by Edward Burns
sugar candy and rice cakes and lemon meringue pie to you, dearest Mama Woojums!
Papa Woojums!
1. Toklas had started sending Van Vechten typescripts of all of Stein’s published and unpublished writings. These were later donated by Van Vechten to YCAL. Stein’s “At” (1914) is printed in her Bee Time Vine and Other Pieces, pp. 155–57.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Self-Portrait in front of poster for Socrates exhibition at the British Museum. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
[postmark: 14 December 1935] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Baby Woojums!
Package No. 4 is here & I have checked it off and everything is okay. Also I read Birth & Marriage, as you suggested. It is a beautiful example of GS’s middle manner.1 Joe Louis is pounding Paulino Uzcudun over the radio.2 So I will send love and kisses to you and Mama Woojums & lay off!
Papa W!
1. Stein’s “Birth and Marriage” in her Alphabets & Birthdays, pp. 173–98.
2. Joe Louis knocked out Paulino Uzcudun in the fourth round of a scheduled fifteen-round fight at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 14 December 1935.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Gertrude Stein and Sir Francis Rose in the Garden at Bilignin]
[postmark: 18 December 1935] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dearest Carl,
Best and very best of Christmases and New Years and New Years and Christmases to you. This is F[rancis]. Rose doing the portrait of A.B.T. in the garden at Bilignin, you only see the table, but she is just behind.1 The pig is as rosy as ever and is every inch a pig and gives us endless pleasure. Alice will not be convinced that it is glass, she says it is not possible.2 It is lovely cold weather, makes one feel more than ever like America, and the opera begins to sound quite fabulous. I am quite moved by it, and I xpect to hear all about it from you. Paris is nice and quiet and very pleasant, do come over it is quite prewar, gentle and unworried. Lots and lots of love to you and to Fania and lots of it and more
Gtrde.
1. The Rose portrait of Toklas is now in YCAL.
2. A glass pig, a gift from Van Vechten.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: The Bandit Margato Shot, Francisco Goya, Spanish, 1746–1828, The Art Institute of Chicago]
20 December 1935 [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Completely lovable Baby Woojums. Package No. V is here, is checked out, and is okay, so that’s that. My, but you’ve written a lot, as much as Balzac or Mozart, maybe!—Anyway love and merry Christmas to Baby & Mama Woojums from
Fania & Papa Woojums
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 22 December 1935] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
Dear Papa Woojums
I almost bust myself laughing in bed over your letter to Alice about the ms. you are funny papa Woojums and you delight Baby Woojums, and Othmar1 the Austrian says he knows Brabanttorte and Holstein[er] Schnitzel so come and eat it and that would be a happy new year, we go to Oxford the 11 of February, and Carl Thornton [Wilder] is afflicted with New England shyness he calls it austerity to a formidable xtent, I am writing him again to go to see you but if you would write him it would help his address is 50 Deepwood Drive, New Haven, Conn, because I do want you to consult together, as to what to do about the new book,2 if Bennett [Cerf] does not want to,3 I have not heard a word from him, Harcourt might, but anyway I do want you two to talk it over. Then there is this, in going over the ms. I found a play, about Byron,4 I think it is completely possible to do with Virgil [Thomson], who directly and indirectly wants it, it would take a lot of stage imagination to put it on, but it does move and it is a romantic tragedy, we will send it separate, I have not mentioned its xistence to anybody, I want to know what you say, had a delightful letter from Mark [Lutz]5 about the ms. of H. N. & H. M. what a nice way of calling it, also the literary magazine of Princeton has just printed a short novel I am asking them to send you a copy,6 and what [Giorgio de] Chirico, I met him the other day for the first time and liked him, you could photograph him, a nice head and body, and Pablo [Picasso] wants my negroes, he likes that,7 and Picabia wants the tiny one of me he is mad about it and Pablo’s address is 23 rue de la Boetie, have been seeing something of Dalli [i.e., Dali] too and his most bewitching mustache,8 4 of the large packages sent the last lot are all the old magazines with Baby Woojums in them and all dedicated with love and kisses each one of them inside in them to Papa Woojums, we were amused with Muriel [Draper], I have not read the [Mabel Dodge] Luhan book9 but I have just read The Postman always knocks twice,10 and it made me homesick oh so homesick for the good old service stations, otherwise more and more merry Christmas and more and more happy new years to Fania, and F. M. is reading a play is a lovely title,11 and we would like to be a stamp oh yes we would
Love
Gertrude
1. Othmar Baumgartner, Stein’s cook.
2. Stein wrote Wilder twice on 25 December 1935, one letter postmarked 10:45, the other 17:30. In neither letter does she mention Van Vechten.
3. Cerf did publish The Geographical History Of America Or The Relation Of Human Nature To The Human Mind, with an introduction by Wilder, on 19 October 1936.
4. Stein’s Byron A Play (1933) was published in her Last Operas and Plays, pp. 333–86. Thomson did not set this piece to music.
5. Lutz’s letter is not in YCAL.
6. Stein’s “The Superstitions of Fred Anneday, Annday, Anday; a Novel of Real Life” was printed in Nassau Literature (December 1935), 94(2): 6–8, 24–26.
7. The various photographs of the members of the cast of Four Saints in Three Acts that Van Vechten had sent to Stein. Van Vechten did photograph de Chirico in 1936.
8. Francis Picabia, the French painter, and Salvador Dali, the Spanish painter.
9. Toklas had been reading Stein excerpts from Dodge’s book. See Stein to Van Vechten [25 November? 1935].
10. Stein is referring to James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1934).
11. See Van Vechten to Stein, 9 December [1935]. Which play Marinoff was reading cannot be determined.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Telegram]
25 December 1935 Paris
WOOJUNS TO WOOJUNS MERRY CHRISTMAS
[Stein-Toklas]
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[Christmas card: Christmas greetings to you -- Bundy]
Xmas 1935 [150 West Fifty-fifth Street]
New York
And a wow of a New Year—always our love
Carl—Fania
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Photograph—Gertrude Stein Watching Sir Francis Rose Painting Lucey Church]
[postmark: 2 January 1936] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
Dear darling Papa Woojums,
Yes I do write but what else can I do like Balzac and Mozart what else can I do, and some day it will be nice if they are all printed, that is my dream, we spent New Year giving Basket his worm medicine, a long occupation, and Christmas having Christmas and to-day Madame Gay said what darlings you and Fania were and it was wonderful that Fania was not alone a clever actress but took such good care of her husband which was you and we said all of us ayes too! and we love you both and everything to you always1
Gertrude.
1. Undated note by Van Vechten: “Mme Gay on a visit she made, in company with the Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre (Elisabeth Gramont) to Carl Van Vechten’s apartment at 150 West 55 Street, NYC.”
To Gertrude Stein
[“A Little Too Much” motto]
9 January 1936 [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Completely Blesséd Baby Woojums,
Well packages came and arrived and were brought in, package after package: I never saw so many! I was entranced and excited and cried Noel! Noël! And Bonne Année and barked Woojums! till Fania and Edith thought I had gone crazy. Which reminds me that Edith w
as pleased as pleased with her card and asks me to thank you and to send both of you her love.1. The inscribed magazines touched me very deeply. I LOVE having these and soon or late they will be bestowed in happy slipcases and arranged against eternity.2 I guess nobody but Baby Woojums herself ever had so much Stein material under one roof! Anyway I love having these magazines and you are more than an angel woojums to send them to me. Besides these came another package of manuscript (okay, tell Mama Woojums, quite okay), Narration, in the limited edition3 (what a lovely book),x and Byron, a play itself. Also one of the sweetest letters Baby Woojums has ever written to his Pa. . Think of your having a cook named Othmar that makes Brabantetorte! I can’t bear it, it’s so lovely. . Think of that [Thornton] Wilder fellow NOT being afraid of Baby W. and being afraid of Pa W! I can’t comprehend this. . I haven’t seen Virgil [Thomson] all winter. At the moment he is busy putting on a production of Macbeth (laid in Haiti) with Negroes including Edna Thomas, whom you met at my house, as Lady Macbeth.4 When I see him I’ll tell him you’ve sent me Byron and I take it if he shows interest you want me to hand it to him. And presently I’ll look Byron over myself. The Lit Magazine of Princeton arrived just this minute!. . I MUST photograph [Giorgio de] Chirico. Curiously I have just acquired a swell picture of his: Portrait de l’Artiste—1911 and I hope he’ll sit for my camera next time I come to Paris. Once you said you wanted a picture of Lake Michigan and the Lake Shore Drive and I can’t recall if I gave you one: so anyway one is going to you. This was taken that November we were together. . Picasso’s Negroes went off to him in BUNCHES: Negroes in several productions and I have more, if he likes these, and I can’t make out if you want me to send Picabia a tiny picture of you. You had a number of these and perhaps you have given him one. Anyway you don’t send his address. I like Dali, and his Gala, and please give them our affectionate greetings.5 So today I was out with dear Mary Garden and she has a wonderful job in the Moving Pictures and Sarah [Victor] (who presided over the cakes at the Algonquin) died and we all went to her funeral yesterday.6 A wonderful woman, and Edith stems from her… You are such a woojums to send me the magazines and you are such a woojums and lots of love from Fania and me to you and Mama Woojums!
[Carl Van Vechten]
xI say thank you all over & over again!
If there are any Atlantic Monthlies handy around your parts, please read Juanita Harrison’s My Great Wide, Beautiful World in Oct. & Nov. issues.7
If you would write a line to Bertha Case about Sarah I guess she would love it!8
1. Edith Ramsey, the Van Vechtens’ cook.
2. The magazines, in slipcases, were given by Van Vechten to YCAL.
3. Stein’s Narration was printed in an edition of 870 copies. In addition to the trade edition, a limited edition of 120 numbered copies signed by Stein and Wilder (who had written the introduction) was published.
4. Thomson wrote the music for a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that opened at the Lafayette Theatre, in Harlem, on 9 April 1936. It ran for fifty-six performances. The play was directed by Orson Welles and was produced by the Negro Division of the Federal Theater Project, under the supervision of John Houseman. See also Stein to Van Vechten [25 May 1936], note 3.
5. The painter Salvador Dali was married to Gala (Elena Deluvina Diakanoff, 1892/93–1982).
6. Sarah Victor died on 4 January 1936.
7. Junaita Harrison was a black woman who at the age of thirty-six undertook to work her way around the world. Her adventures, between 1927 and 1935, became part of two articles, “My Great, Wide, Beautiful World,” in The Atlantic Monthly, October 1935, pp. 434–43, and November 1935, pp. 601–12.
8. Bertha Case was the wife of Frank Case, the owner of the Algonquin Hotel, New York.
To Gertrude Stein
[“A Little Too Much” motto]
10 January 1936 [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude and Baby Wooums:
Here is the clipping about Sarah [Victor] which didn’t seem to be on hand when I wrote this morning.1 Also, I’ve just returned from my first sitting with Romaine Brooks Goddard. She is painting me. She has a big studio in Carnegie Hall and if all goes well I’ll be immortalized with white hair.2 I’ve been painted 26 times but never with white hair. . Paul and Essie Robeson were here for lunch. They are sailing tomorrow on the Ile de France. . Hoping you and Alice are the same I wish you
Kisses can kiss us
Ducks and little fishes followed by wishes
Happy little pair!3
I have read your Princeton novel with great delight. It seems to be a complete exposition of your theory of Prose Narrative, told with some satiric intent. I wrote Mr. Severance (what names you know!) to this effect. .4
Please don’t forget
Papa Woojums
1. Clippings about the death of Sarah Victor appeared in numerous New York newspapers on 6 January, including the New York Daily News and the New York World Telegram (Van Vechten scrapbook, NYPL-MD). Precisely which clipping he sent to Stein cannot be identified.
2. Romaine Brooks (1874–1970), the American painter. She was born Romaine Goddard, the daughter of Ella Waterman Goddard and Major Harry Goddard. In 1902 Romaine had a brief “ephemeral marriage” to a pianist and dilettante, John Ellingham Brooks. After her marriage ended she continued to use the name Brooks. In late 1935 she rented a studio in Carnegie Hall. Brooks’ Portrait of Carl Van Vechten, 1936, oil on canvas, 40 × 32 inches, is now in YCAL. The portrait shows Van Vechten seated by a window; he is painted with white hair and wearing a white suit.
3. Van Vechten slightly misquotes the poem. It should read:
Kisses can kiss us
A duck a hen and fishes, followed by wishes.
Happy little pair.
The poem, printed on a cream-colored card in black and green, was published for Van Vechten by the Banyan Press in 1947 in an edition of forty-eight—forty-six for friends and, in order to meet copyright regulations, two for sale were also sold to Van Vechten.
4. Frank Severance, Jr., was the copy editor of Nassau Literature (Princeton University), which had just published a short novel by Stein. See Stein to Van Vechten [22 December 1935], note 6.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 17 January 1936] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dearest papa Woojums,
We are so happy that you are happy in everything that makes us all happy. Of course Thornton [Wilder] isn’t afraid of Baby Woojums because it is Baby Woojums and is afraid of Papa Woojums because he is a papa Woojums, of course that is the way it is because if it were not that way what way would it be. Lovely stamps you sent, Othmar always begs them to make happy the Austrians he says, these he says will make Austrians happy and how can one refuse to do that. Picasso has not yet had his negroes, he says he will telephone to me as soon as they arrive so I can tell you, he is quite xcited about it, and [Giorgio de] Chirico I am sure will pose, he is very sweet, gentle and quiet a little sad but calm, not at all surrealist so he says. I like him, although I do not know him very much, with a rather beautiful head and xpression, but I know him well enough to introduce you alright, and Carl did we ever have a little photo, the one Picabia wants is the little framed one he also I think would like that same one in big it is the one you made of me when I first came over profile sitting down he is mad about it, his address is 6 Square Bois de Boulogne, Paris, you’r[e] getting a big Paris public for your photos, so everybody knows about it. We were sad about Sarah [Victor] you never had photographed her,1 had you, she was very wonderful there, I will write to Mrs. [Bertha] Case, we had a tea-party and had Lady Troubridge and Radcliffe [i.e., Radclyffe] Hall, that would be something to photograph get Romaine [Brooks] to tell you stories of them, she knows them very well.2 We are getting all ready for England, I am giving two lectures at Oxford one to the English Club and one to the french club, and now Cambridge writes to ask me too, so I guess we will have a good time, we go over on the ninth of February and stay
about 10 days, we will tell you all about it from over there.3 I am sending you a letter of Wendell Wilcox which will please you4 also of Ivan Kahn there still seems a chance of Hollywood,5 and Bennett [Cerf] has written a nice letter, he is now all his old self again and very sweet, a little sad but very sweet, he is very enthusiastic now about doing the book in the fall,6 the thing I would like to ask you I always do ask you and you always tell me whether there should be put with it the Four in America out of which it came, or how could they be connected, of course that would make too big a book I have not said anything at all about it to Bennett I want to know what you think about it all, we will see Bennett over here so there will be plenty of time for you to tell me just what you think, good-night papa Woojums you are a very dear papa Woojums and mama and Baby Woojums don’t love anybody like they do their papa Woojums and the reason why because there is nobody who ever was or is or will be anything like dear papa Woojums
