Carrington's Letters

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Carrington's Letters Page 50

by Dora Carrington


  DC’s letters to xiii, xviii, 39–44, 47–8, 49–50, 68–9, 70–72, 74–7, 78, 80–81, 84–9, 95–101, 102–6, 108–11, 114–15, 117–18, 119–25, 127–8, 129–32, 133–4, 141–5, 147–52, 155–7, 160–64, 165–6, 167–73, 177–8, 195–8, 200, 213–17, 219–20, 249, 251–2, 260–63, 289–90, 298–300, 307–8, 325–7, 329–30, 336–7, 346, 348–9, 359, 360–63, 364–6, 367–9, 370, 375–7, 379–80, 383–7

  Strachey, Marjorie 154–5, 172, 175, 234, 252, 310

  Strachey, Oliver 72, 74 and n, 75, 77, 79, 90, 91, 103, 165, 179, 318, 389

  Strachey, Pernel 67 and n

  Strachey, Philippa (‘Pippa’) 163 and n, 175, 196, 203, 212, 267, 389, 393

  Strachey, Rachel (Ray (née Costelloe) 79n, 172

  Strachey, Sir Richard 140, 163n

  Stulik, Rudolf 342 and n

  Suggia, Guilhermina 83

  Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire: Mill Cottage 320, 321, 325, 351, 370, 373

  Swift, Jonathan 172 and n, 174

  Sydney-Turner, Saxon 60 and n, 79, 98, 165, 166, 171, 190, 309, 345, 348, 360, 361; DC’s letter to 318–19

  Tagore, Rabindranath 191 and n

  Tate Britain: The Art of Bloomsbury (2000) xvii

  Tatlock, Robert 221 and n

  Taylor, Valerie 328

  Taylor, Walter 171

  Tiber/Puss 321n, 322, 325, 338, 339, 339, 340–41, 343, 353, 355, 356, 359, 362, 368, 372, 375, 376, 377, 383, 384, 387

  Tidmarsh, Berkshire: Mill House 34, 35, 71–2, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82–3, 90–92, 93–4, 110, 119, 120, 129, 131, 146–7, 179, 188–90, 191, 200, 215, 236, 238, 241, 244, 246, 250, 252, 257, 275; Roman Bath 97 and n, 187, 190, 274

  Times, The 100, 142–3, 166, 184, 249

  Toklas, Alice B. 234n

  Tolstoy, Leo 191; The Death of Ivan Ilyich 111; War and Peace 282

  Tomlin, Hon. Garrow 356 and n, 389

  Tomlin, Lady Marion (née Waterfield) 319, 325

  Tomlin, Hon. Stephen (‘Tommy’) 274n; with Henrietta Bingham at Mill House 274; brief affairs with DC and LS 258, 274n; finishes statue for Ham Spray 293; in love with Julia Strachey 297, 306–7; visits Henry Lamb and T. F. Powys with DC 306; Christmas (1926) at Ham Spray 310; universally admired 315; marriage 320; designs window at Swallowcliffe 325; Christmas (1927) at Ham Spray 328; becomes an ‘Honourable’ 356; DC worried by his sculpture 358; ‘in good spirits’ 370; marital problems 382; DC hopes to work with him on a ballet 382; and brother’s death 389; and LS’s death 391, 393, 384, 396; and DC’s death 404; DC’s letter to 395

  Tomlin, Thomas Tomlin, Baron 319, 325, 356n

  ‘Toronto’ see Prewett, Frank

  treacle prints 192–3 and n

  Trinity College, Cambridge 67, 143, 329n

  Valentino, Rudolph 234

  Vanbrugh, Irene 192 and n, 235

  Vanbrugh, John: The Relapse … 138 and n

  Varda, Dorothy 338 and n

  Varda, Jean 338n

  Vienna 196, 197–8

  Vigilant (newspaper) 86

  Voltaire: Zadig 342 and n

  Waley, Arthur xiii, 98n; DC enjoys lunch with 98–9; she stays with in France 132 and n; hosts a dance in London 134, 135; his mistress plays Bach 221; meets DC and RP at parties 222, 338; praises Brenan 338; DC devoted to 341; writes to her 347

  Waley, Margaret 120 and n, 121, 165, 192, 217, 342, 349; DC’s letter to 369–60

  Walters, Mrs (housekeeper) 388

  Warner, Sylvia Townsend: Lolly Willowes 376 and n

  Watendlath Farm, Cumberland 180–81, 182, 183–5, 212, 257

  Webster, John 319n; The White Devil 143, 313, 314

  Wells, H. G. 93n; Ann Veronica 21 and n

  West, Rebecca 381

  Whistler, Rex 388

  Wilson, Angus 381 and n

  Wilson, Gwen 99 and n

  Wilson, Mona 386

  Wimborne, Ivor Guest, 1st Viscount 356

  Windermere, Lake 183

  Wissett Lodge, Suffolk 41 and n, 42, 51

  Wittenham Clumps, Oxfordshire 39 and n, 41, 42, 138n

  Wittering, Sussex see Eleanor House

  Wittgenstein, Ludwig 225 and n, 236, 237

  Woolf, Leonard: rents Asheham House 25n; displeased at it being used without permission 54; asks DC to design woodcuts 69; his article on Freud 106; life in Richmond 153; employs RP 152, 153; at Gordon Square dinner party 165; angry with DC 166; and RP’s breakdown 168, 170; walks with RP 177; discusses his future employment 177, 178; visits Brenan 232, 234, 237; DC’s views on 234, 250; at Ham Spray 388, 393; see also Hogarth Press

  Woolf, Virginia 25n; on letter-writing xviii; and Dreadnought Hoax (1910) 63n; not pleased at Asheham being slept in 54; dislikes LS’s attachment to DC 33; LS complains to 80; has DC as guest 92; and Noel Carrington 128; publishes Night and Day 132; and Fredegond Shove 143n, 144; DC’s views on 153, 158, 204, 237, 239, 250; controversy with Desmond MacCarthy 157; at Gordon Square dinner party 165; and RP’s breakdown 168, 170; entertains DC and RP 177; dislikes RP’s histrionics 178; and RP 213, 234, 237; stays with Brenan 232, 234, 237, 241–2; and presents 236; tells DC of Brenan’s engagement 242, 243, 244, 245; on LS and DC xv–xvi; at Ham Spray 388, 393; cannot console DC 403; and her death 404–5; her own suicide 405; DC’s letters to 69–70, 92–3, 94–5, 128–9, 223–4, 241–2, 397

  Woolsey, Gamel see Brenan, Gamel

  Wordsworth, Dorothy 150 and n, 151

  Wordsworth, William 90, 128, 150 and n, 183

  World War, First 10, 12, 13, 14, 17n, 23, 33, 38 and n, 62, 73 and n, 96; Armistice Day 100—2

  Zoete, Beryl de 221, 381

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  Copyright © Anne Chisholm 2017

  Cover: photograph of Dora Carrington, 1917 by Lady Ottoline Morrell © National Portrait Gallery London

  Anne Chisholm has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published by Chatto & Windus in 2017

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  Growing Up: 1893–1915

  fn1 George Borrow, 1803–81, traveller and writer on Gypsies (Lavengro, 1851, and The Romany Rye, 1857).

  fn2 Piero della Francesca (c.1415–92), one of Carrington’s favourite painters.

  fn3 Margaret Odeh (1887–1960), known as Bunty, was part Arab, born in Jerusalem, had an Oxford history degree and was a keen suffragist. She married Paul Nash in 1914.

  fn4 Christine Kuhlenthal (1895–1976) had a German-born father which caused her some difficulty during the war.

  fn5 Lady Ottoline Cavendish Bentinck (1873–1938) was the half-sister of the Duke of Portland. She married Philip Morrell (1870–1943) in 1902; he became a Liberal M.P. in 1906. They lived in Bloomsbury and, after 1915, at Garsington, a Tudor manor house in Oxfordshire.

  fn6 Combe House, near Hurstbourne Tarrant, had been discovered empty and half-ruined by Carrington, who fantasised about living there.

  fn7 The New English Art Club, founded in 1886, was more inclined than the Royal Academy to show work by young artists.


  fn8 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, published 1895.

  fn9 Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence, published in 1913.

  fn10 Frieda Weekley (1879–1956), born von Richthofen, married D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) in 1914. Her German origins caused them trouble during the war; their relationship was famously tempestuous.

  fn11 The Ranee was Margaret Brooke (1849–1936), who in 1869 had married Charles, the second White Rajah of Sarawak, Borneo, ruled by the Brookes since 1839. Her book, My Life in Sarawak, came out in 1913. Brett’s younger sister Sylvia married the Ranee’s eldest son, also Charles, in 1911. He became the last White Rajah in 1917.

  fn12 Mancini was a regular model at the Slade.

  fn13 The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler, published in 1903, depicted a son’s revolt against a repressive father.

  fn14 Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells, published in 1909, was a succès de scandale. The eponymous heroine rebelled against her bourgeois background, became a suffragette and had a child outside marriage.

  fn15 Zena Dare, star of pantomime and musical comedy, had married Brett’s brother Maurice in 1911.

  fn16 Henry Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), doctor and social reformer, studied and wrote about sexuality.

  fn17 Sir Edward Marsh (1872–1953), civil servant, sometime private secretary to Winston Churchill, patron of the arts and friend of Rupert Brooke.

  fn18 H. H. Asquith (1852–1928), Liberal statesman and prime minister from 1908 to 1916.

  fn19 New English Art Club.

  fn20 The Sloane was a gallery in Brighton. Walter Sickert (1860–1942) was a leader and founder artist of the Camden Town Group.

  fn21 Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett, a picaresque novel published in 1748.

  fn22 Clive Bell (1881–1964), art critic, had been married to Vanessa Stephen (1879–1961), Virginia Woolf’s sister, since 1907.

  fn23 Asheham House, rented by Leonard and Virginia Woolf as a country retreat.

  fn24 Duncan Grant (1885–1978), painter, cousin and former lover of Lytton Strachey.

  fn25 Lytton Strachey (1880–1932), writer and critic.

  fn26 Mary Hutchinson, a cousin and close friend of Lytton Strachey’s, was married to the barrister St John Hutchinson and a long-term mistress of Clive Bell.

  fn27 Gilbert Cannan (1884–1955) was an actor turned writer who married Mary Barrie, formerly the wife of the play wright J. M. Barrie, in 1910.

  fn28 Gilbert Cannan’s novel, Mendel, published in 1916, is a barely disguised if overheated portrait of Mark Gertler, his poor Jewish background, his struggles with his art and his tormented relationship with Carrington. The book, which she detested, is dedicated to D. C.

  fn29 The Cannans had a house by a windmill at Cholesbury, Bucks, where Gertler and Carrington would sometimes go alone.

  fn30 Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), whose patriotism, death in Greece and poetry moved the nation, had been a lover of James Strachey at Cambridge.

  fn31 Lawrence had launched a plan to set up an artists’ commune, Rananim, perhaps in Florida.

  fn32 See Michael Holroyd’s account of the incident in Lytton Strachey, published in 1995.

  Building Love: 1916–1923

  fn1 Carrington had been down to Cholesbury with Gertler and allowed him inconclusive embraces in the woods.

  fn2 The Cannans’ dog.

  fn3 Philip Snowden, later 1st Viscount (1864–1937), elected Labout MP for Blackburn 1905, opposed conscription into the forces during the war.

  fn4 Ottoline was devoted to her many pugs.

  fn5 The Wittenham Clumps, above Dorchester in Oxfordshire, where Carrington and Lytton walked together from Garsington.

  fn6 He had sent her Rimbaud’s ‘Le Bateau ivre’, written in 1871 when the poet was sixteen.

  fn7 St John and Mary Hutchinson’s seaside house, Eleanor, at Wittering near Chichester.

  fn8 Sir Montague Shearman (1857–1930), known as Monty, was a prominent judge with a keen interest in contemporary art and a friend and patron of Mark Gertler.

  fn9 Loulou was the widely used nickname of Sir Lewis Harcourt, Liberal MP and Cabinet minister from 1905 to 1915. Married to an American heiress and a father, he was nevertheless an active paedophile. A friend of Brett’s father Lord Esher, he had traumatised her with his sexual advances when she was fifteen. He killed himself in 1921 after an assault on an Eton schoolboy caused a public scandal.

  fn10 Philip Morrell was inclined to be ponderous.

  fn11 Faith Bagenal (1889–1979) was the sister-in-law of Carrington’s great friend Barbara Hiles. In 1915 she had married Hubert Henderson (1890–1952), an economist and rising Liberal politician.

  fn12 Wissett Lodge was a Suffolk farmhouse rented by Duncan Grant so that he and his lover David Garnett could work as fruit farmers instead of joining up. Lytton, and all Bloomsbury, had the unnerving habit of sharing letters over breakfast.

  fn13 ‘In a grey gloom I remain your baby’.

  fn14 Harry Norton was a brilliant young Cambridge mathematician, a lifelong friend of Lytton Strachey’s and a lover of Lytton’s brother, James.

  fn15 Much naked bathing took place in the long rectangular pool in the lower garden. On one such occasion Ottoline, a keen photographer, took pictures of Carrington posing on one of the classical statues at the pool’s edge, as shown on the cover of this book.

  fn16 ‘There are those who teach me to live – and others who teach me to die – many a time.’

  fn17 ‘Here it is hotter and hotter each day … your very sad baby.’

  fn18 Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), whose first novel, Crome Yellow, published in 1921, was a satirical portrait of goings-on at Garsington with a disobliging and very recognisable portrait of Carrington as a tiresome virgin.

  fn19 Cannan, like all pacifists, had to go before a tribunal to be exempted from military service.

  fn20 It seems Gertler was not at ease with Lytton’s homosexuality, while Carrington increasingly was.

  fn21 ‘You must do up your fly buttons, all of them, every night. Do not forget, my friend!’

  fn22 ‘Sometimes I would like to be a miller’s boy!’

  fn23 John Sheppard was an early love of Lytton’s at Cambridge.

  fn24 Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923), born in New Zealand, had been living in London since 1908; her first collection of stories, In a German Pension, was published in 1911. In the same year she met her future husband, John Middleton Murry (1889–1957), editor and writer.

  fn25 Two attractive young women, Maria Nys, from Belgium, and Juliette Baillot, known as Mademoiselle because she was French and governess to the Morrells’ daughter, Julian, lived at Garsington during the war. Later both married Huxleys: Maria to Aldous and Juliette to his brother Julian.

  fn26 Jelly and Adila d’Aranyi were sisters and renowned violinists, born in Hungary but living in London since 1913.

  fn27 Roger Fry (1886–1934), leading painter and critic of his day and close friend of the Bells and the Woolfs, was restoring the Triumph of Caesar, the great frescoes at Hampton Court painted by the late-fifteenth-century artist Andrea Mantegna and brought to Britain from Mantua by Charles I in 1629.

  fn28 Frederick Brown (1851–1941) was a painter and teacher who was Slade Professor of Art from 1893 to 1918. He was for a time romantically involved with Brett.

  fn29 Gertler had been professionally photographed.

  fn30 Her brother Teddy, after first serving in the navy, had transferred to the Wiltshire Regiment where his older brother Sam and younger brother Noel had been serving since 1914. He had been reported missing since the Battle of the Somme in the summer.

  fn31 Augustus John (1878–1961), painter, had been married to his first wife, Ida, by whom he had five children, until her death in 1907. He was by this time living with Dorelia, by whom he had two further children; she was a friend of Ida’s and his mistress since 1904.

  fn32 Saxon Sydney-Turner (1880–1962), another friend of Lytton’s from Cambridge, a classicist who wo
rked in the Treasury all his life. In love with Barbara Hiles, he remained devoted to her after her marriage to Nick Bagenal.

  fn33 The Omega Workshop was set up by Roger Fry, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell in 1913 in Fitzroy Square, London, to dissolve the division between the fine and decorative arts and enable artists to design and sell their own work, including furniture, textiles and pottery. As well as woodcuts for the Hogarth Press, Carrington designed tiles and public house signs through The Omega Workshop.

  fn34 Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970) was a leading member of the Socialist opposition to the tsarist regime in Russia and was to play a leading part in the Revolution of February 1917. Briefly prime minister before Lenin and the Bolsheviks took over in October 1917, he supported Russia’s involvement in the war.

  fn35 Alix Sargant-Florence (1892–1973) was the daughter of an American musician and a British painter, who studied briefly at the Slade before going to Cambridge.

  fn36 Horace de Vere Cole (1881–1936) was a rich Irish eccentric famous for practical jokes, notably the Dreadnought Hoax of 1910 when he fooled a naval captain into entertaining a group of his friends (including Virginia Woolf) dressed up as Abyssinians. His second wife, Mavis, later had a son by Augustus John.

 

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