le cheval s'est-il un peu renouvele parmi les Zephyrs? Ne manque pas de me rappeler a son souvenir.
Et le travail, cela avance? Cette anthologie Ruddiesque est en effet comme tu dis, une chose puante, et du reste pleine de pieges. Je te conseille d'etudier cela avec une carte de la France sous la main. Comme cela il y a au moins un interet geographique a en extraire. Autrement c'est une corvee intolerable. D'ailleurs je ne l'ai jamais lu. Fais surtout attention a la region proven(ale (Maurras, etc. ), car c'est le pays d'election du noble professeur. Et ce n'est pas la peine de te dire que l'etude des textes qu'on donne a etudier est beaucoup moins importante que celle de celui qui les donne. Autrement dit, mets-toi dans la peau de Ruddy (il y a de la place) et fous-toi plus ou moins de ses anthologies. 7
]'ai sur la conscience de ne pas avoir encore repondu a la lettre de ton auguste pere. Mais a mesure que les heures de
195
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
lumiere [se] developpent et que s'y absorbent celles des tene bres, il se forme dans ! 'immense creuset de mon esprit les seules combinaisons verbales dignes de lui et de moi par rapport a lui. (Re]conforte-le done, quand par hasard il aurait besoin d'un tel soin, au moyen de cet avant-gout de la chose qui se prepare.
Devant ta magnifique mere, de la part de qui une accusation de reception de la divine lettre que je lui ai recemment adressee est vivement et instamment a souhaiter, je me prosterne et me remplis la bouche avidement de poussiere. Represente-lui cette attitude.
Et a toi, mon cher ami, je souhaite, maintenant et a l'avenir, tout ce qu'il ya de plus bienfaisant et propice dans un monde ou de telles vertus ont l'air de devenir de plus en plus rares.
Affectueusement Sam
ALS; 3 leaves, 3 sides; Sinclair.
4/3/34 48 Paulson's Square [London]
Dear Sunny,
Let me reassure you. Peccadillos ofomission have no hold on
me. I mean that I am myself so subject to them that the fact of their appearing in someone else can only warm my heart, some thing I am rather in need of at the moment. So thank you for your letter, which, for all that it was long in coming, has none the less charmed my mind and enlivened my solitude, and thank you too for the cutting, in which I think that that paranoic old brute is not treated badly enough. But still it is a start.
How lucky you are to be able to play in an orchestra, however third-rate it is. It is a matchless opportunity to get to know the
196
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
details ofa score. I have never made my peace with the Pastoral
Symphony into which I have the impression Beethoven poured
everything that was vulgar, facile, and childish in him (and that
1
was a great deal), so as to have done with it once and for all.
I
heard a superb concert by the Pro Arte Quartet that I have already
spoken ofto Cissie, and to which I shall therefore not return now.
But another one, given by the Busch Quartet, which is at the
moment putting on a series of five concerts in which they are
performing all of Beethoven's string quartets, is worth a men
tion. 2 The programme was made up of three quartets, the first
one ('Harfen') from 1809, that is I think between the Pastoral and
3
disappointed. Although it is only his penultimate quartet it has
as its finale the last composition we have from his hand, an
incomparably beautiful Allegro. But it is the Cavatina that imme
diately precedes that Allegro that made the greatest impression
on me. A movement which in calm finality and intensity goes
beyond anything I have ever heard by the venerable Ludwig, and
which I would not have believed him capable of- really, ifyou are
not already familiar with this quartet (B Flat minor, op. 130), you
4
a grave ,11 allegro El;JIIJ;IJII
Muss es sein'? Es muss sein! Es muss sein15
197
theSeventh;thesecondfrom1800;andthethirdfrom1825. This is the one that I went to, and I can say that I was in no way
woulddowelltogetholdofit. Thelastconcertintheseriesison Saturday the 17th, feast of the unspeakable Patrick, and I have just gone some way to protecting myself against the memory of his vulgar zoological and botanical nonsense by buying a ticket. There will be the last Quartet in F (opus 135) with the famous 'Schwer Gefasste Entschluss':
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
Then a few days later, on the 20th I think, there is Jacques
Thibaud with a tremendous programme - including the Vitali
Chaconne, the Concerto in A by kleiner Wolfer! , and a galaxy of
6
The strange, gentle pleasures that I feel at the approach of spring are impossible of expression, and if that is a sentence inviting ridicule, so much the worse for me. I have positively never watched it coming with so much impatience and so much relief. And I think of it as a victory over darkness, nightmares, sweats, panic and madness, and of the crocuses and daffodils as the promise of a life at least bearable, once enjoyed but in a past so remote that all trace, even remembrance of it, had been almost lost. May the powers will it that I am not wrong - the peninsula must be radiant. And has the horse revived a little among the Zephyrs? Do remember me to him.
And how is the work going? This Ruddiesque anthology is indeed, as you say, a stinking affair, and moreover full of traps. My advice to you is to study it with a map of France to hand. That way there is at least a geographical interest to be got out of it. Otherwise it is an intolerable chore. Incidentally, I have never read it. Pay particular attention to the Proven�al part (Maurras, etc. ), for that is the domain beloved of the noble Professor. And I need hardly tell you that the study of the texts that are being proposed for study is far less important than that of the person proposing them. In other words, put
yourself in Ruddy's skin (there is room), and to hell more or less
7
Spaniards. Butevenstartingalreadytosaveupforit,Idonot know whether I shall be able to afford it. There is a positive storm of music in London just now, such a wealth of splendid things that even if one could afford them all it would be hard to choose between concerts happening on the same day. Now there is a dilemma that costs me no sleep! Alas!
with his anthologies.
198
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
On my conscience is the fact that I have not replied to your august father's letter. But as the hours oflight grow, and those of darkness are absorbed into them, there are forming in the immense crucible of my mind the only verbal combinations worthy of him, and of me in relation to him. Comfort him, then, ifperchance he had need ofsuch care, with this foretaste ofwhat is in preparation.
Before your magnificent mother, from whom an acknowl edgement ofthe divine letter which I recently dispatched to her is most urgently and insistently to be wished, I prostrate myself and eagerly fill my mouth with dust. Go through these move ments for me.
And to you, my dear friend, I wish, now and for the future, all that is most beneficent and propitious in a world where such virtues seem to be growing more and more scarce.
Love Sam
1 Beethoven'sSymphonyno. 6inFmajor,op. 68("Pastoral").
2 The concert given by the Pro Arte Quartet at the BBC Broadcasting House on 16 February 1934 comprised Beethoven's String Quartet no. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131; String Quartet no. 4 in C major, op. 91 by Bela Bart6k (1881-1945); and Debussy's String Quartet in G minor, op. 10 ("Music This Week," The Times 12 February 1934: 8).
The Busch Quartet played a series of ten concerts at Wigmore Hall between 24 February and 17 March 1934; they actually played the Beethoven string quartets in six concerts (26 February, and 2, 3, 9, 15, and 17 March).
3 On 2 March the Busch Quartet played Beethoven's String Quartet no. 10 in E-flat major, op. 74 ("Harp"); String Quartet no. 3 in D major, op. 18; and String Quartet no. 13 in B-flat major, op. 130. "Harp" was indeed written between Beethoven's Symphony no. 6 and Symphony no. 7 in A major, op. 92.
4 SBspeaksoftheCavatinaandAllegroofStringQuartetno. 13inB-flatmajor,op. 130. Beethoven originally composed the Grosse Fuge as a finale for this quartet; per suaded that it was too long, he published it separately (Grosse Fuge in B-flat major, op. 133) and composed the Allegro as a second ending (Philip Radcliffe, Beethoven's String Quartets, 2nd edn. ! Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978] 135-137).
5 Beethoven'sStringQuartetno. 16inFmajor,op.
27/1/24 [for 1934] 48 Paulton's Square S. W. 3
1
of pleasure, and I hope that you will send me many more like
that. I had no difficulty in making it out. So you see your
missives, expressed, I make so bold as to say, with a lucidity
little short of that of the Grimm brothers, in no way troubled
the very imperfect understanding that I have of the German
2
Dear Sonny,
Your letter, received this morning, gave me a great deal
language. So set to, without stint - weekly, at the least. Delighted to hear that life is looking kindly on you, notwith standing the rather green climate of your humanities, and that that strange quadruped with the inverted humps is keeping up his serenity. That animal has always inspired in me a certain anxiety, which is that the very quietistic life that he leads might
180
27January 1924 [for 1934}, Mortis Sinclair
drive him one of these days to throw himself, like the Biblical
swine, into the sea. That would be a matter for regret. You might
perhaps do well to engage him on this subject. Explain to him
that ennui is the most bearable of all ills, being the commonest,
and that it is better to be down in the dumps than to have a
bellyful of lobsters. If at first he looks unwilling to let himself
be persuaded, all you have to do is to get hold of him by his weak
side, that is his vanity (for every horse is exceedingly vain), by
making out to him that the curve of his spine would have made
Botticelli's mouth water, and that it would be a great pity, nay it
would be criminal, if he deprived the Howthians of such a tri
3
him: 'What matter whether you are good, / Be beautiful and be
sad', that will be, make no doubt ofit, the end ofhis resistance. He
will give in. He will condescend to be beautiful. It is even possible
that his sadness, absorbed into the awareness of his dorsal rhap
sody, which thanks to you he has just acquired, will vanish
altogether. But since sadness always adds to beauty, since it is
the eternal, invariable element of what Baudelaire calls the
'divine cake', in my view at least, I would prefer our horse to
remain faithful to the pouting, melancholic attitudes that I have
4
Cissie tells me that that you are on to Bach. Poor wretch! You, I mean, not Bach, who never was that. I have had to put up with a huge composition by him, humorously entitled: Suite
181
umphofsinuousness. Andif,bywayofconclusion,yousayto
always known him to have. However all that may be, and on re-reading what I have just, with such difficulty, put into words, I note that I do not give a tuppenny damn for the horse, his destiny, his inverted humps, or the aesthetes of Howth. Let him drown if he wants to. May he have a slow death, with the most frightful pains, in his field, on his back, with his four legs up in the air. I have no further interest in him whatsoever. No more of him.
27 January 1924 [for 1934), Morris Sinclair
for Orchestra, conducted by the ignoble Furtwangler, who, it appears, has had the better part of his nudity covered with
5
himself be led by his brass-players, who blow as only
beer-drinkers can, while making with his little left hand very
daring gestures towards his first violins, who fortunately paid
not the least attention to them, and swinging the soft fleshi
ness ofhis posterior as ifhe longed to go the lavatory. Hardly
had I recovered from this assault when he had the imperti
nence to launch into Schumann's Fourth Symphony, which is
less like a symphony than like an overture begun by Lehar,
completed by Goering, and revised by Johnny Doyle (if not
his dog), and which is not really worth thinking about,
6
interwovenswastikas. Hehasthecharmingmodestyofletting
Needless to say that the murderous Furtwangler, with the connivance of his damned souls, was victorious, ifmassacring a score that has certainly never been alive can count as a victory. To make nothing out of nothing, and take three-quarters of an hour over it, now there is an achievement! Then finally he was able to go to the lavatory. But instead of staying there for the rest of his life, he came back, followed by his assistant executioners, in order to tear into tatters, in front of us, Beethoven's 7th. Mr Furtwangler, like the good Nazi he is, cannot tolerate mysteries, and it was rather like a fried egg, or, ifyou prefer, like a foot put in it, that he presented this music. He played the last movement like the most elegant of Standchen. He had a rapturous reception. Not
let alone launching into.
only did he button up that poor symphony to the point of strangulation, but he took the liberty of giving it a colourful
7
buttonhole. And with what, in God's name? A Wurstchen. Three times a week I give myselfover to probing the depths with my psychiatrist, which has already, I think, done me some
182
27January 1924 [for 1934], Morris Sinclair
good, in the sense that I can keep a little calmer, and that the
panic attacks in the night are less frequent and less acute. But
the treatment will necessarily be long, and I may have months
more of it yet. I am not complaining, I regard myself as very
fortunate to have been able to embark on it, it is the only thing
that interests me at the moment, and that is how it should be,
for these sorts of things require one to attend to them to the
8
exclusion of virtually anything else. As a result, I have not the leisure, even ifI had the desire, to do anything whatever in the way ofliterature. And perhaps that too is as it should be. I've already done far too much, little and yet too much, never having had any idea about anything. Apart from the gropings that I've spoken of, and a great number of moments spent standing in front ofpictures, I stay at home, where I am quite comfortable, draped in an armchair in front ofmy radiator, passing the time until I can go to bed, which is an operation I can carry out a little more confidently than a month ago. And that is all. A phase like any other.
Regards, fond regards to the family. Get them to write, I would like a letter from Boss, and write yourself.
Yours Sam
1 SB's cousin Morris Sinclair was known in the family as "Sunny," although SB often used "Sonny," alluding to "Sonne" (sun).
2 Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm (see 23 March 1929, n. 2). Morris Sinclair observed, "the Grimm brothers [ . . . J collected many of their folk tales from an old woman who lived in a hamlet just south of Kassel" (Morris Sinclair, 28 November 1993).
3 InhislettertoSB. MorrisSinclairhaddescribedthishorseinafieldonHowth. Botticelli (ne Allesandro di Mariano di Felipepi, c. 1444-1510).
4 "Madrigal triste," a poem by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), opens with the lines: "Que m'importe que tu sois sage? / Sois belle! et sois triste! " ("What does it matter to me that you are wise? / Be lovely - and be sad! ") (Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres completes, I, ed. Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade [Paris:
183
27 January 1924 {for 1934}, Morris Sinclair
Gallimard, 1975-1976] 137-138; Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, The Flowers ofEvil, tr. Richard Howard [Boston: David R. Godine, 1982] 170-171).
SB also refers to Baudelaire's prose poem, "Le Gateau," in which a shared piece of bread becomes "gateau" to two brothers who fight over it, until it disappears (Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris in Oeuvres completes, I. 297-299).
5 On 22 January 1934, Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954) conducted the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at Queen's Hall. London: the concert comprised Bach's Suite for Orchestra no. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067, Schumann's Symphony no. 4 in D minor, op. 120, and Beethoven's Symphony no. 7 in A major, op. 92.
SB alludes to Furtwangler's decision to remain in Germany and to his continuing dealings with the Nazi regime (for full discussion of the latter: Hans-Hubert Schonzeler, Furtwangler [London: Gerald Duckworth, 1990] 48-90).
"Hakenkreuze" (swastikas).
6 Schumann's Symphony no. 4 was recorded by Furtwangler with the Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon, LPE 17 170). Franz Lehar (1870-1948), Hungarian-born Viennese composer and conductor, was best known for his operettas, especially The Meny Widow, and his military marches.
Hermann Goering (1893-1946), President of the Reichstag (1932) and later Commander of the Luftwaffe.
SB's reference to Johnny Doyle is not certain and may be generic. He may refer to J. C. Doyle (n. d. ), a vocalist famous for his renditions oflrish songs ("Well-Known Dublin Singer," Irish Times 10 November 1930: 4); or, asMorris Sinclair has suggested, he may refer toJ. M. Doyle,apostmanintheBailypostaldistrict(Howth,Co. Dublin)wheretheSinclairs lived when they returned from Germany to Dublin (Morris Sinclair, 5 November 1994).
7 "Standchen"(serenade),"Wiirstchen"(sausage).
8 SBhadrecentlybegunpsychotherapywithWilfredRuprechtBion•(1897-1979). Although SB consistently uses the term "analysis," as Lois Oppenheim has observed, Bion was not yet qualified as a psychoanalyst (Lois Oppenheim, "A Preoccupation with Object-Representation: the Beckett-Rion Case Revisited," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 82. 4 [2001] 768).
NUALA COSTELLO LONDON
27/2/34 48 Paulton's Sq. [London] S. W. 3
Dear Nuala1
It's a great handicap to me in all my anabases and stases that I
can't express myself in a straightforward manner, and that I cannot behave in a way that has the most tenuous propriety of
184
27 February 1934, Costello
relationship to circumstance. A great handicap. I regret it very
much, more than I can ever hope to be able to tell. But there it is.
One is not what one is not. Not for doing, I find in my Dante, but
for not doing, is Virgil in Limbo, though honoured above the
deadbom that are there, and above the throngs of men and
women who exercised all the virtues at top pressure save only
the theological group with which they were not familiar that
are there also, with a roving commission as far as the purgatorial
Eden, where he withdraws and the ladies take over. 2 Well I might
do worse than find myself as it were polarised between
Democritus and Heraclitus for all eternity, in a place where sigh
ing is out of melancholy and not out of torment. I would be
familiar with the position. There seems to be contradiction inher
ent in the idea of Democritus doing anything so romantic, and
indeed of Heraclitus doing anything so restrained, as sighing, but
one must not mind that. 3 There is really nothing that one should
mind, or if there is I should be interested to know what for
4
foundhisdivulgationsalwayssomehowunsatisfactory. Perhaps
the author ofthe Coloured Dorne would know, he might look it up
for me in his Saint Teresa; or perhaps Mr R. B. Barry would know,
he might find it in one of the Inns of Court, the Middle Temple
Library say, which possesses some curious works on witchcraft; or
if none of those know, perhaps the petrified asp at the junction of
d'Olier, College, Pearse and Townsend Streets, if I have not for
gotten my Dublin, might be persuaded to pronounce on the ques
tion, or the wild waves of the outfall at the Pigeon House, or even
the noble etron which on the night ofmy departure I remarked in
6
example. Perhaps Curtis would know. I have asked Percy and
5
CollegeGreenandwhichisstilltherenodoubt. Butifnoneof these or cognate authoritie[s] know, or knowing decline to tell, then I must just stay as I am, and console myself as best I can with
185
27 February 1934, Costello
the thought that I have been saved the trouble of moving. For the
essence of all anabasis, I mean of all anabasis of good quality, is to
be sought in its purity from destination and hence from schedule.
That follows on most naturally, does it not, from what I have been
saying, while from it again in its turn, if indeed the word turn has
any sense in the context, I mean from this delicious conception of
movement as gress, pure and mere gress, one arrives like a bird to
its nest, though nest scarcely seems to be the right word in such a
passage, at an elucidation of the crime immotive that never
occurred and never could to Gide or to any ofhis kidney, or indeed
to any person within earshot of the ringing grooves save only to
myself, who I assure you could not be induced to part with it for
love or money or any other incitement whatever, on account ofits
inestimable antiphlogistic properties that exceed anything of the
kind I ever tried, and I have tried everything, from cold water to
7
Also I would like to correct now while I think of it an error that occurred I seem to remember in my last letter to you, where I
8
reduce blushing to Guinness as an anterotic.
I did not call on you after all, the weather made it impossible.
spoke of changing for Harley Street and the Zoological Gardens. Of course one does not change, one alights. Alight for Monkey Hill, alight for the Wild Asses House, Small Rodents House, Small Cats House, Fellows Tea Pavilion, for the Adders, the Brush Turkies [for Turkeys], the Prairie Dogs and Waders, alight for the Gnus Paddock, the Goat Hills, the Gazellez [for GazellesJ Sheds and the Racoons [for Raccoons] Cages, for the Swine, the Lemurs, the Civets and the Birds of Prey, alight for Karin Stephen, Melanie Klein, Creighton Miller [for Crichton-Miller] and Burt White, alight to them that sprawl in darkness and in the shadow of - resurrec tion. 9 Or go on to Hampstead and have a drink at the Spaniards, and look at your brother the fly, oh the Spanish fly, moving out of
186
darkness into light, et sqq. Where do the cantharides go in the
winter time? Amn't I after telling you, some go to Hampstead and
the rest do like the swallows do, rush into a coagulum and drown
10
Yes, I wrote two little poems, one after a brief interview with the Author of the Strange Necessity (positively surprising my dear), and the other after profound and prolonged communion with the strange (not to be believed my dear) flora and fauna of my sunken garden, and ut infra respectively they gallop along:
There once was a woman called West Whose distinction it was to be blest
With so unremitting
A sense of the fitting
That she seldom, if ever, undressed.
(Until she met Wells, and then I supposed she had to. ) 12 This poemetto has been well received in certain quarters. This other, which I now propose to you but only after some hesitation, and in a regular little storm of scraping and bowing and moping and mowing believe me, less well:
27 February 1934, Costello
themselves in a dewpond. Mass suicide, Percy knows all about it. Hence we arrive at the couplet that deserves the Croix de Guerre, or perhaps better the Dunmow Flitch:
Light and sweetness, sweetness and light,
11
Obliterate gloom, engender delight.
Mammon's bottoms,
La Goulue's, mine, a cob's, Whipt, caressed,
My mother's breast.
But God's
A goat's, an ass's,
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27 February 1934, Costello
Alien beauty,
The Divine Comedy.
You don't care for it. I don't care for it much myself. But that it is a poem and not verse, that it is a prayer and not a collect, I have not the slightest doubt, not the slightest.
It is hard to believe what you say ofDublin, that the youth, the talent and harmosity are flown. I bought yesterday a bottle of ink
(Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " Said the elephant to the owl:
"Oh what'll you have to drink? " "Oh thank you kindly, sir", he said, ''I'll have a bottle of ink. ")
from a lady ofClonmel extraction and who dared not cook herself up with the vain hope of ever setting foot again in Fishguard. 14
But then in the next breath you quote Percy, and indeed the
passage was so real to me as I read it that I had to take out my
handkerchief. Now I think you will be put to the pin o[f] your
collarette to make Percy drinking coffee and saying things like
that consist with Dublin bereft. I am thinking that I might well
employ these long, sober (Kia-ora and the wildest scenes ofvirtue)
evenings in writing a True-born Jackeen on the model of Defoe's
True-born Englishman, though ofcourse infinitely more amusing
15
13
and competent.
My velleities of self-diffusion in this stew of LETTERS have
He shall have it then hot from the vinegar.
been repulsed with the traditional contumely, so now I'm sulking and won't play. The book won't be out for a month at least. Can't
16
So I read the last word in obscenities in the British Museum, to whose incredible central sanctum I have
188
get it taken in U. S. A.
gained admittance on the strength of an irrepressible anxiety to
"consult the lesser know[n] French and Italian texts that are not
available elsewhere", and then walk home across the string of
Parks beginning with the Horse Guards, shivering and my feet in
marmalade, past the celebrated pelicans that really have a most
charitable expression and whose inward eye they deign to extra
vert and bliss of solitude interrupt readily at any time to feed (for
who knows when they may have to disembowel themselves at a
moment's notice? ), and eat the most expensive egg that money
can buy, though it is surely a strange thing that a rich man would
be in and out of heaven twenty times over while you would be
looking for a duck's egg in Old Chelsea, and perhaps this is the
moment to mention that I am a Bigendian, not instinctively but
by education. Instinctively I am a Smallendian, with the result
that when I am tired or my mind clouded these two wretched
affinities, the civilised for the large, and the primitive for the
17
and dare not ifl could, for ifl did the second state of this man . . .
18
My obeisances where obeisances are due, and thee I
embrace, as Sordello Virgil, la 've il minor s'appiglia, and if
19
1 NualaCostello•(1907-1984)beganpostgraduatestudyattheSorbonnein1929;in Paris, she met Lucia Joyce, and, through Giorgio and Helen Joyce, met SB (Patrick
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27 February 1934, Costello
small, end ofthe egg, come into conflict and the egg is not eaten. No, I think I am all set now to give Liffey's stinking tide a long long miss, and indeed for the moment I have no choice in the matter, but must remain on here as long as this treatment lasts, and God knows how long that will be, probably more months than I like to contemplate. Anyhow I can't stop now,
So my life is the complete Comedie a tiroirs-vides.
you write me a very nice letter I'll give you the reference. A toi
sf Sam TLS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; Costello.
27 February 1934, Costello
O'Dwyer, "Letters from Paris," The Great Tuam Annual [1991] 73, 75). Of her, SB had written to McGreevy: "I met a Miss Costello (where is the accent? ) once met chez Giorgio's flitch, when Shem was there and Colum and all the galere, affiancee then but now disponible, and she frightened me back into my ame des glaces. Who is she? " (7 September [1933], TCD, MS 10402/54). "Galere" (crew); "affiancee" (SB's conflation of "affianced" and "fiancee"); "disponible" (available); "ame des glaces" (soul of ice).
Helen Fleischman (nee Kastor, 1894-1963) married Giorgio Joyce in December 1930; Padraic Colum (1881-1972), Irish-American writer and critic.
2 InDante'sInferno,VirgilisamongthehonoredinLimbo,thefirstCircleofHell, because as a pagan he could not ascend to Paradise. Virgil is allowed to lead Dante on his journey through the Circles ofHell and through Purgatory; when he withdraws, he saystoDante:'"perch'iotesovratecoronaemitrio"' ("thereforeoverthyself! crown and mitre thee") (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto XXVII, line 142; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 357).
Dante is led farther by the fair lady culling flowers, Matilda, and by Beatrice; these two lead him into Paradise. In keeping with his statement that "I can't express myselfin a straightforward manner," SB refers directly not to the locus classicus in which Limbo is depicted, Inferno Canto N, but to Virgil's account of himself delivered to Sordello in Purgatorio Canto VII, line 25: "'Non per far, ma per non fare"' ("Not for doing, but for not doing") (Dante, La Divina Commedia; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95).
3 SBwrote"Democritus<sighing>doing. "
In Inferno N, lines 136-138, the pre-Socratic philosophers Democritus (c. 460-c. 370 BC) and Heraclitus are presented. Democritus is reputed to have laughed at human folly, and Heraclitus is reputed to have wept at it; SB imagines himself"polarized between" the two extremes. SB cites from Purgatorio VII, lines 29-30: "ove i lamenti / non suonan come guai, ma son sospiri" (where the laments have no sound ofwailing but are sighs) (Dante, La Divina Commedia; Dante. The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95, 97).
4 EdmundCurtis,ProfessorofModernHistoryatTrinityCollegeDublinfrom1914 to 1943, was author ofThe Normans in Lower Italy (1912), A History ofMediaeval Ireland from 1110 to 1513 (1923), and, at that time, was writing A History of Ireland (1936).
5 SBmayhaveaskedthisquestioninconversation.
6 Francis Stuart• (ne Henry Francis Montgomery Stuart, 1902-2000), Australian born Irish writer, author of The Coloured Dome (1932) and Women and God (1931). Stuart was influenced by his reading of Evelyn Underhill's Mysticism (1912) and studied the lives of the saints. The "most important of all, to him, [was] St. Therese of Lisieux," according to his biographer Geoffrey Elborn: "Stuart speculated that ifSt. Therese 'had not been a nun what a lover she would have made. ' This interpretation formed part of the foundation for Stuart's belief that the search for fulfilment through women was part of the same longing for a passionate relationship with God" (Geoffrey Elborn, Francis Stuart: A Life [Dublin: Raven Arts Press, 1990] 73-74).
Ralph Brereton-Barry (1899-1943) graduated from Trinity College Dublin and was called to the Irish Bar in 1922, and to the English Bar (Gray's Inn) in 1933. As a member of one of the four Inns of Court, he would have had access to the library ofthe Middle Temple, whose Rare and Antiquarian historical collections include some books and tracts on witchcraft; however, there is no current collection as such (Stuart Adams, Library, Middle Temple, London, 1 April 2005).
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27 February 1934, Costello
ThejunctionofD'Olier,College,Pearse,and TownsendstreetsisonthewestsideofTCD. Pigeon House: 25 January 1931, n. 6.
"Etron" (turd).
7 "Gress"(movement;anounderivedfrom"gressus,"supineofLat. verb"gradior, gradi, gressus" [to walk, to step]).
"Crime immotive" (unmotivated crime).
Andre Gide's novel, Les Caves du Vatican (1914; The Caves of the Vatican), explores an "acte gratuit" (a gratuitous act) which takes the form ofa crime.
SB quotes from the poem "Locksley Hall" by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): "Forward, forward let us range, / Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change" (Tennyson: A Selected Edition, Incorporating the Trinity College Manuscripts, ed. Christopher Ricks [Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1989] 192).
Guinness stout.
8 SB'spreviouslettertoNualaCostellohasnotbeenfound. HarleyStreet,London Wl, has a concentration ofphysicians' consulting rooms; it is off Marylebone Road, near Regent's Park station at the southeast side of Regent's Park; the Zoological Gardens, off Prince Albert Road, near Primrose Hill, were on the northeast side of Regent's Park.
9 WithinSB'slistofanimalhousesinRegent'sParkZoo,heincludespractitioners whose rooms might be found in the vicinity of nearby Harley Street: psychiatrist Karin Costelloe Stephen (1889-1953); psychoanalysts Melanie Klein (1882-1960) and Hugh Crichton-Miller (1877-1959); and surgeon and gynaecologist Harold J. Burt-White (1901-1952) who was much in the news on account ofreckless driving and a divorce case.
10 The Spaniards Inn, Hampstead Heath (see 8 October 1932, n. 5).
An aphrodisiac, "Spanish fly," also known as cantharides. The dried bodies ofthe Lytta vesicatoria (also Cantharis vesicatoria) beetle, or blister beetle, are a natural inflam matory agent. Most cantharides pass the winter as coarctate larvae.
"Et sqq. " (Lat. , and the following [abbreviation for et sequentes]).
In conversation with SB, Arland Ussher may have observed a similarity between the mass deaths of beetles and swallows, or this may be SB's invention. There was a contemporary occasion for such comparison, for in 1931, swallows died in massive numbers when their migration patterns were severely disrupted by storms in the Alps (see The Times 5, 7, 25, and 28 September 1931).
11 The Dunmow Flitch award was given to the "Happiest Couple. " The expression "eating Dunmow bacon" was used of happily married couples, who had lived long together and never quarreled. It alludes to the custom begun in 1104: "Any person going to Dunmow, in Essex, and humbly kneeling on two sharp stones at the church door, might claim a flitch ofbacon ifhe could swear that for 12 months and a day he had never had a household brawl or wished himselfunmarried" (Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, rev. Adrian Room,16th edn. [New York, HarperResource-HarperCollins, 1999] 373). The Flitch Trials still are held in Little Dunmow before a jury ofsix spinsters and six bachelors.
12 RebeccaWest,StrangeNecessity(1928). Westhadanaffairintheautumnof1913 with H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946), and a child by him, the writer Anthony West (1914-1987). SB's "interview" with Rebecca West is not documented.
"Ut infra" (as below).
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27 February 1934, Costello
13 "La Goulue" (greedy woman), the Moulin Rouge performer Louise Weber (1870-1929), whose nickname came from out-drinking anyone in the bar; she and her performing partner,Jacques Renaudin (nicknamed Valentin le Desosse, 1843-1907), were depicted by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) in his poster Moulin Rouge - La Goulue.
14 Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, 30 miles northwest of Waterford. Fishguard, Wales, on the Irish Sea, the ferryport to Rosslare, County Wexford, Ireland.
15 Kia-Ora is an orange fruit drink, originally lemon, created in Australia and marketed in Britain since 1913; "Kia-Ora" (Maori, good health).
Whether SB's proposal of a "TruebornJackeen" was in jest, or, asJohn Pilling asserts, a fictional project using Irish materials later abandoned, James Knowlson indicates that SB did make notes on Irish history for Joyce ('"For Interpolation': Beckett and English Literature," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 16 12006] 223); Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 638, n. 49; Everett Frost and Jane Maxwell, "TCD MS 10971/2: Irish History," Notes Diverse Holo, Special issue SBT/A 1612006] 126).
"Jackeen" (Anglo-Irish, a self-assertive, worthless fellow). Defoe's satirical poem was "The True-Born Englishman" (1701).
16 MorePricksThanKickswaspublishedbyChattoandWinduson24May1934,held up while Charles Prentice attempted to find a publisher in the United States. He first contacted the publisher of Joyce at Viking Press, Benjamin W. Huebsch (1876-1964), who declined (Prentice to Huebsch, 23 January 1934 [UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/ 175]; Prentice to SB, 23 January 1934 IUoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/177]; Huebsch to Prentice, 31 January 1934 [UoR, MS 2444 CW 57/21). Prentice then sent uncorrected proofs to Stanley Marshall Rinehart (1897-1969), who offered to forward them to his publishing partner John Farrar (1896-1974) (Prentice to Rinehart, 1 February 1934; Prentice to Rinehart, 7 February 1934; UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 153/307 and 1378).
Having had no final word from Rinehart/Farrar, Prentice sent More Pricks Than Kicks to New York publishers, Harrison Smith and Robert Haas (1932-1936), as he wrote to SB on 4 April 1934:
So, unless we click with Smith & Haas, or unless you would like us to try another Yank, I am rather inclined to think that the manufacture of the book should be put in hand when we hear from Smith & Haas, whatever their decision is. But just as you like. I don't want to hurry you a bit. The object of this letter is simply to find out what your own opinion is. (UoR, MS2444. CW letterbook 155/91)
17 SB'sreadingintheBritishMuseum:22July1932.
SB describes his walk across London parks from Trafalgar Square in the direction of Chelsea: the Horse Guards' Parade, St. James's Park, Green Park, Buckingham Palace Gardens, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens. The lake in St. James's Park is a sanctuary for ducks and pelicans.
Marmalade (anything soft, squishy). Reference to Matthew 19:24: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. " SB refers to Jonathan Swift's "A Voyage to Lilliput" in Gulliver's Travels (1726), in which Catholics are caricatured as Big-Endians and Protestants as Small-Endians,
according to which end of a boiled egg should be broken first.
18 SBreferstohistherapywithBion. SBmayalludetoMatthew12:45andLuke11:26, which both write: "the last state ofthat man is worse than the first. " Or he may allude to the
192
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
"second state of man" discussed by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) in Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell: Drawnfrom Things Heard and Seen, in which "Our Second State of Man After Death" is one in which "we are given access to the deeper reaches of our minds, or our intentions and thoughts" (tr. George F. Dole, with notes by George F. Dole, Robert H. Kirven, and Jonathan Rose, The New CenturyEdition of the Works ofEmanuel Swedenborg, series ed. Jonathan Rose jWest Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000] 380).
"Comedie a tiroirs-vides" (a play with lots of sub-plots, more commonly, a "roman a tiroirs" [a novel with lots of sub-plots]; SB catches up the literal meaning of "tiroirs" ]drawers of a chest] and adds "vides" [empty]).
19 Sordello embraces Virgil twice. With the first embrace, Sordello recognizes Virgil as a fellow Mantuan: "'O Mantovano, io son Sordello / de la tua terra! ' e l'un l'altro abbracciava" ("O Mantuan, I am Sordello of thy city. " And the one embraced the other) (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto VI, lines 74-75; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II. Purgatorio. tr. Sinclair. 85). With the second, Sordello recognizes Virgil in humility: "la 've 'l minor s'appiglia" (clasping where the inferior does) (Dante, La Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, Canto VII, line 15 ]SB writes"ii" for"'! "]; Dante, The Divine Comedy, II, Purgatorio, tr. Sinclair, 95). SB quotes the reference from Canto VIL
MORRIS SINCLAIR DUBLIN
4/3/34 48 Paulson's Square [London]
Cher Ami
Sais rassure. Les peccadilles d'omission n'ont pas d'emprise
sur moi. Je veux dire que j'y suis tellement sujet moi-meme que leur manifestation chez autrui ne peut que me chauffer le coeur, chose dont j'ai assez besoin en ce moment. Merci done de ta lettre qui, pour s'etre fait attendre, ne m'a pas mains charme ! 'esprit et egaye la solitude, et merci aussi de la coupure, ou je trouve que ce vieux chameau paranoi:aque n'est pas suffisam[m] ent maltraite. Mais c'est tout de meme un commencement --
Tuasdelachancedepouvoirjouerdansunorchestre,quelque moche qu'il puisse etre. C'est une occasion nonpareille pour te familiariser avec les details d'une partition--Je n'ai jamais pu me reconcilier avec la Symphonie Pastorale ou j'ai ! 'impression que Beethoven a verse tout ce qu'il avait de vulgaire, de facile et
193
4 March 1934, Mortis Sinclair
d'enfantin (et c'etait beaucoup). pour en finir avec une fois pour
1
Arte, dont j'ai deja parle a Cissie et sur lequel partant je ne revien
drai maintenant pas-- Mais un autre, donne par le Quatuor Busch,
qui presente actuellement dans une serie de cinq concerts tous les
quatuors pour cordes de Beethoven, vaut la peine qu'on y fasse
2
Septieme; le second de 1800; et le troisieme de 1825. C'est pour
celui-ci que je suis alle et je peux dire que je n'ai ete nullement
der;u- - Bien que ce ne soit que l'avant-dernier de ses quatuors il a
pour Finale la derniere composition qui soit venue de sa main, un
Allegro incomparablement beau. Mais c'est la Cavatina qui precede
immediatement cet Allegro qui m'a le plus frappe - mouvement
qui en calme finalite et intensite depasse tout ce que j'ai jamais
entendu du venerable Ludwig et dont je ne l'aurais pas cru
capable - vraiment si tu ne connais pas ce Quatuor deja (B Mol
Mineur, op. 130) [for (si bemol majeur, op. 130)]. tu ferais bien de te
4
toutes. JaientenduunsuperbeconcertdonneparleQuatuorPro
allusion. Leprogrammesecomposaitdetroisquatuors,lepremier ("Harfen") de 1809, c'est a dire je crois, entre la Pastorale et la
3
le procurer. Le demier concert de la serie est pour samedi le dixsept, rete de notre infecte Patrice, et je viens de me garantir en quelque degre contre le souvenir de ses cochonneries zoologiques et botaniques en achetant un billet. 11 yaura le dernier Quatuor en F (op. 135) avec le celebre "Schwer Gefasste Entschluss":
allegro
jJ
II JI;II
Es muss sein! Es muss sein! 5
grave
arP�r,11cj Muss es sein?
Puis quelques jours plus tard, le 20 je crois, il ya Jacques Thibaud
avec un programme formidable - embrassant la Chaconne de
Vitali, le concerto en A du kleiner Wolferl, et une galaxie
6
d'Espagnols. Mais meme en commern;:ant deja a faire des 194
economies, je ne sais si je vais pouvoir me le payer. C'est vrai ment une tempete de musique a Londres en ce moment, un tel embarras de richesses que si l'on pouvait se les payer tous on aurait de la peine a choisir entre les concerts qui ont lieu le meme jour. Mais voila par exemple une [for un] dilemme qui ne me trouble pas! Helas!
Il n'est pas possible d'exprimer les etranges douceurs que je ressens a l'approche du printemps, et si c'est la une phrase qui invite le ridicule tant pis pour moi. Positivementje ne l'aijamais regarde venir avec tant d'impatience et tant de soulagement. Et j'y pense comme a une victoire emportee sur la nuit, les cauche mars, les sueurs, la panique et la folie, et aux crocus et aux narcisses comme aux gages d'une vie au moins tolerable, deja goutee mais dans un passe si lointain que toute trace, etjusqu'au souvenir, en etait presque perdus. Que les puissances veuillent que je ne m'y trompe pas - la peninsule doit etre radieuse. Et le cheval s'est-il un peu renouvele parmi les Zephyrs? Ne manque pas de me rappeler a son souvenir.
Et le travail, cela avance? Cette anthologie Ruddiesque est en effet comme tu dis, une chose puante, et du reste pleine de pieges. Je te conseille d'etudier cela avec une carte de la France sous la main. Comme cela il y a au moins un interet geographique a en extraire. Autrement c'est une corvee intolerable. D'ailleurs je ne l'ai jamais lu. Fais surtout attention a la region proven(ale (Maurras, etc. ), car c'est le pays d'election du noble professeur. Et ce n'est pas la peine de te dire que l'etude des textes qu'on donne a etudier est beaucoup moins importante que celle de celui qui les donne. Autrement dit, mets-toi dans la peau de Ruddy (il y a de la place) et fous-toi plus ou moins de ses anthologies. 7
]'ai sur la conscience de ne pas avoir encore repondu a la lettre de ton auguste pere. Mais a mesure que les heures de
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4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
lumiere [se] developpent et que s'y absorbent celles des tene bres, il se forme dans ! 'immense creuset de mon esprit les seules combinaisons verbales dignes de lui et de moi par rapport a lui. (Re]conforte-le done, quand par hasard il aurait besoin d'un tel soin, au moyen de cet avant-gout de la chose qui se prepare.
Devant ta magnifique mere, de la part de qui une accusation de reception de la divine lettre que je lui ai recemment adressee est vivement et instamment a souhaiter, je me prosterne et me remplis la bouche avidement de poussiere. Represente-lui cette attitude.
Et a toi, mon cher ami, je souhaite, maintenant et a l'avenir, tout ce qu'il ya de plus bienfaisant et propice dans un monde ou de telles vertus ont l'air de devenir de plus en plus rares.
Affectueusement Sam
ALS; 3 leaves, 3 sides; Sinclair.
4/3/34 48 Paulson's Square [London]
Dear Sunny,
Let me reassure you. Peccadillos ofomission have no hold on
me. I mean that I am myself so subject to them that the fact of their appearing in someone else can only warm my heart, some thing I am rather in need of at the moment. So thank you for your letter, which, for all that it was long in coming, has none the less charmed my mind and enlivened my solitude, and thank you too for the cutting, in which I think that that paranoic old brute is not treated badly enough. But still it is a start.
How lucky you are to be able to play in an orchestra, however third-rate it is. It is a matchless opportunity to get to know the
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4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
details ofa score. I have never made my peace with the Pastoral
Symphony into which I have the impression Beethoven poured
everything that was vulgar, facile, and childish in him (and that
1
was a great deal), so as to have done with it once and for all.
I
heard a superb concert by the Pro Arte Quartet that I have already
spoken ofto Cissie, and to which I shall therefore not return now.
But another one, given by the Busch Quartet, which is at the
moment putting on a series of five concerts in which they are
performing all of Beethoven's string quartets, is worth a men
tion. 2 The programme was made up of three quartets, the first
one ('Harfen') from 1809, that is I think between the Pastoral and
3
disappointed. Although it is only his penultimate quartet it has
as its finale the last composition we have from his hand, an
incomparably beautiful Allegro. But it is the Cavatina that imme
diately precedes that Allegro that made the greatest impression
on me. A movement which in calm finality and intensity goes
beyond anything I have ever heard by the venerable Ludwig, and
which I would not have believed him capable of- really, ifyou are
not already familiar with this quartet (B Flat minor, op. 130), you
4
a grave ,11 allegro El;JIIJ;IJII
Muss es sein'? Es muss sein! Es muss sein15
197
theSeventh;thesecondfrom1800;andthethirdfrom1825. This is the one that I went to, and I can say that I was in no way
woulddowelltogetholdofit. Thelastconcertintheseriesison Saturday the 17th, feast of the unspeakable Patrick, and I have just gone some way to protecting myself against the memory of his vulgar zoological and botanical nonsense by buying a ticket. There will be the last Quartet in F (opus 135) with the famous 'Schwer Gefasste Entschluss':
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
Then a few days later, on the 20th I think, there is Jacques
Thibaud with a tremendous programme - including the Vitali
Chaconne, the Concerto in A by kleiner Wolfer! , and a galaxy of
6
The strange, gentle pleasures that I feel at the approach of spring are impossible of expression, and if that is a sentence inviting ridicule, so much the worse for me. I have positively never watched it coming with so much impatience and so much relief. And I think of it as a victory over darkness, nightmares, sweats, panic and madness, and of the crocuses and daffodils as the promise of a life at least bearable, once enjoyed but in a past so remote that all trace, even remembrance of it, had been almost lost. May the powers will it that I am not wrong - the peninsula must be radiant. And has the horse revived a little among the Zephyrs? Do remember me to him.
And how is the work going? This Ruddiesque anthology is indeed, as you say, a stinking affair, and moreover full of traps. My advice to you is to study it with a map of France to hand. That way there is at least a geographical interest to be got out of it. Otherwise it is an intolerable chore. Incidentally, I have never read it. Pay particular attention to the Proven�al part (Maurras, etc. ), for that is the domain beloved of the noble Professor. And I need hardly tell you that the study of the texts that are being proposed for study is far less important than that of the person proposing them. In other words, put
yourself in Ruddy's skin (there is room), and to hell more or less
7
Spaniards. Butevenstartingalreadytosaveupforit,Idonot know whether I shall be able to afford it. There is a positive storm of music in London just now, such a wealth of splendid things that even if one could afford them all it would be hard to choose between concerts happening on the same day. Now there is a dilemma that costs me no sleep! Alas!
with his anthologies.
198
4 March 1934, Morris Sinclair
On my conscience is the fact that I have not replied to your august father's letter. But as the hours oflight grow, and those of darkness are absorbed into them, there are forming in the immense crucible of my mind the only verbal combinations worthy of him, and of me in relation to him. Comfort him, then, ifperchance he had need ofsuch care, with this foretaste ofwhat is in preparation.
Before your magnificent mother, from whom an acknowl edgement ofthe divine letter which I recently dispatched to her is most urgently and insistently to be wished, I prostrate myself and eagerly fill my mouth with dust. Go through these move ments for me.
And to you, my dear friend, I wish, now and for the future, all that is most beneficent and propitious in a world where such virtues seem to be growing more and more scarce.
Love Sam
1 Beethoven'sSymphonyno. 6inFmajor,op. 68("Pastoral").
2 The concert given by the Pro Arte Quartet at the BBC Broadcasting House on 16 February 1934 comprised Beethoven's String Quartet no. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131; String Quartet no. 4 in C major, op. 91 by Bela Bart6k (1881-1945); and Debussy's String Quartet in G minor, op. 10 ("Music This Week," The Times 12 February 1934: 8).
The Busch Quartet played a series of ten concerts at Wigmore Hall between 24 February and 17 March 1934; they actually played the Beethoven string quartets in six concerts (26 February, and 2, 3, 9, 15, and 17 March).
3 On 2 March the Busch Quartet played Beethoven's String Quartet no. 10 in E-flat major, op. 74 ("Harp"); String Quartet no. 3 in D major, op. 18; and String Quartet no. 13 in B-flat major, op. 130. "Harp" was indeed written between Beethoven's Symphony no. 6 and Symphony no. 7 in A major, op. 92.
4 SBspeaksoftheCavatinaandAllegroofStringQuartetno. 13inB-flatmajor,op. 130. Beethoven originally composed the Grosse Fuge as a finale for this quartet; per suaded that it was too long, he published it separately (Grosse Fuge in B-flat major, op. 133) and composed the Allegro as a second ending (Philip Radcliffe, Beethoven's String Quartets, 2nd edn. ! Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978] 135-137).
5 Beethoven'sStringQuartetno. 16inFmajor,op.
