SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, STRATFORD: Breakfast at 10 with Miranda and Karen Austen, her flat-sharer, and to Toronto very heavy-laden. Lunch at Hawthorn Gardens with Rosamond. Brenda, Jenny, and I home by 6:30 and spend an inert evening. My bowels sour from sweet things eaten last night.
Thus ends my holiday, which I enjoyed but it is not enough. Must practise Schuller’s suggestion of “controlled irresponsibility” or I shall fall ill this winter. Oh! for a light heart!
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9: We progress: both Friesen and Lochhead have made formal application for the appointments, and have expressed enthusiasm for the College idea. I will be glad to have Friesen take over all money matters, as will Bill, for they are not my line and I want someone to do some close figuring.
This afternoon about 4:30 Vincent Massey called: at last the matter of our augmentation of heraldic arms has been broached by the governor general to Diefenbaker, who has summarily vetoed it! Political rancour, I suppose. It would have been more glorious to accede, and show oneself magnanimous, but who could expect a prairie Baptist to see it that way? So now we must begin again. The “crest of Canada” has been denied us because Garter60 and Sir Michael Adeane, the Queen’s private secretary, would be so pernickety; let us hope the next suggestion is nothing the Prince Albert Messiah has any control over. The joke is that Alan Beddoe, the heraldist in Ottawa, has been put to work to unearth the Diefenbaker family arms!
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10: To Toronto 8:30; meet Herbert Irvine61 at 10:30, work and lunch with him. At 4 p.m. meet Thom and Irvine at the College and discuss details of our house and get things arranged of which I had not dreamed, e.g., where light switches are to be. The illuminated ceiling in my study about which we had grave misgiving sounds much better as Ron explains it. Not a room in the house gets light from more than one side. Herbert Irvine has excellent, practical ideas and Ron Thom is most obliging.
I gave my first graduate lecture 2 to 4 in Room 109 in University College—a cellar box. But I like the work. Nobody seems to know that I am trying to learn the trade of a professor amid the College hubbub.
Bill Broughall saw Friesen today and thinks well of him. I am glad to have my opinion confirmed.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13: Work on my lecture and enjoy the drudgery. In the afternoon I help Brenda plant bulbs and devise exam questions. In the evening read Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, a grossly over-written book, and why is a Christ figure necessarily without wit or gumption? Excellent h.t.d.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14: Enjoy preparing graduate work as I never did undergraduate lectures. I feel much better than in August. College matters are now advanced so that I am more at peace. Hope for a jolly winter.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16: To Toronto, and Ron Thom lunches with us at the University Club. Lilias Massey and Miss Leavings, the secretary of the Massey Foundation, were there, and I beg Lilias to use any influence she has to dissuade Vincent Massey from having sterling silver flatware in Hall. Ron Thom is very spent, but has College details at his fingers’ ends and makes good sense about the Upper Library. To the College with him and Brenda, and meet Herbert Irvine and Ken Pringle and work out some details of our house, which looks as though it would be really handsome. Go over the rest of the College with Ron, and everything is much better than I dared hope: Senior Fellows’ Dining Room will have a very fine outlook; Round Room promises fairly. In the evening dine with A.S.P. Woodhouse and University College English professors at the Faculty Club. Fair conversation, dismal food. Chat with Norman Endicott. I am tactful and modest about the College with Ernest Sirluck.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, TORONTO: See Ron Thom at 10 about College details and with him at 10:30 to Lionel Massey’s house: the Masseys (Vincent, Hart, and Lionel) try to catch him on details left unattended to, but can find none. So to Eaton’s for another choosing meeting, and it goes very well and we get a lot done: plate ordered for the Hall, and sterling for the Senior Fellows’ Dining Room. It appears that Diefenbaker has vetoed not simply our use of the crest of Canada, but any augmentation. What spite! Yet I hope still. VM and Hart have ordered the crest on the china smaller, so as not to be vulgar! Why not have no crest and set a new standard of genteelism—the absent heraldry?
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, TORONTO: Gordon and Helen Roper dine with us at the University Club. He has talked with Lochhead about money and they arrive at a figure of $25,000 to make a start on the Library, which is wonderful, as we already have that. Bill Broughall says much library expenditure can go on the books as “furnishing”: “Don’t let ’em know it’s for books and you can take ’em for a grand,” he says.
Lochhead has a hand press and may move it into the College—this would be magnificent for bibliography classes! I have met Sirluck and see what it is Bill dislikes about him. But he seems to yearn for acceptance and status—chatters about his wine, etc. I think he can be got to understand if not the College idea, at least that it is wise for him to feign comprehension.
Lionel Massey’s museum problems are still great.
After dinner with Brenda to film Waltz of the Toreadors, amusing.
I dream I am lying in bed having an emission. I lie on my back looking down at my member, which is enormous, and sprouts seed in firework-like bursts of beautiful pattern. This gives me a special ecstatic pleasure.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21: Things are going so well about the College that I am almost worried, which is silly: why does one fear good fortune? This savagery and superstition is part of the dark side of my life.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, TORONTO: The Master and Fellows meet at 4:10 in Simcoe Hall, the Senate Room: Dobson, Bladen, Polanyi, and Eric Phillips are present and formally elected. I felt I handled the meeting badly for I was very tired and somewhat confused, and because I am too vain to wear bifocals I got mixed up in reading one or two things, but not very badly. Phillips is a strong, aggressive man and I was astonished that the Masseys did not resent him; but he has befriended Lionel in the museum fight and this pleases them. He proposed that the formal appointment of Friesen be postponed until Frank Stone has a look at him; must warn Friesen against becoming Stone’s creature. The appointment of Douglas Lochhead went smoothly, Claude Bissell seconding Gordon Roper’s motion to appoint, and speaking of a cross-appointment for Lochhead.
I am tired of the detail work which is laid on me: why do I have to discuss the teapots? I cannot work on the total concept of the College if I am kept to that sort of thing. The Masseys are getting very sharp with Ron Thom, who will not heed directions, whether from stubbornness or inadvertence I cannot tell.
Today at lunch Norman Endicott said to me that it was a pity the university had no people like Anthony à Wood or John Aubrey recording the minutiae of university life. I said nothing about this diary: its secrecy is its value. Who will read it? Will it indeed survive? Will anyone know of the weariness I feel today, which dulls the whole prospect of this College in which I so strongly believe?
Eric Phillips is going to see what he can do to fix things so the College can have a club licence for liquor: this will be his value—great influence, practicality, and drive. Vincent Massey announced the Foundation’s intention of supporting the College alone for five years, and Claude Bissell and Phillips spoke generously of this, indicating that the university would be handsome in its behaviour when the five years was up.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4: Lie late, reading and chatting. In the afternoon walk near Douro in wonderful autumn light. Work on Dryden and read about Horace Walpole. Watch TV and chat with Brenda. A delightful day. I sense a lightening of spirit, which may be permanent, a deliverance from the underdoggery which mars my work in so many spheres. Leaving Peterborough is undoubtedly a part of it: to a world where the mind is valued for itself.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6: To Toronto, and look at antiques with Brenda. Club lunch, then meet with Vincent Massey, Lionel, Hart, Ron Thom, and Sedgwick, Russell, and Howard at Eaton’s from 2:30 to 6, a meeting too much prolonged and VM became weary and peevish—but he will not admit to his
weariness and pretends everyone is being unreasonable. Several difficult choices: Ron Thom’s chair for the Round Room is once again a curiosity; VM vetoes it and we are to have a version of the Hall chair, but in black. Ron Thom’s occasional table is also an Oriental monster, and is vetoed. They are in so far with Eric Clements that they feel they must bring him to Canada—God knows why!—to design a “Founders’ Cup”;62 this is to some degree a placebo, as they have so little else for him. The Upper Library is to be reconsidered.
At 8:30 to Lionel Massey’s house, and VM, Bill, Roper, Eayrs, Wilson, and Bladen come and we discuss the College till midnight, very fruitfully and encouragingly to me, for Bladen and Wilson think we can get our men, and also that we can keep going with pretty much a full house all summer. I am much cheered by their practicality and good sense.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8: Ron Thom comes to Peterborough to dine and stay the night. We discuss the Upper Library and work out a plan for it which would greatly extend the facilities of the College. Talk of many details and I am again impressed by Thom’s stature and individuality as an artist.
(P.S.: Ron Thom came to us about 6 p.m. and went to bed at 12:30 without once retiring to the w.c. A man of iron—or perhaps he is like those lizards of the Australian desert who absorb all their moisture and very occasionally void a few crystals.)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9: I go to Toronto for the first meeting of the president’s committee on the museum, which promises to be interesting and important.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10: A busy morning and revise the Conservatory speech again: thought it finished but no. Brenda says it is a major advance in my ability to say true and intimate things to audiences—to really do a good job and not waffle like a Personality or a Professor.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12: Frank Stone has seen Friesen, so that is all right. Vincent Bladen can offer Friesen an office—good. But apparently I must make a formal application to Simcoe Hall for “fringe benefits” for everybody. Lochhead wants a secretary and will need one. I must appease, or soothe, the Basilian Fathers63 because Ron Thom has made it impossible to get to our back gate without going on their land. The brochures must be sent off to draw applicants. All of this is just the kind of detail I hate and do clumsily, and thought I had left behind. But it must all be done, or we shall have no College. Today I got very cold feet about the budget, which is but a frailty of the mind, prepared by me, by guesswork. Must be sure the Finance Committee—Bill, Lionel Massey, and myself—are always aware how we are getting on, so that I do not have to shock or astonish the Foundation with unexpected figures at a year-end.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14: To Toronto and lunch with Sirluck, very interesting and helpful. Give a good lecture and look at the College. We dine with Boyd Neel64 and the Bissells at the York Club and then to the Royal Conservatory of Music convocation. My speech goes well.65 Bad coffee after. Return to the Park Plaza and exciting h.t.d.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17: The brochures came, and Miss Whalon and I have now sent them to all graduate schools in the U.S. and Canada, to the Senior Fellows (twenty each with a personal note asking them to send the things to friends), to the governors of the university, and to the administrative staff; we shall send them to all department heads. It is a handsome piece of work but I think I have grossly over-ordered. Still, we shall get rid of them in time. Vincent Massey wants the revised Upper Library called the Combination Room and is rather testy about it.
Lochhead writes that Blackburn, the university librarian, had assumed our library would be a “departmental” library of the main university establishment. He certainly did not say anything of the kind when we met on October 15, 1961. This is utterly unacceptable to Lochhead, to me, and to Gordon Roper, so we are going ahead independently.
On November 21, Rob and Brenda left for a week-long visit to New York for Alexander lessons with Lulie Westfeldt, a session with Davies’s astrologer, Hugh MacCraig, and lunches with his agent Willis Wing and others.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, NEW YORK: Jackie Davie exerted herself very kindly to get us seats for How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, as she said it was very special. I was somewhat sad not to find it so: not a good tune in it, and the theme the sour one of the young man who gets on by shameless flattery, throat-cutting, and charm. Robert Morse brought great sweetness to this hateful role and Rudy Vallee was technically brilliant—wonderful command of the stage and no wasted effort. But so loud! And so thin!
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25, NEW YORK: To the Village South Theatre to The Coach with the Six Insides, adapted from Finnegans Wake by Jean Erdman for herself and four actors. Jean Erdman is wife to Joseph Campbell, the scholar of myth. She danced, rather too much, and they mimed and acted. In parts it was poetically moving, and always interesting: a wonderful veiled music in much of the dialogue—the true dream effect of hearing and almost comprehending but never fully. Poor devils, the papers smote them unkindly; I think imperceptively. Has New York not even a tiny theatre for such a piece as this?
I am delighted with the big city, and the freedom: a release from the Masseys and the insistent needs of the College and teaching. We are not shopping much. I do not want things but sensations and impressions.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, NEW YORK: Visit Hugh MacCraig, the astrologer. He says I am in the new phase of my life which began at the end of August this year and will continue for seven years. Am now “clearing the decks,” reconsidering and revising my ideas and pursuits. My forte is reshaping the old, the historic, to modern uses. From 1969 to 1972 will be the “peak period” of my life. Am now in a “training period” and must “listen, learn, and take orders.” I am not to worry about age: I shall look young and be so in spirit. My “re-learning” may be associated with the world of entertainment, and this will emerge in the autumn of 1964 and a money aspect of it in 1966: I need a framework, a routine, for my activity. Massey College appears as a training-ground for later work. My activities during 1954, 1955, and 1957 hold the key to the pattern of my life. (Wrote Leaven of Malice and A Mixture of Frailties.) Thinks I should do a book in 1963 or by the end of 1964 at latest. Conditions after midsummer 1964 would be good. Says I must watch diet and back—and indeed, lumbago!
He says Brenda and I are “like two kings on one carpet.” She too is clearing her decks and maturing: whole inner attitude to life changing: must not be short-tempered with stupid people as a consequence. For the first time since she was seventeen is making a new beginning. A wonderful worker with people and will be able to do this more than ever.
All this Ben Jonsonian interview in a tiny dark room. He told me all he had to say before I told him how right he had been last time. Very sure of himself and does not suggest the charlatan.
In the evening to the much discussed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Albee’s first long play, and long indeed it is, 8 p.m. to 11:15. Theme: a professor and his wife bring two young guests home from a faculty party and go into a prolonged intellectual striptease—abuse, sadism, smut, and Billingsgate. Young wife vomits: young husband lies with middle-aged wife. Everybody proves to be a failure and a cheat, but the older two are artists in abuse. Fair enough, though sustained sadism taxes Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill to the limit, ingenious players though they are. But in the last ten minutes we learn the reason for all this viciousness and brutality—the older couple cannot have children! The old American sentimentality, and not good enough to carry such a piece. But the audience is enchanted by the rasp and horror of the dialogue. Every time the wife shouts “Screw you!” they guffaw; when the husband says the wife is her father’s “right ball” they are in ecstasy. Easily pleased.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 29: At home a wad of letters to be answered, chiefly about the College. In the evening enter my theatre diary and MacCraig’s predictions in my “big diary.” What a man I am for diaries and records of all sorts!
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1: Brenda is ill. With Jenny to Toronto and to UCC Prep at 6:15 for a good dinner, and see the boys do my A Masque of Mr. Punch, which
I wrote for them. An excellent evening. They cannot plan or sustain any effects and their voices are small, but they bring a zest to it which is delightful. The music by Henry Atack was not as spirited as I hoped and he repeated Queen Judy’s song three times, which was too much; also he has a passion for “symphony” introductions, and the actors had nothing to do while he played these. But it was very good fun and both boys who played Punch had charm and attack. The best actor was the lad who played Samuel Bucket. Toby was charming. Scenery excellent: costumes as good as one has a right to expect, short of very costly work. The Adjudicator was made up rather like me. But it was real theatre: people really gave themselves to it, which was heartwarming. I made a speech at the end. A very happy event and I am glad to have done A Masque of Aesop and Punch for them. Drinks afterward at the Stephens’, then to the Harrises’ and to the train, which is one and a half hours late: fog.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2: Well pleased with Punch and the news that A Mixture of Frailties has appeared in Dutch. They combine to assure me that I am still primarily an author and not a bad one.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, TORONTO: I entertain Broughall, Roper, and Lochhead to dinner at the University Club to discuss the Library. Do them well: two Scotches before, a bottle of Fleurie with dinner (lobster, filet mignon, and pêche Melba), brandy, and another Scotch. Bill is enthusiastic about the Library and thinks we can go the $70,000 or so. Lochhead says we need to do the job properly. He has persuaded Lionel Massey of this, he says. They all got on well and I felt something important had been done.
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