The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979
Page 40
I’ll come over alone, toward the end of January. Can I stop a couple of days with you and H?, and disturb the studio?/
Doesn’t something like a foot take forever at our age? I’m sorry for you. I had a bump then a bruise on my shin for a year [or] more. I think if I stared intently I’d [see] a vague yellow now.
I wonder how States Street40 is doing for you? Are cautious investors the worst? I suppose it’s just the opposite, but still they lose.
It’s an indescribable consolation for me to be near to you so happily.
Love,41
302. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
November 20, 197442
Dear Cal: Are you well? We haven’t heard for a good while and I sometimes wonder if all your pills are going in the same direction—not the aptest way of imagining the dear, mysterious life-savers perhaps. But I suppose we would have heard if you were in distress. It is impossible to write letters, that I know well. I never have a minute any more and I think of my past reasonably organized self as a lovely springtime long gone. I am not so much disorganized as simply hopelessly overworked, without Nicole or anyone, and the expense of life here is a horror I am slowly, with panic, beginning to take in. I write a lot of small things, go about lecturing a lot, have bigger matters on my mind in the way of writing that I despair of ever reaching. But still I am hanging on, cheerfully anxious.
Harriet is fine. I suppose she won’t apply to Radcliffe; she feels her grades and her scores aren’t nearly good enough, apparently one needs a lot of high school science to pass the required freshman science—and a host of other academic/ lacks. I don’t know what will finally come about for her, but she is marvelously real about it all and without any sort of distress that I can see. She says that she does want to learn, does want to work, doesn’t have a ruling passion yet but expects it to come—and that one can learn any place, which is the complete and finest truth. I can’t tell you how happy she seems in general, how calm and gay and busy with her life. She is the most pleasing person to me and I wish she were able to dip down in England to visit you more often. She always has a marvelous time there and seems incredibly uncluttered in her feelings. Christmas is out this year because she does have to take all the college boards just after New Year and the study has been put off for the vacation. Do you quite realize that she will have her 18th birthday on January 4? Maybe we can have some sort of celebration all together when you get here. I can scarcely believe the time has gone by.
Frank and Judy Parker are here for a few days in my studio. Frank is on a very modest amount of drink, owing to Judy’s insistence I guess and his consent. It is nicer and he is well enough I think, doing a good deal of housework while Judy goes out to work—and doing it/ with surprising and touching docility.
I cannot think of any news to pass on to you. Keep in all possible good health, whatever that may mean, and better spirits than health. Much love from both of us.
Elizabeth
303. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell43
[“Season’s Greetings” Christmas Card: Pablo Picasso, Françoise en Soleil (1946), Museum of Modern Art]
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
[November 26, 1974]
Dearest Cal: My last letter to you must have seemed odd, but I hadn’t heard since the telephone call about the fainting. The lovely, reassuring letter of yours, written October 13th, arrived today, November 26, coming by “surface” because of insufficient postage. The rats! Well, I had assumed you were well, but Harriet and I wondered indeed. Off to the Cottings for Thanksgiving, back the same night. I am happy to go and it is nice for Harriet but I always feel the Cottings are hanging on for our sake to the ritual … All is well and I look forward to seeing you. We will have a surprise 18th birthday for yours and mine own daughter … I very much anticipate your prose book since you write the form with such reckless, off-hand inspiration it puts me to despair and joy at the same time.
Tommy Thomas is coming over the weekend. I fear he is a little boring without Mary and talks about sex all the time. Wives put a stop to that! Mary and Jim are planning a Castine Christmas and I will go up perhaps for New Year. I love Christmas here with Harriet and the birds and flowers44 and friends and her friends …
My foot healed in ten days. If it had been longer my head would have cracked open. All the dearest greetings of all the old seasons to you.
Much love,
Lizzie
304. Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick
Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent
December 13, 1974
Dearest Lizzie—
The fainting must have been drink and antabuse, or maybe the heat of the room, tho this seems odd, so very little and often experienced. Anyway my heart and lungs are completely cleared by science./ Nothing is durable or easy-moving at our age. I have many small signs—the most noticeable—except for getting out of taxis—absentmindedness. I was always rather [a] parody of other people, now I am a parody of my old self. If I walk holding a letter to put in an envelope—both objects inevitably end reach in separate parts of the room.
You must be delighted with the reviews and choice-of-the-year of your book in England.45 Strange your being reviewed with Patricia now a friend of ours—to my surprise I found her book heckling, emancipation treated with the excessive clarity and fervor of her Plymouth Brethren background.46 But yours I didn’t,—wonderful gothic portrait tales of women by a woman, a combination of Plutarch & very long book reviews. I read you through again after publication—they seem to have the passion of fiction, and as much unity as they should, 15 stories on some one part of the South. Of the bad reviews, Ricks seemed knocked almost inarticulate with ingenuity and annoyance, Carey must have thought you were American.47
We are all going to be in Brookline, 33 Cypress St. The children even have schools. We will arrive toward the end of the month January/. I’ll try and get down soon after for Harriet’s postponed birthday. I am calling you Christmas Eve, ghastly hour 3:30 A.M. here, 10:30 PM with you. I don’t suppose anyone will be in, but it was the only vacancy I could get. Anyway, for now, love and Merry Christmas to you and Harriet. I am mailing my most original presents, checks.
I have a feeling that, like knowing one has entered the tennis singles tournament for the last time, I … Guess what I was going to write? It’s less than my syntax might lead you to expect.
I gather that Harriet entering Columbia is set now, and assured. Maybe the best thing. I rather hope she will live at home. Perhaps my exaggerating fears from a distance for her safety.
Sad picture of Frank. He thinks all the time of drinking, I imagine. And if he does … [I] wrote him a letter long ago, and he seems to have tried innumerable times to answer. I have known him since we were 13—to think of him is to see my lifetime—joy and error.
Saw Mary and Jim rather quickly at a dinner at Gaia’s. Mary has the same picture of Tommy.
Love for the coming day,
Cal
305. Robert Lowell to Harriet Lowell
Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent
[December 14, 1974]
Dearest Harriet—
Here is my long-considered Christmas present, one you can’t refuse. Sorry not to send something English, but the difficulties of choosing, wrapping, clearing with customs is too much. Much love,
Daddy
306. Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Hardwick
Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent
12, 14, 74
Dearest Lizzie—
I seem to act almost a hundred percent contra my humanist reactionary beliefs by sending you and Harriet this most abstract of acceptable presents, the easiest conveyer of value. We also have and like the detestable glow-coals on hand glowing for our breakfasts. Much love and Merry Christmas. Goodby I’ll see you soon.
Love,
Cal
307. Harriet Lowell to Robert Lowel
l
[Telegram]
[New York, N.Y.]
[Received] 1974 Dec 21
MR ROBERT LOWELL MILGATE PARK BEARSTEDMAIDSTONEKENT
NO LETTER SINCE OCTOBER. WORRIED. LOVE AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU IN KENT
HARRIET
308. Robert Lowell to Harriet Lowell
[Telegram]
[Maidstone]
[Received] 1974 Dec 22
HARRIET LOWELL 15 WEST67ST
NEWYORKCITY
THANKS FOR CARING AM VERY WELL YOU ALL ARE IN MY HEART HOPE TO PHONE 10 PM CHRISTMAS EVE LOVE
DADDY
309. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell48
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
January 2, 1975
Dearest Cal: A letter finally arrived and Harriet’s check. Perhaps the postage has gone up and the stamped envelopes are going by ship rather than airmail. Anyway the mail has taken about three weeks. Harriet was pleased and we were both relieved to know you were all right and in touch. Christmas was exhausting and I have just returned from a few days at the New Year with Mary in Castine—an incredible two week undertaking of hers with house guests, parties for the whole town, presents for everyone, marvelous and endless food. I must say that this trip was utterly pleasing and beautiful for me. Castine was astonishing. This morning on the way to the airport, after a night of thick, white dry snow, the landscape was startling in its grandeur and strangeness, almost lunar somehow.49 Without leaves a whole world comes out and you can see across the white fields, over to the bay, to the towns opposite. We had a picnic in the snow the day before, across the bay at Brooksville. My own house was boarded up, but looked very still there on the cold water. Philip Booth was in residence. It was a very beautiful, intense thing. Now I am back, with a terrible amount of trips to take, to universities … Bill Alfred was here for our Christmas Eve dinner. He is very well and has [a] flat in Manhattan, on the East side, as a substitute for Brooklyn.
I have only seen a few English reviews, but haven’t unlimited curiosity this second time. I was more happily received here than I deserved; the book appears to be established, has sold well enough and I imagine will do perfectly all right in paper back. I haven’t seen the C. Ricks review and don’t wish to unless it turns up. I wonder why he reviewed my book, since it isn’t the sort of thing I quite connect with him. I don’t know about the “books of the year list,” but will ask you if I see you and you remember at that time.
Harriet isn’t accepted at Barnard yet; the decisions aren’t known until April. I expect she will be and certainly hope so since that was the only place she applied. It, and especially Columbia, are good; she will major in history and I feel quite happy about it all, except that she and Cathy will have their own place. Of course, Devie is up there now, and thousands upon thousands … But if she were still at home it would be just like staying on at Dalton. Yet they are all much changed, very grown up. She is working harder and reading a lot about World War I and other things. All will be well I think. And marvelous company, smoking, wine sipping on the weekends, and very anxious to see all of you. Quite interested in Sheridan. And eighteen years old when this reaches you.
I am exhausted from the celebrations in Castine and am going to bed on this January 1st.50 I am so happy that you are feeling well and I expect to get all the diseases, including drinking, now that you haven’t them. As we always said, Dilly51 did Jack’s drinking for him and now he’s on his own.
Much love, always, and I am sorry for this dim letter. It is what is called an answer only.
Elizabeth
310. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell52
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
January 4, 19745/
Dearest Cal: How stunned I am by the hospitality of your fifty dollars to me! I am touched that you wanted to send me a present and far from displeased that it should come in the form of cash. Thank you very much; and I will have something practical in the way of clothes for you when I see you. Too bad the handy Rosen’s of Bucksport was closed on New Year’s Day. Otherwise I might have replaced some of the more unfashionable, unEnglish, unmentionable items in your wardrobe. Also, this lovely, kind gift took three weeks and so I do think perhaps the postage has gone up on airmail or some such thing.
Today is Harriet’s 18th, but all is unfestive here because she is, and quite happily I do honestly think, studying for her college board History achievement and, not happily, writing a paper in Spanish on Don Quixote which they have spent the semester reading in Spanish. She is also up at night, just now finished, with Goodbye to All That53 for the World War I course. In spite of everything she is being, has been educated by the egregious Dalton. And she is in good spirits. It will still be Barnard or Boston University—the only two places she will consent to, since she didn’t feel up to applying at Radcliffe. I am sure she could have gotten in Smith or Chicago and that sort, but she doesn’t really like the idea.
In my last letter I didn’t begin to do justice to Mary’s house, the food, the incredibly detailed festivities, the miraculous landscape, the tree, the presents, the music, the guests, the expense, the pleasure. It was a great joy to me, even though I had Penelope Gilliatt in my pocket more or less since she somehow got into the invitation that originally went to Gavin Young, who was ill. I am friendly with Penelope and we had a good time—her clothes for the arctic occasion were teensy white patent sandals with very thin high heels, white stockings, a pastel cotton dress and lots of cologne, with fingers loaded with yellowish rings, all square, and lots of gold over the Miami Beach costumes. Extraordinary—but on purpose?
I will be very happy to see you when it is convenient for you to do so. Now, I must go to the market. Barbara E. and Alison Lurie are coming for dinner, to eat the scallops pulled out of Penobscot Bay by Billy Macomber.54
Much love,
Lizzie
311. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell55
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
Monday [n.d. late April/early May 1975]
Dear Cal: Cathy and Harriet were just about at the door and I was glad you caught us because a visit can be exhausting. They are unperturbed about the cancellation and went out happily enough except that Harriet was concerned about you. I have reassured her and I am reassured by the “new” treatments56 and what seemed your general heroic health when I saw you. Indeed I felt somewhat less healthy and can only hope to pull up to your own heights. I have been going about a bit and at last understand the hatred of readings, appearances and above all the tremendous weight on the soul occasioned by an interview, always conducted by someone who knows nothing about your nature and your work. I have come home to an essay on Simone Weil I promised to do for a magazine a colleague at Barnard is editing.57 Of course I would rather give, if I had it, a thousand dollars than a page and actually I have neither.
This is just to wish you well. I am sorry there were so many people around when you were here. We haven’t seen much of Darryl58 since because he, in the visit with you, went to the top of the mountain. Next time you come we will go out to dinner so that I can really talk to you, although it is nice to have you here with Harriet, Devie, Barbara, your fan club.
Harriet is doing very well, I think, and when we hear from Barnard that all is agreeable for next year there will be general relief. This little note is just to send our love to you and our thoughts. We aren’t worried so don’t have our concern on your mind as an agitation. Keep in touch and may happy gods attend you.
Dearest love,
Lizzie
312. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell59
The New York Review of Books, 250 West Fifty-Seventh Street,
New York City, New York 10019, PLaza 7-8070
June 4, 1975
Dear Cal: I believe this is something only you can fill out.60 Another summer here—and indeed it must be another summer there. Harriet graduates in a few days and there will be a party afterward with some of us and h
er friends and their parents. It is all so strange in the strange/ way of the universal and ordinary—her passage from the “five year olds” to the end. Saul Bellow will be there for his son, Adam; and so on and so on. I have a certain sadness I guess mixed with my great pleasure in Harriet. For a time the idea of an apartment around Columbia was horrifying to me; I saw a few and felt quite desperate. But I have seen a few more and my own spirits have lifted. I can see how much fun it will be, or can be, to have your own place. As for me, I am suddenly not quite so apprehensive about Smith; I’ll be back here at a lot of the weekends and I am looking forward to the very convenient library and to a lot of writing. I will miss New York, but I expect to keep “in”—and there are holidays, all sorts of chances for coming down, and then it will be over December 15th. I went up to Maine last weekend; a wonderful blue sky and hot sun came out. My house is incredibly beautiful. It had been swept out and mopped and I had it all together in one day and then cooked lobster for the friend that went with me. Last summer was a nightmare because of the cost that kept mounting; I paid it, making myself broke, without a penny in the bank. But it’s done and I am back saving a few nickels and dimes—and so the house became a joy again. I don’t expect to go up for good until July at the earliest. I guess Mary will be there the 15th.