Savage Beauty

by Nancy Milford

  15. “I have thought”: ESVM to EW, Ls., p. 99.

  16. “E.W.”: EW’s papers. Beinecke.

  17. “John Bishop used to say”: Wilson, The Twenties, p. 59.

  18. “I who have broken”: Ibid., p. 62.

  19. “They gave me dinner”: Wilson, The Shores of Light, pp. 759–60.

  20. “Edna was now”: Ibid.

  21. “But … there was nothing sordid”: Ibid., p. 760.

  22. “Since there were only”: Ibid., p. 764.

  23. “One of the younger”: Nancy Milford, Zelda, p. 78.

  24. “From the point of view”: ESVM to family, Ls., p. 101.

  25. “Who is Edna killing”: CBM to NM, Sept. 6, 1920. St. Coll.

  26. “Our little house”: NM, interview with author, Sept. 16, 1982.

  27. “Between John Bishop and me”: Wilson, The Shores of Light, p. 755.

  28. “My dear dear girl”: John Peale Bishop to ESVM, n.d., c. spring—summer, 1920. St. Coll.

  29. “For god’s sake, Edna”: John Peale Bishop to ESVM, n.d., PM Oct. 31, 1920. St. Coll.

  30. “September 11”: Milford, Zelda, p. 75. 194 “Bunny Wilson and Edna”: Ibid., pp. 77–78.

  31. “Dearest beloved Mother”: ESVM to CBM, Oct. 20, 1920. St. Coll.

  32. “I’ll be thirty”: Wilson, The Shores of Light, p. 766.

  33. “botched abortion”: NM, interview with author, Sept. 16, 1982.

  34. “à deux—à trois”: John Peale Bishop to ESVM, n.d., PM Dec. 18, 1920. St. Coll.

  35. “sitting on her day bed”: Wilson, The Twenties, pp. 64–65.

  36. “to which she answered”: Ibid., p. 769.

  37. “Also, I am becoming”: ESVM to Witter Bynner, Oct. 29, 1920. St. Coll.

  38. “There was something”: Wilson, The Shores of Light, pp. 752–53.

  39. “her own emotions”: Ibid., p. 756.

  40. “Dearest, beloved Mother”: ESVM to CBM, Ls., pp. 105–7.

  41. “I shall bid you”: CBM to ESVM, Dec. 21, 1920. St. Coll.

  42. “My baby!”: CBM, journal, Jan. 4, 1921. St. Coll.

  43. “Healing”: CBM, “Healing,” n.d., c. summer 1920. St. Coll.

  CHAPTER 15

  1. “apropos of divorce”: Frank Crowninshield to ESVM, Nov. 5, 1920. St. Coll.

  2. “Did you see”: ESVM to NM, March 11, 1921. St. Coll.

  3. “You know, mother”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., PM Jan. 18, 1921. St. Coll.

  4. “The other night”: CBM to ESVM, Feb. 1, 1921. St. Coll.

  5. “so that through them”: Walter Fleisher to ESVM, Jan. 21, 1921. St. Coll.

  6. “February 13”: ESVM to CBM, PM Feb. 13, 1921. St. Coll.

  7. “Clem told her”: CMB to ESVM, March 24, 1921. St. Coll.

  8. “I have a curious feeling”: Ls., p. 131.

  9. “Dearest Darling Baby Sister”: Ls., p. 117.

  10. “It is nearly six months”: Ls., pp. 118–19.

  11. “You told me”: ESVM to EW, n.d., c. summer 1921. UVa.

  12. “a very first-rate hotel” and following quotes from Wilson: EW to John Peale Bishop, July 3, 1921. Edmund Wilson, Letters on Literature and Politics, 1912–1972, Elena Wilson, ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), pp. 67–68.

  CHAPTER 16

  1. “The Café du Dôme”: George Slocombe, The Tumult and the Shouting.

  2. “The name I first called”: George Slocombe to ESVM, July 20, 1921. St. Coll.

  3. “Rise on your legs”: Ls., pp. 125–26.

  4. “I do hope it is not”: Ls., p. 130.

  5. “it verged on the sentimental”: Edmund Wilson, The Shores of Light: A Literary Chronicle of the Twenties and Thirties (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1952), p. 780.

  6. “Mother has been”: CBM to ESVM, Sept. 27, 1921. St. Coll.

  7. “to you what you would”: George Slocombe to ESVM, n.d., PM Sept. 23, 1921. St. Coll.

  CHAPTER 17

  1. “They wear the uniforms”: ESVM, Albanian journal, “Tues. 18.” c. 1921. St. Coll.

  2. “But in spite”: Ls., p. 134.

  3. “She remained in Rome”: John Carter to Allan Ross Macdougall, March 9, 1951. UVa.

  4. Just before leaving Rome: Note headed “Rome—Palace Hotel—Sunday—Nov. 13, 1921.”

  5. “Sweetheart”: ESVM to CBM, Nov. 18, 1921. St. Coll.

  6. “Whadda you think”: ESVM to NM, n.d., PM Nov. 16, 1921. St. Coll.

  7. “Now I have two bruvvers!”: ESVM to NM, Nov. 13, 1921. St. Coll.

  8. “I had thought you lost”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Nov. 19, 1921. St. Coll.

  9. “Oh, if only”: ESVM to ADF, Jan. 25, 1921. UVa.

  10. Arthur wrote back: ADF to ESVM, Feb. 14, 1921. St. Coll.

  11. “Dear, does Hal know”: ESVM to ADF, n.d., PM July 26, 1921. Beinecke.

  12. “I must write you” and following quotes from Millay: Ls., pp. 132–133.

  I think that no other letter of hers is signed “Edna.” And not all my later-acquired wisdom enables me to understand how and why I failed to grasp the full import of this letter, and “smash the world to bits and remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.”

  What I mean is that the signature is obviously a surrender of her proud will—an acceptance of me as the male and herself as the female elements in this strange relationship.

  Whether it would have worked out well, I do not know: I do not know. [ADF note, Yale/Beinecke]

  13. “Dearest Hal”: Dec. 23, 1921. Ls., pp. 139–40.

  14. “Dearest Edna”: WB to ESVM, Jan. 19, 1922. “16 Gramercy Park, New York City. Shanghai no longer but on a train between Cincinnati and New York.”

  15. “I smoke too many”: Ls., pp. 143–45.

  16. “of the fact that you”: ADF to ESVM, Feb. 9, March 7, 1922. St. Coll.

  17. “Poor boy”: Feb. 22, 1922. Ls., p. 146.

  18. “I was interviewed”: ESVM to family, Feb. 23, 1922. St. Coll.

  19. “She was a little bitch”: Marian K. Sanders, Dorothy Thompson: A Legend in Her Time, pp. 86–87.

  20. “Beloved Sister”: Ls., p. 146.

  21. “Bon voyage, sweetheart!”: ESVM to CBM, March 8, 1922. St. Coll.

  CHAPTER 18

  1. “mean, monotonous, vicious”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Jan. 17, 1922. St. Coll.

  2. “My dear”: George Slocombe to ESVM, April 16, 1922. St. Coll.

  3. “For the first time”: John Carter to ESVM, April 2, 1922. St. Coll.

  4. “Paris April 1st, 1922”: ESVM, Paris notebook, April 1, 1922. St. Coll.

  5. “Remember … that rainy”: Margot Schuyler to Allan Ross Macdougall, Aug. 30, 1951. UVa.

  6. “I did call her”: Margot Schuyler, interview with author, Dec. 16–17, 1975.

  7. “I hope this won’t”: Margot Schuyler to ESVM, n.d., c. April 1922. St. Coll.

  8. “For goodness sake telephone”: Margot Schuyler to ESVM, n.d., PM April 19, 1922. St. Coll.

  9. “You are most like”: ESVM, Paris notebook, April 26, 1922. St. Coll.

  10. “and then we all went”: CBM to “Dear girls,” carbon copy, April 13, 1922. St. Coll.

  11. “that wicked”: Harold Lewis Cook, interview with author, Sept. 13, 1976.

  12. “Dearest Kids”: Ls., pp. 150–51.

  13. “I saw Bernhardt”: CBM to NM, carbon copy, May 29, 1922. St. Coll.

  14. “fact that she has”: Ls., p. 152.

  15. “The idea of loving”: Max Eastman, Great Companions: Critical Memoirs of Some Famous Friends (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1959), pp. 83–85.

  16. “She dropped into”: Dwight Townsend Hutchison, “Recollections of Edna Millay,” unpublished ms., n.d., p. 1.

  17. “We were sitting”: Dwight Townsend Hutchison, telephone interview with author, July 24, 1974.

  18. affadavit: Affidavit, June 28, 1922. St. Coll. 235 “Certificat de Coutume,” June 28, 1922. St. Coll.

  19. “His name was Daubigny!”: Margot Schuyler,
interview with author, Dec. 16–17, 1975.

  20. “The weather had been cold” and subsequent quotes: Dwight Townsend Hutchison, “Recollections of Edna Millay,” unpublished ms., n.d., pp. 2–3, 4–5.

  21. “I have been sick”: ESVM to EW, July 20–22, 1922. Ls., p. 153.

  22. “The poet synges”: Ls., p. 155.

  23. “Mother is wonderful”: ESVM to NM, July 21–22, 1922. Ls., pp. 155–57.

  24. “Willow Tree” and other quotes about herbs: Culpeper’s Complete Herbal (London: W. Foulsham & Co., n.d.).

  25. “I cannot say”: Dwight Townsend Hutchison, telephone interview with author, July 24, 1974.

  26. “Norma”: NM, interview with author, Aug. 23, 1976.

  27. “Not that I’ve been sick”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., PM Sept. 6, 1922. St. Coll.

  28. “I’ve been such”: ESVM to CBM, PM Sept. 11, 1922. St. Coll.

  29. “Edna, Doris felt”: Jonathan Mitchell, interview with author, December 1975.

  30. “just to break”: ESVM to NM, Oct. 13, 1922. Ls., p. 161.

  31. “It’s the greatest”: ESVM to NM, Oct. 13, 1922. Ls., p. 162.

  32. “A friend of Sefe’s”: CBM to NM, Nov. 13, 1922. St. Coll.

  33. “No, I’ve never tried”: ESVM to NM, Nov. 10, 1922. St. Coll. (Ls., p. 165, but with this cut.)

  34. “My God”: ESVM to ADF, Ls., p. 169.

  35. “And she looked so”: Margot Schuyler, interview with author, Dec. 17, 1975.

  CHAPTER 19

  1. Even Edmund Wilson: Edmund Wilson, Letters on Literature and Politics, p. 106, and The Shores of Light, pp. 770–71.

  2. “Figs from Thistles” was the title of a group of poems published in Poetry in June 1918; it became A Few Figs from Thistles when it was published by Frank Shay as a book in 1920.

  3. “The houses”: Clare Sheridan, My American Diary, p. 192.

  4. “Eugene and Edna”: Floyd Dell, Homecoming, p. 308.

  5. “As soon as she returned”: Jonathan Mitchell, interview with author, December 1975.

  6. “that at the meeting”: Frank D. Fackenthal to ESVM, April 30, 1923. St. Coll.

  7. became the first woman: But because the original awards were in journalism, fiction, playwriting, history, and biography, it was only the second time the prize for poetry was offered. Poetry was not added as a category until 1922.

  8. “My mother is on her way”: Eleanor Carroll, “Laughing at Life with Edna St. Vincent Millay,” “A Fireside Afternoon in Croton Hills with Girl Winner of $1,000 Pulitzer Poetry Prize,” New York Evening Post, May 19, 1923, n.p. VC.

  9. “Dearest Mother”: Ls., p. 174.

  10. “Darling Mother”: Ls., p. 176.

  11. I’d just turned: NM and Charlie Ellis, interview with author, summer 1974.

  12. “If I die now”: Miriam Gurko, Restless Spirit,: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1962), p. 155.

  13. “MARRIED YESTERDAY”: Eugen Boissevain to Mrs. Charles Boissevain, July 20, 1923. St. Coll.

  14. “Dearest Mummie”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., PM August 3, 1923.

  15. “They not only removed”: NM to CBM, n.d., “Croton-on-Hudson/Sunday,” PM July 23, 1923. St. Coll.

  16. “a beautiful car”: CBM to Susan Ricker, July 25, 1923. UVa.

  17. “Tess, darling”: Ls., p. 176.

  CHAPTER 20

  1. “Darling Mummie”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., PM Oct. 5, 1923. St. Coll.

  2. “It is wonderful”: ESVM to CBM, Nov. 7, 1923. Ls., p. 177.

  3. “Of course”: ESVM to CBM, Dec. 15, 1923. St. Coll.

  4. “Am I a swine?”: ESVM to EW, Jan. 8, 1924. Ls., p. 179.

  5. “I saw Edna”: EW to John Peale Bishop, Letters on Literature and Politics, p. 118.

  6. “Seated in one corner”: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Feb. 15, 1924, n.p.

  7. “I got through”: ESVM to EB. Ls., p. 181.

  8. “Once a day”: ESVM to EB, Feb. 5, 1924. Ls., pp. 184–85.

  9. “My emotions”: “Dodie’s Mother” to ESVM, July 28, 1920. St. Coll.

  10. “It might have been”: ESVM, notebook, no. 55, p. 104. Library of Congress.

  11. “Boys & girls”: ESVM notebook, no. 26, n.p. Library of Congress.

  12. “The Boissevains”: Tom de Booy, interview with author, April 26, 1974.

  13. “Dear Mother Millay”: EB to CBM, April 18, 1924. St. Coll.

  14. “She is doing fine”: EB to CBM, n.d., PM May 4, 1924. St. Coll. 264 “The old lady”: EB to ADF, n.d., PM May 4, 1924. Beinecke.

  15. “then on foot”: ESVM to CBM, May 4, 1924. St. Coll.

  16. “ring for it”: ESVM, Japan diary, May 5, 1924. St. Coll.

  17. “But … the moment”: ESVM to CBM, “June 22 (more or less) 1924.” Ls., pp. 188–89.

  18. “having the most wonderful”: ESVM to CBM, July 14, 1924. Ls., pp. 189–90.

  19. “gives instructions”: EB and ESVM to CBM, Aug. 18, 1924. St. Coll.

  20. “We left the hospital”: EB to ADF, Oct. 29, 1924. Beinecke.

  21. “a teeming family”: Hilda von Stockum Marlin, interview with author, Oct. 18, 1980.

  CHAPTER 21

  1. “I thought she was”: Mary Kennedy, interview with author, Sept. 30, 1977.

  2. “cropped hair”: “Edna St. Vincent Millay Reads Her Poems at Literary Institute,” Christian Science Monitor, n.p., May 6, 1925.

  3. “as a married woman”: and subsequent quotes from John Hurd, Jr., “Poets and Writers Flock to Bowdoin for the Round Table of Literature,” Boston Sunday Globe, May 10, 1925, p. 12.

  4. “whose notorious sexual life”: Jeffrey Meyers, Robert Frost, a Biography (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), pp. 173, 181–82.

  5. “Here we are”: ESVM to CBM. Ls., pp. 194–95.

  6. “Darling children”: EB to ADF, n.d., PM illegible, c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

  7. “Darling Artie and Gladdie”: ESVM to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

  8. “I am speechless”: ESVM to ADF, n.d., c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

  9. “pretending not”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

  10. “who would cure”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM Nov. 4, 1925. Beinecke.

  11. “Vincent now has”: EB to ADF, n.d., c. November 1925. Beinecke.

  12. “She looks over”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM Nov. 27, 1925. Beinecke.

  13. “God, but it”: EB to ADF, n.d., no PM, dated December 1925 by Ficke. Beinecke.

  14. “We saw the last”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, Dec. 30, 1925. Beinecke.

  CHAPTER 22

  1. “because the workmen”: EB to CBM, n.d., c. summer 1925. St. Coll.

  2. “All I did”: Mrs. Joseph Sobleski, interview with author, October 1984.

  3. “We have 12 tons”: EB to ADF, Dec. 30, 1925. Beinecke.

  4. “Hallelujah! Vincent has”: EB to ADF, Jan. 2, 1926. Beinecke.

  5. “but I cannot leave”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, Feb. 2, 1926. Beinecke.

  6. “Vincent says”: EB to DT, Jan. 5 [1926]. Deems Taylor Papers.

  7. “in the old Saxon style”: EB to DT, Jan. 19, 1926. Deems Taylor Papers.

  8. “looking at everything”: ESVM to FPA, March 2, 1926. Ls., p. 207.

  9. “I’m sending this”: ESVM to DT, n.d., “(Along in February, snowed in),” c. February 1926. Mary Kennedy Papers.

  10. “KINGS MESSENGER ABSOLUTELY”: ESVM. to DT, May 21 [1926]. Mary Kennedy Collection.

  11. “and you will be”: EB to DT, June 10, 1926. Mary Kennedy Collection.

  12. “I remember that”: Mary Kennedy, interview with author, Sept. 30, 1977.

  13. “Vincent’s illness”: CBM to——, Feb. 8, 1926. St. Coll.

  14. “Ugin and I”: CBM, diary, March 28, 1926. St. Coll.

  15. “Unpleasant here today”: CBM, diary, March 29, 1926. St. Coll.

  16. “We just
received”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM March 20, 1926. Beinecke.

  17. “take any pictures”: EB to ADF, Aug. 9, 1926. Beinecke.

  18. “Vincie went on”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM Aug. 9, 1926. Beinecke.

  19. “Dear, dear”: ADF to EB, Aug. 15, 1926. St. Coll.

  20. “… COME AND SEE”: AB to “Eugene Millay,” wire, Sept. 7, 1926. St. Coll.

  21. “If we have”: ESVM to CBM, Dec. 6, 1926. Ls., p. 212.

  22. “a box”: EB to ADF, “From Steepletop to Santa Fe. Undated. Probably March 1927.” c. spring 1927. Beinecke.

  23. “You will have to be”: ESVM to CBM, Jan. 6, 1927. Ls., p. 213. This letter also tells of Norma’s activities: “And Harry Dowd’s Mozart opera, La Finta, opens Jan. 17, just a month before mine, & Norma is singing Serpetta,—Folly—she just wrote me. Isn’t that thrilling?—If you come to New York for my opening, you can go to hear Norma in La Finta, too!—What a lovely life it is!—Isn’t it, darling?”

  24. “Mother Darling”: KM to CBM, February 1927. St. Coll.

  25. “The first rehearsal”: ESVM to Deems Taylor. Ls., pp. 214–15.

  26. “My Darling”: Gladys Brown Ficke to ADF, ADF’s typescript, February 1927. Beinecke.

  CHAPTER 23

  1. “I saw her wince”: Edmund Wilson, The Twenties, pp. 348–49.

  2. “When one looks back”: Edmund Wilson, “The Muses Out of Work,” The New Republic, May 11, 1927, pp. 319–21.

  3. “when she and”: Elinor Wylie, New York Herald Tribune Books, Feb. 20, 1927, section VII, pp. 1, 6.

  4. “very meager, poor”: Mrs. E. B. White to author, Oct. 5, 1973.

  5. “Edna Millay’s father” and subsequent quotes: Griffin Barry, “Vincent,” The New Yorker, Feb. 12, 1927.

  6. “About that stevedore”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., c. February 1927. St. Coll.

  7. “everybody worn out”: ESVM, diary, March 11, 1927. St. Coll.

  8. “I feel a little”: ESVM, diary, March 3, 1927. St. Coll.

  9. “Today on the front page”: ESVM, diary, March 9, 1927. St. Coll.

  10. “Now nobody wants”: New York Evening Post, March 8, 1927, n.p.