And then there’s my former landladyhh, a grand old lady living in the house built for her by her father, the first Professor of Education. I stayed in an apartment above her house. She is eighty-seven, she is rereading Henry James, she was once a teacher of piano and singing, and every day she plays her piano. All her old friends (mostly unmarried like herself) are in local homes for old people, or dead; and she visits both the hospital and the cemetery to commune with them. She has lace covers on all her furniture.
Ida White
Well Bill I think I’ll stop boring you with this letter because I may be dropping into a story. I guess I’m trying to prepare myself for the return to N.Z.
I won’t be able to have any letters from you until 23rd Feb, when I have to be in Baltimore. I want to stay in Baltimore as short-short a time as possible.
Are you really alive and well and living out west—Bill the Brave and Paul the Proud and Ned the Nebulous.
Forgive me, I’m dotty.
feely love from Inner-thinkie-outer-feelie J
THE ILLUSTRATED PEEDAUNTAL
[Brown to Frame, February]
[Frame to Brown, April]
28. Yaddo February (postcard)
Bee small letter large thought-space
peedauntally apace the day drains away
the sun is warm with multicoloured spring alarm
how much simpler to be (bee) nothing-shadow
on the blank page of snow; dig that crazy
urine and sun running down the sky into well and
stream, dig sun sun yellow sun and its saying
its pronominal simplicity; I think I will shut
the door fast keep rainbows and such out retain
the wide white screen for the heart’s reeling Kodak,
attend the ceremony some day soon of the final
utter amputation of leaves fatally bloodshot in wars
peedauntally yours, jay.
29. Yaddo Pigeon Barn West, with Blue Jay in Residence February
Dear Bill,
A small square letter, probably my last from Yaddo, though who knows what impulse may seize me within the next few days to say another Hello. Sun, and the snow old and speckled like ageing skin, not the brand-new snow I thought I would find here. The sun’s shining through a mist this morning and the trees are silver.
Our composer, Douglas Alanbrooke, has arrived. He arrived so secretly that we did not realise it and last evening, glancing around the dinner table, I thought,—What ho, here’s a bank manager, and it turned out to be Alanbrooke who is nice, I think, rather like our MacDowell composer Tom but his skin has the peculiar shine that teachers get who teach all day and every day of their lives, as he does, at a girls’ College.
Such wild generalisations.
Our mid-West writer went home yesterday, much to Kenneth’s dismay, for K has relied quite a lot on his patience and support, and so the day was rather a turmoil with Kenneth drinking from the early hours and then falling into a depression about his wife, then drinking some more, then mourning the loss of his companions ‘just as everything was getting normal again’. By his companions he means the Midwestern writer and myself who walked him to the gate each evening. I think the composer will be kind to him. How people tear at one’s heart—that’s the disadvantage of being a pure feelie as I am; I don’t know how people exist if they’re feelies and have no way of making art out of it, or trying to. One feels K Burke’s greatness and it is appalling to me to think that when next I hear of him it will be through reading his death notice, most likely in a New Zealand newspaper. That is not strictly so, however, for he will write me a letter from time to time.
I have mentally packed up from here ages ago, and am anxious to leave. Norman Podhoretz and Granville Hicks are trying to make me ‘read something’ before I leave but I insist that if I do it shall be the work of others. I would not dare read my own work—particularly as there is a collection here of writers reading their work on record; Faulkner reading Light in August, poets reading their work; and a marvellous recording of Eudora Welty reading two beautiful stories—‘A Memory’, and ‘A Worn Path’, in a rich Southern accent. My own work seems of no substance yet I am inspired to improve it.
Liquor here is good these days—everyone seems to have a bottle of something rare and recommended and people appear in the evening clutching their special ‘bottle’. I went to the predinner cocktail gathering last evening (I go every second or third evening and omit every evening the after-dinner conversation gathering in the small room off the diningroom) and I quite enjoyed it because Kenneth’s unhappy state took a humorous turn as he plunged into sexual reminiscences in front of the usually prim gathering. A couple of evenings ago it was very serious and searching with Dorothy Hicks enquiring conversationally of Alfred Kazin (conversationally and innocently) –Do you often come here? Last evening Kenneth described in detail his visits to the movies when he was from 15-22 and his enjoyment in the girl sitting next to him. ‘I used to come,’ he shouted, looking positively joyous. And then went on to describe it, while Dorothy Hicks murmured, Oh Kenneth; and I saw or thought I saw Alfred Kazin glancing at me because I’m the shy one and might not know about these things!
Both Alfred and Ann Kazin had been to MacDowell and prefer it to Yaddo, chiefly because of its lack of formality.
How’s Santa Barbara? Still with the sailors? She will appear when you least expect her.
The day is too blue and green for me to stay inside. Perhaps I will walk around the lake. This winter that I hoped for here with deep deep snow is a fraudulent season.
Follows my J.F. one-track pornography: J.
30. New York February
Dear Bill,
Hello from Elnora’s quiet womblike apartment where I lazed most of yesterday recovering from a hangover which hasn’t quite gone, or maybe it’s the foul New York air.
First, I loved your letter and the translations and the illustration of the angel descending upon the meal table and you and Paul and Ned hastily rearranging the tablecloth and getting out your usual fare—ninetynine and seventy ninety-ninths pure champagne. I’m interested to see these poems and to try to translate them, with you the teacher.
The time at Las Vegas sounds like fun; reminds