Savage Beauty
Page 69
11. selling for $60: Detroit News, Feb. 27, 1927.
12. “Tonight Elinor told Gene”: ESVM, diary, April 4–5, 1927. St. Coll.
13. “I gave it to her”: ESVM, diary, April 7, 1927. St. Coll.
14. “I wrote Kathleen”: ESVM to CBM, May 25, 1927. Ls., p. 220.
15. “Immigrant”: Kathleen Millay, The Evergreen Tree (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1927), p. 13.
16. “The Spinner’s Song”: Ibid., p. 29.
17. “Washington is still”: Stanley Olson, Elinor Wylie: A Life Apart (New York: Dial Press, 1979), pp. 285–86.
18. “I wrote a letter”: ESVM, typescript, April 18, 1927, p. 20.
19. “It is not”: Ls., pp. 216–17.
20. “My darling”: Elinor Wylie to ESVM. “May second,” n.y., PM May 3, 1927, London. St. Coll.
21. Sacco and Vanzetti: Herbert B. Ehrmann, The Case That Will Not Die, Commonwealth vs. Sacco and Vanzetti (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), pp. 459–60; Katherine Anne Porter, The Never-Ending Wrong (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).
22. joined the picket line: Miriam Gurko, Restless Spirit: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (New York: Thomas X. Crowell, 1962), pp. 178–83.
23. “I suggested that”: ESVM to Gov. Alvan T. Fuller. Ls., p. 222.
24. “Let us abandon”: CP, pp. 230–31.
25. “And know that”: Kathleen Millay, The Hermit Thrush (New York: Horace Liveright, 1929), p. 121.
26. “I don’t imagine”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., c. November 1927. St. Coll.
CHAPTER 24
1. “Eleanor went”: ESVM, journal, April 2, 1927. St. Coll.
2. “My darling Elinor” ESVM to Elinor Wylie, Sept. 19, 1928. Beinecke.
3. “Let me add”: ESVM to GD, “Saturday, Dec. 15,” n.y. (c. Dec. 15, 1928). Alice Baur Hodges, cousin to George Dillon, kept a group of Millay’s letters to him. These letters were, according to Hodges, wrapped in tin foil by Dillon for safekeeping.
4. “incandescent”: James Thomas Flexner, conversation with author, c. fall 1974.
5. “Young Phil Hitchborn”: Laura Benét to author, Feb. 23, 1977.
6. “Carl Van Doren wept”: Mary Kennedy to author.
7. Details of Wylie’s funeral: Stanley Olson, pp. 331–32. The poem recited by Edna was “On a Singing Girl” from Wylie’s Black Armour.
8. “Dear Vincent”: William Rose Benét to ESVM, Dec. 20, 1928. St. Coll.
9. “Darling You”: ESVM to GD, n.d., PM Dec. 24, 1928. ABH Collection.
10. “And do you think”: ESVM to GD, n.d., PM Dec. 29, 1928. ABH Collection.
11. “Vincent is writing”: EB to GD, n.d., PM December 1928. ABH Collection.
12. “My darling, forget”: ESVM to GD, n.d., “Wednesday,” PM Feb. 21, 1929. ABH Collection.
CHAPTER 25
1. “I hope that”: ESVM to CBM, July 3, 1930. St. Coll.
2. “She gave me”: ESVM, 1930–34 diary, May 17, 1934, p. 19. St. Coll.
3. “Darling, for God’s sake”: ESVM to GD, Oct. 28, 1930. ABH Collection.
4. “Ugin & I”: ESVM to GD, Nov. 18, 1930. ABH Collection.
5. “Darling, I’m sending”: ESVM to GD, Nov. 20, 1930. ABH Collection.
6. “Darling”: GD to ESVM, n.d., c. 1930. St. Coll.
7. “Handsome, reckless, mettlesome”: Malcolm Elwin and John Lane, The Life of Llewelyn Powys (London: The Bodley Head, 1946), p. 199.
8. “She in her long”: Alyse Gregory, undated diary entry (c. Dec. 19 or 20, 1930). Private collection.
9. “about forty in all”: ESVM to CBM, Dec. 10, 1930. St. Coll.
10. “about forty-four”: ESVM to NM, Jan. 4, 1931. St. Coll.
11. “present agreement includes”: Eugene Saxton to ESVM, April 18, 1928. St. Coll.
12. “sufficiently wearing”: CBM to Clementine Todd Parsons, Jan. 12, 1931. Private collection.
13. “I am much better”: CBM to Clementine Todd Parsons, Jan. 22, 1931. Private collection.
14. “I am sending”: CBM to ESVM, Jan. 30, 1931. St. Coll.
15. “COME MOTHER VERY SICK”: Telegram, Feb. 4, 1931. Berg.
16. “Ugin took along”: ESVM to KM, Feb. 18, 1931. Berg.
17. “DEAR HOWARD PLEASE”: ESVM and NM to Howard Young, telegram.
18. “AM KIND OF INSANE”: Telegram, Feb. 13, 1931. Berg.
19. “So, our little”: NM, typescript, Feb. 5, 1978.
20. “Steaming black horses”: EB to Llewelyn Powys, February 1931. St. Coll.
21. “Vincent and I”: NM, interview with author, March 17, 1974.
CHAPTER 26
1. “If you love”: World-Telegram, scrapbook of clippings re: Fatal Interview, n.d., c. March-April 1931. St. Coll.
2. “She was a sunny”: “Here’s a Charming Double Interview in which Edna St. Vincent Millay, Famed American Poetess, Sees Herself as Her Husband Sees Her,” NEA News Service, c. spring 1931.
3. “I had felt sure”: ESVM to GD, n.d., c. March 20, 1931. ABH collection.
4. “My darling, your”: ESVM to GD, n.d., c. March 26, 1931. ABH collection.
5. “… he was dominating”: Elizabeth Breuer, “Edna St. Vincent Millay,” Pictorial Review, Nov. 1931. All Breuer quotations are from this article.
CHAPTER 27
1. “Oh darling”: ESVM to GD, n.d., PM Dec. 8, 1931. ABH Collection.
2. “Dear Miss Millay”: Henry Allen Moe to ESVM, “2-i-32.” St. Coll.
3. “I regretfully assure you” and subsequent quotes: ESVM, draft, Guggenheim report, n.d., c. 1931. St. Coll.
4. “How beautiful is”: George Dillon, The Flowering Stone (New York: The Viking Press, 1932).
5. “Melodious, intelligent”: Percy Hutchison, The New York Times, Nov. 22, 1931, p. 24.
6. “Kathleen Millay is primarily”: William Rose Benét, Saturday Review of Literature, Dec. 5, 1931.
7. “I thought”: Susan Jenkins Brown to author, n.d., PM June 25, 1974.
8. “Edna St. Vincent Millay”: ESVM, scrap-book. Collected by Corrinne W. Sawyer, Mantor Library, University of Maine, Farmington, Maine. Archives. PS 3525 1495 532.
9. “Darling … I will come”: GD to ESVM, n.d., PM Feb. 21, 1932. St. Coll.
10. “Darlinks”: EB to NM, n.d., PM April 25, 1932. St. Coll.
11. “The Seine”: Floyd Dell, “Edna Millay Finds a Cook,” New York Herald Tribune, March 19, 1933.
12. “I feel strengthened”: GD to Frank D. Fackenthal, May 29, 1932. Columbia University.
13. “Along my body”: CP, p. 631.
14. “Darling Skiddlepins”: ESVM to EB, May 17, 1932. St. Coll.
15. “She was a woman”: Alix Daniels to author, May 22, 1974.
16. “For instance, one day”: Alix Daniels to author, June 21, 1975.
17. “… the hyacinths”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM May 23, 1932. St. Coll.
18. “I just must hear”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM May 25, 1932. St. Coll.
19. “Darling Wham-wham”: ESVM to EB, May 20, 1932.
20. “I hate not knowing”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM May 26, 1932.
21. “Do I write too often?”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM May 26, 1932.
22. “What ever happens”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM May 26, 1932. St. Coll.
23. “I wore my new”: ESVM to EB, May 25, 1932. St. Coll.
24. “I know you love”: EB to ESVM, n.d., c. June 11, 1932. St. Coll.
25. “I am ashamed”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM June 2, 1932. St. Coll.
26. “Everything would be”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM June 20, 1932. St. Coll.
CHAPTER 28
1. “Is there any danger”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM June 28, 1932. St. Coll.
2. “DISREGARD LETTER”: ESVM to EB, telegram, n.d. St. Coll.
3. “My own sweet darling”: EB to ESVM, n.d., PM July 4, 1932. St. Coll.
4. “fresh out of Harvard”: Donald Gurney, interview with author, Jan. 28, 1975.
5. “Miss Barney needs”: Lucie Delarue-Mardrus to ESVM, June 9, 1932.
<
br /> 6. “We want you”: Natalie Clifford Barney to ESVM, June 12, 1932. St. Coll.
7. “Woodblocks won’t do”: ESVM to Eugene Saxton. Ls., pp. 244–45.
8. Harper brought: Karl Yost, A Bibliography of the Works of Edna St. Vincent Millay (New York: Burt Franklin, 1968). Originally published in 1937 by Harper & Brothers.
9. “It was all very”: Mary Kennedy, interview with author, Sept. 30, 1977.
10. “Rachel Berendt read”: Donald Gurney, interview with author, Jan. 28, 1975.
11. “Wonderful country!”: Allan Ross Macdougall, unpublished memoir.
12. “I didn’t know”: NM to author, July 20, 1982.
CHAPTER 29
1. “mostly love poems”: ESVM to Eugene Saxton, May 12, 1934. UVa. 367 “Poor passionate thing”: CP, p. 339.
2. “There were only”: Charles Ellis, interview with author, August 4, 1975.
3. “I got a job”: Ls., pp. 248–49.
4. A gleeful Tess: Mary Kennedy, interview with author, Sept. 30, 1977.
5. “suppose we shall”: ADF diary, Beinecke.
6. “to spend August”: Ls., pp. 252–53.
7. “I put it” and subsequent quotes: ESVM to Henry Allen Moe, March 10, 1933. St. Coll.
8. “And it was just”: Elizabeth Clark, interview with author, May 8, 1974.
CHAPTER 30
1. “right out on”: Ls., p. 251.
2. “Well, my dear”: GD to ESVM, n.d., c. spring 1934. St. Coll.
3. “and this although”: ESVM, diary, March 16, 1934.
4. “all primed”: ESVM, diary, March 26, 1934. St. Coll.
5. “I knew Eugen”: Charlotte Boissevain, interview with author, April 30, 1974.
6. “Ugin got very tight”: ESVM, diary, March 28, 1934. St. Coll.
7. “The funny little”: ESVM, diary, March 30, 1934. St. Coll.
8. “She exercised no”: ESVM, diary, April 3, 1934. St. Coll.
9. “Liked some of”: ESVM, diary, April 7, 1934. St. Coll.
10. “Well, … I can understand”: Ibid.
11. “Saw the forty-eight”: ESVM, diary, April 9, 1934. St. Coll.
12. “Lulu looking beautiful”: ESVM, diary, April 14, 1934. St. Coll.
13. “for the dummy”: ESVM, diary, May 12, 1934. St. Coll.
14. “My idea about”: ESVM to Eugene Saxton, May 12, 1934. UVa.
15. “I don’t believe” and other quotes to end of chapter: Charles Ellis, interviews with author, Aug. 30, 1972; Sept. 4, 1975.
16. “On Thought in Harness”: “On Thought in Harness” was published in the Saturday Evening Post on February 24, 1934. Charles Ellis seems to have remembered incorrectly the year he painted Edna St. Vincent Millay.
CHAPTER 31
1. “What marvelous news”: ESVM to GD. June 7, 1934. ABH collection.
2. “sold out”: EB to NM, Nov. 14, 1934. St. Coll.
3. “My translations are”: GD to Alix Daniels, July 13, c. 1934; Oct. 22, c. 1934; n.y.
4. “a steel hand”: ABH, interview with author, December 1973.
5. “In reading the name” and subsequent quotes: Horace Gregory, “Edna St. Vincent Millay, Poet and Legend,” review of Wine from These Grapes, New York Herald Tribune Books, Nov. 11, 1943.
6. “In her latest book”: Louise Bogan, “Conversion into Self,” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, pp. 277–79.
7. “Poetic Strife Begins” and subsequent quotes: New York Post, Dec. 7, 1934, n.p.
8. “like a figure” and subsequent quotes: Frederic Prokosch, Voices, A Memoir (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), pp. 60–62.
9. “and if I come”: GD to ESVM, May 1, n.y., PM 1935. St. Coll.
10. “though their hospitality”: GD to Allan Ross Macdougall, Feb. 4, 1951. UVa.
11. “Me & George & Ugin”: ESVM to ADF, June 11, 1935.
12. “Herewith the partial”: GD to Eugene Sax-ton, Aug. 20, 1935. Berg.
13. “You will be surprised”: HM to ESVM, Sept. 28, 1935. St. Coll.
14. “I want to tell”: HM to ESVM, Nov. 15, 1935. St. Coll.
15. “It has to do”: Eugene Saxton to GD, Dec. 30, 1935. Berg.
16. “unmindful of what you have said”: Eugene Saxton to ESVM, Dec. 27, 1935. St. Coll.
17. “somewhere between Palm Beach”: ESVM to Gladys Brown Ficke, Ls., p. 262.
18. “Edna and I pick up”: EB to DT, Jan. 14, 1936. Joan Kennedy Taylor collection.
19. “time to have”: Ls., p. 263.
20. “Poe spelled it Eldorado”: Ls., deleted portion of letter, p. 264.
21. “On the page”: GD to Eugene Saxton, Dec. 10, 1935. Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
22. “TITLE OF BOOK”: ESVM to GD, Jan. 9, 1936. Syracuse University Library.
23. “It never occurred”: ESVM to GD, January 1936. Syracuse University Library.
24. “in your role”: GD to Eugene Saxton, Feb. 5, 1936. Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
CHAPTER 32
1. “For some strange”: “Baudelaire in English,” SRL, April 4, 1936, p. 15.
2. “LIFE IS BLAH”: ESVM to ADF, April 20, 1936. UVa.
3. “incomparable”: Cuthbert Wright, “Charles Baudelaire’s Poems in English Dress,” The New York Times Book Review, May 3, 1936, pp. 4, 18.
4. “There was no”: GD to Alix Daniels, May 15, 1962. Private collection.
5. “We start motoring”: ESVM to ADF, May 1, 1936. UVa.
6. “the only thing”: Ls., pp. 282, 284–85.
7. “Sweetheart”: NM to ESVM, n.d., c. May 1936. St. Coll.
8. “It was a major tragedy”: EB to NM, n.d., PM blurred, c. May 1936. St. Coll.
9. “Under more favourable”: ESVM, “Foreword,” ConM, p. vii.
10. “We had an accident”: EB to Charles Ellis, n.d., c. fall–winter 1936–37. St. Coll.
11. “On this day”: ADF diary, pp. 112–13. Beinecke.
12. “My dear”: ADF to ESVM, Oct. 24, 1936. St. Coll.
13. “Miss Millay, Esq”: ADF to ESVM, Oct. 26, 1936. St. Coll.
14. “On an occasion”: ESVM to Harold O. Voorhis, Secretary of New York University. Ls., pp. 290–91.
15. “Well, I was”: Cass Canfield, interview with author, July 11, 1973.
16. five honorary degrees: Two years earlier, Brown University had offered her its “honorary degree of Doctor of Letters” (Clarence A. Barbour to ESVM, May 9, 1935. St. Coll.); she did not reply. On May 6 they wired her; when they still had no word, they tried to telephone only to find she had no telephone. On May 9, 1935, they wrote again. There is no evidence either in her own files, at Steepletop, or in the records at Brown University that she responded. Whatever had happened, by the following year, 1936, telephones were installed at Steepletop.
17. “Here’s to my new book” and subsequent quotes: Michael Mok, “Edna St. Vincent Millay Sings Again,” New York Post, July 15, 1937, p. 15.
18. who had sided: Edmund Wilson, The Thirties, ed. Leon Edel (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980).
19. “the conflict between”: Edmund Wilson, “Give That Beat Again,” The Shores of Light, pp. 681–87.
20. “Say that We Saw”: CP, p. 377.
21. “the brilliant book”: Kenneth Tynan, “Beat Attitudes,” The New Yorker, Feb. 20, 1960, p. 104.
CHAPTER 33
1. “a depressing tour”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Oct. 17, 1936. St. Coll.
2. “Darling”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Mar. 29, 1936. St. Coll.
3. “Am I going”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Dec. 9, 1937. St. Coll.
4. “in a lovely”: George Slocombe to Allan Ross Macdougall, Feb. 8, 1951. UVa.
5. “You say you know”: ESVM to GD, Sept. 28, 1937. Syracuse University.
6. “The reason why”: EB to GD, Dec. 5, 1937, n.d., c. February 1938; April 27, 1938; May 31, 1938. Syracuse University.
7. “A delay in payment”: Henry Allen Moe to ESVM, Jan. 31, 1938. St.
Coll.
8. “I think if we”: EB to Curtis Hidden Page, Jan. 5, 1938. EB to Page, n.d., c. Feb. 28, 1938. UVa.
9. “These reports reach”: ESVM to Henry Allen Moe and Members of the Committee, March 18, 1938 (draft). St. Coll.
10. “He writes nothing”: Guggenheim report draft, c. 1938. n.p., n.d.
11. “Listen, toots”: ESVM to Harold Lewis Cook, July 6, 1938. Ls., p. 296, plus deleted portion. UVa.
12. By the fall: Henry Allen Moe to EB, Jan. 13, 1939. St. Coll.
13. “for God’s sake”: ESVM to GD, Sept. 5, 1938. Ls., pp. 300–301.
14. “Probably the others”: ESVM to GD, Sept. 21, 1938. Ls., p. 302.
CHAPTER 34
1. “a bad transplanter”: Good Housekeeping, May 1938.
2. “Tell Charlie”: EB to NM, June 2, 1935. St. Coll.
3. Edna wrote to Blanche Bloch: ESVM to BB, July 13, 1938. Ls., p. 299.
4. “Long before Tanglewood” and subsequent quotes: Alexander and Blanche Bloch, interview with author, July 15, 1973.
5. “ ‘I’m crazy about’ ”: Dayton Herald, Oct. 31, 1938. ESVM, scrapbook. Helen Adair Bruce collection.
6. “She was to give a reading”: Anonymous source to author, Dec. 9, 1975.
7. “I am horrified”: Helen Adair Bruce, scrap-book, n.p., n.d.
8. “Your wire was not”: EB to KM, n.d., c. February 1939. St. Coll.
9. “Dear Sister Edna”: KM to ESVM, Feb. 20, 1939. St. Coll.
10. “Dear Kathleen”: EB to KM, n.d., c. February 1939. St. Coll.
11. “You were very good”: ESVM to Agnes Yarnall, Ls., p. 294.
12. “There was either”: Agnes Yarnall, interview with author, Nov. 13, 1974. Agnes Yarnall to author, June 30, 1975.
13. “Darling, It is quaint”: ESVM to GD, Dec. 29, 1938. ABH collection.
14. didn’t reach Clark’s: The Goddard Biblio Log, vol. 2, no. 4 (Winter 1972), p. 61.
15. “my husband’s face”: ESVM to Ruth Dodd, n.d., c. 1941. UVa. (Not sent.)
CHAPTER 35