Sybille Bedford
Page 49
“her heart gave out”: SB to Elizabeth David 31.12.77 Elizabeth David archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“I cannot believe it yet”: SB to Tania Stern 7.1.78 James Stern archive British Library.
“Write at last a handwritten note”: SB diaries SB archive HRC.
“a dear, sensitive, rather subtle person”: SB to Allanah Harper 31.8.77 SB archive HRC.
“I felt curiously shy at first”: ibid.
“looking as lovely”: SB diaries 8.7.83 SB archive HRC.
“struck as so often”: SB diaries 4.10.78 SB archive HRC.
“quite a project”: Reflexions by Richard Olney p. 227.
“gasps and more crossings”: ibid.
“as pure an enterprise for pleasure”: Pleasures and Landscapes p. 147.
“the steel vats gleam”: ibid. p. 149.
“We are offered three clarets”: ibid. p. 151.
“Vignerons, négociants”: ibid. p. 152.
“Do you think I’m worthy”: Reflexions by Richard Olney p. 232.
“do not give their best”: Pleasures and Landscapes p. 152.
“ravishing, low-built”: ibid. p. 153.
“we returned to the long drawing room”: ibid. p. 155.
“so perfect that it is hard”: SB to James & Tania Stern 20.6.78 James Stern archive British Library.
“She has difficulties with her speech”: SB to Allanah Harper 26.11.77 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“in a lamentable state”: SB to Tania Stern 7.1.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“a heartbroken, and helpless, man”: SB to Julia Child 15.10.78 Julia Child archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard.
“heart turns over”: SB diaries 10.12.78 SB archive HRC.
“thin, hard-drinking”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 16.7.65 SB archive HRC.
“muffled, stiff…playing at wood-cutters”: SB diaries 30.12.78 SB archive HRC.
“minute & magical”: SB to Tania Stern 5.1.77 James Stern archive British Library.
“pipe au bec”: SB diaries 29.12.79 SB archive HRC.
“drinks, buttling, spitting”: SB diaries 31.12.79 SB archive HRC.
“liking it more and more”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 25.12.78 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“the life, the friends”: SB to Tania Stern 3.11.80 James Stern archive British Library.
“whole thing sordid/tedious”: notes for an unpublished article, SB archive HRC.
“I find it very hard”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 3.2.81 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“She talks as it were to herself”: Elaine Robson-Scott to Tania Stern 17.6.85 James Stern archive British Library.
“great tease has sprung up”: SB diaries 22.10.79 SB archive HRC.
“Someone says Shirley”: SB diaries 12.1.79 SB archive HRC.
“Suspect of leftish tendencies”: SB diaries 2.2.80 SB archive HRC.
“very lovely, very Junoesque”: SB diaries 6.4.83 SB archive HRC.
“about food, cookery”: SB diaries 2.2.80 SB archive HRC.
“one of the most exhilarating travel books”: New York Review of Books November 1978.
“a very good animated evening”: SB diaries 19.11.78 SB archive HRC.
“one of the ‘weirdest’ I ever had”: SB diaries 14.7.83 SB archive HRC.
“raced out and snatched the decanter”: Reflexions by Richard Olney p. 236.
“a very good evening”: SB diaries 31.8.78 SB archive HRC.
“weird amalgamation”: SB diaries 12.4.79 SB archive HRC.
“had extraordinary sweetness”: SB to Allanah Harper 21.12.89 SB archive HRC.
“ ‘How extraordinary!’ S is moved to say”: SB diaries 5.4.79 SB archive HRC.
“Full of tension, waiting for L”: SB diaries 18.5.79 SB archive HRC.
“It’s such an improbable thing”: SB to James Stern 3.2.81 James Stern archive British Library.
“I went without”: SB to Robert Hertzberg 5.6.81 SB archive HRC.
“and up I went”: ibid.
“to show off the order”: ibid.
“to celebrate à deux”: ibid.
“Unrequited love”: Jigsaw p. 218.
“It’s two a.m. outside in the car”: SB diaries 8.1.81 SB archive HRC.
“feeling better physically”: SB diaries 9.1.81 SB archive HRC.
“Unhappy afternoon”: SB diaries 10.1.81 SB archive HRC.
“but fails to say when”: SB diaries 19.2.81 SB archive HRC.
“Self-preservation, or the death of the heart”: ibid.
“I kept saying”: author’s interview with Anne Balfour-Fraser 3.6.10.
“a young and pretty painter”: SB to Tom Matthews 14.4.81.
“lowering like a brooding thundercloud”: SB diaries 7.6.81 SB archive HRC.
“some very good moments”: SB diaries 5.4.81 SB archive HRC.
“deliciously, happily, gladly”: Rosamund Williams to SB 22.9.81 SB archive HRC.
“less and less pleasant”: SB diaries 8.10.81 SB archive HRC.
“tiresome little woman”: SB diaries 25.2.82 SB archive HRC.
“All so much more easy”: SB diaries 4.4.81 SB archive HRC.
“I do love her”: SB diaries 27.4.81 SB archive HRC.
“Such wonderful country”: SB to James Stern 3.11.81 James Stern archive British Library.
“a very personal book”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 17.1.74 SB archive HRC.
“Writing does take it out of one”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 17.1.74 SB archive HRC.
“The warmth all a bit à côté”: SB diaries 18.5.82 SB archive HRC.
“leave sad, weighed down”: SB diaries 19.4.83 SB archive HRC.
“literary, local residents”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 31.5.81 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“I do believe that there are marked differences”: SB diaries 20.2.81 SB archive HRC.
“I listened to the prime minister”: SB to Tania Stern 25.2.80 James Stern archive British Library.
“PEN parties are curiously non-nightowley”: SB diaries 4.8.85 SB archive HRC.
“quite nice dinner”: SB diaries 16.6.82 SB archive HRC.
“muddle, muddle all the way”: SB to James & Tania Stern 30.9.81 James Stern archive British Library.
“in constant tow”: SB to James & Tania Stern 23.10.81 James Stern archive British Library.
“ ‘J’ is worse than a gulper”: SB diaries 13.7.82 SB archive HRC.
“I feel very privileged”: SB to Tania Stern 9.9.82 James Stern archive British Library.
“so much touchiness”: SB to Lesley Houston 3.11.82 SB archive HRC.
“Very weary making”: SB diaries 23.10.82 SB archive HRC.
“there were good moments”: SB to Lesley Huston 3.11.82 SB archive HRC.
“I cannot say how much J bores me”: SB diaries 21.12.82 SB archive HRC.
“After the appalling initial dithering”: SB diaries 30.4.83 SB archive HRC.
“I’ve been embarrassed to ask you”: Robert Gottlieb to SB 21.2.86 SB archive HRC.
“You are right to ask”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 17.3.86 SB archive HRC.
“Reagan antagonism”: SB diaries 21.4.83 SB archive HRC.
“Odd to be really fond of someone”: SB diaries 11.9.83 SB archive HRC.
“she is a good friend”: SB diaries 4.9.83 SB archive HRC.
“B[etsy] had a blast from Martha”: SB diaries 21.1.83 SB archive HRC.
“Sybille, you are too boring”: Martha Gellhorn: A Life by Caroline Moorehead p. 484.
“Please don’t involve yourself”: Marth
a Gellhorn to Betsy Drake 13.9.83 The Letters of Martha Gellhorn p. 456.
“She’ll never understand the pleasure”: SB diaries 18.12.78 SB archive HRC.
“she does hurt people; always did”: SB diaries 25.9.83 SB archive HRC.
“I had again that sense of tenderness”: SB to Lesley Huston 21.9.83 SB archive HRC.
“made self a simple”: SB diaries 24.11.80 SB archive HRC.
“KR enters chattering”: SB diaries 4.7.80 SB archive HRC.
“the neighbourliness of one’s neighbours”: SB diaries 6.5.85 SB archive HRC.
“I can’t thank you enough”: SB to Simon Loftus 25.3.85 SB archive HRC.
“quite a literary and literate girl”: SB diaries 22.11.82 SB archive HRC.
“the horror…and shame of a German origin”: SB diaries 1.6.85 SB archive HRC.
“that served impeccable entrecôte grillé”: A Thousand Acres: Writings from “Country Life” by Carla Cooper Carlisle (Snakeshead Press, 2014) p. 156.
“a crazy, obsessed teenager”: Carla Carlisle to author 7.9.18.
“Life is so much less joyful”: SB to Lesley Huston 6.12.84 SB archive HRC.
“[I] could easily get into mischief”: SB to Lesley Huston 16.12.84 SB archive HRC.
“How wonderful that you’re well into the book”: Robert Gottlieb to SB 24.3.86 SB archive HRC.
“I get up late—about 11 a.m.”: Royal Society of Literature Magazine Summer 1995.
“Liked it from the first moment”: SB diaries 5.10.83 SB archive HRC.
“used to say to me”: author’s interview with Elizabeth Jane Howard 1.3.08.
“breathtakingly tactless”: author’s interview with Betsy Drake 18.4.08.
“I really let her”: ibid.
“my enthusiasm for your writing”: Betsy Drake to SB 28.6.88 SB archive HRC.
“I enjoyed it enormously”: Charles Elliott to SB 1.7.88 SB archive HRC.
“It is a most powerful”: Richard Ollard to SB 17.8.88 SB archive HRC.
“Novels among other things”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 22.11.89 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“in plain words”: Jigsaw p. 354.
“Dear Sibbie: The writing of Jigsaw”: Martha Gellhorn to SB 22.7.89 SB archive HRC.
“a beautiful book, the best of a good lot”: Tom Matthews to SB 30.5.89 SB archive HRC.
“Such a stimulating letter from you”: SB to Tom Matthews 31.5.89 T. S. Matthews archive Princeton University Library.
“stylish, casual, exhilarating”: Spectator 20.5.89.
“the pleasure of places”: Sunday Times 7.5.89.
“dread those occasions in the story”: Daily Telegraph 6.5.89.
“a treasure of a book”: Chicago Tribune.
“compulsively readable”: New York Review of Books 27.4.89.
“I called it biographic”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 22.11.89 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“I wanted to do them justice”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 22.11.89 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
THIRTEEN: “GETTING OLD & WEAK IS HORRIBLE”
“Sybille was a gentleman”: “Sybille” by Jenny MacKilligin 14.8.18 unpublished article.
“It’s not easy to be my friend”: Telegraph Magazine 11.8.05.
“I very much like the Garrick”: SB to Tom Matthews 1.11.79 T.S. Matthews archive Princeton University Library.
“I wish I were still in travelling shape”: SB to Julia Child 10.3.89 Julia Child archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“I’m afraid I’ve got used”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 22.11.89 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“although all I knew about wine”: author’s interview with Penelope Bennett 3.11.18.
“What happiness can do”: SB to Lesley Huston 7.6.84 SB archive HRC.
“angelic and generous”: SB to Tania Stern 11.1.87 James Stern archive British Library.
“I am so pleased”: SB to John Hatt 1.8.91 Eland Books archive.
“distinguished but somewhat imprecise status”: Independent 8.9.90.
“very frail and distraught”: SB to Bush Maier-Graefe 6.12.93 SB archive HRC.
“Thank you so much for trusting me”: Aliette Martin to SB 11.9.91 SB archive HRC.
“Aldous Huxley et le projet de traduction”: Aliette Martin to SB 10.9.92 SB archive HRC.
“horribly nervous”: Aliette Martin unpublished memoir.
“vous me manquez”: ibid.
“the three fatal words”: Jigsaw p. 211.
“tut-tutted…but somehow”: ibid.
“Sybille told me, ‘j’accepte’ ”: ibid.
“in her breathless, passionate, sotto voce”: ibid.
“gently put [her] foot down”: ibid.
“Dinner had to be a great moment”: ibid.
“After lunch…a sort of heaviness”: ibid.
“She was opening a whole world”: ibid.
“suddenly radiant, a girl”: Observer 13.3.11.
“I met Aliette when the three of us had dinner”: author’s interview with Elizabeth Jane Howard 1.3.08.
“turned her face towards me”: Aliette Martin unpublished memoir.
“an immensely simpatico man”: SB to Robert Hertzberg 14.5.93 SB archive HRC.
“august writers…[as] Evelyn Waugh”: ibid.
“Although this so-called autobiographical stuff”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 17.1.74 SB archive HRC.
“[Now] the writer actually has to write”: Quicksands p. 163.
“insect’s traces”: ibid.
“the precious sheets”: Aliette Martin unpublished memoir.
“it was an extraordinary discovery”: ibid.
“I warned them that she was very boring”: author’s interview with Elizabeth Jane Howard 1.3.08.
“the meal turned out”: ibid.
“half killed me”: SB to Robert Hertzberg 22.12.97 SB archive HRC.
“but in good spirits”: Reflexions by Richard Olney p. 376.
“I’m not musical”: Desert Island Discs BBC radio 10.7.98.
“I do think that emancipation of women”: Country Life 17.12.98.
“the overrunning of this earth”: Times 20.12.75.
“The one problem that no one dares”: Country Life 17.12.98.
“a Quaker saint”: Aliette Martin unpublished memoir.
“Look how my hands are shaking!”: author’s interview with Robin Dalton.
“Sybille was delighted”: author’s interview with Sarah Lutyens 15.1.19.
“Enchanting. Full of delights”: Sarah Lutyens to Simon Prosser 19.8.04 email.
“is a truly beautiful book”: Simon Prosser to SB 1.9.04 SB archive HRC.
“My difficulties now that I have committed myself”: Quicksands p. 56.
“I would like to have been able”: ibid. p. 36.
“To read this fascinating book”: Criterion May 2005.
“positively chaotic”: New Yorker 18.4.05.
“brilliant and original writer”: New York Review of Books 11.8.05.
“she tells us for the third time”: Observer 18.6.05.
“Standing beside her bed”: Sybille Bedford: In Memory by Elsie Burch Donald (Eland Books, 2007) p. 37.
“She was in great pain”: author’s interview with Aliette Martin 15.3.13.
“her company was always refreshing”: Sybille Bedford: In Memory by Elsie Burch Donald p. 54.
“I remember that our first talk”: Brenda Wineapple’s introduction to The New York Review of Books’s edition of A Legacy was first published in the NYRB journal on 5.3.15.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Selina Hastings is the author of The Red Earl, Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh, Rosamond Lehmann, and The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she has received the Marsh Biography Award, the Spear’s Award for Outstanding Achievement, and the Biographers’ Club Exceptional Contribution to Biography Award. She lives in London.
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