All We Know: Three Lives
Page 36
Notes
I have standardized the idiosyncrasies of Esther Murphy’s writing in just one way: I have silently corrected her spelling, for ease of reading. In her hands particular was usually particuliar and extraordinary was extradinary, for example. She was also capable of misspelling the names of her closest friends (Magaret for Margaret) and of her subject (Maintenon was often Maintainon). I have let most her punctuation stand, because—odd as it sometimes appears to a contemporary eye, and although some of her habits were hers alone—some was common practice in her day.
ABBREVIATIONS
AFP
Arthur Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
CBD
Cecil Beaton unpublished diaries, courtesy of the Literary Executors of the late Sir Cecil Beaton
CNA
Condé Nast Archive
EWP
Edmund Wilson Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
GSMP
Gerald and Sara Murphy Papers. I consulted this archive when it was still in possession of the family and known as the Donnolly Family Papers. It is now part of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
IAP
Isabelle Anscombe Papers. Consulted privately; now housed at the Newnham Literary Archive, Newnham College, Cambridge University.
JFP
Janet Flanner/Solita Solano Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
JSP
John Strachey Papers, private collection
MdAP
Mercedes de Acosta Papers, Rosenbach Museum & Library, Philadelphia
MDP
Muriel Draper Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
MEP
Max Ewing Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
MGP
Madge Garland Papers. Consulted in a private collection. Now acquired by the Royal College of Art Archives, London.
MHFP
McHarg Family Papers, private collection
RCAA
Royal College of Art Archives
RWP
Rebecca West Papers, General Collection of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
SBP
Sybille Bedford/Allanah Harper Papers, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
THREE LIVES
“one likes romantically…gloom”: Virginia Woolf, “Lives of the Obscure,” The Essays of Virginia Woolf, vol. 4: 1925–1928, Andrew McNeillie, ed. (London: Hogarth, 1994), 119.
“What is style?…thinking”: Marguerite Young, “Inviting the Muses,” in Inviting the Muses: Stories, Essays, Reviews (Normal, Ill.: Dalkey Archive, 1994), 114.
A PERFECT FAILURE
“a nonstop conversationalist”: Calvin Tompkins, Living Well Is the Best Revenge (New York: Viking, 1962, 1971), 13.
“a wonder”…“a ‘genius’”: Patrick Murphy to Gerald Murphy, July 23, [1909], GSMP. He went on: “It has been remarkable: a continuous string of laurels.”
“with a dissertation…Turgenev”: Quoted in Honoria Murphy Donnelly, with Richard N. Billings, Sara and Gerald (New York: Times, 1982), 130.
“to several magazines…write!”: Gerald Murphy to Sara Wiborg, July 28, 1913, GSMP.
“ask[ed] why in…night”: Max Ewing to parents, Wednesday May 9, 1928.
“Bounding Bess, noted…Fact”: Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack (New York: New York University Press, 1992 [1928]), 32.
“I don’t remember…talking”: John Peale Bishop to F. Scott Fitzgerald, quoted in Elizabeth Carroll Spindler, John Peale Bishop: A Biography (Morgantown, W.V.: West Virginia University Library, 1980), 185.
“But you were”…“‘Esther’”: Quoted in Edmund Wilson, The Sixties: The Last Journal, 1960–1972 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993), 210.
“going through all…audience”: Ibid., 207. He was reporting a story that Gerald told him and Dawn Powell, after Esther’s death.
“personally and professionally…arrogance”: Dawn Powell to Gerald Murphy, December 13, 1962, GSMP.
“it could be a…anything”: James Douglas to author, interview, Paris, September 20, 2002.
“All we know is”: Sybille Bedford to author, conversation, London, June 28, 1999.
“There has never…failures”: Quoted in Richard Holmes, “Scott and Zelda: One Last Trip,” Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer (New York: Random House, 2000), 322.
“I am certain…failure”: Gertrude Stein, “Portraits and Repetition,” Lectures in America (Boston: Beacon, 1985 [1935]), 172.
“fond of saying…failure”: Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography (Cambridge, Mass.: Exact Change, 1993), 88.
“the speeded-up…money”: Edmund Wilson, “The Author at Sixty,” The Portable Edmund Wilson, Lewis M. Dabney, ed. (New York: Viking Penguin, 1983), 23. Wilson considered his father an example of this phenomenon.
“the most important…crash”: EM to Leonie Sterner, November 11, 1930, MDP.
“rescued the forgotten…Jansenists”: EM to Sybille Bedford, n.d. (postmarked December 21, 1954), SBP.
“Did she realize…failure?”: EM, Madame de Maintenon drafts, GSMP.
“with her usual historical gusto”: Edmund Wilson, The Fifties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period, ed. Leon Edel (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986), 251.
“was all about…research”: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, March 30, 2000.
“Statistics,” wrote Dawn…“jewels”: Dawn Powell, The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931–1965 (South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth, 1995), 249.
“I will now…through”: EM to Muriel Draper, April 27, 1933, MDP.
NO SUCH WORD AS FAIL
“Esther is without…dialogue”: Max Ewing to parents, March 7, 1927, MEP. Anna Murphy, he wrote, “finally wanders off to bed. Esther and her father linger for an hour or so at the table, and are an amazing pair.”
“so proud…straight”: Anna Murphy to Gerald Murphy, June 24, 1909, GSMP.
“life and…tragically”: Gerald Murphy to Sara Wiborg, August 25, 1915, GSMP.
“Mother was devoted…life”: Gerald Murphy to EM [1957]. Gerald’s biographer describes Anna Murphy as “devoutly Catholic,” but Esther told Sybille Bedford that her mother was Protestant, which this letter seems to confirm.
“Our father who…Europe”: Donnelley, Sara and Gerald, 77.
Born in Boston: The facts about Patrick Murphy’s early years are unclear. According to his descendants, he attended the academically rigorous, public Boston Latin School, but a contemporary source notes that he was educated “in the Quincy Grammar and English High Schools, Boston.” (Boston Morning Journal, January 2, 1878, 4.) Most of Cross’s fine harnesses and saddles were produced in the town of Walsall in the English Midlands, a center of leather goods manufacturing, and Murphy may have been apprenticed for a time at a Walsall factory. Before buying Mark Cross, he may have first started his own firm: In late 1891, he was writing on stationery headed “London Harness Agency—P. F. Murphy & Co.—Harness, Saddlery and Horse Furnishings.” Gerald called Patrick Murphy a self-made man, but Murphy’s own father must have had some means, because he is said to have loaned his son the $6,000 he needed to purchase the Mark Cross Company. One obituary of Murphy asserts, “Incidentally, the company never was headed by any one named Mark Cross, but it won that name by its practice of marking its shipments with a cross.” (“Patrick Murphy Dies; Famed as Dinner Speaker,” New York Herald Tribune, n.d., GSMP.)
“was still a…Frenchman”: Mrs. Winthrop Chanler [Margaret Chanler], Roman Spring (Boston: Little, Brown, 1934), 234, 238.
“to be regarded…Association”: “Horse Show Luncheon Prelude to Opening,” New York Times, November 19, 1906, 10. At another of these early events, “loud cries of ‘Murphy!’ resounded through the
dining room, which were renewed as the official orator arose to acknowledge the greetings of those present,” “Horse Show Opens with a Luncheon,” New York Times, November 18, 1907, 8.
“clear fluent monotone”: New York Times, n.d.
“He who breeds…applause”: “Horse Show Ready for Opening Today,” New York Times, November 14, 1904, 7.
“The art of…stop”: Ms., GSMP.
“Buying inferior articles…time”: GSMP. “Many a False Step is made by Standing Still,” read another ad. “This is a paradox. A paradox is ‘truth standing on its head to attract attention.’ Something seemingly absurd but true in fact. The purpose is to direct attention to the fact that Mark Cross Has Grown A New Branch At 175 Broadway.” Wall Street Journal, October 10, 1923, p. 11.
“Before we knew…her”: Anna Murphy to Gerald Murphy, June 24, 1909, GSMP.
“instigated”: Anna Murphy to Gerald Murphy, August 1, 1909, GSMP. She also tells him that “Esther is upstairs writing—she has been asked to send something to the Paris ‘Matin’ and has been offered ten [?] cents a word for them.”
“Edgar Allan Poe–ish”: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, March 29, 2000.
“History is simply…history”: “Fifteen Waggish Epigrams—Delivered at the Lambs’ [Club] Spring Gambol by Patrick Francis Murphy,” The World, Sunday, May 6, 1923.
“Happily…fail”: New York Times, November 18, 1907, 8.
“He looked like…gloves”: “Patrick Murphy Dies; Famed as Dinner Speaker,” New York Herald Tribune, n.d., GSMP.
“distinguished and remarkable…women”: EM to Sybille Bedford, n.d. [postmarked July 3, 1959], SBP.
“a clever and…Ma’s”: EM to Sybille Bedford, n.d. [1954], SBP.
“the Black Service”: Gerald Murphy to Sara Wiborg, Friday, n.d. [1915], GSMP.
“a defect over…time”: Gerald Murphy to Archibald MacLeish, January 22, 1931, Archibald Mac Leish Papers, Library of Congress.
“fail[ure] to grasp…married”: Gerald Murphy to Sara Wiborg, August 26, 1915, quoted in Amanda Vaill, Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy, A Lost Generation Love Story (New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1998), 64.
“a peculiar form…indigestion”: Quoted in Vaill, Everybody Was So Young, 23.
“My appearance is…attractions”: EM to Gerald Murphy, n.d. [postmarked November 18, 1916], GSMP.
“as light in…Amazon”: EM to Gerald Murphy, July 6, 1915, GSMP.
“I assure you…wandered”: EM to Gerald Murphy, July 13, 1915, GSMP.
“All the masculine…Gerald”: Wilson, The Sixties, 62.
“Come, brace up…failure”: Patrick Murphy to Gerald Murphy, November 20, 1909, quoted in Vaill, Everybody Was So Young.
He died without…father: “I have never ceased to regret that I was unable to bring Fred and Father into at least human terms at the last,” Gerald Murphy to EM, September 9, 1937, AFP.
“in a bad…alone”: EM to Gerald Murphy, n.d. [postmarked November 18, 1916], GSMP.
“a more completely…again”: EM to Chester Arthur, June 17, 1943, AFP.
“if you are…indelible”: Mary McCarthy, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (New York: Harcourt, 1985 [1957]), 24.
“it is also…civics”: Ibid., 25.
“together with much…non-Catholics”: Ibid., 26.
“knowing the past…own”: Ibid., 25.
TO FILL UP HER KNOWLEDGE IN ALL DIRECTIONS
“‘The American Woman’…Magazine!”: EM to Gerald Murphy, April 13, 1917, GSMP.
“I will limit…to”: EM to Gerald Murphy, November 21, 1916, GSMP.
“You are my…robust”: Ibid.
“both men and…it”: EM to Chester Arthur, June 15, 1936, AFP.
“incontrovertible” proof of…“table”: Esther Arthur, “Have You Heard About Roosevelt,” Common Sense, August 1938, 15.
“of seeking to…aspired”: Esther Murphy, “The President’s Appeal,” Letter to the Editor, New York Times, October 22, 1920, 12.
“normalcy” as his…“situation”: Esther Murphy, “Democracy in Action” an address by Mrs. Chester A. Arthur Delivered Before a Joint Breakfast of the Los Angeles Democratic County Central Committee and the Young Democrats of California, June 1, 1941, AFP.
“rather monotonous sojourn[s]”: EM to Edmund Wilson, August 3, 1922, EWP.
“nothing but other Americans”: Edmund Wilson, The Fifties, 254.
“one of the…me”: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d., EWP.
“more and more devoted”: Edmund Wilson to John Peale Bishop, June 30, 1920 [1923], in Wilson, Letters on Literature and Politics, 1912–1972 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 106.
“unclouded”: Edmund Wilson, “A Weekend at Ellerslie,” The Portable Edmund Wilson, 194.
“‘Victorian’ article”: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 12, 1922, EWP.
“the sheer intellectual…thing”: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 15, 1924, EWP.
“We could discuss…done”: EM to Edmund Wilson, August 9, 1922, EWP.
“the only complaint…to”: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d. [circa September 1922], EWP.
“ruthlessly in at…off”: T. S. Matthews quoted in Lewis M. Dabney, Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 130.
“We fell on…chef”: Wilson, The Fifties, 251–52.
“quietness and flatness…another”: Wilson, The Fifties, 375–6.
“her gawky girlhood…York”: Ibid., 254.
“the special characteristics…maturity”: Ibid., 253.
“I had always…Divines”: EM to Sybille Bedford, August 15, 1956, SBP.
“the Philistines are…them”: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d. [circa September 1922], EWP.
“redeemers of mankind…me”: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 15, 1924, EWP.
“Perhaps he interests…need”: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 5, 1923, EWP.
“among the greatest…choice”: Esther Murphy, “Books and Authors: ‘Love and Friendship’” (review of Love and Friendship and Other Early Works, by Jane Austen), New York Tribune, September 24, 1922; Esther Murphy, “Jane Austen” (review of The Watsons), New York Tribune, April 29, 1923, 27. If she saw Austen as clear-sighted about literary and sexual politics, she shared the more standard view that the novels display no evidence of power and politics beyond the family circle, writing that Austen “entirely overlooked the fact that history was being made all around her.” For the Tribune, Esther also reviewed biographies of Mrs. Humphry Ward and King Leopold of Belgium.
“Hawthorne’s animosity toward…contemporaries”: EM to Edmund Wilson, September 10, 1922, EWP.
“the Great and…Wharton”: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 12, 1922, EWP.
“I’m going to…me”: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d., EWP.
“the custodian of…dwelling”: All quotations from Edith Wharton, “The Angel at the Grave,” Scribner’s Magazine 29 (Feb. 1901): 158–66.
“a dull enough…beauty”: EM to Edmund Wilson, August 3, 1922, EWP.
“scheduled for future publication”: Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1928, C17.
“demoted from a…kept”: Abby Slater, In Search of Margaret Fuller (New York: Delacorte, 1978), 3.
“I did not…satisfactory”: EM to Edmund Wilson, October 5, 1951, EWP.
BACHELOR HEIRESS
“decided to be…bottle”: Wilson, The Fifties, 254.
“preliminary drinks…experience”: Wilson, “A Weekend at Ellerslie,” 189, 191, 194.
“would occasionally bring…eloquence”: Max Ewing to Mrs. Alice Manning [postmarked March 15, 1927], MEP.
“moved absent-mindedly…sequins”: Max Ewing to parents, May 9, 1928, MEP.
“magnificent as the…convent”: Max Ewing to parents, n.d. [postmarked January 28, 1930], MEP.
he painted Mercedes: These portraits and others appeared in Chanler’s show at the Valentine Gallery in New York in 1929. “To be painted by Bob Chanler, says Carl Van Vechten, is to have a care
er, a social opportunity and an education,” wrote the art critic Henry McBride, “Spirited Portraits by Squire Chanler Shown—Authentic Celebrity Conferred on Sitters by Singular Artist—Process Revealed by Mr. Van Vechten with Reckless Abandon—Painter Himself Clings to Larger Aspects,” New York Sun, March 2, 1929, MEP.
“stormed and raged…death”: Max Ewing to parents, Thursday, March 29, 1928, MEP.
“indomitable, impetuous intransigent…me”: EM to Leonie Sterner, November 11, 1930, MDP.
“Next to Muriel…known”: EM to Sybille Bedford, September 2, 1954, SBP.
“possessed of an…enthusiasm”: Henry James Forman, “When All the Lions Came to Muriel Draper’s House,” New York Times, February 10, 1929, 62.
“outrageous remarks and outrageous hats”: “Edwardian Pink,” Time, September 8, 1952.
“It was an…artists”: Paul Cummings, “Interview with Walker Evans,” Connecticut, October 13, 1971, and New York City, December 23, 1971, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-walker-evans-11721.
“Muriel Draper Dies”: New York Herald Tribune, August 27, 1952.
“You were superb…contemporary”: EM to Muriel Draper, Wednesday, n.d. [mid-1920s], MDP.
“stood up & looked…‘gang!’”: Max Ewing to parents, January 17, 1928, MEP.
“in pink spangles…flowers”: Max Ewing to parents, Monday, n.d., MEP.
“wonderful vitality and…mind”: Teddy Chanler to EM, April 25, n.d., AFP.
“a rather tormented…forty”: Teddy Chanler to EM, July 5, n.d., AFP.
“I’m so anxious…you?”: Teddy Chanler to EM, September 3, n.d., AFP.
“My boy friend…paradoxical”: EM to Muriel Draper, Saturday, n.d. [circa 1926], MDP.