by Ann Hulbert
21 “revolting body”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
22 “Having had to be conscious”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
23 “I am afraid of following in my pa’s footsteps”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
24 “When I knew Ford in America”: Robert Lowell: Collected Prose (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987), p. 3.
25 “This John Crowe Ransom (poet) is swell” to “will become great writer”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
26 “says she’ll browbeat Scribner’s”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
27 “Have not embellished”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
28 “I watched an audience”: Robert Lowell: Collected Prose, p. 4.
29 “ ‘Towmahss Mahnn”: Robert Lowell, “Jean Stafford: a Letter,” in Day by Day, p. 29, and Ian Hamilton, Robert Lowell: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1982), p. 51.
30 “butterfly existence”: Robert Lowell: Collected Prose, p. 37.
31 “had nothing to do with” to “strained and terrific”: Ibid., p. 59.
32 “The only man” to “ ‘tricks of the trade’ ”: Allen Tate, “Techniques of Fiction,” in Essays of Four Decades (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1968), p. 129.
33 “As he is a very great master”: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 52.
34 “charm school” to “was the Reader’s Digest.”: JS, “What Does Martha Mitchell Know?” McCall’s 100 (Oct. 1972), p. 31.
35 apparently Lowell kept: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 60.
36 “I don’t know”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Jan. 3, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
37 “The sanest and most charming” to “in both lines”: John Crowe Ransom letter to Allen Tate, Jan. 1, 1938, in The Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom, ed. Thomas Daniel Young and George Core (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), pp. 236–237.
38 “Ford is a big man”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Mar. 3, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
39 “voluminous notes”: JS to Ford Madox Ford, Feb. 1, 1938, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.
40 “Not long ago”: Ibid.
41 “something from a poem”: Ibid.
42 “I have done some good writing” to “half of the tapestry”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Nov. 13, 1937, JS Collection, U. of Co.
43 “Well, I don’t know” to “pristine as Hemingway”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Dec. 1, 1937, JS Collection, U. of Co.
44 “With the generosity”: JS, “Truth and the Novelist,” p. 187.
45 “When I wrote them”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Dec. 6, 1937, JS Collection, U. of Co.
46 “Which of the three”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Dec. 6, 1937, JS Collection, U. of Co.
47 “I read Wolfe’s”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Jan. 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
48 “a Gargantuan creature”: Lewis, quoted in After the Genteel Tradition, ed. Cowley, p. 174.
49 “The book that I was writing”: Thomas Wolfe, The Story of a Novel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936), p. 8.
50 “Whoever is impressed”: Donald, Look Homeward, p. 77.
51 “whirling vortex” to “formal structure”: Wolfe, The Story of a Novel, p. 36.
52 “I was not”: Ibid., p. 86.
53 “each poem he finished”: Robert Lowell: Collected Prose, p. 59.
54 “did harm to” to “artistic intelligence”: Donald, Look Homeward, p. 362.
55 “The force of Wolfe’s talents”: Collected Essays of John Peale Bishop, ed. by Edmund Wilson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), p. 131.
56 “Incarcerated in his own” to “but be morbid”: Ibid., pp. 132–133.
57 “the characterizations”: JS to Whit Burnett, Jan. 3, 1938, Princeton University Library.
58 “Parts of it”: Ibid.
59 “I do not think this book”: Whit Burnett to JS, Feb. 28, 1938, Princeton University Library.
60 “Yes, I know”: JS to Whit Burnett, n.d., Princeton University Library.
61 “He, as well as”: JS to Whit Burnett, Jan. 3, 1938, Princeton University Library.
62 Stephens episode: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 20, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
63 “Davidson’s [sic] certainly right” to “in some degree”: Evelyn Scott to JS, July 10, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
64 “to cultivate their own”: Evelyn Scott to JS, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
65 “Your depth of insight” to “education of years”: Evelyn Scott to JS, Nov. 21, 1937, JS Collection, U. of Co.
CHAPTER 4: Men
1 “The crucifix of the artist”: Evelyn Scott to JS, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
2 “The more perfect the artist”: T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” in The Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964), pp. 7–8.
3 “Poetry is not”: Ibid., p. 11.
4 “each poem he”: Robert Lowell: Collected Prose, p. 59.
5 “We claimed”: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 85.
6 For all the antiromanticism: Louis Menand, Discovering Modernism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 140–142.
7 “the worst summer of my life”: JS unpublished memoir, courtesy of Oliver Jensen.
8 Trip out West with Hightower: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.
9 “I started loving you”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 21, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
10 During a stopover in Boulder: JS to William Mock, postmarked June 23, 1938, Dartmouth College Library.
11 the Thompsons remarked: Paul Thompson’s diary, June 19, 1938, courtesy of Paul Thompson.
12 “I have a desk”: JS to James Robert Hightower, postmarked July 5, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
13 “I am doing” to “not an artist”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 2, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
14 “A rather nice gent” to “with his hands”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Aug. 31, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
15 “poor benighted father” to “in league against him”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 2, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
16 “He sits in a corner”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 25, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
17 “I wish to keep” to “how will I ever forget them”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Aug. 1, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
18 “I don’t laugh” to “I was writing”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 21, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
19 “Today Mother said”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 2, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
20 “bright solid color”: JS, “And Lots of Solid Color,” American Prefaces 5 (Nov. 1939), p. 25.
21 “Well, we’ll be riding” to “all his life”: Ibid., p. 23.
22 “beautiful friends”: Ibid., p. 24.
23 “wooed her something fierce”: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 60.
24 “Whenever you uncover”: Ibid., p. 61.
25 “Always I will”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 25, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
26 “Really, I don’t mind”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 7, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
27 “It is not”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 5, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
28 “I will put it”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 7, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
29 “And the comparative ambition”: Evelyn Scott to JS, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
30 “That’s the place”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 7, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
31 “I hate all this”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Sept. 30, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
32 “Darling (oh, hell)”: Ibid.
33 “the
sickness of my soul”: Ibid.
34 “I want to be a woman”: Ibid.
35 “if you have told”: James Robert Hightower to JS, first week of Oct. 1939, JS Collection, U. of Co.
36 “sick … of not being sentimental” to “as my husband”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 3, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
37 “I have not read”: James Robert Hightower to JS, Oct. 7, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
38 “My love for you”: James Robert Hightower to JS, Oct. 10, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
39 “I want to be impetuous” to “the sake of my book”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
40 “I wrote him”: JS to William Mock, postmarked Nov. 27, 1938, Dartmouth College Library.
41 “some rather scary days”: Robert Giroux, “Hard Years and ‘Scary Days’: Remembering Jean Stafford,” The New York Times Book Review, June 10, 1984, p. 3.
42 “There is nothing”: Evelyn Scott to JS, Nov. 12, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
PART III: The Bostonians and Other Manifestations of the American Scene, 1938–1946
CHAPTER 5: Boston
1 “frail agrarian mailbox post” to “an abolitionist”: Robert Lowell: Collected Prose, pp. 58–59; and Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 44.
2 “massive head injuries”: Blair Clark, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 62.
3 The disastrous car ride: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.
4 “he got savage” to “psychopathic murderer-poet”: JS to William Mock, postmarked Nov. 27, 1938, Dartmouth College Library.
5 “I will say nothing”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Jan. 10, 1939, JS Collection, U. of Co.
6 “I want children”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Jan. 25, 1939, JS Collection, U. of Co.
7 “About Boston”: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 72.
8 “she can handle”: report on JS novel, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file, n.d.
9 “ironic, heartless story” to “seems to lack”: Edward Weeks letter, Dec. 1, 1938, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
10 “sizable portion”: A. G. Ogden to JS, Dec. 9, 1938, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
11 “there is too much”: JS to Edward Weeks, June 27, 1938, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
12 “no further thought”: A. G. Ogden to JS, Dec. 22, 1938, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
13 solitary drinking: JS to William Mock, Feb. 1, 1939, Dartmouth College Library.
14 “I have taken”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 27, 1939, JS Collection, U. of Co.
15 he tracked her down: Goodman, Jean Stafford: The Savage Heart, p. 97.
16 “convinced that Cal Lowell”: JS to A. G. Ogden, n.d. (probably late Mar. or early Apr. 1939), Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
17 “completely metamorphosed”: JS to William Mock, postmarked April 18, 1939, Dartmouth College Library.
18 Incensed by : Blair Clark interview with author, Jan. 13, 1987.
19 “Part II is going”: JS to A. G. Ogden, early May, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
20 “Jollying the sight”: Robert Lowell, “On a Young Lady Convalescing from a Brain-Injury but Unable to write a novel in Concord, Mass.,” Houghton Library, Harvard University.
21 “fast worker”: A. G. Ogden to Mr. McIntyre, Jan. 10, 1939, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
22 “Verbally I think”: Whit Burnett to JS, Feb. 14, 1938, Archives of Story Magazine and Story Press, Princeton University Library.
23 “is impressed”: A. G. Ogden to JS, May 12, 1939, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
24 “There was never a time” to “flirting with strangers”: JS, Autumn Festival MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
25 “I will not write”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 7, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
26 “I like Gretchen Marburg”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
27 “You could anaesthetize”: JS, Autumn Festival MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
28 “is so completely negative” editorial report, n.d., Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
29 “proud and sensitive”: James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: Viking Press, 1976), p. 91.
30 “a priest of eternal imagination”: Ibid., p. 221.
31 “It was the same” to “a beautifully twisting river”: JS, Autumn Festival MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.
32 “curiously tortured story”: A. G. Ogden memo on JS’s revision of Autumn Festival, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.
33 “doctrine of futility”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 7, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
34 “The war came along”: Mary Darlington Taylor, “Jean Stafford’s Novel—‘a Superb Literary Accomplishment,’ ” Bridgeport Sunday Post, Jan. 13, 1952, quoted in Mary Ellen Williams Walsh, Jean Stafford (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985), p. 55.
35 “I am engaged”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Dec. 19, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.
36 “It is full”: Peter Taylor to JS, Dec. 24, 1954, JS Collection, U. of Co.
37 “Those two nice boys”: Peter Taylor to Robert Lowell, May 1, 1955, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
38 “mature and adult experience”: “1939,” Peter Taylor, The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979), p. 337.
39 “ ‘critical’ and ‘objective’ ”: Ibid., p. 338.
40 “When we were”: Ibid., p. 345.
41 “Poor Carol Crawford!” to “so naive, so undergraduate”: Ibid., p. 351.
42 “I am confident” to “than by eccentricity”: Robert Lowell to Merrill Moore, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 65.
43 Lowell also had guilt: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 64.
44 “glorious affair”: JS interview with Joan Cuyler Stillman, 1952, quoted in Roberts, Jean Stafford, p. 198.
45 Ransom obliged: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 65.
46 “Lowell is more”: Ibid.
47 “should not have left” to “my natural days”: JS to James Robert Hightower, March 31, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
48 “I am beginning” to “he will have with me”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 4, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
49 “It was an absolutely” to “to the bone”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
50 “Gossip that is said”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 23, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
51 “You may enjoy”: Robert Lowell to Charlotte Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 73.
52 “Customs are not”: Orations in the state contest of the Ohio Inter-Collegiate Oratory Association, 1940, Ibid., p. 68.
53 “dualism, division”: William K. Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 743.
54 “Cambridge ladies” to “comfortable minds”: e. e. cummings, Complete Poems 1913–1962 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), p. 70.
55 “The tale is dismal”: Evelyn Scott to JS, Apr. 30, 1940, J.S. Collection, U. of Co.
56 “[live] for love” to “an intellectualized woman”: John Crowe Ransom, The World’s Body (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), p. 77.
57 “ornament” to “shining talent”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 26, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
58 “I’m a bitch”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.
59 “Thank God”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 4, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
CHAPTER 6: Catholicism
1 “we spent”: Caroline Gordon to JS, n.d., McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.
2 “I told [the president of LSU]”: John Crowe Ransom to Allen Tate, spring 1940, i
n Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom, p. 270.
3: “Louisiana, on the whole”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Mar. 4, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.
4 “owes his first duty”: Allen Tate, The Collected Essays of Allen Tate (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1959), p. 71.
5 Their Agrarian goal: Grant Webster, The Republic of Letters: A History of Postwar American Literary Opinion (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), p. 74.
6 “unification of sensibility”: The Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot, p. 248.
7 In fact, it was: JS to James Robert Hightower, late spring 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
8 “I feel exiled”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 6, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
9 “This place, Robert” to “nothing more”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 26, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
10 “The place is”: JS to James Robert Hightower, postmarked June 21, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
11 “I am not looking”: Robert Lowell to his grandmother Mrs. Arthur Winslow, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 75.
12 “About LSU I have” to “liberal English majors”: Robert Lowell to Robie Macauley, 1940, quoted in Hamilton, Robert Lowell, p. 75.
13 “The opposite of the professional”: T. S. Eliot, “Professional, Or,” Egoist (Apr. 1918), quoted in Menand, Discovering Modernism, p. 125.
14 “My life seems annually”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 26, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
15 “To be intellectual” to “men are trained”: Ransom, The World’s Body, pp. 101, 103.
16 “because they are not”: Ibid., p. 103.
17 “It will probably”: Ransom, The World’s Body, p. 228.
18 “a great gauche lummox” to “wants a brain”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 31, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.
19 There was an obvious: Robie Macauley interview with author, Oct. 1986.
20 “Peter & I got”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 31, 1940. JS Collection, U. of Co.
21 “berts”: Hamilton, Robert Lowell, pp. 55–56.
22 plowing through Étienne Gilson’s: Ibid., p. 78.
23 “The religious mind”: W. K. Wimsatt, Hateful Contraries: Studies in Literature and Criticism (University of Kentucky Press, 1965), p. 48.