The Tidmarsh Pressfn164 will be better because then Ralph will have a free hand to do what he wants. He will work for himself at his own hours. He can hardly make less money than he did with the Woolfs […] And after all poverty with complete liberty is worth more than a safe income of £300 a year – (not that he got that with the Woolfs) – in a business in London, with the dreary prospect of 2 or 3 months freedom every year …
[T. S.] Eliot brings out every quarter of the year an amazing periodical called The Criterionfn165
Ezra Pound excelled himself last week in an article enumerating the few writers since Isaiah that were worth reading! In fact I am sure you will agree with him in everything he says … So I will send it you, if I can get Lytton to give it me. Gertrude Stein has a novel in it. Far far more advanced than Virginia, about as much like a novel as Picasso’s cubist painting were like Giotto’s painting […]
Please write to me soon unless you feel unpleasantly towards me. Then on the whole I would rather you waited until you felt amiable.
I am painting fairly regularly now. I found Roger’s lectures very inspiring – they fairly set me on my lost tracks again.
I am in love with a South American or Spanish cinema hero. His name is Valentino. He is more lovely than Robin John. I have seen him in three films now. Once he was a Toreador. Really he fought Bulls in the ring in Seville & looked divinely beautiful with tight breeches.
Last Wednesday I went with Marjorie Strachey in London to a film called The Sheik, an amazing film of the Arabian desert with my Hero as a Sheik riding an arab horse. I also saw Charlie [Chaplin] on the same afternoon and a ‘close up’ film of Locusts and a Badger Hunt. I only wish there was a cinema at Pangbourne. – Even Ralph confessed he was slightly taken by Valentino. I have a picture of him. But unfortunately dancing in the arms & legs of his wife who is equally ravishing […]
After all this you may expect to see ‘yours to a cinder, Mary’ at the bottom of the page. On the contrary you will see the familiar name of
Your
Kunak
Doric
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
19 February 1923
[…] You know I really think it would be lovely to spend next winter at Yegen. I should escape this awful cold and rain and I would really get some painting done away from all the distractions of Tidmarsh. You must start in the summer writing to Ralph week after week to persuade him. If he isn’t involved in any business in England I see no reason why we shouldn’t come […]
It’s true one loses a good deal by marriage. The privacy of one’s bedroom after all the house has gone to sleep. But really the truth to be faced is one loses one’s privacy the moment one falls in love, or even more when another person falls in love with one and one allows them entrance to one’s chambers of secrecy. But one gains something also […]
Bless you Gerald, I send you my fondest love
Your amigo
xxxx
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
20 February 1923
Gerald,
A Mere Postscript to yesterday’s letter.
I was very clever, as clever as Irene Vanbrugh in one of those society plays. I almost heard the hushed thrill of the audience below. – The usual debate who should run down & fetch the letters … they arrive about half past seven in the morning now.
I invented an ingenious rule. That we should fetch them on alternate days. I starting in today. Tuesday … Ralph had some dull letter from his mother, as I opened yours I saw the postscript, it fell from my hand onto the floor. Ralph turned round & said ‘let’s read Gerald’s letter together’. The audience sees the postscript lying on the floor – my side of the bed – what does it not contain? (I confess I saw the word ‘Wittgenstein’ & hated the idea of an ‘economy’ lecture so that was why I dropped it.) Then came my cleverness, as I got out of bed, as a bare foot reached the ground it pushed the letter under the flowered curtains below the bed. It was a pity after such a feat of foot manoeuvres it shouldn’t have contained a plot to poison Ralph or a proposal to take ship to China … still to me it is exciting because I can read over the fire a letter from you only seen by me.
How glad I am you liked Wittgenstein, you know I know nothing of such books. I only sent it you because Lytton & other people talked so much of him. The Tacitus I didn’t even choose, I simply asked Bunny Garnett to send it you.
You thank me best by not thanking me … and by writing to me often please.
Don’t load poor Virginia with any presents for me. For to begin with she is human, & if they are lovely she will certainly keep them herself or give them to Vanessa Bell!
Bless you Gerald, I send you my fondest love.
To Gerald Brenan
The Mill House
6 March 1923
This letter was started on March 1st – Lytton’s birthday to be exact – It is now March 6th […]
On Lytton’s birthday Mary Hutchinson came for lunch, she surprised us just as we were eating our omelette. She bought Lytton a lovely bottle of Madeira as a present. In the afternoon two exquisite American girl friends of David Garnett came to look at the house with a view to taking it whilst we were away. One of them was lovely. Very tall with an olive skin, dark shining eyes like jet beads, & perfect slim figure & short black curling hair. Her friend was my style, pink with a round face dressed in mannish clothes, with a good natured smile. Her name was Henrietta. Mina Kirstein however did all the talking. Henrietta agreed with everything she said. I felt a little sad at such lovely creatures wandering around the house taking about as much interest in me as if I’d been the housekeeper! ‘Say Henr-ie-t-ta aren’t those dog violets just too lovely I haven’t seen them since I left Massachusetts.’
I looked out of the yellow room window, I couldn’t see a sign of a dog violet … So I said ‘do you mean the yellow celandines’ – ‘yas, we call them dog violets in America, you seem to call a good many of our flowers by different names’ […]
I wonder how long the Woolves will stay with you? I can hardly bear it […] That Virginia should see your new room before me. That they should see you before I do. That I shall have to go to them & ask them for news when I return. Ugh! Grrrrr … Say, at risk of your displeasure, may I ask you to be very careful what you tell Virginia – Really she can’t resist reckless gossiping & all is fuel for her tongue. She is very anti-Ralph at the moment – They both are – It’s not worth discussing – It’s simply they don’t care for him & he gets on their nerves. They can’t state this fact and leave it but they discuss very minutely his shortcomings regarding the Press, his failings in relation to them, etc. etc. – I only mean Virginia will very likely egg you on to talk about last summer. She will be sympathetic & try & draw you […] It’s only, if she comes back & starts talking about it again & against Ralph it will soon come round to Ralph & then he’ll think you’ve been siding against him with Virginia.
So although I see it’s inevitable there should be some wild talk (& Virginia is not a woman to be failed if she does not want to get anything from you) still … Remember my dreary words of wisdom & moderate your confidences.
I could hardly bear any more clouds to come across our sky.
I was discovered! Birrell & Garnett sent me a bill the other morning, I couldn’t conceal it – so Ralph asked me at once if I had sent you Wittgenstein. I confessed I had. There was nearly a row. It just shows how friendly we are now, that there wasn’t quite a row […] My dear, I am so sorry because there is so little else I can give you. But I suppose that it’s rather mean to spend Ralph’s money, which I do when I’ve used up all mine.
I am so glad you’ve abandoned M.fn166 Really I was rather terrified. For if she allows you to have her, the chances are she lets other men and confess now you take no precaution – or only sometimes rather vaguely – against S [syphilis] … & really I can’t believe any right possible man can be worth the humiliation of that particular di
sease.
For that reason I think m[asturbation] is better than c[opulation].
I don’t get over my affection for you Gerald. I still spend far too long thinking of you everyday.
Do you know on March 29th I shall be x years old, or perhaps n years. I am never quite certain. It’s pretty serious. I used to think people who were n years old were practically […] to be pitied.fn167 I think the secret to keeping one’s spirits up is never to meet lovely young American ladies of 23 or gay young men of twenty. If we all move along together, taking care to only meet elderly consuls, business men & old widows, moving in a bunch to our Doom the chances are we will keep up the illusion even at forty that we are not antiques in an art school class room […]
Gerald, dear I send you so much love.
And don’t part with any of your mss to Virginia. Remember you belong by a previous bargain to me & after that to a possible Tidmarsh Press. I care so much.
Your loving Doric
The possibility of letting the Mill to the ‘lovely young American ladies’ while the threesome were away came to nothing; Lytton took against them and forbade it. But Carrington had been genuinely smitten by Henrietta; her playful admission to Gerald, very much in the idiom of the Mill when a new attractive young man or woman appeared on the scene, was only partly a tease.
Henrietta Bingham (1901–61) was visiting England with her friend, former tutor and first love Mina Kirstein. She was the wayward bisexual daughter of a rich Kentucky family; her father wanted her ‘cured’ of her homosexual inclinations, for which she was soon being ‘treated’ in London by Freud’s leading follower, Ernest Jones.
The journey to North Africa began on 21 March. Carrington spent a week ill in bed, but wrote many long descriptive letters to Gerald. They returned via Sicily and Rome.
To Gerald Brenan
Written in the train between Tunis and Constantine
[About 23 March 1923]
Last night after tea which I brew in the hotel on a spirit lamp, Ralph and I went for an exploration into the Jewish quarter of Tunis. At first we only saw the curious Yiddish eating houses and souks; there seemed no definite distinction between the Moslem quarters and those of the Jewish people. Suddenly we came to a very narrow little alley with only room for two people to walk abreast. In front of us walked a little girl of ten, very gaily dressed, a short frock above her knees, white socks, enormous fat pink legs, walking in little wooden pattens very slowly, picking her way through puddles, as it had been raining all day. Her hair was short, yellow tied with a big bow. We felt we had reached the ‘nymphs’ quarter!
Suddenly she turned around. Her face was that of a hideous harlot old and jaded, covered with thick paint, terribly made up. Then we saw more and more of those horrible FAT creatures, the alley grew narrower. Some in chemises just below their parts, all with bare legs, except for the low white socks. They lay on little benches at the door of their little houses, which seemed to consist of a single room, and hung about in groups at the doors. They shrieked at us. I couldn’t make out if they were French or Jewesses. I think French. But you can’t conceive the effect it had on one, seeing these creatures, touching them, for the alley was so narrow. They were painted as pantomime girls are painted for the stage and all in these ridiculous ‘little girl’ dresses with fat doll-like legs. Ralph was excited at these apparitions. I confess I was filled with a curious terror. One awful thing was that the men, some Moslems, some French, walking down the alley looked at them perfectly calmly and cynically. We saw some amazing scenes in the other alleys. Bake houses; a huge negro with a great tray of little cakes which he was putting in a huge oven. His face and bare top of his body lit up by the red furnace. Little coffee houses with Moslems sitting around on high shelves against the walls, cross-legged and smoking. Basket and rope shops with huge monster moham-madans and lying on heaps of plaited rushes, like great sheiks in some Arabian Night’s Dream. One in a little eating house suddenly leered and made a most dreadful face at me like one of those lecherous Chinese masks. As a rule they hardly looked at one, or if they do, scowl.
Coming back we came across another Jewish quarter, with dark olive skinned women all painted and bedecked with earrings, long greasy black hair and Eastern trousers and shawls. They were obviously harlots; one saw inside little rooms with divans, and old hags equally painted.
It’s queer leaving these little alleys and souks to come through a big archway and find trams, civilized French women and men in Paris clothes. Bon marchés and post offices […]
To Gerald Brenan
[Kairouan, Tunisia]
27 April 1923
I will write a more orderly letter soon. I hope you keep well. I long to have news of you, and hear all about the Woolfs. You can’t be too enthusiastic, to please me, over Virginia! I always feel she is one of the few people it has actually been tremendously good fortune to have known in this life. I am sure few women since the beginning of the world have equalled her for wit and charm, and a special rare kind of beauty.
This will be one of the longest holidays we have ever made. I doubt if we will be back in ENGLAND until the middle of May now. We spent a whole month at that curious place Hammam-Meskoutine. I don’t regret it. For one never really enjoys a place utterly to its fullest until one has been there a long time. The last evening there was perhaps the most perfect. I had not been outside in the fields for nearly a week as I had been in bed. Everything had a peculiar vividness for this reason. I fell in love with olive trees again. The blue borage, orange marigolds, yellow daisies, and purple gladiolas seemed to me more brilliant and wonderful than I had thought before. We sat in a little grass valley, looking down a steep bank on to a little stream, which ran dark, and cold like some black snake beneath the oleanders, heavy palm trees, and tropical oaks. The gnats flew from flower to flower shining in the sun which was just sinking behind the great mountains. The asphodels looked ghostly pale and transparent and their stalks were invisible against the green grass, only their pink-grey flowers were lighted by the sun. Lytton read us Keats: ‘Endymion’ and ‘The Nightingale’. The air was very still and hot, and I thought Keats and this world had never been so exquisitely beautiful before. The sun sank and we walked along the ridge of the hill through the olive trees, and asphodels listening to the nightingales and croaking frogs. To feel such ecstasy seems to me to make life, even if all the other days were dull and tiresome in the year, worth living. Someday you must go to Meskoutine. I am sure nowhere so much pure beauty is contained. I cannot forget those fields of flowers, and the amazing beauty of the mountains.
To Gerald Brenan
Kairouan
Monday [28] April 1923
This is a superb town! The raging wind had gone down, and the sky is completely blue. We have just seen the great mosque. One is allowed inside, for in 1840, the French stabled their horses inside, and so defiled the mosque for good. It is far more beautiful than Cordova, with a vast marble courtyard outside surrounded by a colonnade of marble pillars, which I think were taken from Carthage. Lytton has been buying leather morocco skins in the souks this morning. They are absurdly cheap, even although we are swindled, I expect, by these crafty Moslems […]
Yesterday we had coffee outside a little Moorish coffee house, and watched the sun go down. The good Moslems eat nothing from sunrise to sunset now for 40 days. It’s very simple and rather extraordinary to see them sitting in rows outside the eating houses with oranges and cakes in their hands waiting until the muezzin from the minaret cries out. Then they all fall on their food, and drink up their cups of coffee.
Kairouan is far more Eastern than Biskra. There are only 500 Europeans in the whole population, and no French buildings, and only this one hotel.
One sees no great sheiks or chieftains or Arab horses. Do write to me. We won’t leave Rome c/o Thomas Cook until the 12th of May about and then Tidmarsh. My fondest love.
Doric
To Virginia Woolf
The Mill House<
br />
Sunday, 20 May 1923
Dearest Virginia,
We are back again […] One expected a crowd of enthusiastic friends at Victoria, a budget of letters at Tidmarsh. There was nothing! Then I read last night your account of Spain and I felt you were the only person who understood the immensity of travelling to Timgad and Segesta and returning to England. Perhaps Hogarth didn’t disappoint you. I confess I was depressed the moment we climbed on board our ship at Boulogne (yesterday afternoon), and saw Bonar Law’sfn168 dreary yellow face on the deck, and the crowds of dull English travellers. I even turned traitor to Kent and Sussex and despised them. The Clapham back gardens with the hens. But still I felt we were travelling to Tidmarsh and that the moment I saw its beauties my spirits would revive. Do you know for the first time in my life I turned against our Mill? I suddenly felt, as I suspect all our visitors feel, how very flat and provincial it was and that the ducks, and chickens were just as dull as the ones in the Clapham back gardens. My mother was here and had put new covers on all the chairs and made the insides of all the rooms look completely hideous. But even she did not entirely account for my depression. One didn’t realise what an exciting and beautiful life one had led these last two months until last night. You will suspect me imitating your travels in Spain if I tell you of all our adventures in Italy in this letter. And although I know you will accuse me of flattery I must tell you I thought your essay was amazing! Everything came back to me. Every word you wrote gave me a vision of scenes I had quite forgotten and I loved you for writing it. This letter is all a prologue to a cadge for an invitation to Hogarth. Will you ask me to tea with you. So that I can talk to you alone, of all your adventures, and Gerald? I can easily come up for a day, or will you both visit this rather despondent Mill? Gerald alone did not play me false, last night and wrote me a long letter. But he simply omitted to tell me one word about the last month because he said you would tell me everything.
Carrington's Letters Page 28