A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist

by Robertson Davies

  SATURDAY, APRIL 28: Lumbago is really bad. To Toronto on the 1 o’clock train and to the Club, where I doze and take aspirins till 6. Ron Thom dines with me and we discuss College matters. To the Harrises’ for a chat, and drive home with Miranda by 2:30.

  SUNDAY, APRIL 29: Lay late and loafed all day to my great benefit. A walk with Miranda in the afternoon. In the evening read and chat with Miranda and Jenny and drink cocoa: a real rest, first in a long time. Only one more week without Brenda. I need rest and think some respite in sight though perhaps not much. But hateful exams will soon be done and work better suited to me begins.

  I have been marking a hundred papers in English and am astonished that these people admitted to first-year honours work cannot spell or compose grammatical sentences, e.g.: “humour wants (once) more enters the picture”; “Boyle is funny in that he has no shame in lying on the Bible”; “she was pregnant for a child”; “(Dogberry) believes in making a farce out of his studies”; and that Oedipus is by Aristotle, and that Lady Bracknell is very fond of pickles (cucumber sandwiches); at least five cannot distinguish between “no” and “know.” I have to fail a great many, which may cause some trouble. But what else is there to do with someone who writes that “the Greek tragedy Oedipus has more unity of place … it all takes place on Othello’s front steps,” and thinks that comic elements are introduced into Othello by Beatrice and Benedick and Dogberry and says the Widow Quin “speaks only of the mundane things of life (e.g. dung).” It is the refinement coupled with ignorance that kills.

  A number of notes on College matters from the past few days. The ikon for the chapel is now a certainty. Ron Thom told me last night that he wants to make the chapel congruous with the ikon—he conceives of this in terms of the film of Ivan the Terrible. Hope this works. As he describes the building to me, it sounds more and more interesting and romantic; his use of leather very much appeals to me. Ron says Vincent Massey had not understood the brick of the College was to be a leather colour, though I knew this. The army has at last promised us four trumpeters for May 25th.

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 2: Rheumatism is no better: I am like a character part in a bad play. I finish the God-damned exam papers, all ninety-nine: twenty-three failures, however generous and undemanding I am. Donkeys! Illiterates! I doze all evening on the sofa. I am exhausted and really rather ill.

  FRIDAY, MAY 4: Rheumatism abates slightly. I write a Star column on A Pride of Terrys by Margaret Steen and do some College business. Miranda arranges her belongings to go to Stratford. In the evening we fuss and dither and are excited about Brenda’s return. Rosamond calls: she wants to go to airport to meet Brenda.

  SUNDAY, MAY 6, TORONTO: At Hawthorn Gardens. Miranda comes to breakfast and leaves for Stratford at 12. Rosamond comes to lunch and I take her and Jenny to a film, Only Two Can Play. Tea and to the airport to meet Brenda at 9:50. Take Rosamond back to BSS, then drive home by 1. H.t.d. very delightful and chat ’til 3. Brenda looks thin and rather tired from the journey but is really very well and has obviously enjoyed her holiday, but her reports of her family are not very encouraging: they are so queer about money.

  MONDAY, MAY 7: Back improved but still stiff. A lazy day. In the evening we heard Australian records, to bed early and h.t.d.—a wonderful rejoining of the human race. Then read Brenda’s travel diary—revealing, full of artist’s perceptions of colour and light.

  FRIDAY, MAY 11, STRATFORD: Vincent Massey called at 8:30 p.m. with two pieces of very good news: (1) The “augmentation of honour” has been approved and after a few more civilities among the great ones we shall have, in dexter chief on the Massey arms, a crowned lion with a maple leaf between its forepaws, on a blue ground—very fine. (2) An unidentified friend has told VM he has remembered the College substantially in his will, and thus we break the difficult duck of benefactions even before we are open! I am greatly cheered. Things are looking up. Invitations for 25th come. H.t.d.—very good!

  SATURDAY, MAY 12: In the morning busy at the Examiner. Brenda reads my Punch play and likes it very much and gives some good advice for revision.

  SUNDAY, MAY 13: Lie late, then dye my beard and wash my hair. In the afternoon read, doze, and fuss about: idleness is very refreshing. In the evening Brenda shows slides of her journey, most interesting, then we chat about the family situation in Australia. Brenda’s return makes everything easier and brings plans for the next few weeks into focus.

  TUESDAY, MAY 15: The vexed question for Massey College at present is: will the Chancellor bring his mace to the foundation stone laying? For two days this has engaged the attention of Robin Ross, the registrar, who seems very worried about it. I have been as diplomatic as I know how. The decision must, of course, rest with the university authorities, but I would like to see the mace27 for the Prince, and also for Vincent. But Jeanneret,28 the chancellor, Ross tells me on the q.t., is miffed because we have not invited all the Senate—more than a hundred extra. So no mace: the bedel will carry some sort of footman’s staff. I call this petty toward Vincent Massey, who is, after all, a former chancellor, and toward the Massey Foundation, who are giving a college to the university. But the pettiness of academics surpasses that of eighteenth-century European princedoms.

  Vincent Massey is agog to have some Honorary Fellows right away and names Harold Macmillan, Felix Frankfurter, and Père Lévesque. I oppose it. We shall look ridiculous with Honorary Fellows before we have any Junior Fellows.

  Bill Broughall knew Ernest Sirluck, who is to be next dean of graduate studies, in the army and dislikes him—“a nasty little Hebe”: but we shall see. He said Sirluck once boasted descent from a medieval knight called Sir Luck. Foolish, but understandable; not everyone is the great-grandson of Sir Something-or-Other Haggerty, once chief justice of Upper Canada, and author of a book of verse that Bill wants to give the College Library. These Toronto Tories have damned stiff necks and I shall take Sirluck as I find him.

  FRIDAY, MAY 18: A meeting at Devonshire House at 2:30 for final plans for the foundation stone laying. More people than I would have thought possible, from Ken Pringle, the site manager from Eastern Construction, through RCMP, city police, registrar’s office, contractor, architect, and lieutenant governor’s aide. Every detail is chewed over, every possibility canvassed (except rain). We all get our orders. The chancellor, it now appears, will have an “esquire bedel.” Then look over the building with Ron Thom: the quad, now its shape appears, is very exciting, but what appears to be my study would be cramped quarters for a poodle. But patience, patience.

  SATURDAY, MAY 19: To Kingston by car at 7 and to the Queen’s University convocation at 3. I am made LL.D., which I prize, partly because of the Massey College appointment. I speak well, Brenda and Rosamond say.29 At tea afterward see many old friends. Then to Arthur and Dorothy, who give us flowers. He is most kind. We dine in Belleville and are home by 10; h.t.d. A proud day.

  SUNDAY, MAY 20: Lay late. A lazy day, sat in the garden and read and chatted with Brenda. I greatly enjoy a day of idleness and real irresponsibility. I have a sense of fulfillment at my doctorate from Queen’s; a piece of unfinished business now very happily finished. My health is much better as the load of work lightens.

  TUESDAY, MAY 22: Very busy: rewrite my speech for the 25th three times and am ashamed of being so nervous about it. In the evening work on the seating plan of the luncheon on the 25th, which is troublesome. The Galt Reporter reports me dead!

  THURSDAY, MAY 24: Nerves are troublesome: stage fright at my age! To the Examiner office in the morning, then rest and pack, and at 5 pick up Jenny. Drive to Toronto to Hawthorn Gardens and dine with the Harrises at 7:30 and spend a very pleasant evening with them.

  FRIDAY, MAY 25, TORONTO: Laying of the cornerstone. At 11 a.m. to Hart House Reading Room with Brenda where the chancellor and Mrs. Jeanneret and the lieutenant governor and Mrs. MacKay join us. At 11:30 HRH Prince Philip appears with Vincent Massey and Claude Bissell, and we are presented. “This is an occasion when the men far out
shine the women,” says he, as Claude Bissell and the chancellor are in silver and gold, Keiller MacKay in a scarlet LL.D., and VM in an Oxford DCL, and I am in my new Queen’s D.Litt. outfit, red and blue, with white tie and bands. HRH questions me about the College and I explain our organization. Then the ladies are off in the lieutenant governor’s car and the rest of us walk in procession, as the streets have been closed. Procession thus:

  Chief of University Police

  2 RCMP Sergeants

  Bedel

  Chancellor

  Claude Bissell and Robertson Davies

  Lieutenant Governor

  his aide-de-camp

  Equerry and Secretary of HRH

  VM and HRH

  The much discussed mace appeared after all! Thus to the site, where I presented the Senior Fellows, who made the usual motley show, from Bill Broughall as a Dickensian barrister to Caesar Wright in purple. VM spoke very well to the 500-odd present (for all HRH’S Commonwealth Study Conference came); then HRH laid the stone and our trumpeters played a rather poor fanfare very well. HRH spoke easily and cheerfully; his line, I judge, is the Jolly Tar and he does it so well that he must be a very clever man. I replied to him thus—and I may as well stick in the actual text from which I read:

  Your Royal Highness, Your Honour, Mr. Chancellor,

  Ladies and Gentlemen:

  This is the first public act in the life of Massey College. It bears a name already honoured in our country and our University. We shall strive to bring new distinction to it here, by opening the path of honour to others. In this house the humanist and the scientist will live together as Fellows—that is to say, as companions and equals—thus to extend their curiosity and understanding beyond the bounds of any single discipline.

  We have chosen as our College motto an admonition from Horace: sapere aude—have the courage to be wise. We have not done so, I assure you, sir, without a full understanding of how hard it is to get and maintain courage, and how much fool’s gold offers itself to the prospector after wisdom. But we face our task with a good heart, and I dare to say a measure of gaiety, for what is the use of beginning a great task with a long face?

  No one can say with certainty when the idea of this College first entered the minds of its founders. The ideal of education which it serves, however, is at least 2500 years old. That ideal is partly education by instruction, partly education by association, and partly education by solitary labour; no single part, however fiercely pursued, can make up for the want of either of the others. The act of Legislature which brought us into being calls us “a community of scholars”; we shall strive to deserve that high compliment, and ever to be aware of the constant temptation of academic persons—which is to love, not the learning in ourselves, but ourselves in learning.

  To you, Your Royal Highness, I offer our thanks for taking time from the demands of your work here to perform this important symbolic act. Nowhere is a symbol subjected to such subtle and complex interpretation as in a University. But we are happy in knowing that this symbolic stone can yield but one message: it will tell all who pass our door of your sympathy with the kind of work we mean to do here—the serious, rigorous and humble pursuit of all knowledge, all interpretation, and all fruitful intuition.

  When our College is completed we hope that we may have the honour of showing you that scholars can be good company. Until then, I speak for the Founders and Senior Fellows of Massey College in declaring ourselves to be your grateful servants.

  The whole thing took eleven minutes and went admirably, thanks to Pringle and a perfect May day. Then Brenda and I entertained the Senior Fellows and their wives at lunch at the York Club. My father arranged this for us. (Later note: My father refused to let me settle with him for this lunch, describing it as his contribution to an important day in the College’s life. Characteristically generous!) A very pleasant affair and the first time we (i.e., the Senior Fellows) have met socially.

  The lunch went very well, and did much to knit us into a unity. This is a side of our enterprise at which the Masseys are not very good. We toasted Robert Finch, our only absentee, and Claude Bissell toasted the College. The menu was simple and very good, thus: cocktails, consommé with sherry, mayonnaise of Restigouche salmon, strawberries praliné, and wine: Neuchâtel.

  In the afternoon the Massey Foundation meeting at the Shell Building began late as the Prince was thanking the conference staff. There was a crowd outside, and Ron Thom and I went in to applause which we acknowledged extravagantly. The crowd meant it humorously and we took it so. We agreed on the iconostasis30 for the chapel. Then all of us to Eaton’s where a mock-up of a Junior Fellow’s room had been constructed, even to the brick walls. Larger than I had foreseen and very handsome. But we haver about designs, chairs, etc. for hours. Then to an office and look at Ron’s chair for the dining-hall which looks to me as if Elbert Hubbard31 had had a hand in it. Then an argument about dishes and silver. At 7 we all go to Lionel Massey’s home: his children mix the drinks, and the smallest gave me a glass in which bourbon and Scotch had been poured on the remains of a gin and tonic. Lilias discovers this and is mortified. Raymond gets drunk and very sentimental about HRH. Dinner, with champagne, then more rather fruitless chatter about objects for the College, but great good will is shown and sympathy is established. The Masseys are muddled, but they dream. Leave at midnight.

  SATURDAY, MAY 26, TORONTO: Meeting of Senior Fellows in the Senate Room at 12 and we do some very good work. Caesar Wright has untangled and regularized our statutes, and Gordon Roper gives an admirably concise and sensible report on the organization of the Library. Then our proposed new Senior Fellows go through without a hitch, Andy Gordon even speaking for Tuzo Wilson! All done by 1 p.m. I am complimented on my chairmanship, which surprises me as I do not think much of myself in this role. I see Ron Thom in the afternoon at Hawthorn Gardens and he speaks enthusiastically about the College garden, which he makes sound very exciting, and we finally hammer out a plan for the Round Room. At 6:30 to Hart House to the dinner for HRH’S study conference and find to my dismay that I am the only person present in dinner dress, as I was not told differently! Sit at the head table, between E.P. Taylor and Jones, the city planner—three down from HRH who talks rapidly and makes very good sense—strenuous, alert, driving man with the searching, disconcerting eye of a bird.

  SUNDAY, MAY 27: Lay late; could not settle to anything; read a mystery story, listened to music, dozed, and enter my Massey College diary in full. A notable week and a great sense that the College has taken a great stride forward. Lionel Massey wants a special gown for Senior Fellows: I must ponder this and all protocol and ceremony. Jenny goes water-skiing and returns sunburned and tired.

  THURSDAY, MAY 31: Again very busy: wrote Star column on Graham Greene, my last, Deo gratias! The announcement of Trent University32 comes through and is first-rate. Read The Bell by Iris Murdoch with a new sense of release.

  MONDAY, JUNE 4: Much busier than I foresaw: telephone about Trent University a great deal; worked on my Shrew and Macbeth public lectures. In the evening an impromptu h.t.d., then we abandoned ourselves to reading and were much refreshed.

  TUESDAY, JUNE 5: All the new Senior Fellows now have accepted: no difficulty about Phillips, Wilson, or Dobson, whom I wired and wired back as soon as they could. But delay with Polanyi,33 who then wrote declining—too busy. So today I got him on the phone and bullied him gently: all the Senior Fellows are busy men. Massey College is meant, among other things, to bring scientists and humanists together, but cannot do so if the scientists huddle in their stinks labs and won’t join. I think scientists are a bit pretentious about their research—as if the rest of us had nothing important to do. He saw the point of this and was very decent and next day came his letter reversing his decision. I respect his desire not to take on anything he cannot do properly. But busy—I could tell him something about being busy!

  A muddle again about the arms. The augmentation is the crest of Canada, and t
he Cabinet should be consulted before it is used! This in the middle of a general election! God, the neurotic pomposity of all this business!

  In the afternoon we drive to Toronto, and at 8 I give my public lecture on Macbeth.34 It was necessary to take a larger room for the unforeseen crowd. I did well. Afterward, drinks with the Harrises and home by 2.

  THURSDAY, JUNE 7: In the afternoon to Toronto and to Hawthorn Gardens and rehearse, then give my lecture on The Shrew in Convocation Hall: 700 present! Good. To the Stewarts’ for a chat. I am very pleased the lectures go so well.

  SATURDAY, JUNE 9: Work on Tempest lecture in the morning. Lunch with the Smiths at the Grove35 and speak at the prize-giving about Massey College. Brenda gave the prizes. Home at 5 and rest and h.t.d. before dinner. In the evening work on Tempest lecture: these lectures demand much but are rewarding.

  TUESDAY, JUNE 12: Worked in the morning on Tempest. In the afternoon to Toronto with Brenda, Jenny, and Rosamond and to the Club and rehearsed in the library. Lecture at 8 and it went well. Audience bigger than last week. Afterward to the Harrises’ for a drink, home by 12:30.

  THURSDAY, JUNE 14: To Toronto at 2. Jenny and Rosamond help me move books and pictures from my Trinity office to my University College office. My lecture on Cyrano at 8 goes very well—I am happy in the nineteenth century. Then to a party and meet Malcolm Ross36 and like him.

  FRIDAY, JUNE 15: To the Examiner office in the morning, then pack and to Toronto with Brenda and Rosamond. Dine at the York Club with George Harris, Helen Ignatieff, Liz Gordon, and Sir William Walton,37 who is very charming and talks of the Sitwells. Then to the Harrises’, and Norah gives me $500 for the College Library.