Everybody Was So Young

by Amanda Vaill

  The Guaranty Trust . . . carting it around: REM to ALM, 31 Aug. 1939, FMB. Sara, Honoria, and the Myeres . . . Southampton and New York: SWM trip log 1939:1–18 Sept., HMD.

  There were nearly two thousand . . . “holding someone’s thumb”: GCM to JDP and KDP, 21 Sept. 1939, UVA.

  “greedy sense of being included”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 17 Oct., 1939, HU.

  [>] Gerald had attended only a few rehearsals: Frederic Franklin, in an interview, does not recall Gerald ever attending one; but in a letter written that autumn [and not dated] Gerald told Alexander Woollcott that “I have a ballet rehearsal Thursday.”

  Opening the program . . . luscious figure: Ballet Russe souvenir season’s program, Ghost Town files/Records of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL. “Richard Rodgers, in collaboration”: Serge Denham to Miss A. B. McNamara, [spring 1939], Ghost Town files, Records of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.

  There was tumultuous applause . . . six curtain calls: Irving Kolodin, review in New York Sun, 13 Nov. 1939.

  He and Platt . . . friendship into the 1940s: HMD interview.

  “WAS TAKEN ILL”: FSF to GCM, 21 Sept. 1939, HMD.

  “What a strange . . . necessary to keep”: All quotations from ibid., [21 Sept. 1939]

  “Please don’t keep”: GCM to FSF, 29 Sept. 1939, HMD.

  “I do not like”: Ibid., 26 Aug. 1940, PUL.

  [>] “I don’t think the world”: SWM to FSF, 30 Aug. 1935, PUL.

  “He was against . . . dusting mornings”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 13 Jun. 1939, HU.

  [>] “We ate a very great deal . . . snored for about an hour”: William MacLeish interview.

  “The play depressed . . . fond I am of you”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 17 Oct. 1939, HU.

  “the last tie to the boys”: GCM to JDP and KDP, 21 Feb. 1940, UVA.

  “Will one’s heart . . . talk to you”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 24 Jun. 1940, HU.

  [>] Bumby, who was now . . . Hellzapoppin: John Hemingway interview, “forlorn”: GCM to FSF, 24 Apr. 1940, PUL.

  “would like to be”: PH to SWM, 1 Mar. 1940, HMD.

  After stopping . . . covered the earth: SWM trip log 1940: 7 Apr., HMD.

  “Yr old shipmate, Sara”: SWM to EH, 29 Jul. 1940, JFK.

  “I felt sort . . . same as always”: EH to SWM, [Dec. 1940], HMD.

  [>] “the people he spoke”: Frances Kroll Ring interview.

  “Yr cheque gave me”: GCM to FSF, 3 Oct. 1940, PUL.

  “How cruelly the world”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 26 Dec. 1940, HU. “Those tragicly ecstatic . . . grievous to envisage”: Zelda Fitzgerald to GCM and SWM, [Dec. 1940 or Jan. 1941], HMD.

  “Poor Scott . . . more than anyone”: EH to SWM, [Dec. 1940], HMD.

  23. “One’s very Life seems at stake”

  [>] “What sad days . . . all our time & $”: GCM to AMacL, 20 Aug. 1940, LOC. Sara was acting . . . war relief: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 24 Jun. 1940, HU.

  “One’s very Life”: GCM to AMacL, 20 Aug. 1940, LOC.

  In the spring of 1940 . . . Cimetière Urbain at Pau: Margot Peters, Mrs. Pat, pp. 450–58.

  [>] “Everything goes so slowly! . . .. something like that”: FL to SWM, 5 Oct. 1940, HMD (my translation).

  “a Frenchman” . . . tanks aren’t sketches: FL to GCM and SWM, 18 Sept. 1940, HMD (my translation).

  “They’re whispering in Vichy”: FL to SWM, 6 Oct. 1940, HMD.

  From Marseille . . . that very day: FL to GCM and SWM, 17 Sept. 1940; GCM to Thos. Cook and Son, 17 Sept. 1940, 17 Sept. 1940 banking draft, Thos. Cook and Son; HMD.

  [>] “You have always . . . every part of my life”: FL to SWM, 6 Oct. 1940, HMD. He went to work against inaction . . . “classic to ourselves”: GCM to AMacL, [Oct. 1941], LOC

  [>] Léger . . . picture in the house: Daisy and Jane Pickman/HMD interview, FMB interview.

  “more than simply”: Gill, A New York Life, p. 317.

  Watch . . . Alexandria house: Lillian Hellman/HMD interview, HMD.

  “the inside cabin”: HMD interview.

  “They started . . . tell us what you did”: Grand jury notes, GCM notebook, HMD.

  [>] teaching a course . . . Dawn Powell was enrolled: DaP diary: 18 Feb. 1940. Gerald made up . . . study of Bach: GCM New School notebooks, HMD. American literature . . . Alfred Kazin: GCM’s “Miscellaneous and Marginalia” file, HMD.

  She was having dinner . . . It was Hopkins: Hellman, An Unfinished Woman, pp. 216–17.

  [>] “Poetry doesn’t become”: David Pickman interview.

  “yards and yards” . . . killed in a shipwreck: David Pickman/HMD interview, HMD.

  “Thou mastering me”: Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, p. 55.

  “refused to meet”: GCM to AMacL, 22 Jan. 1931, LOC.

  In 1940 Fanny Myers . . . delighted to welcome him: FMB interview.

  [>] Jarvis was . . . beneath the curl: Ibid.

  Despite Sara’s assertion . . . “cure” himself: For this information, and for further insights on Jarvis, I am indebted to the work of the late Norman Hay, who died before he completed his Jarvis biography.

  He kept this turmoil . . . son-in-law: HMD and FMB interviews.

  “Dow used to advise me”: William MacLeish interview. put him together . . . publishers: Norman Hay biographical note on Alan Jarvis, private collection.

  wrote him a letter . . . Archie MacLeish: copy of a letter from GCM to AMacL, 4 Oct. 1941, UTo.

  [>] “a fierce and joyous”: Norman Hay biographical note, 6 Jan. 1983, private collection.

  “A. amatus” . . . since he was fifteen: Ibid.

  [>] “defects” . . . heart: GCM to AMacL, 22 Jan. 1930, LOC.

  In later life Alan Jarvis . . . physical: Norman Hay biographical note, 25 Sept. 1987, private collection.

  “She was rather edgy”: FMB interview.

  Sara went away . . . go with their steaks: SWM trip log 1941: spring, HMD.

  [>] “Gerald agreed” . . . America had also entered the war: Norman Hay biographical note, 6 Jan. 1983, private collection. accepted a cache of Jarvis’s . . . “zinc-lined”: GCM to AJ, [Dec. 1941], Norman Hay collection, UTo.

  Alan Campbell . . . “queer as a goat”: Meade, Dorothy Parker, pp. 307 and 311.

  [>] “flatly stated . . . would be a sin”: Lillian Hellman/HMD interview.

  “We all talked about”: JDP to AMacL, 4 Jan. 1942, LOC.

  [>] “What you write . . . write about it”: EH to AMacL, 30 Jun. [1943], LOC. “the aid of a court”: The language in the decision on Wiborg v. Murphy, recorded in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in Riverhead, New York, in the spring of 1944, is quoted in S& G, p. 215. defending herself . . . considerable anguish: S& G, p. 217.

  Unable to find . . . oversee the job: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 23 Jul. 1941, HU.

  “I have contributed . . . do not like or admire”: SWM affidavit, HMD.

  “1) dinner Tuesday . . . New School”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 23 Jan. 1942, HU.

  [>] “(just because they’re not in your set)”: Ibid., 24 Jan. 1942.

  “His gift”: GCM to AMacL, 8 Feb. 1943, LOC.

  “what kind of service . . . took out of us”: Ibid.

  “that monument to the inessential”: Ibid. written hardly a line . . . war began: William MacLeish interview, “charmingly civilized”: Felix Frankfurter, note in margin of GCM to AMacL, 14 Apr. 1943, LOC.

  “first Stravinsky performance”: AMacL to GCM, telegram 23 Oct. 1944; LOC.

  simply at-home evenings . . . Ada sang: SWM trip diary 1943: May, HMD.

  “Archie is being pulled . . . farther away”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 24 Jun. 1940, HU; [Miller, Letters from a Lost Generation, p. 251].

  [>] “like a stone bruise”: AMacL, quoted in Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish, p. 383.

  Gerald exerted himself . . . “great times with Dow”: William MacLeish interview.

  24. “Isn
’t it strange how life goes on?”

  [>] “People should never”: Quoted in DaP to SWM, 22 Sept. 1947, HMD.

  “the revisitation . . . Love . . . Gerald”: GCM to AJ, 21 May 1946, UTo.

  “grave but harmonious . . . I feel it”: Ibid., 13 Jun. 1946.

  [>] “the Polyglot Rim . . . obliged to work”: Wood Memorial Day Nursery fundraising brochure, manuscript draft with SWM’s notes, HMD.

  Every morning . . . three and six months: SWM black notebooks from Wood Memorial Day Nursery, HMD.

  [>] One day Honoria . . . room in tears: S& G, p. 212.

  Sara even brought two . . . opposed the adoption: Ibid.

  Gerald had likened . . . view of the water: GCM to KDP, 26 Jan. 1942, UVA.

  “the constant aeroplane”: JDP to GCM and SWM, 21 Feb. 1945, UVA.

  “Mimi looked like”: Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish, p. 389.

  “the pearls went crunch . . . damned thing off”: Mimi MacLeish Grimm interview.

  [>] “It’s just like me": Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish, p. 396.

  “went with an infantry . . . break for me”: EH to SWM, 5 May 1945, HMD.

  “As you know . . . 1942 to 1945”: EH to Charles Poore, 23 Jan. 1953; Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, p. 800.

  [>] “I enclose . . . never hurt anybody”: SWM to DaP, 9 Mar. 1964, CUL.

  “I don’t really . . . Love, G.”: GCM to DaP, 25 Apr. 1942, CUL.

  Powell wrote the ending . . . Swan Cove: DaP, The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 24 Jul. 1944, p. 233.

  The Wicked Pavilion . . . The Creevey Papers: Ibid., 16 and 31 Jan. 1950, pp. 288, 289; DaP to John Hall Wheelock, 18 Sept. 1950, CUL.

  “This conquering of the deep”: DaP, The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 6 Sept. 1947, p. 262.

  Talking to Gerald . . . pointing at him: Ibid., 11 Oct. 1947, p. 265.

  [>] “Sal dear . . . when he wakes”: GCM to SWM, 13 Sept. 1947, HMD. “deflected to Katy”: DaP, The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 11 Oct. 1947, p. 265. “Where can he put . . . I guess”: GCM to SWM, 13 Sept. 1947, HMD. helped make arrangements . . . funeral in Truro: Esther Andrews to DaP, undated, CUL.

  urged Dawn . . . New York: DaP to SWM, 22 Sept. 1947, HMD.

  [>] “[Y]ou and I . . . do not know”: AMacL to GCM, [autumn 1948], HMD.

  “I cant yet find”: JDP to SWM, 7 Nov. 1948, HMD.

  For his birthday . . . “birthday before”: Ibid., 15 Jan. 1949, HMD; GCM to SWM, 16 Jan. 1949, HMD.

  it was owned . . . house was for sale: Marion Lowndes, quoted in John Dalmas, “Living Well Was His Best Revenge,” Westchester/Rockland Journal-News, 12 May 1974.

  [>] “highly marginal”: Jacques Livet, “La Baraka de Vladimir” (unpublished memoir); courtesy of the author (my translation).

  Vladimir had managed . . . Gerald in 1945: FMB interview.

  “dark seal brown”: GCM to SWM, 22 Feb. 1949, HMD.

  They added a small wing . . . stone for the addition: CT interview, sometimes Black Velvets . . . hollowed-out coconut: GCM, miscellaneous clipping file; Daisy Pickman/HMD interview; HMD.

  “looking up into the branches”: CT interview.

  Sara would light . . . little paper bags: Ibid.

  [>] squares of whole-grain . . . horseradish: FMB interview. pheasant with bread sauce . . . poached in broth: DaP diaries: 11 Jan. 1958 and 1 Mar. 1959, CUL.

  “wondrous black hushed sleep”: Ibid., 19 Jul. 1956.

  “curiously beautiful . . . private cemetery: Ibid., 12 Nov. 1949. stories of patroons . . . Hudson River steamboats: GCM, miscellaneous notes file, HMD.

  costume was a surprise even to Sara: Marion Lowndes, quoted in John Dalmas, “Living Well Was His Best Revenge,” Westchester/Rockland Journal-News, 12 May 1974.

  “still reeling . . . George and Martha”: DaP to GCM and SWM, 28 Feb. 1950, HMD.

  [>] “the increasing growth”: Harold L. Ickes to GCM, 15 May 1946, HMD.

  “any number of times”: Lillian Hellman/HMD interview, HMD.

  Hellman had invited . . . “make her throw up?”: Ibid.

  Dashiell Hammett . . . $10,: Johnson, Dashiell Hammett, pp. 238–45. In the end the judge refused bail and Hammett went to prison.

  [>] “made up to save”: Lillian Hellman/HMD interview, HMD.

  “Gerald Murphy was always”: S& G, p. 210.

  “formidable and far . . . luncheon there every day”: GCM to SWM, 26 Jul. 1939, HMD.

  “To be anti-Communist”: S& G, p. 211.

  [>] “a pernicious nonsense . . . agu’d fear!”: Coriolanus, act I, scenes i and iv; GCM, loose notes, HMD. As was often the case, GCM cobbled the quotation together from hearing or memory, conflating two separate speech fragments into one.

  “By and large . . . anywhere today”: GCM to ESB, 14 Nov. 1952, GUL. “always smelled of wet tweed”: HMD interview.

  “provocative and sympathetic”: GCM to CT, undated, HMD.

  [>] Linda was also . . . adjoining suites: HMD interview.

  “Very stunning . . . freshness for me”: GCM to SWM, 16 Jan. 1949, HMD. “never set foot”: Mimi MacLeish Grimm interview.

  “they realized it was what”: S& G, p. 222.

  [>] “spoiled the Cote d’Azur”: GCM to SWM, 23 Apr. [May?] 1950, HMD. “Immediately one is caught . . . secret garden”: Ibid., 30 Jun. 1959.

  “Patrick at his little garden”: GCM to ESB, 12 Jun. 1950, GUL.

  “Isn’t it strange . . . Honoria has her child”: GCM to HMD, 21 Jun. 1951, HMD.

  [>] “How different . . . come into it”: GCM to SWM, 11 Jun. 1953, HMD.

  25. “Back there where they were”

  [>] Either Gerald had tracked sand . . . powerful club denizens: DaP to Edmund Wilson, 19 Mar. 1959, CUL.

  “the question of belief . . . lovely things?”: AMacL, The Book of Job, sermon at the First Church of Christ, Congregational, Farmington, Connecticut, 8 May 1955, privately printed, limited edition, Archibald MacLeish collection, Greenfield Community College.

  [>] “had never been ‘rich’”: AMacL, “The Art of Poetry” interview, The Paris Review, vol. 14, no. 58, p. 69.

  [>] “Then said his wife”: GCM, notes on SS Majestic stationery, miscellaneous papers, HMD.

  “an almost total invention”: AMacL, Stuart Drabeck interview transcript (section A, p. 13), Archibald MacLeish collection, Greenfield Community College.

  [>] “Pretty . . . published”: AMacL, J.B., manuscript draft, 1958, LOC.

  “There is no such . . . never called Sarah”: AMacL, Stuart Drabeck interview transcript (section A, p. 13), Archibald MacLeish collection, Greenfield Community College.

  “the confrontation”: AMacL, Riders on the Earth, p. 125.

  “the fable”: Brooks Atkinson, “From ‘Job’ to ‘J.B.,’” New York Times, 4 May 1958.

  “brilliant . . . works of the century”: Reviews quoted in Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish, p. 457.

  didn’t see the play . . . March 18: DaP diary 1959:18 Mar., CUL.

  “If Hamlet was your Omelette . . . big cookie”: DaP to Edmund Wilson, 19 Mar. 1959, CUL.

  [>] “Gerald was going . . . very bad patch there”: William MacLeish interview.

  “You can never know”: HMD interview.

  “Blow on the coal of the heart”: AMacL, J.B., p. 153.

  [>] “sat between Gerald and Sara . . . where they were”: AMacL to EH, [30 Sept. 1958], Letters of Archibald MacLeish, pp. 411–12.

  “that nuisance . . . you and Ada”: GCM to AMacL, 11 Jun. 1956, LOC.

  [>] “I always loved . . . kid about”: EH to DaP, 31 Jan. 1944, CUL.

  “Poor Sara and Gerald . . . but I did”: EH to AMacL, 15 Oct. 1958, Emest Hemingway: Selected Letters, p. 885.

  “heard of his death”: AMacL to GCM, 2 Feb. [1954], HMD.

  Dawn Powell . . . Rudolph Valentino: DaP diary 1955: 21 Jan., CUL.

  “I don’t consider . . . figs at people”: DaP, The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 7 Jan. 1950, p. 287.

  “they were a great source”: CT inter
view.

  “I’d never met an older woman . . . second-rate practitioner”: Ibid.

  [>] “he didn’t seem the type”: John Hemingway interview.

  “thought I knew . . . never talked about it”: Jane Pickman/HMD interview, HMD.

  There were . . . put in the attic: LW, p. 132; CT interview; William Donnelly/HMD interview, HMD.

  [>] “A series of semi-abstract . . . in their wit”: Blesh, Modern Art USA, pp. 93–96.

  “I’ve been discovered . . . does one wear?”: HMD and John Donnelly interviews.

  “ironic distance”: CT interview.

  He was even unable . . . self-assurance: Blesh, Modern Art USA (p. 95), and MacAgy (in the catalogue for “American Genius in Review No. I,” p. 56) both list Bernheim Jeune as the gallery where Murphy had his one-man show, although MacAgy—on the strength of a “correction” from Murphy—has the date as 1936. Calvin Tomkins, in the last chapter of Living Well Is the Best Revenge, uses MacAgy’s date. William Rubin, in his catalogue for Murphy’s 1974 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, could find no references to any Murphy show in Paris, and was inclined to suspect he had fabricated it. He hadn’t, of course, he had just misremembered it.

  [>] “There’s nothing more to be done”: GCM to CT, [1963], HMD.

  “O to be young . . . painting at 60!”: Ibid., [undated].

  “but returned to painting”: GCM to Rudi Blesh, undated, quoted in Blesh, Modern Art USA, p. 96.

  [>] “he had to keep . . . the way you wanted”: Sherman Donnelly interview.

  “One remembers . . . you deserve”: SWM to Pablo Picasso, 14 Mar. 1961, Musee Picasso (my translation).

  “Tell Sara . . . I’m all alone”: LW, p. 126.

  [>] “Dear Ernest”: SWM to EH, 24 May 1960, JFK .

  “If you just won’t admit . . . take it”: SWM to FSF, 3 Apr. [1936], PUL.

  “Sara is repairing . . . ‘grace under pressure?”’: GCM to CT, 10 Jul. 1961, HMD.

  [>] Sara disliked . . . for anything: HMD interview.

  Spanish proverb: Ibid., p. 126.

  “Man Proposeth”: No. 524, “Outlandish Proverbs, compiled by Mr. G. H.,” in Sir John Mennes and James Smith, Facetiae. Musarum Deliciae: or The Muses Recreation.