Letter from Thomas MacGreevy to George Yeats. 3 July 1926.
[p.1 recto]
15 Cheyne Gds.
3rd July 1926.
My dear George
It would be a relief to write not a proper letter but a note, for I
have spent my good Sunday writing "a William and
Mary commode 5 ft 4 in wide produced
"£682.10s at Christies". And what do I care
about the price (or the width) of the commodes of
William and Mary! Yes
London has helped in some ways and I am not sorry
to have made a halt here. But I don't think it ought to be for good, and I
don't honestly believe I've written any better from
for being here. Eliot (as an
editor) is more my line than Russell and that
is all. So far as rhymes go Red
Hugh is the only one written here that is as good as three or
four of those I did before I left Ireland. I'm not
writing anything recently. Since Grundy went to America (he came back last
week) I've had too long and too exhausting a day every day, and I had to try
and keep up the Nation,MacGreevy began writing
art reviews for The Nation and Athenaeum in June 1925,
after he was introduced to Leonard
Woolf, the literary editor, through T S Eliot. He would go on to write for the magazine
until 1927.note
Litt. Sup.MacGreevy regularly contributed to
The Times Literary Supplement
through 1926.note &c in the evenings and over the week ends.
I have notes for three or four things, and I worked over some of the old
ones and thats all. Besides I'm very tired in my brain and get headaches.
About Lennox I hope its true
though I don't pine to hear of his engagement to say Miss
Moran.Probably a member of the United
Arts Club.note Only Hester is really able for him. Domestically they are both
impossible and there is real freemasonary in them about some things. He sent
her a playThe Big House.
See MacGreevy's letter of 16 August 1926 and Yeats's letter of 19
September 1926 for more discussion of the play.note to read the other
day as empty and bad as some of Corneille's later plays are said to be, and though she might
have been grudging if she'd felt it to be good, she was simply mad because
it was ineffectual. One reason I'd[p.1 verso]be glad to leave
London is that I think he ought to be here and
here he feels that I am (like her and everybody who is really Irish) in the his way.
??
He is so fearfully English now (with his tea on the lawn with two
maiden ladies at whatever country house he was at, and with Mrs.
Alcock in the play pining for England)
that I incline to think his work would probably get good again if he came
here. To let the house for a year and give the land he loves a trial would
do no harm and might do
him a lot of good. Undoubtedly he would be a loss to
Dublin, but it would be no harm to let
Dublin realise that and of course he would be a
loss to you and W.B. and even to
Augusta, however much
she might hate to acknowledge it. Here he'd be happy if he had a place of
his own and could dance round a bit with his Hazel,
& his May and condescend to look in on his
Hester and his
Violet and his ElizabethMacGreevy is
probably referring here to Violet
Bonham-Carter and Elizabeth Bowennote once in a way. I urged him to
become a dramatic critic here for a year but
what would be much more in his line would be to do a causerie on plays for
some fashionable periodical, like Aldingtons on literature in
'Vogue' &c. He is a rotten critic but a
charming causeur. Besides in London his passion for
Plunkingreferring to the projects of Sir Horace Plunkettnote so
to speak, for
??
giving himself the feeling that he is improving things could be
fitted in between the coolings of his tea which is where he likes to fit'
it. I fear however it isn't much use in my urging things, or you either
probably. W.B. wants him, so he'll stay,
and because W.B. has rediscovered Anglo
Ireland write footling plays
about
with Anglo Ireland as the stainless heroine in
the snow (or the fire). I
thought it, except for an odd amusing remark and one or two of the curtains
a sadly indifferent business that play. What do you think? I thought is as
bad as the Blackbird was good. Its touch and go what I do
next. They don't want me much longer at the Connoisseur,Founded in 1903,The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs was
the leading monthly art periodical, covering the history and criticism
of the visual arts with special attention to current developments in all
aspects of the fine and decorative arts. MacGreevy's contribution to The Connoisseur can not be ascertained as most
of his
articles were unsigned and none of the magazine's records seem to have
been preserved.note and I am trying to make up my mind as to whether
I should go LunningMacGreevy worked off and on as a tour guide for
Lunn's Travel Agency. Begun by Sir
Henry Simpson Lunn after the end of his career as a
minister, Lunn's Travel Agency arranged tours to
Europe, especially
Switzerland and Italy, and
Israel. These tours introduced large areas of
Switzerland to the English public, increasing
the popularity of winter sports. Sir Henry formed
the Hellenic Travellers' Club, Alpine Sports
Limited, the Church Travellers' Club,
and the Free Church Touring Guild. In addition,
Lunn's conducted cultural cruises, combining travel with lectures by
well-known speakers. His firm has survived into the twenty-first century
as Lunn-Poly.note or stay and stay abroad, or stay
here till about the end of August when I think they the Connoisseur won't have anything left for me to do. I don't much
want to go Lunning (since Touraine has not caught on it would[p.2 recto] have to be Belgium) but I do want a change. My
head aches four days in the seven at least.
'Erb walked much further than
Whitehall—the Custom House is three miles
at least further on. Drake setting
out for the Spanish Main so to speak! I haven't seen him for a good while
now. I met Rummel in the street and
he begged me to make sure & let him know
if that Lennox was
about if he ??
in town any time, but never said
you're in town yourself! Not that I minded much. I'm sure I'd feel
like Ezra Pound about him if I saw
anything much of him. Yet without wanting to spend any time with him I like
him and would go and hear him play any time. Queer. I hear spasmodically
from Eliot, always the pet in his
complicated way. He was back for a few days and rang me up about something
and now I think is back again. I never see
him. He writes a solemn letter but giggles a little on the phone and is very
intriguing and mysterious. I hope he's writing but of course he's bound to
be. I forget whether I asked you if you had read
to make sureMrs. Dalloway
.Virginia
Woolf's fourth novel, Mrs.
Dalloway, was published in 1925.note I think you might
like it very much. Let me send it if you haven't read it. 'Twould be
admirable in BallyleeThoor Ballylee, the Norman tower near
Lady Gregory's
Coole demesne in County
Galway and renovated under George Yeats's direction, had been the
Yeats's retreat since 1918.note and in between
doses of Spengler. You didn't say whether you'd found any pleasure in Eupalinos. It doesn't matter about the
Leonardo
, but I would scarcely take it on for any English publisher. Here
tradition is very strong in matters of art, in
Ireland it isn't. So it might stir one or two
potential talents in Ireland. Here also anyone who is
likely to care for it will probably be able to read it in French and there
they wouldn't often. So probably I shall leave it unless I find someone to
bring it out in Ireland. Yet I'd like to try it. I
read nothing—yesterday one poem by Mallarmé (Triste est la
chair et j'ai lu 'tous les livres)MacGreevy is quoting the first line of Stephane Mallarme's poem "Brise
Marine".note the day before I dug in the garden! The
day before that read Matthew
Arnold's essay on Shelley, how like Phibbs
Shelley was! attacking Edward
Dowden,Arnold's Essays in
Criticism. Second Series published in 1888 included an essay
on Percy Bysshe Shelley among other poetsnote the day[p.2 verso] before that saw "Petroushka"Dighilev's
Ballet Russe produced Petroushka with choreography by
Fokine and music by Stravinski.note
The note has become a bad long crossish letter. Forgive it. I'm glad of
an excuse to write. I approve of what you did about the
Stuarts.
Sure It doesn't matter whether he owns racehorses or not. His writing is
of no consequence to anyone nor ever will be
, amen. My friend Mrs. Carswell has been seeing Maurice Greiffenhagen (who for
eight years was her loverCatherine Carswell neé
MacFarlane and Maurice Greiffenhagen met in
Glasgow. Though Carswell was unmarried at
the time, Greiffenhagen
was. Carswell would marry and divorce her first husband
Herbert Jackson in 1908 and marry her second
husband, the painter Donald
Carswell, in 1915. Some critics believe that the character of
Louis Pender in her novel Open the
Door! is modeled after Greifenhagen.note) after not seeing him for over a
dozen years and is so pleased to find herself liking him & he her that even her husband
scarcely resents the past. Wonderful business this love. They had only one
conversation, in the street and they stopped
to look at each other every twenty yards while they talked, the way you'd
see oldish people, priests, &c in Ireland.
The memories and everything have so transfigured her that she's like a thing
in some very vivid and blessed sort of dream. I'm astounded. His wife
however was always very resentful (naturally) so they're not going to try
and be friends all together husbands, wives
& all I mean. Seems such a pity when all that is over and
only the understanding and liking left. She and her husband have trotted off
to the Academy to see Greiffenhagens portraits this afternoon (Monday). Isn't is amusing and pleasing.
What of Anne and Michael?
My love to all.
Tom MacGreevy.