The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979

by Elizabeth Hardwick

  Nothing can be done about the papers until at least Sept. 15th. Then the list will be gone over. Whatever is mine that will stay in I have to ask you to pay me for from what you get. I am in no position to give you anything. I cannot live on the $20,000 you have set aside for us. I pay $6,000 rent for the apartment, Harriet’s school is 3,000, this summer alone 2,000. That almost takes up what you have given us after taxes.

  I do not know what caused me to take action when you carelessly wrote, “What have we done about the papers.” I noted “we” but somehow was seized (“I” as always) with the desire to do what you wanted. The papers are yours, but they were here and you would probably have waited to accomplish all this if I had not answered and done it for you, and I must say so well. Why? For Caroline? For my memory. I don’t know. But I feel stupid and upset. I have not done well by Harriet or myself. We are both You risked, without a thought, the sanity and stability of a young creature on the brink of life. I am not impressed by Caroline’s “maternal” qualities; they do not extend to my child or to her responsibilities to me as another woman. These things are part of being a decent person.

  I hated the reviews of the play121 I saw; just as I hated the English reviews of Notebook. I say that as a critic, as someone who knows how beautiful and rare Prometheus is.

  I am very angry with myself, with the incredibly stupid way I behave almost without thinking toward you, writing letters, getting better arrangements. I loathe Caroline and silly little Tories like Grey Gowrie and their destruction of the dear Yankee genius they will never understand. Anyway, I hope you begin to understand Daddy Lowell better and his empty smiling and “happiness.”122 Sometimes it is the only way one can bear a ruined life. And I think you have ruined your life for a mess of potage—a mess.123

  Harriet is all packed and very calm about her trip. The other night, sharing a rather feeble fan, we talked until 1:30 in the morning. She is tougher than anyone knows in a way—at least at the moment—but the shocks of her life that have made her tough have also turned all her thoughts in a noble and serious direction, not toward selfishness as sometimes happens. Her direction in life is much firmer—she actually used more or less that phrase. She wants to be independent, she told me, and to have worthwhile work to do. Her grades were all B’s, very good I think. Next year it really counts since it is the beginning of high school and she seems determined suddenly to work hard because of her interest in her future. I think my really feeling confident about her instead of just “praising” her is one of the main things. She has lost 12 pounds and now, of course, I want her to give up her newly found powers of resistance to pleasure for a goal. She is just right and looks wonderful. I took her to lunch with Mary, who has come and gone back for a week. M was wonderful, incredibly simple and pure suddenly, with dinners for all her old friends every night—Fred,124 Wm Phillips, Hannah and me almost every night of her stay, lunch with Harriet. We didn’t mention you and that was a relief. Mary has written me many times how much better off I am. Everyone insists that I am. But can it be true? I know they mean it but I am not sure. I enclose the Vogue picture and article.125 I told them we were separated and am only sorry they mentioned you at all, but I guess I haven’t been “solitary in the field” all these years.126 I suppose this letter will enrage you, but I am enraged today—by what strange little or great events—my getting all this arrangement for your papers to be profitably concluded—can one suddenly be stabbed by emotion. Well, be enraged in your turn. I don’t care. I believe what I say and know it to be true. You will never be free of the dreadful thing you have killed in yourself and of your ingratitude and lack of loyalty and love. And no child you produce can be more splendid than the one you abandoned

  Lizzie

  158. Elizabeth Hardwick to Harriet Lowell

  Castine, Maine

  July 11, 1971

  Dearest: You have now been away only one week and it seems months. How I miss you. Nothing new up here, except incredibly wonderful weather, very very hot. Apparently New York has been in a terrible heat wave and so I am happy to be in sunny, clear, but not unbearable Castine. They have had a theatrical group playing here, quite young, not very inspiring but o.k. They seemed very forlorn and so I had them all down at the barn last night. There was a wonderful moon, the high tide rose, we played records and they danced until 3!—nearly breaking the place up. Then the lady in charge said, that’s enough, and they scurried about like little soldiers, cleaned up the whole place, put back together the bed that had broken down and went home. The thing they danced to—there were several blacks—was that awful Ike and Tina Turner record which I brought down for want of anything else to do with it.127

  I do so much want to hear how you like the Experiment. I hope it is fun and that you have found some friends here and there. And I hope you are well. I just can’t let myself think about the Mexican diseases—like la turista,128 which is intestinal. I think Sumner is alright. I was out by the barn door this morning and heard a little cry and there he was, looking very frightened. He had been out for about a minute and wanted back in! I find him wanting to sleep on my stomach but I have to say no.

  Nicole must be taking off today. No news my dearest except that you are in my heart. And so send your old mother word of you.

  All my love

  Mommy

  159. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell

  [Castine, Maine]

  July 13, 1971

  Dearest Cal: I’m sorry I wrote you in such an angry manner. I feel all that, from time to time, and often I just don’t feel anyway now. However, I do want to say a few things. I won’t be able to do anything about your papers until the fall, maybe October. There is so much still that I want to go through, and there is a question of just which things are actually addressed to me, etc., and are actually my property. It was all thrown together. I am up here; I go back; school starts, my lectures start and so I personally feel I will need a little time—perhaps October. Whichever University you honor will then come over and we will get the whole thing accomplished.

  A second thing: last spring Mary Jarrell called wanting to be able to make copies of Randall’s letters to you for a volume she wants to edit. I said I didn’t think she should edit the volume—speaking as a critic—and that I don’t particularly believe in one little volume of letters, then another. These things tend to preempt the field for quite sometime to come. She would make casual statements about, “Oh, I’ll take out anything personal,” and I informed her that the question of taking out was the great question—it is more than a matter of not hurting people’s feelings, etc. I looked over a few of Randall’s letters. The ones I saw are fairly impersonal but they do say Randally things like: “Wouldn’t you hate to be Eberhardt or Nemerov.” Anyway, I talked to the Taylors who do not want to give their letters and who are very much opposed to what Mary may try to do. They—way back there—simply didn’t answer. Now, Michael di Capua129 has called again. Last Spring when I demurred—also saying to Mary you hadn’t really had a chance to see the correspondence—he became very rude and said “The letters aren’t yours,” etc. I said, well they are in my apartment.

  But when he called the other night I did feel the justice of his remark that none of this was really mine and I said to write to you. I don’t know what you will want to do, but I think you could stall, not answer, or whatever until you’ve had time to think about it.

  No word from Harriet. Mail is very slow there, I hear. Sumner was out all last night with a white cat. I nearly died, but he came back this morning. I fear he will never be the same.… Castine is heaven, very warm and clear. We are all up at the tennis court, drinking cocktails in the evening. I go two days from now to meet Mary at Bangor. The Coris130 are here, planning a big musical party for Alexander Schneider on Sunday. It is very, very pleasant. I have a friend visiting.

  I just write this so you will have some picture of the situation with me here about the papers and to make those remarks about the request tha
t will be coming from Mary Jarrell.

  Much love,

  Lizzie

  * * *

  Fond memories of the old grey head going down Water Street! The swallows miss you.

  160. Elizabeth Hardwick to Miss Harriet Lowell

  Castine, Maine 04421 USA

  July 19, 1971

  Dearest, dear Harriet: What a joy to go [to] the p.o. this morning and to see there a beautiful airmail letter. But the best was still to come. It was such a gay, witty, real letter, which actually told me about everything there and about you. I was completely delighted to get it and enjoyed it immensely. It seems to be fun and that made me happy. I hope to go to Mexico with you sometime because I’ve never been there.

  Beautiful Maine weather, perfect; but I’ve been busy writing and had to work all weekend and then yesterday race up to Bangor to put my piece on the plane for New York.131 Still getting it done made me happy. I have no human news but amazing cat news—if that doesn’t sound too childish. It turned out to be impossible to keep Sumner in the house; he found ways to get out and so I gave up. It is perfect. He is friendly with a big white cat, goes and comes, nicely cautious. At night now because of rain I usually keep him in. But oddest of all is how he has changed in his character. He will eat any kind of food—all sorts of different cans, and he purrs like a steam machine and wants to be in your lap all the time. So, you can see!

  The summer is racing by. Nixon made headlines by saying he will be going to China to visit Mao! Bet Señor Roche is furious!132 Nixon a Maoist! Mary McCarthy is here. My routine is fairly much the same as always—and I think you would have been especially miserable here this summer. It is nice in many ways and perhaps you will like it later, perhaps not.

  I am cut off from New York except for New York Review and so have nothing interesting to send you except my dearest love. Tell me more if you have time. I truly adored hearing from you. Relieved you got through the first days at least without beings sill sick/. Many greetings, darling,

  Mother

  161. Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell

  [Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent]

  July 25, 1971

  Dearest Lizzie—

  I don’t want to say anything about your “angry” letter, even if you hadn’t followed it with a kind one. But your Vogue piece is a tirade in the best sense,133 every feeling, every cadence alive—all too alive for me, beautiful, and shakes my being. Too good for Vogue. Rather sorry Cecil Beaton did the picture, still it gets the old room in all its manifold objects and shine.

  We are moving permanently to Maidstone, but keeping some of Redcliffe Square to visit. A big country house used only for weekends and the short English summer vacation/ was backbreaking for commuting and upkeep. I think this is the way I want to live—mostly in the country. Anyway the strain is immediately much less.

  I miss so many people in America. Give my love to the Thomases, the Booths, Bishop Scarlett, Sally and Helen Austin, and of course Mary and Jim. We have, probably fortunately, no neighbors here. But I miss the old country community. Do you still have the French readings?134 (I’ve just read the Education Sentimentale,135 shamefully in English[.]) Does the tennis still have its shaggy excellence? Do you have drinks and gossip in the barns?

  I’ve mislaid your letters (not lost) and don’t know how we agree on the correspondence, ms. etc. I don’t think any thing should be finished till January. Probably Stonybrook. They seem willing to offer a lot more, and to have more interest in figuring out the best financial dole. Still what a meaningless place to leave the stuff, if place matters? It’s not like one’s grave. OH talking about letters, I’ve just read [the] best novel in English, Jane Welsh’s letters.136 Dickens said she was of another order than all the great literary women he knew. The best Victorian marriage, in a way the only one, and miserable.

  All my love,

  Cal

  * * *

  Prometheus got the worst and most superficial and most reviews of anything I’ve written. Only one good one, in the TLS.137 However, it filled much of the theater for its six weeks, unlike Benito. What’s any good in the play is Io and the bit right after. I might cut it to that for my collected poems or something.

  162. Robert Lowell to Miss Harriet Lowell

  Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent

  July 25, 1967 [1971]

  Dearest Harriet:

  I am shocked to see how many days are gone since I wrote you (how many are gone since you wrote me?) and now it’s too late to address a letter to your camp. I hope you will find this one waiting for you when you open Senorita Gomez’s door138 (porta?) puerta?/ Is she a cousin of Nicole’s?

  Since I last wrote you, we have been up to our eyes moving from London to the country. And now we are moved in in a raggedy way. You know how I used to blow off about wanting to spend a winter in Castine. Now that has come true, only it’s not such a severe step—we are only fifty miles from London, and can reach it in less than two hours. This house—let me boast—is bigger and older and much shaggier and messier than Mary McCarthy’s. We have a trout stream about five inches deep at its deepest, a lake? about as big as my Castine barn area and solid reeds right now, herds of cattle and sheep can be seen from my study window (a neighboring farmer’s—I’m not trying to rival Uncle Cot)[,] hundreds of birds with harsh, horrid early morning voices—pigeons, rooks, sparrows. Things repeat. I have a bed to write on, about half the books I need, the same time commuting to where I teach as it was from London or New York. Our first two visitors come this week (not together) Bob Silvers! and Senator McCarthy.

  I think of you away from me with deep sorrow. Maybe (I hope so much) you’ll come to us on Christmas vacation. You can split your time between here and London. I wonder how the summer has gone for you. Can you still speak English, or only English, or are you bilingual. Still more I hope you’ve had good friends, and intelligent happy things to do. I’ve been writing hard for a long time, and now I’m just reading, rereading old things I loved. A time to cool off before I dry up. I hear such wonderful things about you. I weep that I cannot see the new Harriet, or just the old.

  All my love,

  Daddy

  * * *

  PS. What do you think of my living in a place called Bearsted? AH, BUT MY BEARS have all hibernated since I last saw you. My last sentence looks so haywire because I’ve just untangled a typewriter ribbon that’s been tangled for two months. It may be worse.

  163. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell

  [Castine, Maine]

  July 29, 1971

  Dear Cal: I was much blessed this morning at the p.o. A letter from you and one from Harriet, my second from her. She is having a very, very good time and her letters are quite detailed and interesting. The mail is very slow there and she doesn’t seem to have heard much from me. But I am beginning to miss her terribly and she seems to feel the same way, although the summer is a wild success even with 6 hours a day of study! When she comes back on August 24th we will go immediately to Francine’s and stay there until about September 7th. Your letter—I hadn’t really expected to hear from you again and so that was nice … Castine has been green and blue and luminous all summer, utterly breath-taking. It is all exactly the same, tennis, drinks, dinners, fires, records. One night last week was heavenly. Chuck Turner was visiting and I had Mary and Sally; a wonderful clashing storm came up, thunder, lightning, and we had the fire and played Elisabeth Rethberg and Fischer-Dieskau and then all got out Cousin Harriet’s old umbrella and finally got Madame Mary to Sally’s car. The group is studying Montaigne this year, but I have asked off. I am studying Charlotte Brontë for my Princeton lectures. Villette139 is a wonderful novel—I have two young girls who work at Harper’s (Pub.) and they want me to write a preface to go along with an incredible 38 page essay by Queenie Leavis, not the kind that makes me tremble, but quite good.140 [(]Her letter to the editor says: “I have left Miss H. the biography, but let me know if she feels I have taken up
too much space and too much content otherwise. I am a very agreeable person!”) Actually, her ideas and mine never once cross—a bit disconcerting … The Review has my Sylvia Plath piece in it this issue—don’t know what you will think of it.… Hannah is here, all set up in Mary’s garage apartment, and seems very grateful and happy to be here. She hadn’t, I think, realized how much she would miss Heinrich. She was gone a great deal—Chicago,141 etc.,—but still there was a whole great space he was in the center of. Phil Booth is largely, brownly present, with some new yearnings I cannot name stirring inside him. Well, though. I had a marvelous letter from Adrienne in San Francisco. She speaks of herself as a “manic” free-way driver and is contemptuous of S.F. for “charm,” saying that “charm is the canker at the heart of civilization.” Also she is horrified by the healthy, sun-tanned profs at Berkeley, etc. Dear frail creature of such baffling strength—Adrienne. I always feel a bit back-sliding and unreliable with her and yet she makes me filled with love because I know that one of the things among the thousands she has on her mind is “helping” me to be strong and sure. Sometimes her brown eyes brighten with danger and I see she has sensed my unconquerable ambivalence, my imperishable weaknesses.… I feel I ought to have more news. Everyone we know is as he or she was. I will give your greetings to everyone. I miss you terribly and always will until I die.