A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster

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by Wendy Moffat


  232 “Bob met me”: EMF to FB, July 4, 1932, KCC.

  232 “I have sometime thought”: EMF to CI, Aug. 28, 1938, Huntington; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:158.

  232 “I have been happy”: Gardner, ed., Commonplace Book (1932), 94.

  233 “Yes, if the pendulum”: EMF to CI, July 16, 1933, Huntington; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:118–19.

  233 “put on the next”: Parker, Christopher Isherwood, 277.

  234 “Delighted!”: Humphrey Carpenter, W. H. Auden, 176.

  234 “What are buggers for?”: Allen, As I Walked Down New Grub Street, 56.

  234 “It’s on Thomas Mann”: Ibid., 58.

  234 “a line of affection”: EMF to Sassoon, Nov. 6, 1933, quoted in Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:181.

  234 “Your news, though I accept”: EMF to Sassoon, Nov. 8, 1933, quoted ibid.

  235 “he seemed quite genuine”: EMF to JRA, Dec. 1, 1933, HRC.

  235 “little private talk”: The Diaries of Virginia Woolf, IV:357, Dec. 14, 1935.

  235 “You must try”: EMF to ACF, Nov. 30, 1932, KCC.

  235 “I felt it was”: EMF to ACF, Dec. 6, 1932, KCC.

  235 “Will now have some”: Ibid.

  235 “I have an open”: EMF to BB, Dec. 16, 1935, KCC.

  235 “I don’t expect mother”: EMF to JRA, March 17, 1936, HRC.

  236 “I was thinking yesterday”: EMF to JRA, Feb. 19, 1936, HRC.

  11: “THE LAST ENGLISHMAN”

  237 “terribly authoritarian”: EMF to Forrest Reid, Sept. 4, 1942, quoted in Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:252.

  237 “last parlourmaid in England”: Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:235.

  238 “big house”: Forster, “West Hackhurst: A Surrey Ramble,” KCC.

  238 “You and R.”: EMF to May Buckingham, June 16, 1935, KCC.

  238 “very decent sort”: EMF to CI, Sept. 9, 1935, Huntington.

  239 “I felt a bit”: EMF to BB, Sat. [Feb. 20, 1943], Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:201.

  240 “Meum”: TEL to Francis Rodd, Nov. 23, 1934, in Malcolm Brown, ed., T. E. Lawrence: The Selected Letters, 500.

  240 “telegrams and anger”: Forster, Howards End, 25.

  241 “dégringolade”: Forster, “The Lost Guide,” in Alexandria, 355.

  241 “I don’t suppose”: EMF to VW, June 6, 1935, in Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:193.

  241 “condition of society”: Gide, quoted in Shattuck, The Innocent Eye, 23.

  241 “does evil that evil”: Forster, “Liberty in England,” Abinger Harvest, 61.

  241 “does many things”: Ibid.

  241 “not take up arms”: Shattuck, The Innocent Eye, 9.

  241 “I don’t think anyone”: EMF to CI, Feb. 17, 1934, in Parker, Christopher Isherwood, 281, and Huntington.

  242 “every one may know”: EMF to JL, July 12, 1935, quoted in Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:196.

  242 “It means freedom”: Forster, “Liberty in England,” Abinger Harvest, 60.

  242 “The hungry and the homeless”: Ibid., 61.

  242 Sedition Act: Officially called the Incitement to Disaffection Act (1934).

  242 “encourages the informer”: Ibid., 62.

  243 “My colleagues . . . may feel”: Ibid., 65.

  243 “[Forster] paid no attention”: Katherine Anne Porter, “Paris, 1935” in J. H. Stape, ed., E. M. Forster: Interviews and Recollections, 15–16.

  243 “pantomime of malignant ridicule”: Ibid.

  244 “But Gide hasn’t got”: Parker, Ackerley, 338.

  244 “In England, more than anywhere”: Forster, “Liberty in England,” Abinger Harvest, 64.

  244 “distinguished backs”: Forster, “Gide’s Death,” in Two Cheers, 232.

  244 “many eulogies of Soviet culture”: Forster, quoted in Saunders, “What Have Intellectuals Ever Done for the World,” 3.

  244 “[s]ad as ever”: DHL to EMF, Feb. 19, 1924; Roberts et al., eds., The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, IV:584.

  245 “exploited for their . . . factitious”: Forster, “Mrs. Miniver,” in Two Cheers, 300.

  245 “the brassy rattle”: EMF to FB, Aug. 25, 1917, KCC.

  245 “Some people call its absences”: Forster, “What I Believe,” in Two Cheers, 71.

  245 “going mad”: Isherwood, Down There on a Visit, 162.

  245 “[Morgan] is as anxious”: Isherwood, Down There on a Visit, 162, 175.

  246 “Though Italy and King’s”: Auden, “To E. M. Forster,” preface to Journey to a War.

  246 “I’ve been studying”: Forster, “Seven Days Hard,” March 10, 1934, Lago et al., The BBC Talks, 124.

  247 “All I can do”: Mitchison, You May Well Ask, 106.

  247 “We are willing enough”: Forster, “The Tercentenary of the ‘Areopagitica,’” in Two Cheers, 54.

  247 “Long, long ago”: Forster, “Jew-Consciousness,” in Two Cheers, 12–13.

  248 “liberalism crumbling beneath him”: EMF to WP, Feb. 9, 1938, Durham; Two Cheers, 76.

  248 “I do not believe”: Forster, “What I Believe,” in Two Cheers, 67.

  248 “I hate the idea”: Ibid., 68.

  248 “to keep away”: EMF to CI, July 10, 1939, Huntington.

  248 “I have myself to face a world”: EMF to WP, March 21, 1943, Durham.

  248 “Whatever one does”: EMF to CI, Sept. 1, 1939, Huntington.

  249 “London, the Olde World”: Parker, Christopher Isherwood, 578; EMF to CI, April 21, 1940, Huntington.

  249 “demi-vierges”: Alexander, William Plomer, 233.

  249 “What a wildness”: Gardner, ed., Commonplace Book, 150.

  249 would “look after Robin and May”: EMF to BB, April 21, 1939, KCC; Lago and Fur-bank, eds., Selected Letters, II:164.

  249 “Truly we live in strange times”: EMF to BB, July 19, 1939, KCC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:167–68.

  250 “What does concern me”: EMF to JRA, Saturday n.d. [late July 1938], HRC.

  250 “Joe—, you must give up looking”: EMF to JRA, Aug. 18, 1939, HRC.

  250 But Joe had “altered”: EMF to WP, June 12 and Sept. 25, 1943, Durham.

  250 “I love and have loved you”: EMF to JRA, Sept. 25, 1943, HRC.

  250 “I must seem selfish”: EMF to JRA, n.d. [c. Sept. 27, 1943], HRC.

  251 The shock of her death: EMF to JRA, June 8, 1941, HRC; EMF to BB, April 4, 1941, KCC.

  251 “Like all her friends”: Forster, “Virginia Woolf,” in Two Cheers, 258.

  251 she “always seems in the next room”: EMF to CI, July 25, 1942, Huntington.

  251 “be wary of melancholy”: Ibid.

  252 The notebook’s cover: KCC, catalogue number xvi/5–C. The catalogue dates the contents page c. 1942, but a slightly later date is more likely, because Forster changed his habits to be less guarded after Lily’s death. He unlocked his Locked Diary, for example. The date of the most recent published writing copied into the book is 1958. The artist who painted the “Lest We Forget Him!” poster was Cyrus Cuneo, 1879–1916. Cuneo was born in the United States, but emigrated to Britain in 1903. He made a good living as a commercial artist, publishing drawings in the Illustrated London News. His patriotic war paintings were very popular; several were auctioned to raise money for the war effort. A civilian, he died of septicemia after being accidentally jabbed by a hatpin.

  252 “the last of my race”: EMF to CI, March 17, 1938, Huntington.

  252 “Johnny, Reg, Charles Lovett”: EMF to JRA, Sept. 8, 1939, HRC.

  252 “I have violent longings”: EMF to CI, June 8, 1942, Huntington.

  252 “already almost blind”: Ibid.

  252 “not an aristocracy of power”: Forster, “What I Believe,” in Two Cheers, 73.

  253 “queer race”: Cadmus was unapologetic about his sexuality, and always preferred to be known as a queer. Interview with Jon Anderson, Oct. 10, 2007, Westport, Conn.

  253 “the admiration and devotion”: PC
to EMF, Dec. 12, 1943, Jon Anderson. Copy in KCC.

  254 “Dearest Morgan, If this ever reaches you”: CI to EMF, July 27, 1943, KCC. Isherwood spells Bill’s surname as “Roehrick.” He adopted Roerick as a stage name.

  254 “quickly became attached”: EMF to CI, Feb. 10, 1944, Huntington.

  254 “I quite like being pelted”: EMF to WP, “Weds” [1943], Durham.

  254 “Bob twice k’d me”: EMF, Diary, Sept. 1939, KCC.

  254 “Although my mother has been”: EMF to JRA, n.d. [1938], HRC.

  255 “Now I am older”: EMF, Locked Diary, Jan. 22, 1953, KCC.

  255 “No,” he replied tenderly: Interview with P. N. Furbank, June 6, 2008, London.

  255 “I partly died”: EMF to CI, Aug. 26, 1945, Huntington; quoted in Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:259.

  255 “masses of rubbish”: EMF to CI, May 9, 1945, Huntington.

  255 “destroying things”: Ibid.; EMF to WP, April 15, 1945, Durham.

  255 “What I shall do”: EMF to CI, May 9, 1945, Huntington.

  255 Each time he “broke down”: Ibid.

  256 “ungovernable temper”: Quoted in Furbank, E. M. Forster, II:220.

  256 “I feel like a sponge”: EMF to BB, Oct. 8, 1945, KCC; quoted ibid., II:260.

  256 “I look back on myself”: EMF, Indian Diary, KCC.

  256 “I returned to more worry and sadness”: EMF to CI, April 1, 1946, Huntington.

  257 “the year I was driven out”: Gardner, ed., Commonplace Book, 169.

  257 “I see myself as a historic figure”: EMF to WP, July 3, 1946, Durham.

  257 “My mother’s death”: EMF to CI, April 1, 1946, Huntington.

  257 “rubbishy word”: EMF, Locked Diary, Oct. 22, 1946, KCC.

  258 the house of his “childhood and safety”: EMF, Locked Diary, July 15, 1944, KCC.

  258 “had been left [at West Hackhurst]”: EMF, Locked Diary, June 1, 1945, KCC.

  258 “surely she will give up being dead”: EMF, Locked Diary, Sept. 6, 1945, KCC.

  258 “O Bless Bob”: EMF, Locked Diary, Dec. 31, 1947, KCC.

  12: “MY DEAR AMERICA”

  259 a “ratty little” melodrama: Roerick, “Forster and America,” in Oliver Stallybrass, ed., Aspects of E. M. Forster, 64.

  260 Bill and Tom revered him: A student correspondent from the Hamilton College newspaper described Forster’s visit in ecstatic terms: “E. M. Forster was here. But what can any person say about Percivale or Galahad or Bors . . . ? We did experience the holiness of the holiness of the real Forster through his art . . . So it is that we have been blessed by the sweetness of Harmony.” Here and There, June 1949, 7.

  261 “worried because he was not a University man”: EMF, American Journal, April 7, 1947, KCC. The journal, coincident with Forster’s journey in the spring of 1947, does not routinely record dates. It is in a small, singular notebook.

  261 “true intellectuals”: Interview with Mary Jackson, Hollywood, Aug. 6, 2002.

  261 “is not Tom the funniest person”: The inscription is carved on the back of Tom Coley’s tombstone in Tyringham, Massachusetts.

  262 She once agreed: Correspondence with Heather Thompson, Aug. 31, 2007.

  262 “I think,” Morgan said drily: Roerick, “Forster and America,” in Oliver Stallybrass, ed., Aspects of E. M. Forster.

  262 “an unprepossessing man”: Giroux, “Meeting ‘An Old and Valued Author,’” in J. H. Stape, ed., E. M. Forster: Interviews and Recollections, 91.

  263 it looked very like a whale: Ibid., 95.

  263 “Be good, sir”: EMF, American Journal, April 20, 1947, KCC.

  263 “on the fringe of the habitable sections”: PC to EMF, May 7, 1944, copy in KCC.

  264 “long haired men”: Chauncey, “Long Haired Men,” in Greenwich Village, 153.

  264 “an unwarranted insult”: Time, April 30, 1934; quoted in Kirstein, Paul Cadmus, 25.

  265 the greasy spoon was a destination: Chauncey, Gay New York, 166f.

  265 “Fairyland’s not far from”: Chauncey, “Long Haired Men,” 152.

  265 “You can’t imagine how stuffy”: EMF to PC, July 30, 1944, KCC.

  265 before they could make “suitable arrangements”: EMF to BB, May 8, 1947, KCC.

  265 “delicious prosciutto”: EMF, American Journal, April 20, 1947, KCC.

  265 “the flat is Bloomsbury”: Ibid.

  265 “that cleverly blends in”: PC to EMF, May 7, 1944, KCC.

  266 furniture so worm-eaten: Ibid.

  266 an amiable “sun burnt rodent”: EMF, American Journal, April 20, 1947, KCC.

  266 “the only true bisexual” man: Interview with Jon Anderson, Oct. 10, 2007.

  267 “surly and morose”: Duberman, The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, 414. Duberman’s quote is from an interview with George Tooker.

  268 “I don’t look like your Bohemian”: PC to EMF, May 7, 1944, KCC.

  268 “Paul Cadmus must protect himself”: EMF, American Journal, June 29, 1947, KCC.

  268 “more blood and more allurement”: EMF to Sprott, May 24, 1947, KCC.

  269 “a charming place for rich Americans”: EMF, American Journal, April 20, 1947, KCC; “The Raison d’Être of Criticism in the Arts,” in Two Cheers for Democracy, 47.

  269 a “sketchy, uncomfortable, but somehow comforting” male place: Roerick, “Forster and America,” in Oliver Stallybrass, ed., Aspects of E. M. Forster.

  269 “thousands and thousands of birch trees”: Forster, “The United States,” in Two Cheers, 332.

  269 “a highly refined stylized symbolized fertility rite”: Burkat, “Letter from America,” 8.

  269 “an unusual state”: Forster, Two Cheers, 118.

  270 “James or someone strumming”: EMF to BB, May 15, 1947, KCC.

  270 He encountered wondrous sights: EMF, American Journal, n.d., 1947; EMF to BB, June 5, 1947, KCC.

  270 “I don’t like to take your money”: Forster, “The United States,” in Two Cheers, 334.

  270 “not correct psychically”: EMF to Sprott, May 29, 1947, KCC.

  271 “I am just doing”: EMF to BB, June 5, 1947, KCC.

  271 “I have made an impression”: EMF, American Journal, June 7, 1947, KCC.

  271 “What a contrast”: EMF to JRA, May 31, 1947, HRC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:224.

  271 “the negroes don’t on the whole”: EMF to Sprott, June 15, 1947, KCC.

  271 “I have had breakfast”: EMF to JRA, May 31, 1947, HRC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:224.

  271 The second verse: Correspondence with Mark Lancaster, March 10, 2007.

  272 “All England convulsed”: EMF, Locked Diary, June 22, 1935, KCC.

  272 “We know how much”: EMF, American Journal, May 19, 1947, KCC.

  272 “where clothes are stolen”: Ibid.

  273 a “trigger-happy bruiser”: Phelps, ed., Continual Lessons, 180.

  273 in “deepest Greenwich Village”: EMF to JRA, May 31, 1947, HRC; Lago and Furbank, eds., Selected Letters, II:224.

  273 “It is a charming place”: EMF to Sprott, June 15, 1947, KCC.

  273 cackling at the power of Morgan’s imagination: Interview with Bernard Perlin, Pound Ridge, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2001.

  273 “one of the great loves”: Duberman, The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, 326.

  274 With his “fluttering black eyelashes”: Bucknell, ed., Christopher Isherwood: Diaries, I:210.

  274 “the fruited plain”: Chauncey, Gay New York, 182.

  274 he reflected on “the kindness”: EMF, American Journal, June 27, 1947, KCC.

  274 He “felt to belong”: Ibid.

  274 “My diamond [insight]”: EMF, American Journal, July, 14, 1947.

  275 “into the fat hands”: EMF, American Journal, June 29, 1947.

  275 “in this kindest of lands”: EMF, American Journal, July 12, 1947.

  275 “the pinchability of Rubens”: EMF to Monroe Wheeler, Oct. 2, 1945, Beinecke.

 

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