by Edward Burns
PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN (1934). COURTESY OF BRUCE KELLNER.
Four Saints in Three Acts, Act Two with Beatrice Robinson Wayne, Bruce Howard, and Edward Matthews.
PHOTOGRAPH BY WHITE STUDIOS.
Four Saints in Three Acts, Act I, Cathedral of Avila.
PHOTOGRAPH BY WHITE STUDIOS.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 10 February 1934] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dearest Carl,
Thanks and thanks again for the good cable, it made us most awfully happy and I knew you would but when you said triumph I knew it was alright, really alright, since then others have come but yours brought us the good news and I keep it as a book mark and to be a mascot. What theatre is doing it in New York Virgil [Thomson] in his xcitement has told us everything but that.1 And I am so pleased by [Bennett] Cerf and the libretto and your doing the introduction for me, I like owing you a lot and I never stop and that, that is an enormous pleasure. Dear dearest Carl, you know or really you do not know how much your unfailing sympathy and thoughtfulness and understanding means to me and it means even more than that, lots of love now and always
Gertrude.
1. After the performances in Hartford, Connecticut, Four Saints in Three Acts opened in New York on 20 February 1934 at the Forty-fourth Street Theatre. This production was presented by Harry Moses by special arrangement with the Friends and Enemies of Modern Music.
To Gertrude Stein
18 February 1934
Sunday 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
New York
Dear Gertrude:
The opera with a preface by C. V. V. is not yet out, but this letter from me in the Times this morning will appear in the souvenir program under the title: How I listen to Four Saints in Three Acts!1 All New York is Agog & waiting for the opening on Wednesday (completely sold out). I am told the entire USA is awake to this unique work of ART. Of course, you must have a clipping bureau & will KNOW! But what do you think of this story about St. Theresa of Avila in the Times this morning? Is this coincidence or the HAND OF GOD?2
LOVE!
Carlo.
1. Van Vechten’s letter, “On Words and Music: A Letter About Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints,” appeared in the New York Times, 18 February 1934, Sec. 10, p. 2. This is the same article that appeared in the souvenir program of Four Saints in Three Acts, pp. 2–3. This article is not the same as the preface Van Vechten wrote for the Random House Edition of the opera.
2. An article in the New York Times, 18 February 1934, Sec. 1, p. 2, “A Religious Image Carved on Wood,” spoke of a statue of the Virgin Mary in the Church of Saint Theresa of Avila at 187the Street and Broadway, New York. The article spoke of the numerous visitors to the church but did not mention the Stein-Thomson opera.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 18 February 1934] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
Yours was the first letter and pleased I was to have it, it does sound beautiful as well as [meaningful ?] and I am very very happy. And Carl will you tell Florine Stettheimer1 how much I appreciate all she has done and how beautiful it sounds, and how happy it has made me, and Carl please inscribe a copy of the Saints for me before they send it to me, I will like having it. The party for the pig was a great success, among others [Ambroise] Vollard2 was here and he was quite mad about the pig, as for us we love him better and better all the time, we sometimes dispute as to whether we prefer his tail to his head, I his head and Alice his tail but we love him all. Once more Carl so often once more all my love and all my thanks
Gertrude
1. Note by Van Vechten, 22 January 1941: “Florine designed the costumes and the sets for Four Saints.”
2. Ambroise Vollard (1865–1939), the French art dealer who first opened a gallery in Paris in 1893. Vollard organized the first great Cézanne exhibition in his gallery in December 1895, Stein had met Vollard in 1904, when she and her brothers Leo and Michael began buying art from him.
To Gertrude Stein
[the program of 4 Saints in 3 Acts—Forty-Fourth Street Theatre]1
21 February 1934
Wednesday [New York]
Dear Gertrude:
Here is the historic program. It was a wonderful night. Your name in electric lights over the theatre. Cecil Beaton in tears, Jo Davidson saying, “this is the best thing I have ever seen in N.Y.” Cheers. Everything you can imagine. Oh, I do wish you might have seen this!
You should have the book by now, & the souvenir programs with my article. And you always have my love!
Carlo.
It is the greatest night I have ever seen in the theatre since Sacre du Printemps. And this was all for—not against!
1. Written on page 1 of the program.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 8 March 1934] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dearest Carl,
Our book has just come and it’s lovely, and your introduction is lovely writing and says lovely things, just the lovely things I wanted to hear, it really is lovely.1 I am very happy about it all and I want to see you more and more. The Duchess [de Clermont-Tonnerre] was here the other day and we talked about you, she is a little sad the Duchess I think in a funny kind of way she misses America, and she is very sweet. But Carl is that a true story about the school teacher, and Toasted Susie, I like it so much because it is a line I have always liked very much, and I like it all, and mostly I like you and everything you do.2 [William Aspenwall] Bradley my agent is going over to America in about two weeks, he has a number of projects for me and he wants to talk everything over with you and I know you will because don’t you do everything for me, I love you very much and all the time
Gertrude
Bradley’s address will be Columbia University Club, but he will let you know when he gets there.
G.
1. Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts with a preface by Van Vechten was published on 20 February 1934.
2. In his introduction to Four Saints in Three Acts, p. 9, Van Vechten wrote:
A friend of mine who teaches school has told me that he had been asked by one of his pupils to write some sentiment in her autograph album. He chose to comply by inscribing his name under a familiar Steinian phrase: “Toasted Susie is my ice cream!” During the recess-hour he fancied the children were shouting louder than usual and he caught a more intense note of pleasure in their voices. Venturing into the courtyard he heard the cry taken up antiphonally: Toasted Susie is my ice cream! Toasted Susie is my ice cream!
“Toasted susie is my ice-cream” is the final line of Stein’s poem-portrait “Preciosilla.”
Note by Van Vechten, 22 January 1941: “Quite true.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Pigeons feeding. Photograph by Carl Wan Vechten]
12 March 1934 [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude:
“If they were not pigeons on the grass alas what were they?—” with this I am sending you registered—photographs I made especially for you of the electric signs over the 44th Street Theatre. I must have made the photograph on this card especially for you too! Did you see Stark Young’s review of 4 Saints in the New Republic?1
Love,
Carlo.
1. Stark Young, in his review, “One Moment Alit,” wrote, “In my opinion the production of this opera is the most important event of the theatre season: it is the first free, pure theatre that I have seen so far,” The New Republic, 7 March 1934, p. 105.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Self-portrait with walking stick. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
21 March [1934] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude:—
Yes, the story about ‘Toasted Susie” is quite true. Hunter Stagg told it to me. It happened to one of his friends1 . . Did you get the souvenir program I sent you with my piece in it?—different from the piece in t
he book. This was also published in the N. Y. Times & I sent you the clipping … Bennett Cerf (one of your publishers) & Harold Guinzberg (of the Viking Press) are presently to be in Paris for one night on their way to Cairo, Palestine, Athens, Moscow, Stockholm & London . . They are hoping they can spend this one evening with you!2
Love to you both,
C.
1. See Stein to Van Vechten [8 March 1934], note 2.
2. Cerf wrote to Stein, 15 March 1934 (YCAL), that he was sailing on the Il e de France on 14 April and would be in Paris, at the Hôtel Crillon, on 20 April. Cerf invited Stein to have dinner with him and Guinzberg that evening.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 21 March 1934] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dear Carl,
The Duchess [de Clermont-Tonnerre] is doing a whole series of articles about America in the Comodia and they are very good and I’ll collect them all and send them on to you, I have not seen her since but she is awfully pleased with herself and she has reason to be.1 And Carl I have just had a fan cable from an unknown in New York and addressed to Gertrude Stein Paris and it got here. I am most undoubtedly proud. The Negro whom I told you about is Ulysses G. Lee and he has written another admirable letter about Melanchtha.2 [William Aspenwall] Bradley who has just left for America has a copy of it with him, please ask him to show it to you, I am asking you to get in touch with him, his address is Columbia University Club, because he wants to consult with you about several things, also Thomas Whittemore3 just turned up and brought the first viva voce of the opera and it was thrilling, I am so busy I don’t know quite with what but I am so busy, and I love you so much my dear Carl always
Gertrude.
1. Elisabeth Gramont, the Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, had arrived in the United States in November 1933. William A. Bradley had arranged a series of lectures on French culture and history that took her primarily to the Midwest and to Massachusetts. See Bradley to Stein, 11 October 1933, YCAL.
2. Lee to Stein, 11 February 1934 (YCAL). Lee wrote that he couldn’t make up his mind about Stein’s story “Melanctha.” Lee expressed surprise at “how any young white woman could have known enough about Negroes to draw such different people as Rose, Jane, and the Herberts. To me, ‘Melanctha’ is one of the most inviting studies I have read. I can’t help thinking that she and T. S. Stribling’s Gracie Vaiden are about the truest Negro pictures in our literature.” See Stein to Van Vechten [6 January 1934], note 1.
3. Thomas Whittemore (1871–1950) and Stein had known each other since their student days at Harvard-Radcliffe. Whittemore had worked for the Byzantine Institute of Boston and was responsible for the discovery of the mosaics of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. In 1933 he became keeper of Byzantine coins at Harvard University.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 22 March 1934] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dearest Carl
Nobody would have done anything sweeter or to please me more than to give me the photos of my name in electricity and nobody but you does these darling things that give me so much joy. They came this morning and Alice and I have been looking at them all day and they look just like real pictures of New York and it is very wonderful. The pig has had a triumphant day; the Mexican pig, the Duchess [de Clermont-Tonnerre] wrote a little article about me in the Comodia and she spoke so sweetly of the pig,1 I am sending you the whole lot of her articles they are awfully nice and the Gazette de Beaux Arts took a photo of the room to put in their magazine and the pig is there, perhaps a little indistinct xcept for those who love him but all there every bit there, oh Carl I am very happy and I feel it all with you and lots and lots of love2
Gertrude
1. This article became part of the chapter “Ecrivains étrangers que j’ai connus,” in Elisabeth Gramont, Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre, La Treizième Heure (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1935), tome 4 of Mémoires, 226–35.
2. The Gazette de Beaux Arts, April 1934, pp. 232–43, printed “L’Atelier de Gertrude Stein,” an excerpt from Bernard Faÿ’s translation of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The excerpt was illustrated with eight photographs of the walls of the studio at 27 rue de Fleurus as well as with photographs of individual objects in the studio.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard] Fania Marinoff Frank Fay’s Fables 1922
29 March [1934] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude—
I am sending you today my photographs of 3 of the Saints—the costumes are still Florine Stettheimer’s. but the décor in these photographs of the lilies, peonies etc. are by C. V. V. many happy easters to you & much love
Carlo.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: The Broadway Limited]
9 April [1934] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude:—
Has any one told you about the table clothes designed by Marguerita Morgantima & displayed at the Industrial Arts Exhibition at Rockefeller Center & sold at Gimbels is inspired by Gertrude Stein’s much heralded opera; “Four Saints in Three Acts” one is called “Instead of” and another “once in awhile.”—This reminds me of the old Trilby days!1—Four Saints with a remounted 4th act is even better at the Empire Theatre.2
Love,
Carlo.
1. In Trilby, a novel by George Du Maurier, published in 1894, Trilby O’Ferrall is an artists’ model in Paris with whom various young English art students fall in love. She becomes a famous singer under the mesmeric influence of Svengali, a Hungarian musician. Trilby loses her voice when he dies and herself languishes and soon dies. This popular novel inspired a line of Trilby dresses, black dresses with black stockings.
2. After it closed at the Forty-fourth Street Theatre, Four Saints in Three Acts reopened at the Empire Theatre, New York, for a limited run.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 11 April 1934] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dear dearest Carl,
The photographs are wonderful I have never seen such photographs, and the background what wonderful stuffs and paper and flowers, and the black one of Saint Ignatius, it has completely upset everybody, everybody wants to see them, I do honestly think they are the finest photographs I have ever seen.1 [Winifred] Bryher and Kenneth Macpherson were here a few days ago, he likes you a lot and we talked about you, it is the first time I ever saw him and he seems very nice. They too were immensely taken with the photographs.2 You know they are the first time that photographs are rich things instead of poor things, I am so happy to have them and please do some more. I am sending you the Gazette de Beaux Arts and in the photo of the room there is the pig but I love you so much Carl and I love and like everything you do.
Gertrude.
1. Saint Ignatius was sung by Edward Matthews.
2. Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman) (1894–1983), the English historical novelist. Because she had spent some of her happiest childhood moments on the island of Bryher, off the coast of Cornwall, England, she legally changed her name in the 1920s to Mrs. Winifred Bryher, later dropping her first name for literary purposes. She was married to the Scottish-born novelist and editor Kenneth Macpherson (1903?—1971) in 1927. From 1927 to 1933 they edited Close Up, a magazine devoted to films. Their marriage was dissolved in 1947.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard] Avery Hopwood. Painting by Florine Stettheimer
20 April [1934] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude—
On my way to the theatre the other evening the car passed Gimbels & I was amazed to see the sign over all their windows: “4 Suits in 2 Acts!” So yesterday I went out to photograph this new phenomenon for you and there was your lovely letter commending my photographs on the doormat. This made me very happy, because if you like my photographs I know they are good. I’ll send you the new ones in a few weeks (not important as photographs, but records of the signs!)
Much love to you both
C.
> To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 29 April 1934] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dearest Carl
They want to reproduce some of your photos of St Theresa and St Ignatius in two things here, the Figaro Illustré and a Catholic weekly called Sept, and I have said yes and I hope that is alright, and if they don’t give them back to me although they solemnly promise they will you will send me others because I love to look at them.1 You have no idea how much they have been admired. Everybody thinks they are the most wonderful photographs speaking photographically that they have ever seen. I hope it is alright my having given permission. We are awfully busy because we leave for Bilignin in two or three days how I wish you and Fania were going to be there with the [word ?] and the sad streets of Aix [les-Bains]. It was nice lots and lots of love,
Gertrude.
Photograph by Carl Van Vechten of Florine Stettheimer’s Portrait of Avery Hopwood. Photograph used as a postcard for Carl Van Vechten to Gertrude Stein, 20 April [1934].
COURTESY OF THE YALE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY.
1. I have only been able to locate an article, “Quatre saints en trois actes,” by Arthur K. Griggs, in Sept, 9 June 1934 (YCAL). Two photographs one of St. Theresa / Beatrice Robinson-Wayne and one of St. Ignatius / Edward Matthews—illustrated the article.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard] Carl Van Vechten painting by Florine Stettheimer. Collection of Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 11 May 1934] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude:—
I am usually awfully fussy about my photographs being reproduced & usually charge a big fat fee … so that any one who pays the fee wants the exclusive rights; but I haven’t yet sold any of the Saints, & besides pretty nearly anything you would want to do is all right. So please send me copies of the magazines in which they appear and if you don’t get your pictures back, let me know!—Besides, when you get this I shall be in London! and with me are some even more fabulous photographs of Saints for Saint Gertrude, but they are too big to mail. So you must tell me where I can leave them for you in Paris. I do hope to see you, but Belley is almost impossible because I will be in Europe such a short time. Guaranty Trust—20 Pall Mall, London, will reach me till about the 24 May & then Morgan Paris,
