A Celtic Temperament

by Robertson Davies

  THURSDAY, MARCH 22, TORONTO: See a graduate student working on Heavysege15 and give a good lecture. We get Rosamond at BSS for her Easter break and are home by 5. Scott16 and Judith Symons to dinner: he talks bitter Tory nonsense all evening and I have to swallow it from courtesy. A fatuous ass and an archaic, farcical Tory.

  SUNDAY, MARCH 25: Do an hour’s work on my Academy of Medicine speech in the morning. In the afternoon walk with Brenda, who has slight ’flu, and finish speech: Miranda returns to university at 7:45. Read and chat in the afternoon and evening, but we are nervous and unsettled. Brenda’s imminent departure for Australia keeps us all rather on edge, though it is hard to say why. I welcome the cessation of lectures and make an attack on other work. I gave the Star notice Friday.

  TUESDAY, MARCH 27: To Toronto with Rosamond at 7:30. A very busy day with graduate work and lectures. Dine at the Lord Simcoe with Brenda and Rosamond and to the O’Keefe Centre to Irma la Douce. Not so good as when I saw it in London in August 1959 with Elizabeth Seal and Clive Revill, but good nevertheless, because the foundation—the book and music—are so good. Taina Elg was Irma, and danced well, but there was a cold Baltic breath from the stage whenever she appeared. The O’Keefe is death to charm, and it speaks well for them that they got across as much as they did. Excellent h.t.d.

  WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, TORONTO: Took Miranda to the Central Library Theatre to Sheridan’s The Rivals. It was a “theatre night” for library workers and they were a damned bad audience—worse even than teachers. We got turn-in seats and sat in the front row. A good production, and the wonderful old piece came through strongly in spite of some bad performances. Alan Nunn was loud and unvaried as Sir Anthony Absolute, nearly deafened us. Cosy Lee as Mrs. Malaprop had a bad cold and croaked and dried piteously at her first entrance—she could not even hear the prompter, who was bellowing. Glynne Morris played Sir Lucius O’Trigger with a dirty make-up. But Tiff Findley was a very good Captain Absolute and Lester Nixon an excellent Faulkland—really comic without once betraying the part. Al Kozlik a winning Acres—played him young and essentially serious. The girls Pauline Reynolds as Lydia Languish and Louise Nicol as Julia Melville, witty and charming. Enjoyed it greatly. And the language! What a feast of just, apt, and witty writing! I have seen this play butchered by amateurs. Also saw it at the Old Vic in 1938 not very well directed by Esme Church, and remember only Anthony Quayle as Captain Absolute and beautiful Hermione Hannen as Lydia. Also the 1942 New York production: Mary Boland as Mrs. Malaprop, Walter Hampden admirable as Sir Anthony, and Bobby Clark wonderfully funny and strangely gentle as Acres.

  THURSDAY, MARCH 29, TORONTO: Unwell from a poor night. I worked on graduate exams and lectured well. I was applauded at the end of both lectures this week. Very gratifying. Home by train for Rosamond’s birthday dinner, held early so Brenda could be here. An uneasy evening of chat. Brenda wakes at 3 a.m. very apprehensive: should she postpone her journey? I comfort her.

  Brenda was away in Australia from March 30 until May 6. Rob wrote to her a number of times while she was away (airmail took about six days). Some passages from these letters are included with the following entries.

  FRIDAY, MARCH 30: We lunch early and Jenny, Rosamond, and I see Brenda away on the 1 o’clock train for first leg of her journey. In the evening began Allardyce Nicoll’s History of English Drama and am absorbed, but what a prude he is!

  SATURDAY, MARCH 31: Premier Robarts,17 successor to Leslie Frost, in for a half hour’s chat in the morning. He seems a nice man. Dinner with the Waddells at the steak place on the highway and then to Spring Thaw, at St. Peter’s High School. This is the fifteenth year of this revue and it has grown from a somewhat amateur Toronto joke to a genuine national satire. Production was good, humour savage. But their marks are too few: Canada Council, our theatre and ballet, and a rather narrow political range, and of course the National Film Board. But a good rozzling evening, and clear proof that Canadians have a sense of humour and that it is fiercely ironic. Afterward, the Jeanette Scott Chapter of the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire gave coffee and dainty bits to the cast and a few guests. These uneasy affairs are one of our pioneer hangovers: people from a distance must be fed. But oh! the genteel daintiness of it all, the eating with front teeth, the grisly bonhomie! Wrote a notice for the Examiner before bed at 1.

  I have seen Lionel Massey on March 13th and 27th on foundation stone business, about which he fusses. Of course it must go smoothly, but why the agony?

  I hope I am not getting Gordon Roper and myself into trouble but, following his suggestion that a really good librarian could add much to the College, I have been in correspondence with Pennington of McGill, who wants a change, and wants scholarly rather than administrative work. He is to see Roper in Toronto shortly. I would love to have a first-class librarian on the spot. But his salary would be considerable, and would the Masseys see the point? The Library has been achieved rather in their teeth. But Roper will find out, and report when next the Senior Fellows meet. Caesar Wright suggests we have a distinctive gown, Cambridge fashion. This would relieve Lionel, who pathetically has no gown and must be academically naked on occasions like May 25. Bill Broughall has his desire: the Massey Foundation may now legally invest in stocks and shares other than those approved for trusts, and he assures me that in a few years this will put the College out of any worries about money. Pray God this is true!

  SUNDAY, APRIL 1: Woke at 8 and read. A quiet day. I hear some St. Matthew Passion and read The Teachers by G.W. Target. A walk in the afternoon and a good chat with Jenny and Rosamond, and write Brenda. Read my 1945 diary, which shows me sour and testy and in revolt against Peterborough—not surprising. We all make a good job of Brenda being away and Jenny is most considerate.

  MONDAY, APRIL 2: Miranda phoned at lunch: Stratford is taking her after all!18 I wire this news to Brenda. Rosamond away on the 4:45 train; a letter from Brenda. In the evening work on my speech and on Restoration drama.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 3, LETTER TO BRENDA

  I went to Toronto early on Tuesday, to be in good time for my meeting about the Southam Fellowships.19 The elections committee was Dean Bladen,20 Sword (Claude’s chief assistant), Gil Purcell of Canadian Press, and Ross Munro, a very able journalist. I like the university atmosphere; we made the decisions quickly, and without gobbledegook, and off to lunch at the Faculty Club. No wasted motion. This gave me a chance to get a sleep in the p.m.—or would have done if I had not had five phone calls in one hour, which woke me up thoroughly. Prof. Woodhouse suddenly wanted an exam on Victorian drama—by this morning! He had forgotten it! A nice old josher but no administrator. Fortunately I was in a position (as we say in Pbro) to cough one up.

  The Academy of Medicine affair was quite fun. Large dinner at the York Club before, and met a wheen of doctors, some nice and some rather silly. The president, Dr. Morley (brain surgeon), urged me to take exercise. After forty-five it is necessary to open the tubes of the heart. An equally eminent colleague, Dr. Mumbledemum, warned me against it; it sets up a toxic reaction in the muscles which unfits one for intellectual work. Met Dr. Graham, the great gout man, who treats Walter Gordon; says gout rages on this continent, and goes unrecognized very often. At 9 p.m. to the Academy, where they have a wee hall, and after a too-long business meeting, I was let speak and it went very well.21 Only trouble is my voice gives me trouble, and I croak; wanted a glass of water but there was none. A vote of thanks was moved by a chap who wanted to be funny, but was a green hand at such work, and said he guessed he had been asked to thank me because he was a birdwatcher, and was thus expected to be an expert on Queer Birds. Ha ha. As I had been received with warm applause, this went over (in Rosamond’s phrase) like a truckload of dead babies.

  The Academy has just inherited what is said to be the finest collection of medical objects on this continent and one of the best in the world—the Drake Collection. The ROM wanted it, and so did McGill, but were circumvented. Ten thousand objects, from elegant eig
hteenth-century pap-boats and vinaigrettes to tongue-scrapers and other horrid objects. An item which took my eye was an elegant female urinal in delicate porcelain, rather in the style of your Flight, Barr & Barr cups, painted with a pastoral scene of an Arcadian shepherdess (Phyllis) with her skirts coyly hoisted, peeing, while her swain (Corydon) lies at her feet peeping up toward the source of the stream. In the bottom of this object was a beautifully painted eye; real coarse eighteenth-century fun.

  THURSDAY, APRIL 5: Genest22 comes today, a great thrill, and Britnell23 phones to tell me the American history of drama is on the way: this is really collecting. I take Jenny to dine and to a film, Majority of One.

  FRIDAY, APRIL 6: I begin work on my Punch play. It begins very slowly and I hate stirring myself but gradually something comes. In the evening read Genest and Montague Summers.24 Miranda calls; she is coming home for the weekend.

  SATURDAY, APRIL 7: Work on Punch unwillingly. The American drama books come and are very fine with Genest. Miranda comes on the midday train. In the evening work on the play, then chat with Miranda about her work and her friends. Jenny goes dancing. Rain.

  SATURDAY, APRIL 7, LETTER TO BRENDA

  Queen’s University want to make me an LL.D. on May 19, and I am to make a speech. Will you come? Very kind of them, considering how I have roasted Queen’s in my books. But I shall be very glad to have a degree from Queen’s at last, for they were decent to me when my matriculation exams fell through.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 8: Lie late. In the afternoon walk with Miranda, then hear Glenn Gould playing Bach on TV. Work on Punch to good effect. Jenny is out most of the day bowling. In the evening play duets and talk to Miranda about Swift and then about love and family relationships.

  It is curious the physical unease, almost amounting to illness, that comes on me as soon as I begin to write—as opposed to journalistic production. Punch makes any rest impossible: I am distraught and uneasy, physically frowsy and under the weather.

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11: To Toronto and met Vincent Massey, Lionel Massey, and Allan Fleming at the College site, where we gather at 4 p.m. to discuss the cornerstone with the builders. After some discussion we agree that it should face inward at the gate, and not to the street. Progress is being made: almost all the foundation is in. VM shares my opinion that the building looks very small and my hope that it will look bigger when finished. Then to Lionel’s office in the ROM where we discuss lettering, the invitations, use of arms on letter paper, etc. VM is not pleased that heads of the Veterinary College, Household Science, etc. are to be asked to the foundation stone ceremony, but we cannot show ourselves sniffy. We agree to forget trumpeters, as the army is so disobliging, and to try to control the carilloneur. It is greatly encouraging to see the building progress, and to move nearer our first public act. Some objects are to be put in a copper box in the foundation stone: VM suggests a speech of mine and I think the October 18th one25 would be suitable. Our arms still hang fire—some slip-up between the Palace and the College of Arms. We must have it soon. Ron Thom likes my suggestion of an ikon as the focal point of the chapel. Hope this comes off.

  THURSDAY, APRIL 12, LETTER TO BRENDA

  Am much oppressed in spirit because I have begun the Punch play for UCC. It goes well, but such hard work! Writing anything original just plain is hard work, and scribbling criticism is child’s play to it. I cannot think coherently about anything else, and so all the university work has to be done by main strength. Also, for some reason, I am not sleeping well; woke this morning at 4:30 and could not get off again ’til 6. This sort of thing happens most nights and I don’t know why. Maybe I am at the time of life when one just naps a lot and does not really sleep.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 15: I miss Brenda all the time: there is no one to talk to about things that most press on my mind. She writes that she is meeting many old friends. It is three weeks until she returns. I want to complete a good deal of work before then.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 15, LETTER TO BRENDA

  I was at the university by 9 yesterday, and we sat for four hours, examining for Ph.D.s two young men who did not know their work. One was a Mute Inglorious Failure, who clawed the air and struggled for speech, whenever he was asked anything. His subject was modern lit. and he would gurgle something about what he called “the Eliot sort of thing” or “the Hemingway sort of thing” and then lapse into incomprehensibility. But the second one was worse—a young Englishman, who was very vocal but said nothing to the purpose. Poor wretch, he knew he was talking nonsense a lot of the time, but he hadn’t the nerve to shut his cake-hole and stop the agony. When we had polished off these two no-hopers the five of us scampered over to the University College dining-room and ate and drank everything in sight and made unkind fun of the morning’s work, by which we were all exhausted. But by 2 p.m. we had to be on the job again, for yet another victim. Thank God he was better, and did quite well.

  These affairs are more trying than you might suppose. All the examiners feel for the candidate, and are torn inwardly with hooks when he makes a mug of himself. I questioned each man for twenty-five minutes on modern drama, and it was not easy work. But then I listened to all the rest, as each examiner is asked to give his opinion on the answers given to all the other men. We sat on very hard chairs. Prof. Woodhouse, as chairman, was able to relieve his feelings by doing light housekeeping—opening and shutting windows, getting the candidate a glass of water (and for one of them even a cup of tea), and emptying ashtrays. Talk about lung cancer? I kept count during the third man’s exam and here are the horrible statistics. Niggsies smoked: Prof. Woodhouse 10; Prof. Child 12; Prof. Wilson zero; the candidate 15; me, a cigar; and Prof. Buitenhuis burned a lot of goat’s hair in a big hooked pipe. What we all needed was a big stiff drink, and I think I shall introduce this when I am chairman of an examination.

  After the exams we were all so worn out none of us could add and got a terrible fit of the group giggles as one man seemed mysteriously to have got 472 out of 100—really he had got 47.2. Professors are strangely childish, which is rather nice.

  MONDAY, APRIL 16: Cherrier of the Star tries to persuade me not to drop the Star column. I will continue it till June 1. I work on Punch and hope to finish the first draft this week. I talk with Jenny and watch TV with her.

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, LETTER TO BRENDA

  Yesterday to Toronto by ’bus, and at once to another graduate viva. My afternoon was free so I went to get my hair cut; this time the barber called the manicurist to look at the snowy wonder of my wig. “You won’t see one person in a hundred thousand with hair in that condition,” said he. Do you think there are such things as hairosexuals? If so, he is certainly one, and God knows what will happen to me if he becomes too much aroused.

  That evening I had a disagreeable task; a man had phoned, wanting to be considered as bursar for Massey College. I have known him since school days, and so has Lionel; he was Vincent’s secretary in London when he was high commissioner; he is a fraternity brother of Bill Broughall’s. And we were all agreed he wouldn’t do. He is rich, well-connected, well-educated, a gentleman, a lawyer by training, and knows everybody; speaks French well, and knows all about entertaining BUT is now fifty and has never stuck at any job for more than two or three years. Further, is a Big Jessie. I wish to Heaven he were just a bit more possible, for he has every quality we want, but also two or three that would make him a big headache for me and the Senior Fellows. So I had to give him dinner, take him seriously, and suffer the embarrassment of being courted by an old schoolfellow in slightly sticky terms, knowing all the time it would come to nothing. Tried not to lead him up the garden path, but could not prevent him from dashing up it himself. I think the ruin of him is that he is very rich; his papa was a big mines man in the days when mines were the thing. I did my stuff from 6:30 to 9 and then escaped and went to a Peter Sellers movie, Only Two Can Play—excellent, very funny, and captures the queer quality of Welsh provincial life (there is no other kind) and also all that wonder
ful old Welsh spite and bitchery.

  Vincent Massey tells me in great confidence that there is nothing so economical as buying really good clothes, and showed me the label in his black overcoat, which shows it was made for him in 1928! Unfortunately, it looks it. Canada is to have a general election on June 18. Canada suffered national humiliation last night when the Maple Leafs were beaten 4 to 1 by the Chicago Black Hawks (this is hockey).

  Jenny says to assure you that all is not lost; the hockey championships now stand two-two and the Leafs may yet win.

  The professor of Chinese, Bill Dobson (who is going to be a Senior Fellow of the College),26 has lent me a number of good books about classical Chinese doings; you must look at them when you get back as you are our Chinese department. You will like Dobson: he is a charming Englishman, and full of jokes. A real scholar, not a toad.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 22, EASTER: Up at 7 and with Rosamond to Communion. We had gifts from Brenda at breakfast. Then to bed with a hot pad for my back. In the afternoon chat with Miranda and Rosamond, then a walk and an excellent dinner. But Easter without Brenda is not the coming of spring.

  MONDAY, APRIL 23: Rosamond returns to BSS at 4:45; I read fifteen exam papers, most of them written by Mrs. Malaprop when drunk. In the evening see a CBC Macbeth with Miranda—jejune. Lumbago has improved. Good chat with Miranda.