Enclosure – Letter from David Graves

POULK PRESS . BOAR'S HEAD . OXFORD Oxford 85321

David Sept 29

..as you yourself say

'nothing serious will happen'.

As to 'filters,' the English are merely taking the necessary precautions. They are not at all panicky.

As to what I am going to do, I received a circular from Cambridge telling me not to go up until I was told. If war should break out, I should

almost certainly enlist. In which case, Brittanyi.e. La Chevrie eds. is not at present feasible. When things have blown over, I should love to come.

Meanwhile, I am digging a 12' x 4'6" x 7' deep trench in the garden. After that, I shall volunteer for A.R.P."Air Raid Precautions." eds. work.

I am fully convinced of the necessity and justice of Britain's stand against Hitler and will be v. very willing to fight! ( P.T.O Please Turn Over )

Ben & Barbara & nurse & maid & triplets are all staying here. We all have gas-masks. Sam & Catherine will stay at school, Catherine being invaluable as head girl. About Jenny I don't know. Presumabl Presumably she will stay where she is. She is v. happy there.

So.

Love from David P.S. I'd like to see a copy of your book poems when they are out.

Oct 1 Saturday

Swiss Ghost, Dictionary.

Alan dropped the bucket down the well & Léonie fished it up with hook and rake.

(Germans enter SudetenlandCzechoslovakia eds. and English gradually begin to realize that they have been sold.)

Madame Boutier brought back the wash – exactly a fortnight overdue.

Oct 2 Sunday

Swiss Ghost finished Ch Chapter VIII. Started Ch. Chapter IX working in my bedroom with a fire

Heavy rain.

Problem of how to warm fireless rooms now that the winter is coming on.

We thought of making blackberry jam three days ago, but there was a sugar shortage from general hoarding. Now the blackberries are beyond jam making.

Montauban was full of refugees. Now they are shamefacedly returning.

Oct 3 Monday

Gale: my back has been aching a lot, so today I abstained as far as I could from heavy housework.

Reading Ghost through and making notes for future reference – having got out of touch with it.

We no Leonie now does the wash in a big suction-boiler in the big kitchen fireplace.

Laura wrote a poem, these last two days, 'When the Skies Part. " ' She is doing also: Dictionary specimen, Greeks & Trojans, Aristotle for Lives of Wives eds., a children's story, Damage with Alan. And never goes out of the house.

Oct 4 Tuesday

Dictionary.

Finished re-reading Ghost and made notes of errors & contradictions.

About 6 lb pounds of mushrooms with Alan, and reboiled the ketchup to make it more potent.

Now work in my bedroom with a fire.

Oct 5 Wednesday

Back still stiff.

Went in the car to Montauban and bought a case full of oil drums for the lamps; and a lamp with a really good burner (for 50 fr. francs )

Swiss Ghost getting on well. Chapter IX, incorporating forgotten details.

Dictionary with Alan.

Anita does not now know after all if she is having a child.

Oct 6 Thursday

David and Dorothy arrived (Dorothy with all her tools) and brought presents. David: marmalade, Earl Grey tea, Georgian toasting fork, candle-snuffer. Dorothy: chocolate mints, two-chain pinch-beck bracelet, Bristol pink & blue bottle, green & white china candlestick (from Margaret: Richmond Gem cigarettes) Things from Mr Mills to be paid for: Georgian small paste brooch, West African gold weight (one legged hunchback) wooden nutcrackers, African brass belt, top to fit my corkscrew; Georgian sharkskin black box. She also brought my moss-agate box from Mary Lucy and Lawrence proofs, bound, from Sagorski & Sutcliffe

Went over points in L's: Two Ways of Reading a Poem & transcopied for her.

Letter from someone called Gittes enclosing one in Spanish from Antonia, saying that Gelat was renting C'an Torrent to friends. SolomonGraves' dog eds. has been boarded out with a butcher in Palma: & killed a kid on the way to the sea.

Wrote to thank Mary Lucy for box; she has been ill in order to convince John of his mad jealousy; his apology to us was based on her illness.

Oct 7 Friday.

A reckless letter from David G. impertinent to me, impertinent to Laura. We both answered suitably.

David has helped Dorothy fix up a big oak modelling stand in her chapel. Alan & I knocked holes in the an old bucket Leonie found in the well and made a cresseta type of lamp eds. of it – the smoke escaped from the holes in the belfry and dislodged several bats.

S. Ghost ch chapter IX, and Dictionary with Alan.in Leonie made galettesbiscuits eds. – we bought a round iron galette pan, and a flat turning-stick and a thing like a croupier's rake for the edges.

We read Wodehouse's Summer Moonshine Summer Moonshine by P.G. Wodehouse. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Doran, 1937. eds. aloud in the evenings now.

Laura on Aristotlefor Lives of Wives eds., Damage, a children's story, Ghost.

Oct 8 Sat

Swiss Ghost ch chapter IX.

Dictionary.

My back is rather better, but I have taken no exercise for several days.

David made a drum for the house – apple keg, black leather, cord, wooden guys.

Took Dorothy to pick her first mushrooms.

Oct 9 Sunday

A letter from Juan Joan Junyer asking for a mirror for a friend's purse and some chocolate.

A stinking review in T.L.S. of Laura's poems The Purpose of Poetry: Writer and Motive by D.L. Murray, Times Literary Supplement 8 October, 1938. Friedmann Chapter 29, note 7 eds.: to which I replied suitably.

Swiss Ghost, Dictionary. Greeks & Trojans

Warm, windy, bad day.

Talk of Mussolini withdrawing troops & material from Spain.

Worked all day and till until 1.15 am.

Oct 10 Tuesday. Monday

Ghost, completing ch chapter IX

Dictionary with Alan.

A lot of time goes to making charcoal for 'Marthe'the stove KG, Beryl's now using this fugoncharcoal-burner KG for warming her attic.

Went to Montauban with David – first visit for about 10 days – got ordered small wood for Dorothy's cresseta type of lamp eds..

Now almost always win at Cambeluk: we are playing a correspondence game with Harry.

NonoGraves' cat eds. broke Laura's particular coffee cup,

Figure – sketch of cup

and she her blue glass bottle given by Karl.

Oct 11 Wednesday Tuesday

Fine day.

Went over ch chapter IX of Ghost again.

Dictionary with Alan (classifying & putting away verbs in box) and later with Laura.

Yvonne has a whitlowswelling in the finger or thumb eds. and couldn't come, Leonie has boils and had to be helped by us, M me Boutier has again not brought wash.

Worried about Schwarz: Jews are to have German passports cancelled.

Laura did a great chunk of Aristotle for Lives of Wives eds. & slept late.

Moonlight walk at midnight with Alan, Beryl, Dorothy, Laura.

Have solved lamp problem with 'Matador' burners (German).

Oct 12 Thursday Wednesday

Beryl & Dorothy went to Rennes & had lunch with Anita & Juan who then brought them & their shopping out – oil-stove for Beryl and new lamp. We now have 3 petrollamps KG which we hardly use and 7 oillamps KG.

Cleared away nounsfor Dictionary eds. and so freed the table: with Alan.

Poem about Adam & Death of God The Worm Gods eds. started

Leonie has a boil on her back: but as Yvonne didn't come (bad thumb) worked up to 1 am, ironing..

Oct 13. Friday. Thursday

A letter from David saying that I could afford – he knew from nameless informants – to send the whole family to university & that he didn't propose to try for a college scholarship. And, yes, he had grudges against me – about Jenny (I had acted unwisely) and about his childhood! I spent the whole day, nearly, answering.

A present of dahlias from Dorothy for my table.

Cleared up rest of Adjectivesfor Dictionary eds. with Alan

In the evening David played on his home-made flute.

Oct 14 Friday

Dictionary and another two drafts of the poem – 'The Worm Gods' and work on Greeks & Trojans (references).

Almost the last mushrooms.

A slight tiff with Beryl because I noticed the typewriter was dirty in her attic & brought it down to clean – but all right.

A brave letter from old Schwarz who thinks Brazil ,where Nickel is, too far.

Oct 15 Saturday

Finished Worm Gods after a lot of work.

Dictionary with Alan.

Laura Dorothy Beryl & David went in a car to Montauban – Alan's birthday tomorrow – while Alan & I went to St Uniac saw the sacred well & played Russian billiards (1 franc a time) at the pub.

Boiled chestnuts from our trees, and apple charlotte, and rabbit pâté from the Hotel Ouest.

T.L.S. did not print my letter but wrote a smarmy letter to me. I replied hotly.

We made up a sentence each adding a word: 'Let none of us further further allow ourselves to consider the Germans.'

Fullstop by Beryl.

Oct 16 Sunday

Alan's birthday. Dictionary

Alan did not realize that a big party was being arranged for him in the evening in the Chapel: which we had converted into a sort of Bower with bracken, Spanish chestnut shoots, boughs with apples, holly, vine, and a collection of frightful fungus.

We had supper with a big table, covered with food & strewn with sweets, and extemporized a play in which Dorothy could somehow not join. But just before I had left the a lamp smoking in Laura's dressing room and this, and, the washroom & L's bedroom was covered with a thick layer of smuts, with black cobwebs festooned from ceilings – like a picture of a miser's den. I worked till until 3.15 cleaning while Laura did Aristotlefor Lives of Wives eds..

Enclosure – Letter to RG and LR from Karl Goldschmidt

11a. Cosway Street Marylebone Rd. N. W. 1.

Oct. 15. 1938 Dearest Laura & Robert,

We were so glad to hear from you: we needed your letter very much. This passport withdrawal about which you write: I have had no idea that this was on the programme again: your mentioning it is the first I heard about it. We had something of a self-denial week last week: due to the purchase of two deck-chairs as the floor was getting too cold to sit on when we have friends; so I haven't had a paper every day & I must have missed it. I don't think it is anything too worry much about: unless it is one little item in Mr Chamberlain's game of understanding Hitlers racial policy: which I do & cannot believe. In that case, of course, it would be only too legal to get rid of all the refugees, lock, stock & barrel, with the excuse of their not possessing legal papers. Otherwise it simply means my not being able to travel, which for financial & other reasons I never have considered. I shall soon know what is going to happen. Harold will have to apply for extension of my permission to the Home-Office on Monday. My time is up on the 8th of November. I am hoping for the best & not worrying & I hope you won't either. I shall not fail to tell you of any developments that might arise. Schwarz's position is definitely something to worry about: do let me know of whatever you hear.

So glad to hear that Dorothy is starting work so quickly & under such good auspices. Please give her our love & tell her that we think often of her & that we hope work will be good & satisfying.

The Deyá letter upset me very much but I would not have missed it for anything in the world. Poor, poor SolomonRG's bulldog. eds & poor poor Can Torrent & everything & everybody. Some people will have to suffer for causing so much suffering. I have no words to express my feelings, but I have never felt so near to you, Laura and Robert, than when I read these letters. May God bless you: meaning what it doesn't mean. This is one further step toward the ultimate rightness of things: I believe we are very near it now. Nearer than ever.

(By the way, I read George Bernamo's book: it is not only an apologia for Catholicism honest but a queer apologia for French royalism of such an exclusive kind that G.B. denies everybody the right to call himself a royalist except himself. Though he does not give any reason for this extraordinary attitude. I read the book mainly because from the photo on the wrapper I remembered him very well, & due to a nostalgic feeling that produced. You know him: he is the thick-set Frenchman of pallid complexion, startling blue eyes, untidy grey-black hair & moustache with a game leg, who used to sit scribbling & holding court at any time of day in the Alhambra & Borne. There is little good in his book.)

I feel strongly the Germany jokes were something more than only bad taste. I apologize. I would not have sent them now. Thanks for making me feel easier about them. I cannot tell you how thinking of you helped us to get over those dark days. I was surprised at myself & felt almost ashamed for having faith where other people were so poor cursed my inarticulateness which prevented me from spreading it & helping. No, I have no fear of any ultimate consequences.

I first heard of Margaret's leaving Norman from Harry & Alix whom we invited for coffee one evening last week. I had not seen Margaret for over a month though Marie saw her frequently until she found a room. A day or so later she looked Marie up. According to Marie she does not think that the Himpem's job is suitable as she is looking for a job where she has maids under her. I fear Margaret avoids me very carefully. I beg you not to mention this to her as it might in the end prevent her from seeing Marie as well & then she Margaret would have nobody here at all. It all comes from my saying that you had written to me, telling me to try to help her work out the problem of going to France. She felt that she had been 'discussed'. I am very sorry it happened, though I cannot see that my doing so was very wrong. Margaret is very difficult to help. She suffers from spasms of self-poisoning as I used to: so I think that for the moment I cannot do anything except try to help her through Marie. I am sorry if it messed everything up. Besides there may be nothing in this theory of mine. Only she does never come when she would find me at home. I suppose she will have written to you by now. I am very sorry for both Norman & Margaret.

About Harold: I don't know: I wish to think there was hope. But he seems so hopelessly entangled in this Buddhist tomfoolery. Maybe it will pass.

I read the Times Lit. Sup. Review & by God, I was angry! On the other hand I don't see what else they could have done: as every any attempt at decency would be out of keeping with this paper's present policy. It is disgusting. Harold told me about Humbert WolfeEnglish poet who reviewed LR's Collected Poems for the Observer, see Friedmann 319. eds..

Dear Eric: I thought of him & Ldenka often during these days. How splendid of them to carry on the good work.

Thanks for the cat names: yes, we did find one, though time must show whether it is a good one as it has not yet sunk in. We called her SOETKIN: after Till ULENSPIEGEL'S mother in Cosher's Flemish opera. She was a good woman: that's all. And we just hope our Soetkin will be a good cat. She has made for much smoothness of life: as cats will have it so & we love her very much and are grateful to her. She sends greetings & puts her soft little pads against your face & says: Who are you?

Marie has something of a job since about two weeks ago. She takes Sally, Olive's daughter to school every morning & collects her in the afternoons. And there is another person who has her place cleaned by her once a week. A very Alma-Squarish place, Marie says & likes doing it the better for it.

When is THE WORLD & OURSELVES coming out: Marshall Simpkin, the retailers, asked the other day: Marie says will I answer her letter & give her love & say thank you & to understand that pens are difficult things to give love with but saying so less so. And that she likes Sally & taking her but is still looking for something less far & more substantial.

We had dinner at Ethel's on Thursday & NancyNicholson? eds. was there too. We had some very wholesome talk till very late. We are looking forward to having them here soon.

To Robert's letter: Yes, everything shall be done on Monday & I shall let you know as soon as things happen. (I often have the feeling that I have known T.E. intimately. Not that I care for the feeling. Do you think he is dead enough, or not yet?)

I suppose it is a good thing my being here: though not good enough: missing you so often. I am looking forward to the proof copy. And best wishes on publication.

And, dear Laura & Robert, how sorry we are about David. It is horrifyingly, shockingly wicked of the boy. We do symphatize sympathize so much. I think we saw this smouldering in him ever since he returned from Italy. And sorry for David too. It is so difficult to be young & still more difficult to bear it gracefully. Luckily he can't escape getting older &, I am sure, more graceful.

Nice that Jenny is getting on. The son of Jenny's director in Liverpool is a good customer of ours. Harold told him about Jenny & he is going to ask his father to keep an eye on her in the way of interest.

I had supper with a Daily Herald man whom you know: Roger Pippit. I rather liked him as he was so sweet to his wife & because he is so fed up with Fleet StreetLondon eds.. He lives in a basement on top of which lives Louis McNeice. He said that the neighbouringness made him lose his respect for him as a manas well after he lost it for him as a poet.

This all for today. Special love for Alan, Beryl, Dorothy & David & the lovingest love from the both of us to the each of you & all

Karl & Marie Kincaid's book British Social Life in India by Dennis Kincaid. London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1938. see 1 December, 1938 eds. to follow as soon as possible. Is D.K. the chap who sent you poetry from India? I hope not as D.K. died recently. The book is supposed to be good. It was almost my job to choose the illustrations but house-hunting after having not found anything after a strenuous fortnight made me refuse. I found our new place exactly the time when I should have been in the British Museum.

Oct 17 Monday.

All morning & afternoon cleaning out the smutted rooms: with help from Alan & Yvonne & Leonie. Not much damage after all.

Very sleepy: but dictionary with Alan.

In the evening we resumed 7 ¼card game eds., and then I went to bed, read Wodehouse's Summer Moonshine Summer Moonshine by P.G. Wodehouse. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Doran, 1937. eds., slept

The wash-barrel tub came from the menuisiercarpenter eds. after 4 weeks.

Oct 18 Tuesday

Dictionary all day: and got cross with David for playing Cambeluk with long, long pauses like chess.

Dorothy having trouble in getting clay for sculpture: got pipe clay by mistake. Then there is a man in Montauban who digs wells & gets out clay: but he is never to be found.

Very bright autumn weather but no frosts yet.

Laura on Aristotlefor Lives of Wives eds. chiefly.

Oct 19 Wednesday

Went to Montauban and had my hair cut: the barber much annoyed because dinner had just been served, but did it silently and swiftly cutting away much too much.

In afternoon Anita, Juan, Juanita, Francisca, Miguel, Joanna Juana KG & her husband from Tours came.

Francisca & Juan danced a boleroa lively Spanish dance eds. to the rest of us singing & me banging a drum.

Dictionary.

Oct 20 Thursday

Dictionary all day: with Alan.

Dorothy got clay at last for her modelling from a well-digger: grey.

Yvonne has to leave us because of her heart: we also paid off Boutier the washerwoman because she was always a fortnight behind and overcharged.

Laura helping David & doing Aristotlefor Lives of Wives eds. – till 3.30 am.

Margaret has not got a job yet & Norman did not say goodbye to her.

Mushroom season over.

Oct 21 Friday.

Dictionary.

A man with a circular saw came & sawed 6 cords, i.e. 18 cubic metres of wood for us for 110 francs. First we had to clear out the planks from the shed.

Laura has a bad cold but goes on working.

We bought 20 lbs pounds of quinces and 6 kilos of sugar and made 30 lb pounds of jam & membrilloquince jelly KG. I had Dorothy, David Beryl & Alan helping me in the salon, I peeled, the others sliced and we all stirred in turn. It took from 10 pm to 1 am & we read Jack Shephard in turns. I improved remedy invented recipe First wipe the quinces, then peel & core them: boil up peel & core separately and in a little water and then squeeze off liquor adding to flesh cut in pieces & put in a little water: then as usual with jam. But the more resistant pieces after some boiling we put separately to boil and when we with sugar then squeezed them separatel into a thick paste which we went on stirring until it began blowing steam bubbles. This was the membrilloquince jelly eds..

Oct 22 Sat

David answered very nicely both to me & Laura. He wants to join the C.U.Cambridge University KG Aviation squadron.

Finished the membrilloquince jelly eds..

A large part of yesterday & today went to a letter to the Times. L.Supp about L's review. (They said they would publish a correction of factual statement.) Eventually I destroyed it & Laura wrote herself shortly & firmly cancelling the subscription, after 10 years.

Dictionary (Laura on Ghost, Aristotle for Lives of Wives eds., David (R's) Furniture, Rimbaud.) Went to Montauban trying to get someone to replace Yvonne, forbidden to work. No luck.

Started a poem about Habit.

Fall of CantonChina eds..

Oct 23 Sunday.

Dictionary, headache, aspirin, fine weather, more aspirin. With David put out a washing line of about 30 yards from a cypress to a lime. A girl called Marie came for an interview about work: difficult because she wanted a full-time job, but we will arrange somehow with the Levrels at the farm.

David gave us tea in his room, éclairs, & Laura unveiled a monument for the dining-room – a hippocampseahorse? eds., given by M me Perou, on a fine-clay stand modelled by David Dorothy with David's help in the structure.

More work on the poem Habit Sleep? eds.

Oct 24 Monday

Dictionary most of day.

Finished the poem: Habit Sleep.

We engaged the girl Marie for full time from next week : she works at a baker's.

I made a string back to my chair to support the cushion

Went looking for mushrooms with Dorothy in the warm sun: found two.

Laura doing Aristotlefor Lives of Wives eds., Greeks & Trojans, Ghost; a joke in helping David with Furniture (he was slow about seeing a point) I must follow the natural movement of the wood. We burn about 10 logs a day. Are living more economically than for some years.

Oct 25 Tuesday

Whole morning on housework – chiefly cleaning the salon ceiling.

David went to Rennes to get some Furniture drawings photographed.

Dorothy remodelled Laura's broken amber-holdercigarette-holder KG – by hand for over an hour.

Dictionary with Alan; & Alan & Laura.

Evening Walk after supper in cold & mist with Beryl to station hotel.

Fall of HankowChina eds..

Oct 26th Wed.

Dictionary

Checked Scene 4 of Greeks & Trojans

Cold weather at last: wearing corduroys. To village with Alan & got new bicycle tire, ordered ember-shovel, jampots.

Dorothy owned to a stone head she had done of Laura (Laura had already guessed) & showed it me.

Laura on Harry's Numbers, Ghost, Aristotlefor Lives of Wives eds..

Evening walk to Saint Uniac with Dorothy & bought jam & cracknelsbiscuits eds..

She showed me her stone head of Laura done by memory: good in profile, front face wrong. Laura saw it, and Dorothy is going to break it up now.

Oct 27 Thursday.

Dictionary as/usual with Alan

Brushed hall & staircase cieling ceiling while David & Dorothy polished furniture unpolished for some 50 years.

A poem called The Suicide in two drafts.

Dreamed that a certain Captain Gilchrist answering a competition in a paper for the best wittiest distinction between 'private soldier' and 'other rank' wrote: 'In the Indian Army among the white a full private soldier is distinguished from an other rank by being in brackets.'

Brackets meant something like rickets, I remember.

Laura spent most of day in a letter to George Buchanan about novels – he had written a feeble article on them.

Oct 28 Friday

Dictionary with Alan: Laura feeling very on edge as to noise and interruptions. Having difficulty with her Aristotle storyfor Lives of Wives eds..

To Montauban: another puncture, got shoes mended.

Curing my perpetual toothache with calendula.

Everyone has colds.

The Hippocampseahorse? eds. statue monument is falling to pieces.

Have had triangular contests at Cambeluk with: Alan David & me. In each of 3 cases Alan beat me; I, David; David, Alan.

Oct 29 Sat.

Dictionary with Alan: and again with Laura at night.

Final verse to The Suicide in the Copse.

Leonie went to Rennes; so much housework.

Picked hips and red blackberries to flavour apple-jam. At night in the Salon made 30 lbs pounds flavoured also with lemon peel & (too much) cloves: Beryl, Dorothy, Alan helping (David abstained). Finished at 2 am. Heard from Honor after silence of 2 months. She was to have come but had no money.

At jam making asked Beryl 'Frankly, are you bored with the stirring?'

'No, not frankly.'

D.L.Murray wrote to Laura: if she cares to make a factual statement about reviewof her poems in the T.L.S. eds. he will print it. Laura wrote again ending: 'if you answer this I will write again.'

Oct 30 Sunday

Housework all morning.

Dictionary in afternoon.

Laura not feeling well and unable to work except a few letters.

In evening I started a children's story about a castle The Castle-Keeper eds..

Laura gave me a curative sentence to enunciate:

Tripping elaborately the delicate elusive roebuck – or was it doe? – apprehended that the constellations were indeed ever present. And he said 'O' –just that!

'Just that' by Beryl.

Log Entries of Letters for October, 1938

Oct 1.

Haas about loan etc.; proofs of poems etc

2

David G. CN.

6

Liddell Hart.

7.

Paymaster General; Philip Hill; Mary Lucy; David G.

9.

T.L.Supp; Margaret; Watt about Spanish pub. A Mills,

10

Sangorski & Sutcliffe, cheque: also my proofs to bind.

13

David (12[?] pp pages ) Karl.

15

T.L.S. editor.

16

N.N., Mrs. Pearson, Peggy Carlow.

18

Anderson. Ann Walker about poems for N.Y.T.

22

David

23

N.N. cheque. £150 David about scholarships.

28

Sam.

30

David G.

Oct 31 Monday

Dictionary in morning, and The Castle in afternoon.

News that Margaret has got a job and that Methuen's have accepted The Left Heresy and intend to make it a low-priced book, to counteract Left Book Club Gollancz's KG.

We went out at midnight to the Grove (David, Dorothy, Beryl, Alan, Laura & I) with the cats. The ghosts were remarkably calm this year.

Finishing specimen definitions for the dictionary (Laura, Alan & I).

Madame Perou gave us quince jelly in exchange for ours: she said ours tasted too much of the fruit. Hers was French – almost pure sugar.