by May Sarton
We walked in to a kind of apotheosis of things—a young man from Foster’s had followed us from York bearing a single orchid and a case of champagne Susan Sherman had ordered to celebrate the coming to an end of this journal, the anniversary of my having all my teeth taken out two years ago and the stroke last year, and to celebrate my journey to H.O.M.E. the day after tomorrow to see a miniature wire-haired dachshund puppy who may be mine in May, and whom I have already named Grizzle.
There were also flowers from a family to thank me for my books—no address—and Nancy’s report of a phone call from London from the Times Literary Supplement, asking if I would be interested in doing a review. Flattering, but I do not review, stopped years ago and do not intend to go back on that decision now.
Because I was tired, all of this made me feel rather bewildered and overcome.
Friday, February 20
Very often in these last thirty years or more I go back to Freya Stark, a book of essays Perseus in the Wind (London, John Murray, 1948), when I am puzzling out something in my own life. Susan is generous in so many imaginative ways that I am at a loss often as to how to thank her. So this morning I turned to the essay on Giving and Receiving—unexpected and illuminating as Freya Stark always turns out to be:
… There is generosity in giving, but gentleness in receiving.
Of this art the Arabs know little. They take a gift and, with one swift appraising glance, put it aside, nor ever refer to it again; so that there is only a shade or so in general behaviour to tell whether they are pleased or no. The common emphasis on giving has indeed helped to destroy the receptive attitude in us all. Yet the one is but a personal luxury, a thing to be earned and worked for, an extra, a garland for one’s own head at the feast of life: the other is a part of that general thankfulness which is worked into the very dough of which our bread is kneaded—it comes with every day of sunshine or night of stars: and gratitude is the greatest tribute which one human being can offer to another, since it is the same as must be offered with every breath of our happiness to God.
We feel this unconsciously, and love those people who give with humility, or who accept with ease.
Perhaps the accepting has to do with staying a child. I love presents, but not too many. But one of the things old age has brought me is being able to receive gladly and with joy, whereas, young, I only wanted to give, to be the one to send flowers and not to receive them. Susan is teaching me in her ineffable way to be a fervent receiver!
Saturday, February 21
A year ago at seven I was waiting for the ambulance with Nancy and Janice whom I had called at six. A long night of waiting as I had the stroke at one-thirty in the morning. I knew it was not a severe stroke as I could get up and I could talk. But my head felt very queer. I had managed to pack a suitcase, but somehow could not dress.
So this is the anniversary and I am well! It has been a long journey, but how I do not think about the past at all, only rejoice in the present—and dream of the future and a little dachshund puppy who will come here after my last poetry reading tour to California in April, and my seventy-fifth birthday on May third.
Then an open space opens before me—no more public appearances. There is much I still hope to do. And I rejoice in the life I have recaptured and in all that still lies ahead.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Vincent Hepp, Nan Parsons, Patience Ross, and Amelie Starkey for permission to quote from personal letters. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following: Wesleyan University Press, for permission to reprint Part I of “Swimmer” from The Orb Weaver by Robert Francis, copyright © 1953 by Robert Francis; The University of Massachusetts Press, for permission to reprint “Invitation” from Robert Francis; Collected Poems, 1936–1976 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976), copyright © 1936, 1964 by Robert Francis; the New York Times, for permission to reprint material from Critic’s Notebook: Right and Wrong Kinds of Love in Theater by Frank Rich, 10/30/86. Copyright © 1986 by The New York Times Company; Vanguard Press, Inc., for permission to reprint “Lord” from Long Island Light: Poems and a Memoir by William Heyen, copyright © 1979 by William Heyen, subsequently issued as a Christmas greeting by William B. Ewert, Publisher, calligraphy by R.P. Hale; the Louisiana State University, for permission to reprint excerpt from The Flying Change by Henry Taylor, copyright 1985 by Henry Taylor; Century Hutchinson Ltd., for permission to reprint “An Old Woman Speaks of the Moon” from Ruth Pitter Poems 1926–66, Cresset Press, an imprint of Century Hutchinson Ltd; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for permission to reprint some lines of poetry by William Allingham from Come Hither, edited by Walter de la Mare, 1960; Macmillan Publishing Company, for permission to reprint “Tanist” from Collected Poems of James Stephen (New York: Macmillan, 1954).
A Biography of May Sarton
May Sarton (1912–1995) was born Eleanore Marie Sarton on May 3 in Wondelgem, Belgium, the only child of the science historian George Sarton and the English artist Mabel Eleanor Elwes. Barely two years later, Sarton’s European childhood was interrupted by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the onset of the First World War.
Fleeing the advancing Germans, the family moved briefly to Ipswich, England, and then in 1915 to Boston, Massachusetts, where her father had accepted a position at Harvard University. Sarton’s love for poetry was first kindled at the progressive Shady Hill School, a period she wrote about extensively in I Knew a Phoenix, published in 1959.
At the age of twelve, Sarton traveled to Belgium for a year to live with friends of the family and study at the Institut Belge de Culture Française. There, she met the school’s founder, Marie Closset, who grew to be Sarton’s close friend and mentor, and who was the inspiration for her first novel, The Single Hound (1938).
On returning to the States, Sarton graduated from Cambridge High and Latin School in 1929. Although she was awarded a scholarship to Vassar College, Sarton joined actress Eva Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Theatre in New York instead, much to the dismay of her father. However, while learning the basics of theater, Sarton continued to develop her poems, and in 1930, when she was just eighteen, a series of her sonnets was published in Poetry magazine.
In 1931, Sarton returned to Europe and lived in Paris for a year while her parents were in Lebanon. In large part, Europe provided the backdrop for her encounters with the great thinkers of the age, including the novelist Elizabeth Bowen, the famed biologist Julian Huxley, and of course, Virginia Woolf. After Sarton’s own theater company failed during the Great Depression, she turned her full attention to writing and published her first poetry collection, entitled Encounter in April, in 1937.
For the next decade, Sarton continued to write and publish novels and poetry. In 1945, she met Judy Matlack in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the two became partners for the next thirteen years, during which she would suffer the deaths of several loved ones: her mother in 1950, Marie Closset in 1952, and her father in 1956. Following this last loss, Sarton’s relationship fell apart, and she moved to New Hampshire to start over. She was, however, to remain attached to Matlack for the rest of her life, and Matlack’s death in 1983 affected her keenly. Honey in the Hive, published in 1988, is about their relationship.
While the 1950s were a time of great personal upheaval for Sarton, they were a time of success in equal measure. In 1956, her novel Faithful Are the Wounds was nominated for a National Book Award, followed by nominations in 1958 for The Birth of a Grandfather and a volume of poetry, In Time Like Air; some consider the latter to be one of Sarton’s best books of poetry. In 1965, she published Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, which is frequently referred to as her coming-out novel. From then on, her work became a key point of reference in the fields of feminist and LGBT literature. Strongly opposed to being categorized as a lesbian writer, Sarton constantly strove to ensure that her portraits of humanity were relatable to a universal audience, regardless of readers’ sexual identities.
In 1974, Sarton publis
hed her first children’s book, Punch’s Secret, followed by A Walk Through the Woods in 1976. During the seventies, Sarton was diagnosed with breast cancer—the beginning of a long and arduous illness. However, she continued to work during this difficult period and received a spate of critical acclaim for her literary contributions.
In 1990, she suffered a severe stroke that reduced her concentration span and her ability to write, although she did continue to dictate her journals when she could. Sarton died of breast cancer on July 16, 1995. She is buried in Nelson, New Hampshire.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 1988 by May Sarton
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1793-0
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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