by Edward Burns
1000 kinds of everything to you both
C.
1. See Van Vechten to Stein, 22 November [1936], note 1. Alsop’s review of Stein’s The Geographical History of America Or The Relation Of Human Nature To The Human Mind, “Gertrude Stein on Writing,” in New York Herald Tribune Books (10 January 1937), 13:2.
2. See Stein to Van Vechten [9 November 1936], note 4.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Portrait of Leonor Fini. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
18 January [1937] [101 Central Park West New York]
Dear Baby Woojums!
Tell Basket & Pepe to get well! Tell them that Papa W is quite well again & hopping around. Thanks for the notes on [Ennemond] Trillat. He sent me some piano music now. I think your cousin died in Baltimore. I am sorry.1 Here is LEONOR FINI, whose “Game of Legs in a Key of Dreams” is one of the features of the Modern Museum Show.2 Butter Will Melt is announced for the Feb[ruary] Atlantic.
Love to Both from Both
C.
1. Van Vechten was mistaken. Stein’s Baltimore cousins were Mr. and Mrs. Julian Stein, Sr.
2. Van Vechten had photographed the painter Leonor Fini on 14 December 1936. Fini’s painting Jeux de jambes dans la clef du reve, 1935, oil on canvas, 32 × 22⅜ inches, was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art exhibition, Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 19 January 1937] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dear Papa Woojums,
I loved your descriptions of Henry [McBride], that is the way Jacques [Emile] Blanche was before futurism, but tell him to cheer up, the devil is always dead, and I am sending him some photos of the nicest young crowd and they are completely not that. We have been having a very lively winter, most social for us, and there are so many people in Paris, you meet them every time you go out of the door, it did not used to be but it is so now and we like it, I’ll send you some photos too of my newest painter, a long story and not an unamusing one,1 I’ll tell you when we meet, and the Atlantic Monthly sent me a check for two stories and [Ellery] Sedgwick said one called the Novel was a lesson to Proust and I hope you will like them,2 I am supposed to be going on working, Bennett [Cerf] clamors for the autobiography but the pleasant life of Paris this year has side-tracked me, but I am going on, I am in America now and just coming, I am awfully anxious to know what you think, you have a copy of the 200 Stanzas in Meditation in among the unpublished ms. in your care, certainly you have, they were written about 3 years ago, I like the Spanish one best,3 did you see Bryher when she was over,4 anyway lots a[nd] lots and more than lots of love to you from us all always and always
Baby and Mama Woojums.5
1. The French painter Robert Toulouse. Stein lost interest in his work.
2. In 1937 The Atlantic Monthly printed two pieces by Stein: “Butter Will Melt” (February 1937), 159(2): 156–57, and “Your United States” (excerpts from Everybody’s Autobiography) (October 1937), 160(2):459–68. In addition, part of a letter from Stein to Ellery Sedgwick, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, was printed in The Atlantic Monthly (February 1937), 159(2), on the verso of the first leaf following page 256.
Ellery Sedgwick accepted Stein’s “Butter Will Melt” in a letter of 23 October 1936 (YCAL). In Sedwick’s letter to Stein of 31 December 1936 (YCAL) he refers to Stein’s “A Novel” (“What Does She See When She Shuts Her Eyes,” in Stein’s Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes, pp. 375–78) as, “What a lesson to the Prousts of this World!” Sedgwick had planned to publish this novel in an early number of The Atlantic Monthly but decided instead to print excerpts from Everybody’s Autobiography.
3. See Van Vechten to Stein [late December 1936], note 2.
4. The English writer Winifred Bryher.
5. Both signatures are by Stein.
To Carl Van Vechten [Rose motto]
[postmark: 6 February 1937] 27 rue de Fleurus [Paris]
My dear Carl,
Muriel [Draper] has just been [here] and it was so nice to have her and I don’t know it kind of made us feel that you might be here too all together and that would have been and will be nice and at the same time it made us homesick for you yes it did, but she will tell you, everything is peaceful I am writing this with a camel pen that Ed[d]ie Wassermann gave me you fill it with water and it writes ink, and I am writing now in the Autobiography about America1 and it all is so simple that I worry lest it is so simple it is nothing, well anyway it goes on and we go on loving papa Woojurns and everything is cheerful and we love you
Gtrde.
1. Stein’s Everybody’s Autobiography.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Portrait of Eugene Berman. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
8 February 1937 [101 Central Park West New York]
Dear Baby Woojums
No, I didn’t see [Winifred] Bryher, but I saw Zadkine & liked him & photographed him with his work, but there is hardly time for more. He is going away soon. Mina Loy is here and we saw her yesterday & here is Genia Berman.1 Of course I have the mss of your Stanzas in meditation, but I have not read them all, they are treasured in VAULTS. But I did read them in the magazine & loved them.2 Also Butter WILL melt! Marjorie Worthington has a new book3 out & WHERE is your autobiography, and nobody says a word about Mabel [Dodge] and Love to both,
Papa W!
1. Eugene Berman, the painter.
2. Part of Stanzas in Meditation was published in Life and Letters Today (Winter 1936/1937), 15(6): 77–80.
3. Marjorie Worthington’s Manhattan Solo (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1937).
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas at the Birthplace of Marechal Joffre at Rivesaltes, April 1917]
[postmark: 10 February 1937] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
Dear papa Woojums,
Will you send a photo to a very charming fellow who is writing [a] doctorate about me and has a complete collection that he is giving to the University etc and could it be the profile that you made in little that I like so much, I hate to ask so much, but he would like it so, he is Robert Bartlett Haas, International House, Berkeley, Cal.1 so lots of love and I just saw Douglas from upstairs, and he told me about Mrs Douglas and everything2
lots of love
B. W.
1. Haas did his dissertation under Dr. Clarence Faust. The title of his dissertation was “The Concept of the Present in the Literary Criticism of Gertrude Stein.”
2. A neighbor at 27 rue de Fleurus who knew Van Vechten’s friend Mrs. Mahala Douglas.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 14 February 1937] 27 rue de Fleurus [Paris]
Dearest Papa Woojums,
They want a picture of Pepe so as to make the mask for the ballet and I am sending them Pepe’s own idea June 13/34 xxxiif:8 and sometime can we have another because they certainly will never give it back, the date has not yet been settled but it will be sometime the end of March Gerald Berners says that music copies and all is done and now he is doing the decor it is to be called A Wedding Bouquet,1 and Madame Marie Louise Bousquet is coming to see you she is on the Paris and gets there the 24 of February, she is with the daughter of Violet Murat2 and she is staying at the Hotel Gladstone Lexington Avenue, and she wants to lecture her husband who was Rip’s partner in the old days of the revue is ill now and she has to make some money, she really did have a salon a good one and she is very charming and she has written rather a nice letter and I told her if you liked her you will tell her everything and she must do everything you tell her and she is very nervous about whether you will like her and that I said this I do not know, but I hope you will. Will you let her know. I do not know her awfully well but I like her. I have just finished writing our first month in New York, I go on but I do not know how it is, Muriel Draper was here we thought she looked awfully well and it was a pleasure to see her and we told her to tell you how much we loved you which she
will, lots of love
Baby Woojums.
[on flap of envelope] speaks English charmingly.3
1. See Berners’ letter in Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, p. 321.
2. Violet Murat, Princess Lucien Murat, was a writer. Her daughter was Caroline de Gheest.
3. A reference to Marie-Louise Bousquet.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Portrait of Pépé. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
3 March [1937] [101 Central Park West New York]
Dearest Baby Woojums.
I find M[arie] L[ouise] Bousquet absolutely enchanting. I met her yesterday & gave a lunch for her today at the Algonquin with the [William] Seabrooks & Caroline de Gheest, I told Georges [Jacques]1 she was a friend of yours & he laid himself out, and I am sending your Pepe right back to you (XXXIIf: 8) We also like Caroline de Gheest very much & we love Baby & Mama Woojums
Papa W!
1. The headwaiter at the Algonquin Hotel, New York.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 6 March 1937] 27 rue de Fleurus [Paris]
My dearest Papa Woojums,
I know this letter will please you, and we do like your postal cards not that Meraud [Guevera] has not a more beautiful dog than that and his name is Poncho and perhaps you will photograph him when you come,1 there are always so many new ones to photograph and will you come, I have done half of America now and Alice will be making a second copy pretty soon and send it along to you, there are only about 50 to a 100 pages more to do, I am sending pieces of it to Bennett [Cerf] I’ve printed several and I am doing a nice play about Daniel Webster2 beside so you can see Baby is busy. Lots and lots of love and thanks for the photo for [Robert Bartlett] Haas.
Gtrde.
1. The English-born painter and wife of the Chilean-born painter Alvaro Guevara (d. 1951). “I am quite astonished that you ask about my dog Poncho—he was a dalmation & came from England & was a friend of Basket’s—anyway they were apt to fight” (letter received from Meraud Guevara, 15 March [1983]).
2. Stein’s Daniel Webster. Eighteen in America: A Play, in New Directions in Prose & Poetry (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1937), pp. [162–88]. Stein did not send a typescript of the play to Van Vechten until the following September. See Stein to Van Vechten [21 September 1937].
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 18 March 1937] 27 rue de Fleurus [Paris]
My dearest Papa Woojums,
We are so pleased that you liked Marie Louise [Bousquet], and here is the [Robert Bartlett] Haas boy who is very happy, he is one of the liveliest of the fans, just now, and have you seen the Gertrude Stein number of the Utica High School it is called the Academic Observer and is the February number, they only sent me one number but I know it would please you, they did it very well,1 what’s the news, nothing very much, Sir Robert Abdy is doing a green hand made edition of the 200 Sonnets of Meditation,2 but as he is never satisfied with the way the printers print, and why not, it will be a long time off, Pepe is delicious, we love him on the postal card, there is a possibility of Listen to me being done in french with Picabia, we had that hope already but you think it is all dead and here it comes again, it would be funny, Daniel Webster is getting on nicely and please tell George [s Jacques] that we do not forget him and often think about how we went home to the hotel, over there
Always
Baby Woojums.
[on the flap of envelope] The premiere of the ballet is 27 April.3
1. The February 1937 number of The Academic Observer, the newspaper of the Utica Free Academy, Utica, New York, was devoted to Stein. The issue was edited by Jean Treible; the assistant editor was Margaret Lucha. The issue included a biography of Stein by Lucha, accompanied by a photograph (p. [4]); a facsimile of a letter to Lucha from Stein, “My dear Margaret” (p. [5]); and a series of unidentified quotations from Stein’s works (p. [6]).
2. A reference to the proposed edition of Stein’s Stanzas in Meditation that was to be published by Sir Robert Abdy and printed by Guido Morris. Morris had suggested printing the edition on “Barcham Green,” a paper that is actually pink in color.
3. Note by Van Vechten, 24 January 1941: “The Berners Ballet at Sadler’s Wells London.” The ballet was the Stein-Berners A Wedding Bouquet.
To Gertrude Stein
24 March 1937 101 Central Park West New York City
Dear Gertrude and Baby Woojums,
Here is [Kristians] Tonny with his wife and Zadkine. All, and you, appear in Claude McKay’s A Long Way from Home, but you only be [i.e., by] inference, as it seems he never met you. .1 The Philharmonic, under [Arthur] Rodzinski, recently gave some performances (in concert form) of Strauss’s Elektra. As rehearsal time approached the lady engaged to sing the title part fell ill and Rosa Pauly of the Vienna Opera was brought over to take her place. Pauly turned out to be just about the greatest singing actress this town has ever seen or heard and we all went wild. It was like the old days come back. People always think that middle aged people are exaggerating about the triumphant performances of the past until something like this happens and then they are just bowled over. . I am glad to say that I hear Miss Pauly is Jewish (she is from Prague) and there is even a chance she has some Arabian blood.2 If she ever sings in Paris, pawn your jewels and attend to her! . . Think of Baby W doing a play about Daniel Webster and yet what could be more natural. DYING, of course, to see the new autobiography. It will include America and the tour? . . Did you know about the man in Los Angeles who has written a 50,000 word novel without ONCE using the letter E? He tied down the Ε key on his typewriter . . [Marie Louise] Bousquet is a lamb and I really love her. . Bobsy Goodspeed is importing her to Chicago, I hear, for a conference. I took her to the Savoy in Harlem, along with Violette’s daughter who is charming too,3 and last Saturday night on Fania’s birthday we had 35 people here to dinner (THIRTY-FIVE) so you can get some idea of the size of the new Palais de Versailles. Ο dear, I wish I were hearing and seeing that performance à Londres. Are you going to it? You must tell me all about it. . Anyway Fania and I send lots of love to you and Mama Woojums and I hope you are wearing your rubbers these damp days!
!Carlo!
Madame Gaston Lachaise has really turned up the most amazing painter, a Negro cleaning woman in Boston. She sells her works for 50 cents a piece and soon or late I’ll be able to get an example for you. They are done in colored pencils and the background is always the same: a picture of the Virgin, a grand piano, a palm in a POT and a divan. In front of this one or two principal figures. . I thought they were grandes cocottes or maybe grues in houses of Joy. But no, says Isobel Lachaise, Mary Bell (such is her lovely name) is very religious. Rather they are saints. Saints then in ratted hair, blonde, black, and titian, and every kind of WRAPPER, in design color and lace trimmings most complicated. Sometimes a Suitor. Something like [Henri] Rousseau, but Ο so different. . What an artist!4
Love and let love!
1. Claude McKay’s A Long Way from Home (New York: L. Furman, Inc., 1937). McKay (1890–1948), the black writer, mentions Stein several times in this autobiographical work, but he does not seem to have met her. McKay mentions his reactions to meeting Van Vechten in Paris (pp. 282–83, 318–21). McKay does not refer to Tonny by name; instead he is mentioned as the boyfriend of a woman, Carmina, who is actually the black performer Anita Thompson.
2. Rodzinski conducted performances of Strauss’s Elektra with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, New York, on 18, 19, and 21 March 1937. The title role was sung by Rose Pauly (replacing the indisposed Gertrude Kappel). In his review in the New York Times, 19 March 1937, p. 26, Olin Downes called it “one of the most thrilling and dramatic performances that the writer has been privileged to hear.” Rosa Pauly (1894–1975) was born Rose Pollack.
3. See Stein to Van Vechten [14 February 1937], note 2.
4. Mary Bell worked for the sculptor Gaston Lachaise and his wife. Van Vechten eventually gave ninet
y-seven works on paper by Mary Bell to Yale-JWJ. The works generally have titles given by the artist.
To Gertrude Stein
3 April [1937] 101 Central Park West New York City
Dear Gertrude and Baby Woojums,
Your latest letter was (and is) almost impossible to decipher. Very very difficult penmanship! Usually I can read every word but not this time. However the message to Georges [Jacques] was clear. I gave it to him and was he delighted! He told EVERYBODY you had asked about him and his message to you is He hopes your message to him means you are coming over soon when he will devote himself practically exclusively to your pleasure and comfort. I have sent for the Utica school paper, though I could not make out the name of it. I guess THEY’LL know . . Muriel [Draper] is back with lovely news of you both. Do you ever see a friend of Aaron Copland named Victor Kraft? Paul Bowles has gone to Mexico with M et Madame [Kristians] Tonny!1 Marie Louise B[ousquet] has gone to Chicago to lecture for Bobsy [Goodspeed] and the rest. Harold Jackman, one of my Harlem boys has been helping her with her English.2 She is SWEET. .
Angels and Ministers of Grace defend you and Mama W!
Papa Woojums!
If you could get me a couple of programs of the Ballet?!! Please!!
1. Paul Bowles, composer and author, had met Tonny and his wife, Marie Claire, in Paris through Stein. It was at that time that they planned a trip to Mexico together. Bowles and Jane Auer, who had previously met, attended a party given by the poet E. E. Cummings in his Patchin Place, New York, apartment. Auer decided to join Bowles and the Tonnys on the trip to Mexico. A year after this trip, Paul Bowles and Jane Auer were married.
2. Harold Jackman (1902–61) was a junior high school social studies teacher in New York. He was an avid collector of memorabilia on Negro Art and literature. He contributed to the Countee Cullen Memorial Collection, Atlanta University, the James Weldon Johnson Collection at Yale University, the library at Fisk University, and the Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library. Jackman’s extensive correspondence with Van Vechten is at Yale-JWJ.
