Meanwhile I debate a personal problem: should I give up writing for the Toronto Star? I want to be rid of the book articles but they do not want to lose me and I have hinted that I might revive Marchbanks’s Diary. But the pros and cons of that are, so far as I can determine, thus: PRO: (1) Keeps me associated with journalism, which has grown to be an addiction. (2) Gives me an alter ego for the clownish, anarchic, Rabelaisian side of my nature. (3) Brings me $6,500 per annum. (4) Leacock was both professor and humorist and it kept him human. CONTRA: (1) Is Marchbanks a dignified creation for an academic, and will this diminish me in the eyes of the College? (2) Marchbanks will not be the same creature: is this resurrection a backward step? (3) Would Marchbanks take creative ability which should be used in more important work or can I, like Dickens, spend freely? DECISION: I drop it: but not for the CONTRA reasons above. I simply have no time for it if I am to do any writing in addition to the College work which impends. (Later note: Under persuasion, I continued it. But did resign and the last column appeared June 16, 1962.)
MONDAY, AUGUST 28: I am forty-eight: was given a magnificent camera, slide viewer, records, scissors. Arnold Edinborough calls—would I write for Saturday Night after year’s end? Excellent dinner and with Brenda and Jenny (Rosamond ill) to Gone with the Wind, very good after twenty years. How lucky I am in my family, how fortunate in my life, for which God be thanked.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6: On Saturday, September 2, Vincent Massey called me, very anxious that on our meeting of September 16 we should elect J. Tuzo Wilson (geophysics), James Eayrs (political economy), Caesar Wright (dean of law), and Gordon Roper (English at Trinity) to senior fellowships; he wanted me to defer approaching them till he had discussed them with Claude Bissell. But Bissell is in Calgary for Canada Council meetings. This was impossible as these men must have explanations and time in which to approach their college heads. On Tuesday, September 5, I met Lionel and Bill at the Toronto Club at 12:25; they asked me to phone VM at once. He was insistent and hurt: said it would not take him long to decide to accept such an honour. But we discussed this matter and many others until 5 p.m. and Lionel undertook to persuade VM to wait. Impatience now could wreck us. We also discussed finance: will the university give us anything so long as any Foundation money is to be had? We have a verbal agreement from Bissell but would the university businessmen honour it? Lionel tells me that Raymond never wanted a college, is jealous of Vincent, and that awful family rows break out when Raymond accuses Vincent of using Foundation money for his own aggrandizement. (VM gets $7,500 p.a. for bossing the Foundation.) Raymond has had an operation for double hernia and cannot be present on September 16, God be praised! Lionel makes more sense about money than any of the Masseys. We cleared the air usefully and I think we may defer furnishing the chapel for a while. Meanwhile I think I have a plan to circumvent the university accountants: let the Library be a separate entity under the College to which the Foundation makes gifts; the Library can transfer funds to the College for specific improvements but these may not include current financing. Can the lawyers make this work?
Bill tells me a curious bit of gossip relating to VM’S detestation of women in universities and indeed in any but a social capacity. Charity Grant,42 VM’S wife’s niece, when drunk, lays it to his resentment, perhaps unconscious, of his wife Alice, the late Mrs. Massey, Charity’s “Aunt Lal.” Charity says VM was no great shakes when they married and Aunt Lal, as Sir George Parkin’s daughter, was much in demand among the nobility and gentry. Aunt Lal introduced VM into the best English society and in this sense “made” him—which he does not care to remember and thus discounts women in men’s affairs. But this sounds to me like family jealousy, and a too-glib bit of psychologizing. I think it more likely to be rooted in his Edwardian view of life, and of women, if “ladies,” doing their work by boudoir-government.
I disagree with Bill Broughall about the character of the meeting on September 16. I want it to be formal, to wear my gown and to read the statutes in full, all according to Cocker43; he thinks the statutes could be taken as read. But I think formality and perfect propriety are better: let us begin as we mean to go on.
Lionel is anxious that all business be arranged so that VM shall not be fatigued; apparently two hours is about the extent of his endurance without a rest.
Lionel asks if I am on the payroll of the university; I answer that I am nominally but that I have had no tangible evidence of it yet. I am working on this College so far unpaid, but I do not really care so long as the end is achieved.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10: Lay late, then to Bryn with Brenda for lunch, long intimate chat, and a glorious afternoon in the sun. We discuss happiness and we are agreed it is not lack of cares but a touchstone deep within to which one can appeal at any time with confidence of being upheld. It is self-preservative, a serenity below the power of outward disturbances. We go for row later. In the evening Jenny returns from Stratford full of gossip.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11: On Saturday last Vincent Massey called Bill and gave him a long scalding about the statutes: he resents references to “the head office of the corporation,” thinks “assistant master” should be “vice-master,” etc. All trivialities but these things dominate his mind. Then he called me; I had had two teeth drawn in the morning and was muddle-headed, but calmed him. Today he called again, fussing about who should be secretary at the meeting on Saturday next, and stewing that I should see Ron Thom about the kitchens, as if that were not in hand. What a Meddlesome Massey he is! During the day Bill called twice: he had Lionel to lunch and pushed him to the point of facing money, which the Masseys hate. Bill wants $50,000 for College extras right away, and $20,000 a year for the Library right away. But will he get it? We shall see. Called Ron Thom in Vancouver. It seems that on Saturday I must make some things clear which the Masseys cannot see: that this College is not as yet of interest to more than a few people, and that it must be presented to the public as an institution of higher learning of the most serious kind, and never as a museum of bygone customs. This will demand some tact.
Note on Bill Broughall. He is fond of violent language: VM “shits all over Lionel”; difficult Foundation meetings are “shit-sessions”; Massey parsimony over trifles is “skinning the turd.” I take this to be the safety valve of a very high-strung, emotional man encased in the shell of a lawyer. He says VM’S haemorrhoids and prostate bother him very much and the relict of Fruity Metcalfe is unkind and will not write. Poor old man! Bill says VM is pleased by my suggestion that his papers come to the College.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15: To Toronto and see Ron Thom at the Park Plaza and lunch with him and Geoffrey Massey. I saw the revised plans for the Master’s house and also some bad drawings of the drawing-room and study, filled with vulgar furniture—some draughtsman’s notion of the academic life. I liked the plans. At 3:30 to the Shell Building and meet with Ron, Hart and Vincent Massey, and Geoffrey ’til 7, a long session in which we canvass and approve all the plans, and it looks as if we may break ground in mid-November. VM pernickety about nomenclature—perhaps wisely so—and so we speak of “Hall,” “the Common Room,” and “the Round Room.”
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, TORONTO: I meet the Foundation at the Toronto Club at 2:30 and we go carefully through McDonald, Currie’s long, windy, twaddling, but useful and enlightening report, and much of the basis of College organization becomes clear. They had met in the morning and voted $100,000 for the beginning of College investment, and $50,000 for current funds, but have not decided on a Library sum. This was because Bill brought them up to the mark at last, after months of work. Also, they are going to take advantage of new trust laws to invest more profitably, and do not seem dismayed by the large deficit McDonald, Currie foretell. I am hugely relieved. At 7 p.m. we assemble again, with Claude Bissell and the dean of graduate studies, A.R. Gordon, and have an excellent dinner at which VM proposes my health, and I propose the College’s. Then our first meeting; I put on my gown, read the first statute. We vote in
Lionel, Hart, Geoffrey, and Bill Broughall, and I speak seriously; we then vote Vincent Massey as Visitor, and propose Tuzo Wilson, James Eayrs, Gordon Roper, and Caesar Wright as Senior Fellows. A.R. Gordon won’t have Tuzo, as he is never at home and is a “glamour-boy of science”—some jealousy there? So put in Haines the biologist, and Robert Finch,44 French literature. An excellent meeting and everyone seemed well satisfied; I think I chaired it well without being too efficient, and it was dignified but not stuffy. Much has been done this weekend to bring the College out of dreamland. I am much happier about the whole project.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17: Lay late and h.t.d., my fatigue having disappeared. In the afternoon finish Franny and Zooey by Salinger and walk in the garden preparing my lectures for Thursday. In the evening chat with Brenda. Colder today and I welcome it.
I am greatly relieved that the College is launched and money worries pretty well taken care of: the past two days the culmination of weeks of fuss and confabulation. I feel better about it than I have in months.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18: Very busy, wrote the five candidates for Senior Fellows, and wrote a Star column on Frederick Rolfe.45 In the evening to the film Raisin in the Sun with Brenda and Jenny, excellently acted. H.t.d., admirable.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20: To Toronto and Trinity and discuss his senior fellowship with Gordon Roper, who wants it and looks with pleasure on the task of forming a library. Derwyn Owen, the provost, is against it on grounds that it will take time that Trinity is paying for—could Massey College pay Trinity the hire of a lecturer to make up to them what they lose on Roper? This meanness from a college which has just inherited $7,000,000 from Gerald Larkin! Am very annoyed with Owen. At 3:45 to the president’s address to the freshmen: all heads and deans in full academic fig, and we process with the mace. Claude Bissell makes a very friendly reference to the College and also, when he talked of choice, said some students would have to choose between calculus and burlesque, adding, “Though the Master of Massey College reminds me that ‘Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare’ ”46—a chance remark I made on Saturday evening. I saw him afterward and his beautiful and charming wife, Christine, and mentioned Owen’s strange attitude to Gordon Roper’s senior fellowship. He said Owen sulks a lot, and has to be talked out of it, and is neurotically afraid somebody will get some money out of Trinity unjustly. (Amusing, as Trinity has got its wires crossed and is paying me $1,500 for my services, and I shall have to set them right: I am a university appointee and will, I presume, be paid by University College.) Then to UC and chatted with Prof. A.S.P. Woodhouse, who is sympathetically interested in Massey College. He was delighted that only men working for “serious”—i.e., humanities or science—degrees47 would be admitted and quoted very wittily from Lycidas:
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain,
The golden opes, the iron shuts amain.
The iron key of exclusion, said he, was the secret of quality.
Saw The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht at the Royal Alex and found it old-fashioned: music much of the mode of 1929 and the play construction the same—studious avoidance of climaxes, with the resulting sag at the end of every scene, and devices once new but now over-worn. Gypsy Rose Lee was starred, and played Jenny, but could not sing or act and was too plainly on hand because her name might draw some who would expect her to strip. But she has wonderful bodily ease and charm. The singing was all bad, and the production wanted pulling together; deathly pauses, and final curtain at 11:20.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, TORONTO: Bill lunched with me and we discussed College finance and investments, or rather he did and I pretended to understand. The law which demands that charitable trusts spend 90% of their income each year is the sticker, but I do not fully understand the complexities of the affair. He tells me also of his talk on the 25th with Derwyn Owen about Roper: Owen simply did not listen, he said, but decried Roper’s abilities—“What do you want him for, a dull fellow”—astonishing toward a member of his own staff. He admitted he disliked the notion of doing anything which might oblige the Masseys; said the College might be of use to graduate students not already attached to a college. His parting words: “It’ll be interesting to see if you ever get it off the launching-pad.” Bill was shocked at such pettiness in a clergyman. I had a higher opinion of Owen. But if he chooses to be small, nothing can be done except to beware of him in future and to see that so long as he is provost, Trinity men are not asked to be Senior Fellows. Meanwhile poor Roper looks miserable.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6: Vincent Massey calls about the College motto: Bill Broughall has suggested it be the Massey motto—Dum terar prosum—nineteenth-century strenuosity as opposed to scholarship. I do not like it but it is tactless to protest more than I do: damn Raymond, stupid ham! Miranda and Rosamond come home, Rosamond with the ’flu.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8: Lay late, then dyed my beard. A very pleasant day, we all do as we please: I read and garden a little, Brenda plays tennis; the girls go to the Waddells’48 cottage and poor Rosamond lies abed; an excellent Thanksgiving dinner. Now the girls are adults how much simpler these holiday weekends are: no need to plan and whip up enthusiasm for projects.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 9: I garden in the morning. In the afternoon read, and to film Fanny with Jenny: quite good. Vincent Massey calls: still fussing about motto! I spend all evening seeking one and grow weary of the project, but I must not settle for a poor one. The plain fact seems to be Vincent Massey dreads a row with Raymond. I propose Horace: Sapere aude49 (Epistles 1.2.40). VM likes this very much, but instead of putting it up to Raymond as he was supposed to do, he wants me to bring it up at the next meeting and get it passed by vote. If Raymond objects then I think I shall have to make difficulties myself and be firm, for this havering has gone on long enough and we need our grant of arms.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12: To Toronto. Feel unusually well and do an excellent day’s work—two good lectures, two good interviews. I lunched with R.H. Blackburn, the university librarian, who offers help in purchasing and cataloguing our books, and also their reference catalogue as a preliminary list and guide: this in return for duplicates of our cards and some assurance that our special collection will be reasonably available to all legitimate students, which seems fair enough. I spoke to him of a possible drama library and he was pleased with the idea. See WRD and Margaret. Both very well. Home by 7.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13: Feel ill. Rise, but cannot eat. Back to bed with ’flu and am miserable all day with temperature and exhaustion. Doze most of the time and read some of Martin Chuzzlewit. Very sudden and astonishing how well I was yesterday.
Roper phoned—the provost has relented, he speaks of the need for the older colleges to help the new, etc.—somebody has been at him and I presume Bissell—but I mistrust this devious Welshman and shall watch him carefully. Now we have all our Senior Fellows except Haines, who lingers, excellent reasons of scruple, fearing he is too old and too busy to be able to help us.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17: To Toronto. A fine day: I talk with Gordon Roper about the Library, about which he is enthusiastic. We take Miranda to dinner and to the Crest: Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape and Albee’s The Zoo Story. Brenda hated Krapp, I liked both. Then to Jane Mallett’s with Bruno Gerussi and Bill Needles for drinks and chat. Stay at the Benvenuto.50
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, TORONTO: 9 to 11, Ph.D. exam. I speak to the Osgoode Hall Legal and Literary Society at lunch at the King Edward Hotel. I had prepared a careful speech and it went well. To the Art Gallery with Brenda, tea with WRD, evening to A Taste of Honey at Royal Alex, then to chat with the Harrises.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, TORONTO: A very busy morning: graduate students demanding, very egotistical. The car is mended at last and we get away about 4 and arrive home very tired. Noble Brenda insists on driving me in again tomorrow for more Ph.D. examinations!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22: This past week I have had my first experience as an examiner of graduate students and have sat on three Ph.D. preliminaries. They are fasci
nating and enlightening. There was no very good examinee, unfortunately, and I am amazed at the sloppy thinking and limited vocabulary they display—and these fellows hope to earn their bread as scholars! One, whom I examined on Shakespeare, could not even remember who Malvolio was! Another, who wanted to do a thesis on Wilde, was mulish about the pronunciation of Pinero. But the examiners are the really interesting ones: those who assert powerfully what proves, when I check later, to be at best half-true; the learned and gentle, like Philip Child; the punitive, like Priestley; the “I-pity-your-ignorance-and-despise-you,” like Foakes; the businesslike and crystal-clear like Gordon Roper. Prof. Woodhouse says I am a good examiner, to my delight. I try to give the candidate a chance to show what he knows, but will not let him chatter.
I saw Roper on Tuesday. He is very pleased that Owen relented. He has several schemes for enhancing the Library, including a collection of Canadian fiction: the real collector’s flair—using knowledge before money. Bill tells me Vincent Massey is very cheerful these days and keen on the College. On Thursday VM calls and asks me and Brenda for the weekend of the 28th. On Friday I met Father Shook of St. Michael’s College at a Ph.D. exam: he expresses warm interest and approval of the College.
Every time I look at the site I am annoyed that nothing is being done: I would like to see demolition and some signs of action. We have gone as far as we usefully can without something physical happening. Get the building under way and new zeal will be generated.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26: To Toronto at 7; lunch with Brenda and Tom Symons and discuss Trent University till 3:30. We visit WRD and ask him about life in Thamesville.51 Robert Finch dines with us and is very interested in the housekeeping of the College. To Ward-Price for the Larkin sale and buy a tapestry for $1,000,52 some plates, and a chair; home at 2 very weary.
A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist Page 17