I was looking for the group where I could shine, no doubt. My life was not entirely voluntary and instinctive. I really sought, and found at last, the group in which I not only shone then, but could shine now (although it is no longer shining). I was able to write very well, but could not stand the moonstruck, literary girls who were afraid of boys and did not know how to dance. I never wrote mashnotes, nor poetry. I could not do artistic dancing. I drew, but not well ( Jacky drew well). I could not sing at all, played the piano dashingly, but badly. I was taking dancing and piano lessons, but so was every girl I knew. And as for that, we all fell in love with our music teachers, who were young men favored by Greenwich Village groups; we were drawn to their classes by groups of excitable young women who were promoting them, and we flocked to their Town Hall concerts.
I was approaching the Village. I did not intend to waste my life on aimless, accidental love affairs as Uncle Philip had done. I despised his adolescent lovemaking and his poetry. He knew nothing, although pleasant, kind, and too charming altogether; so charming that he could not resist trying his wiles on everyone, even me. We always kissed each other passionately, and my feeling was never that of a niece.
At school I found the political circle to my liking. I must confess, it came very natural to me. I was bold, with a crisp and carrying speaking voice; on my feet, my ideas flowed fast and free. The mere act of opening my mouth caused me to think. Happy gift! There was only one political group, the radicals. The others, perhaps, dimly believed some vague routine they had got from their relatives; these were not ideas, but a shameful inertia, a dull hope of comfort. Action, thought, youth, where there is generosity too (important qualification), mean only one thing—radicalism. A Tory youth is a youth speculating on his future, that is all. He is not much better than Edwige; in fact, he has less observation and daring. As to women, they are, of course, timid. They are afraid they are not good-looking enough to get a husband, or will be horribly bored by a job; so they stick to churches, ritual living, and Mamma. But a glorious and noble thing it is to be a radical when you are young. And why not? You do not have to worry about the rent! Out of doors then and try to do something for humanity. It is all very well for the rich to say humanity is rotten, and for natural frauds and criminals, like Edwige; and it’s all very well for certain queer persons of whom Jacky is one, persons of obscure unpopular talents, to dream their lives away, masochists who like to swim upstream, but active people in youth should be ashamed if they do not try to change the world, but cling to their aunts’ skirts and their grandmothers’ coffins.
To keep some semblance of life into middle age like my father, into old age like Grandmother Morgan, that’s rare! The great queens and Venuses of history (the plural I know is Veneres, but one can’t say that) are a hundred times better than the mousy girls who die at the altar and become wives and mothers, model of the year, slated for the boneyard. Dreadful thought! It is like being a sardine in a school of sardines. You can’t tell one from another. What imprint do you leave in the ocean wave? The children of such corny cowards are probably worth nothing at all, just fit to make clerks, buy aspirin, and whine at the taxes.
As for mass-action, I am all for it; but I do not intend to be canned in cottonseed oil. I do not intend to be eaten, if I can help it. Then, if I feel this about myself, why shouldn’t I feel it of others? Why shouldn’t I try to stop others from being canned and eaten? For that is all they are good for if they listen to the words of wisdom of the conformists. Well, this is a stump speech. I rattle on. The mere thought of making a speech, and my thoughts do flow—I do make one—this is an example.
Although dissatisfied, ambitious, unruly, a great trouble, and at the same time, no doubt, a blessing to my teachers (for I did good work and got it in on time and also went in for all kinds of extracurricular activities), I felt I was not getting on well enough at school. I wanted to do everything at once. I thought the school system did not suit me and went to my teachers, to suggest changes. I said, “There should be a sliding system of classes, one ought to pass up or down weekly.” I felt myself cramped, and I resented the presence of girls who read the New York gossip columns, listened to the radio, mostly under-bred, silly and poor girls from the Bronx and Brooklyn to whom the gossip columnists, the radio plays, and Hollywood scandal represented the high point of metropolitan life. They paid no attention to the lessons, did not care about getting marks, and when they did not fill in their times with the above, told dirty stories (but washroom smut it was), and talked about boys. I certainly did not wish to be celibate. I wanted to have a love affair, and had a good idea of how it ought to be conducted, but the boys they went out with, soda-shop heroes and drug-store jerks, depressed me. They were deflowered behind a movie house and lay together under the boardwalk at Coney Island. Can women really pass their lives with such men, I thought? To have to marry some such weed and moron, and pass your life with him from then on because you’re poor, worn out, and have kids—this is an underworld. Everything that hurried me away from that cruel prospect was good to me; my financial luck convinced me that I was very superior to these five-and-ten humans, getting their Shakespeare out of a juke box and lucky to get legally married to a taxi driver.
I didn’t spend any time on these girls. Frankly, they did not exist for me. I scarcely saw them. They were badly dressed, and without taste. I was badly dressed too, that is, for the group I was in, the daughters of the middle classes, the “medium price class” as my irreverent papa said; but was not without taste, and there was always the thought that things might get brighter, that Grandma might suddenly give me twenty dollars, or Papa might decide to make Mother cut the rent and so have more to spend on us. Whenever I went to Green Acres or Long Island, I felt depressed, for there they felt it a great shame that Papa did not give us the proper things; I don’t have to describe them, the things that are advertised for college girls in all the smooth-paper magazines. These visits were not good for my morale. In between I was happy and intoxicated with my social success.
My mother persecuted Jacky and me to keep up our correspondence with our father, and most of these letters were written with a money motive. This was natural, as the Morgans persisted in their single notion, that if Mother loaded Papa with debts, he would be forced to return to this country. When I was some months over fourteen, I wrote to Solander, from camp,
DEAR PAPA,
I am having a grand time here. Saturday night we had an annual sing. Instead of the poetry song competition, this was more of a pageant representing the evolution of man; in 6 Freezes which, in turn, came to life and showed the spirit of the time and its contribution to our modern era. Directed by one of Martha Graham’s group members, Beth, one of the counselors, it attained depths unseen by most of the audience, but nevertheless present. Naturally, she’s a comrade.
The first Freeze was the primitive one. Not the prehistoric brute, or the Negroid jungle inhabitant, but man at the beginning of the famous Darwinian link. Dressed in scanty, ruddy, earthy browns and reds the Freeze began. Previously an announcer had read a prologue and 2 stanzas relating to the age. (This was done before each tableau.) Then, an invisible chorus recited in chant (not original, but plagiarized from Van Doren’s anthology). Then the tableau came to being and preceded to expand its surplus energy, to show its freedom and straightforwardness, its lack of inhibitions. At the conclusion, the lights went out for the second Freeze. The Archaic Freeze was remarkable, because it really conveyed the spirit of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. It had the 2-dimensional flatness, the bas-relief effect, of the Egyptians. The robes of blue and green showed the artificial getting away from nature and the civilization and debauched culture already arisen. During an interval of the dance, the invisible but not celestial chorus sang a Pythian Ode to Ra, the Sun God. (Sounds as if I were at a tea, saying, Oh, yes, Albert Jones, the painter, you know.) Then the 3rd Freeze, the medieval representing the omnipotent power of the church. It began with what looked like a painting
by Leonardo or Raphael, with the inevitable Infant Jesus. Then the monks expressed their dance motif as the suffering martyrdom, sacrifice of the period. A stained glass window as a background. A Bach church song by the camp prima donna. The music for the chancel, Borodin’s “In a Convent.” (I thought of Hugo Wolf’s songs, but it would have been impossible to get them.) Finally, so enmeshed in its cleverness and devotion, the church falls to a doom which has not yet been repealed.
4th Freeze. The Court. This was more pantomine than dancing. Though the costumes were reminiscent of an English or German court, by the heavy brocades and brilliant hues, the period was the Spanish Inquisition, this last recognizable by the ominous braun garb of the monk of the affair. A typical intrigue, arrogance, despotic rule, absolutism, natural causes of a revolution all trodden under the garb of court intrigue. (Remember my play of the name?)
5th Freeze. Romantic. Not the mushy, popular conception of the epoch, but the splendid, materialistic, awakened romanticism of Shelley and Hugo, the Napeolonic Age and the War of 1812. The dance, naturally, had to symbolize curving, flowing flare, high-waisted flimsiness and ephemeral and evanescent charm. Yet, something less esthetic and airy floated through the dance and gave it a true consciousness.
6th Freeze. Modern, clad in RED evening gowns, the modern divided itself into 2 parts. 1. Lazy—the rich, sensual. 2. The social view, the awakening of youth, its sudden realization of power, its foretelling of the future. At the end, the inhabitants of each age, simply clad men and their mates of the awakening age, corrupt and brilliant citizens of Rome, somberly clad and somberly thinking priests of the time of Charlemagne and, eventually, the Borgias, decorative and ornate courtiers of Ferdinand and Isabella of Castile, flighty and sensible romanticists, and the contradiction of inhibitions, releases, retrospections and futurisms of modern youths, all of these gathered in a homogeneous group which sang the new camp songs, songs to Mrs. B. (you don’t know her—she really is a lovely person and a true mother, besides being a shrewd business woman and one of the most well-educated persons I’ve met). Song to our head-counselor, Betty; song to all the counselors, and song to Rosie, junior dancing counselor, who’s been with the camp for years. (There’s a secret, she’s a C.P. member.)
The sing took everything we had out of us, but before that I’d been having an exciting time. First, we play tennis, volley ball, basketball, and go canoeing a few times a week. Swimming twice a day; I can almost do the crawl and am beginning diving. If I keep it up, next summer I’ll be able to take my junior life saving. Then we have dramatics. The big play is going to be Lysistrata, the Aristophanist anti-war play. Dancing, music, hikes every Wed. and arts and crafts, where I am secretly making Mother a leather engraved book cover. It’s costing $2 but she’ll like it. Then camp is liberal. Here’s an example of the schedule: Monday night—club night: dancing, dramatics, pioneering, everything. Tuesday—boating. Wed.—dress up and games. Thursday—bunk night. (Each bunk in turn entertains.) Friday—concert. Saturday—the play of the week. Sunday night—camp fire and a reading of the Weekly Newspaper, to which I’ve contributed at least 2 articles every week. If I come back, I’ll be editor next time. If I weren’t so young, Mrs. B. would make me a counselor in training. My age would annoy the seniors, however. But—(this is confidential) Mrs. B. thinks I am more mature than the 17- and 18-year-olds.
Your letter brought up two points to be cleared up. 1. If you don’t come back to the U.S. soon, what of Grandma? And why can’t you come, anyway? 2. Your letter was dated Aix-les-Bains, July 20. Your envelope, in your handwriting, was postmarked London JULY 20. You seemed insistent to let me believe you’re in Switzerland, when you’re in London. Why? What are you trying to hide?
I’ve just finished Turgeniev’s Father and Sons. I loved it, but it put me in a singularly dejected and dippressed mood. Added to that, Cecily’s death! Did anyone tell you? We were at camp and it was hard to write and hard to believe. She could not marry that boy. They wanted them to finish college and they both tried to commit suicide. She hung herself from a beam in “The Wreck.” He must have helped her, for he was there, lying on the floor and had shot himself, but not enough. He is getting better, but she is dead. He will be charged with murder. I can’t face it. No one can. They all say she was mad and selfish and so on and they must have done something wrong (that means, made love), or they wouldn’t have felt so guilty and had to commit suicide. I can’t see why making love would make you commit suicide, and this to me is a lot of jibberish. I don’t think they really know why, or they don’t want to admit. Lots of children my age want to get married. At camp we are all in love. We see their parents married, and we don’t understand why not. Aunt Amabel’s little girl (you remember Amabel—that was in Uncle Philip’s past) is terribly spoiled, like all the children of real radicals, they are the worst spoiled of all. They let her do and say anything, and they tell everyone. She’s quite a brat, but nice, soft, blonde hair and all that. She told her mother (aged 7—the girl I mean, her name’s Joanna) some boys wanted to (unmentionable word) let’s say initiate her, behind the bushes. She asked her parents, well, if I can’t now, when? They said, wait. She said, I suppose that’s another of the things that only you grown-ups can have? Everyone thinks it’s so cute. I’d spank! But anyhow, adults really don’t know what’s going on in submerged youth these days. We protect you from the awful truth.
I’m just talking like this, but I feel terrible about Cecily, and so does everyone, and Uncle Percival Hogg has no explanation; he has a lot, but his chin is hung on his boots, and he tries to blame it on everyone, but not on himself. Aunt Angela says it’s his terrible example. Example of what? Everyone talks baloney.
Please come back to the U.S. It’s terrible here, because apart from the community life, and the sings and the newspapers, all that, there are these other things. We seem to live more than our parents. Or, I don’t know, maybe that’s how parents live.
I’m writing baloney. I just discovered Shelley’s Prometheus. Is that a masterpiece of Marxist theory and dialectics?? and Poetry! If you do come back try and smuggle some books and new art in on your ticket—yours! From England, I mean.
I appreciated your analysis of the European scene for me, though I admit things look extremely bad for, not only the Spanish and French Popular Fronts, but also the pacifists. However, I do not think there is any danger of war for at least six months. If only the fascists could be crushed, what has been accomplished by the leftist gov. is or would be an advance toward a more radical cabinet. I was one of the few Y.C.L.’ers selected for duty on the honor guard at the C.P. Convention. We got in free, dressed all in white, and paraded around. Madison Sq. Garden was packed. The enthusiasm after the nomination of Browder and Ford was something to make you feel inspired and grand. After each nominating speech there was 1/2 hour parade ovation and we ran way up even to the uppermost balcony, and paraded around. The sight of 25,000 faces clapping as you clench your fist and themselves singing the Int’l is something hard to be missed.
At Camp besides Margot, my friend, who was in France, only not when I was, we have 3 Y.C.L’ers, 2 C.P. members and a few sympathizers, among whom is Dr. B. (He is a retired professor; his functions around the camp are pretty much the same as Grandfather Morgan’s at Green Acres before he was taken ill, and the same is true of the husband of the Ranking Counselor, who is a retired musician. They sit around and grin knowingly when their wives do their acts.)
I suppose you heard of the death of “Argentina”? I wept for an hour at the news, and felt blue for a long time. Margot too.
Please write more often. Mother is well. She has not rented the apt. and is waiting for DEFINITE news from you to select another one for the Fall. Will we be allowed $25, 45, 75, 100, or 125 a month for rent? I am not trying to be funny. Please give me a sane address and a clear explanation of what you’re up to. I don’t mind living hand-to-mouth, but there are four of us and Jacky must go away.
I’ll write again just
before I leave camp and after when I find out if I’ve passed my exams. I’m studying American History and English by myself. Please send me the Cambridge entrance requirements, courses and lists in general of all needed for admission, living and study. That is, if you still wish me to go there. If you do, we’ll have to count in my living separate from Mother, and you’ll have to calculate what she and Jacky and Andrea will cost you here. That is if you still count on us living like this. I might like Radcliffe, but it has not B.Sc. Regents. If your monetary status is low, I suppose I shall pig it in Brooklyn College. Do you remember the $5,000 of Grandmother Fox? Why don’t you give it to her to spend, so she can live where and how she likes and furnish a little place for herself comfortably? She speaks of wanting to live apart from you, with that English girl she knows, who works in Swan and Edgar’s.
This is my own bright idea—honest, cross my heart—not “inspired,” as you sometimes think. This girl Edie that I saw, that I know of, comes from nice people, radicals; they are even related to some good family, I don’t know which, and Grandma is ashamed not to have a good place to offer her, although she is poor. But the girl is 28, wants to get away from home. That I understand. I’m not for the united family. (Good thing, is so? Ha?)
Lots of love, LETTY-MARMALADE
Always in a Jam.
P.S. Is the article on Spain in the Sunday Times Review of the Week by the same Blank of Harvard you inspired in London? Have you anything to do with it? Your doctrines, I recognize! You’re a great deseminator, aren’t you?
P.P.S. How is Mr. Montrose and everyone we know? Dora Dunn (Morgan) is talking of getting a divorce. She now despises and neglects Philip UTTERLY. But she says the thought of the children makes her stop. Then, going to Reno is expensive and New York State is a scandal it seems, and to marry you must get a court order, and it’s all an imbroglio. But, of course, that would be Philip who would have to get the Court Order, because, believe it or not, Tall, Dark and Handsome is in love again, and goes to work to prove it. Oh, why do I know so much? (Because what you know here, makes what you know in those corrupt England and France a laugh!) Well, because I am your dotter, Pop; and you know so much. But, it didn’t do you any harm. (Or did it? Answer me that one day.) And again (it’s time),
Letty Fox Page 24