by Edward Burns
My dear Carlo,
I do hope everything is just as well and happy with you as it can possibly be, just as well and happy, everybody is here xcept that we are all xhausted with Virgil Thomson’s concert which fortunately was largely attended and seems to have been a success at least they all stayed to the end and they were all interested.1 I hope everything goes well with him in New York. I do want you to hear the opera I would be awfully pleased if you liked it but then you will anyway we are sleepy and loving and George Lynes is his name and this morning [Kristians] Tonny brought his drawings, we have selected 8 and he is to give you a list of titles and prices. It is awfully good of you to take on my young men but they are pretty good I think, anyway you fill them with hope and that is always pleasant and they like you and that is always pleasant too but then we love you and that is even more pleasant isn’t it. You know I did like your being here a lot, it kind of made up to me for Avery [Hopwood], and then yourself,
Love to Fania
Gertrude.
1. Thomson, Georges Hugnet, and Henri Cliquet-Pleyel had organized a “Concert d’oeuvres musicales et poetiques” in the ornate ballroom of the Hotel Majestic, Paris, on 14 November 1928. Thomson wrote of this concert:
The program included piano music by Cliquet-Pleyel and by myself played by ourselves, poems by Georges Hugnet set to music by Cliquet and myself and sung by Marthe-Marthine and two extended poems by Hugnet read by the actor Marcel Herrand. There were in addition six of my portraits for solo violin, played by Lucien Schwartz, and The Death of Socrates, from Satie, which I played for Marthe to sing. Among the other vocal pieces were my Commentaire sur Saint Jerome and Les Soirees bagnolaises, to poems of Hugnet. [Virgil Thomson, Virgil Thomson, pp. 124–25]
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 23 November 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dearest Carl,
It is xciting having a really truly Oriental mushroom, and do see to it that the doctors don’t get so busy with King George that they give up the chase, dear Carl what between watering places and beauty cures in France and oriental mushrooms in London, Europe will cure you yet, anyway Europe has enjoyed it.1 As Virgil [Thomson] is only in New York in passage until he comes back from his visit home and you won’t be on the boat how about sending them, the drawings,2 to you in London, they will be under a hundred dollars, seven of them and so we only have to have a consular declaration particularly as they are being taken by you for an exhibition, therefore no duty, and you could have them with you in the Carlton to amuse you, if this suits let me know by return post and we will go ahead and do so, otherwise the usual Paris xcitements that come and go which would be fun telling you but too complicated to write, anyway I won’t forget the most amusing for next time,
Lots of love to you and Fania,
Gertrude.
1. Note by Van Vechten, 21 January 1941: “A reference to my leg.”
2. Note by Van Vechten, 21 January 1941: “I took Tonny’s drawings to New York & sold them all.”
To Gertrude Stein
24 November [1928] Carlton Hotel
London, S.W.I.
Dear Gertrude—
It is much too complicated having the drawings in London—we just haven’t room for a rice wafer in our luggage. So have [Virgil] Thomson take them to New York & drop them at 150 W. 55 Street. Please. They will keep them for me—or he can bring them to me there after Dec. 17.
Dear Gertrude, I was so glad to get your letter & I am still in bed—and I couldn’t go to Cambridge. I hope to get up for the party Paul [Robeson] is giving for me on Monday—but oriental mushrooms are very persistent & my doctor makes me stay in bed—However, everybody comes to see me including Cambridge.
Love to you both,
Carlo.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 25 November 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
I am sorry that although you are enjoying yourself you are still in bed, it is damp weather to get the best of fungi let us hope a cold spell will improve matters but anyway I am glad that you are amusing yourself, young Cambridge is sweet isn’t it and you will get there later surely. I am not sending the drawings to New York by Virgil [Thomson] because it would appear that there can be in this affair only the sender and the receiver which would have been alright if you had been on the boat but as it is he would be an intermedière and as such he can have no xistence and so we will wait till you are in New York and then you will let me know and we will send them to you direct, that will be the easiest, and do as soon as it has been tell us about Paul [Robeson]’s party, I would love to know about Paul’s party only ought you to go to a party, lots of love and have a good time and get well and love to Fania
Yrs
Gertrude.
To Gertrude Stein
27 November [1928]
Tuesday Carlton Hotel
London, S.W.I.
Dearest Gertrude—
Well, the doctor permitted me to go to Paul [Robeson]’s party if I promised not to drink & directly after went to bed for the week. So I promised & this is the next day & I am in bed … Paul & Essie, & Mrs. Goode, Essie’s very distinguished mother & the baby have taken a large, late-Victorian house in St. John’s Wood—there are cockney servants & in the dining room large oil paintings of turks. Elsewhere whatnots, porcelain, glass & various knick-knacks. The party was lovely. There was a great deal of food & much champagne. All the distinguished Negroes in London were there: Layton and Johnston, who sang, Leslie Hutchinson, and some very socially distinguished … Also Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Lady Ravensdale (Lord Curzon’s daughter), Lord Beaverbrook, Lady Laski, Hugh Walpole—most of the stars of the English stage: Fred & Adele Astaire, Cathleen Nesbit, Jeanne de Cassilis, Delysia—who sang. Nicholas Hassan, Constance Collins, Athenée Scyles, etc. Paul sang & was a lamb. It was their first party & a great success. I think you should come to London to go to a party at Paul’s. And I’m sure he would give one for you.
I don’t understand why it’s so difficult about the [Kristians] Tonny drawings. Why couldn’t [Virgil] Thomson just slip them between his shirts? Anyway I’ll get them later—but don’t make me sign papers & things. Couldn’t they just be handed to me simply? You don’t know the bother that I’ll have to go through if I have to get them out of customs. So have somebody smuggle them in. Because I quote 6 ms & I don’t want any bad feelings transferred to the pictures.
I am having such a nice time in bed. I wish you & Alice would come to London. Marinoff is combing her hair & I am awaiting a luncheon guest … Don’t forget me!
Carlo.
The channel seems to be rough.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 2 December 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
Voici a new fountain pen I have not had one since you were last in Europe and I am very pleased with the same it was almost time wasn’t it. And are you being unfaithful to Paris you almost sound seduced by London, Fania combing her hair and you enjoying your doctor it is suspicious.1 I delighted in Paul [Robeson]’s party and what are your plans London seems to be full of oriental funguses but they are fortunately not too dangerous to Americans more so I gather to the British, but Dolly Wilde has just barely escaped from the fangs of one and returned to us in Paris.2 Otherwise no news, we are all now that Virgil [Thomson]3 has left who was to do it translating Making of Americans only 60 pages but oh my. Our little George Hugnet 20 years old hair is turning white with the struggle but it really does not sound so bad but it is a funny language not mine of course but the french, lots of love to you both and be faithful to us4
Gertrude.
1. Note by Van Vechten, 21 January 1941: “I was confined to my rooms in the Carlton for a month with a bad leg. Every morning I got out of bed to visit Sir Aldo Castelfani in Harley Street and I did manage to go to a party at Paul Robe
son’s who was living in St. John’s Wood.”
2. Dorothy (“Dolly”) Ierne Wilde (d. 1941) was the daughter of Oscar Wilde’s brother William. Dolly Wilde was one of Natalie Barney’s lovers. A decade after her death Barney edited a volume of souvenirs of Dolly Wilde contributed by various friends, In Memory of Dorothy Ierne Wilde (Dijon, France: Darantière [1951]).
3. Thomson had returned to the United States.
4. The translation by Hugnet was Morceaux choisis de La Fabrication des américains (Paris: Editions de la Montagne [1929]).
To Gertrude Stein
6 December [1928] Carlton Hotel
London, S.W.I.
Dear Gertrude,
London has been splendid, in and out of bed, but it has not effaced memories of YOU and ALICE and Paris and we did love it and we shall come back soon and be much better next time. I am awfully well now, but I don’t drink or eat fish or sweets, but otherwise I eat everything and how! What am I going to do with these stamps, and so I send them to you,
with lots of love,
Carlo
We sail on the Paris from Plymouth early Monday morning.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 8 December 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
Thanks for the stamps although they have induced violent unsuccessful mental arithmetic but anyway here it is hoping for many happy returns of the same. Have a good trip a good Christmas and a good new year and come back to us full of food and health, if not there is always Bagnolles [de l’Orme]1 but there will be. I did not send [Kristians] Tonny’s drawings by Virgil [Thomson] because as he was traveling steerage and arriving with not very much in his pocketbook he might have had a bother but if you are still interested couldn’t I send them to you by Mr. Dudensing or perhaps you would rather wait and see for yourself when you come back.2 Anything you decide I will do and most of all is my love for you and do be happy both of you well and happy
Always
Gertrude.
1. Note by Van Vechten: “Where Yvette Guilbert was advising me to go for my leg.”
2. Valentine Dudensing was a New York art dealer.
To Gertrude Stein
12 December 1928 Bord S.S. “Paris”
Dear Gertrude,
Three days out and at last I am able to sit up a little. Your grand letter came to the boat and made things pleasanter: they were very unpleasant for awhile what with Father Neptune knocking up the waves and all. But now it is better and so am I. Do send the [Kristians] Tonny drawings by some one. I think I can sell some of them and it would be too bad if he had to wait till I came back for that.
We had great fun at the Caledonian market in London. It is like the Marché aux puces, except everything is stolen. And with Emilie Grigsby, and Hugh Walpole, and ever so many others.1 Paul [Robeson] is divine and you must go to London to see him. Their house is 76 Carlton Hill. But nothing is like you and Alice or ever will be, worlds without end.
with our love and please remember me to any one who likes me!
en voyage
Carlo
I’m sorry I didn’t see [Alvaro] Guevara again. I hope he paints you. If he does, send me a photograph.
Original works of art, I hear come in to America, duty free. Can this be true?
1. Emilie Grigsby and Hugh Walpole (1884–1941), the English writer, were friends of Van Vechten’s.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 27 December 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
We were awfully pleased to have your cable1 and know you were all well and happy, may you have always more and more and more of the same, and we are sending on the [Kristians] Tonny drawings by a Colonel and Mrs. [Emmet] Addis2 old friends of ours who are sailing on the 18 of January they are on their way to Boston but they will connect with you in New York and deliver them to you somehow, I’ll send you along the list of names and prices very soon, I am glad you continue interested in Tonny I think he is pretty good and getting better which is very nice when one is as young as that, an amusing kid, just send me a nice Christmas card of phantoms3 and let me know if you ever received [Georges] Hugnet’s book of poems with Max Jacob drawings, he sent them to you in June,4 otherwise we are enjoying ourselves as usual, I am almost getting a new Ford car, Virgil Thomson writes that he has arranged for Capitals to be sung at the Little Theatre in the end of February, I think you will like it,5 I rather like myself in song, and always more than lots of love from us, to you and Fania,
Yours
Gertrude.
1. Probably a Christmas telegram from the Van Vechtens which has not survived.
2. Louise Hayden Addis (later Taylor) (d. 1977) had first met Toklas in the 1880s when they were both living in Seattle, Washington, and shared an interest in music. While visiting California in 1899 Louise Hayden met Gertrude Stein through mutual friends. Her acquaintanceship with Stein was renewed in 1905–6 in Paris where Hayden had become assistant to Isidor Philipp (a famous piano teacher), and in September 1907 she renewed her friendship with Toklas, who had just arrived in Paris. The three remained close friends for the rest of their lives.
In 1922 Hayden married an American army officer, Colonel Emmet Addis, and she returned to the United States, where her husband was stationed. They did, however, manage frequent trips to Paris. After the death of Colonel Addis in 1932, Mrs. Addis lived exclusively in a house she had acquired some years earlier in Deya, Majorca. In 1939 she married an English army officer, Colonel Redvers Taylor. Mrs. Taylor moved to England, where she lived until her death (Personal interviews, 1974, 1975).
3. This card cannot be identified.
4. Georges Hugnet, 40 Poèsies de Stanislas Boutemer, illustrated by Max Jacob (Paris: Ed. Th. Briant, 1928).
5. See Van Vechten to Stein [February? 1929], note 1.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 19 January 1929] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
We have at last got [Kristians] Tonny’s drawings off to you and here is the list, I do hope you like them, I am also sending you the notice of the translation of Making of Americans, it has been very amusing all of it, and given me quite a lot of pleasure, I will also be sending you in a few days a catalogue of a show that Tonny is giving and which has some very good things in it, otherwise all is peaceful xcept that I am getting a new Godiva1 having given my old one to my editor, we had a touching farewell, [Georges] Hugnet, [Georges] Maratier2 and I on Godiva when we left her in his garage au borde de la Marne, it was most historic, and what is [Miguel] Covarrubias’s address, he sent me from Mexico a perfectly delightful angel it has given me a lot of pleasure and I want to write to him about it. It is very very lovely and it was very sweet of him, and I guess that is all just at present and what is your news, how are you and have you a pleasant memory of us all, we all have of you they were all touched that you wanted to be remembered to all of them who had found you gentle and they all agreed that they had very much so,
Always lots of love to you and to Fania
Gertrude.
1. “Godiva” was Stein’s name for her Ford automobile.
2. Maratier was involved in the Editions de la Montagne and later opened the Galerie de Beaune, Paris.
To Gertrude Stein
[Telegram]
[postmark: 12 February 1929] New York
VIRGIL [Thomson] PLAYED FOUR SAINTS LAST NIGHT EVERYBODY LOVED IT WHERE ARE [Kristians] TONNY DRAWINGS
CARLO
To Gertrude Stein
[13? February 1929] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
Virgil Thomson came & played “Four Saints in Three Acts” to a select crowd which included Mabel Luhan, Muriel Draper, Les Stettheimers, Alma Wertheim, Witter Bynner etc. & everybody liked it so much that yesterday I cabled you. I liked it so much that I wanted to hea
r it all over again right away. Mabel liked it so much that she said it should be done & it would finish opera just as Picasso had finished old painting—Well I cabled you but everybody loved it & I think your words are so right & inevitable in music. “Capital-Capitals” is being done next week.
I did receive [Georges] Hugnet’s poems & I did write him, but where are [Kristians] Tonny’s drawings. You wrote that they were arriving by a Col. [Emmet] Addis who was sailing on Jan. 18 & I waited to get them before writing you & I am still waiting. Where are they?
I am terribly thrilled—naturally—about the “morceaux choisis” from “La fabrication des Americains”—& I see that it is due in February.
Nobody knows exactly where [Miguel] Covarrubias is but Vanity Fair. So write care of that. They send him cheques so he always lets them know. He is somewhere in New Orleans, I think.
Max Ewing’s exhibition is astounding. I think you have had a catalogue.1 & I am very well again, but am having all my teeth taken out. Some of us took Virgil to Harlem after the concert, & he behaved very well, but in spite of that I think he was a little astonished.
Love to you both from us,
Carlo.
We might come over any minute; so I hope the Tonny drawings come before we go after them.
1. An exhibition, Max Ewing: Collection of Extraordinary Portraits, was held in Εwing’s apartment, Apartment Quatre Vingt Quartre, 19 West 31 Street, New York, beginning Christmas 1928. The collage portraits, which were scattered throughout the apartment, included several of Van Vechten, Marinoff, and Stein.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
18 February [1929] 27 rue de Fleurus [Paris]
My dear Carl,
The people bringing you the [Kristians Tonny] drawings are Mrs. [Emmet] Addis 104 Revere Street Boston, you should have had them 10 days ago if you have not had them by this time, communicate, I have just sent them an urgent summons, I am awfully pleased you like the Four Saints, I liked it a lot myself, I hope the Capitals go off well, I am interested in me and in Virgil [Thomson], and a lot of hope in us both, just also had a charming letter from Nella Imes, it touched me a lot, I am waiting to write her till I get her book she promised me1 and don’t forget [Miguel] Covarrubias’s address, I want to write to him his angel continues to please me, I like in short all your friends but I love you best, we have gotten our summer house at last we are almost certain at Belley and we do want to see you and Fania in it,2 lots and lots of love to you
