A Celtic Temperament

by Robertson Davies

  SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, JULY 21–22: To Batterwood by 5 p.m. and spent a pleasant evening during which Vincent Massey talked a great deal about his book, which obsesses him. He has a rash: I suggest it is from worry and work over the book and I think this flattered him, though that was not my intention. I learn that he dictates the book, which I think a mistake. He has been a lifelong diarist and note-taker, recording important conversations within a few hours of having them. On Sunday I join him on the terrace about 11 where he is exposing his rash to the sun: very angry all over his chest and into the armpits. (Old man’s chest, sunken, and paps very low.) The talk leads to the College and I succeed in (1) killing the notion of a special gown, which he appears not to have liked; (2) suggesting special decoration of the chapel and its consecration as part of our opening ceremonies; (3) pressing home our need of independence even if we do not draw a full College for a few years. I hope these things are now settled for good.

  VM’S granddaughter Susan there, as Lionel and Lilias and their two elder daughters, Jane and Evva, are in New York. A nice child, but VM is caustic and sarcastic with her. I recall at Oxford, when he used to return Lionel’s letters corrected and rephrased in red ink! He told us, as a “sweet” thing, that when she left, the child said, “I hope I wasn’t too much of a nuisance to you, Gaudy.” I think this sad. VM has great charm allied to great egotism and unconscious cruelty. On Sunday night we talked about pornography, in which he is interested and of which he has read a good deal. VM reads a lot of mystery stories and, like so many people who do, insists that “some of the best writing of our time” is done in them. He tells us of recurrent dreams of packing and being distressed that he won’t get everything in. I suggest this arises from anxiety about the book and he accuses me of being a psychiatrist which, like a true Edwardian, he detests. So I tell him of my concern with Jung, which I don’t think he liked, but he had better find out what is in my intellectual luggage. Can the Edwardians really have lived so externally, so much on the surface, as he pretends? I suppose many of them were deeply religious, which gave depth to their lives.

  VM told us he laid the cornerstone of Massey Hall when he was five or six. He tells us also of a movie he made at Batterwood with an Indian setting and Lionel the hero. Lionel found love-making difficult; however, VM urged him on! Poor wretch, I bet he did!

  VM was intensely interesting and a fine host but unaccountably chilling to his grandchild Susan. His bodily use is very bad: head forward and down, back narrowed and abdomen thrust forward in tension.49

  THURSDAY, JULY 26, TORONTO: Shop in the morning and visit the College, which grows apace. Lunch at L’Aiglon, then haircut and to Bill Broughall’s office at 4 and chat for an hour and a half. All looks well. Vincent Massey and Lionel had spent the morning and lunched with him. An uphill battle but he has persuaded them the Foundation should pay the whole deficit for the first four years, to ensure independence, before asking the university for anything. This was against much reluctance, and a desire to make it three years, or two, and a desire to cut the guarantee after four years from $65,000 to $60,000. He is not sure he has won the fight, as they have now given him the task of persuading the other trustees by mail. But certainly we have come a long way in eighteen months, when VM did not see the College requiring anything but its fees and a handout from Simcoe Hall. Bill has worked wonders, and how true a friend of the College he is may never be known—the real guarantor of its independence, I devoutly trust. He says VM has been to a dermatologist and has eczema.

  FRIDAY, JULY 27: Today Vincent Massey called me: Ron Thom is still reluctant to change the Library plan and the problem is to be dumped in my lap. About money, VM says: “I want you to know we have that problem very much in mind.” If Bill has his way, the Foundation will become the College’s endowment.

  MONDAY, JULY 30: To Stratford with Brenda and Rosamond, a quick journey, and we rest on arrival from 3 to 4:30, then dine at Miranda’s flat, and to the Cyrano de Bergerac opening. Great expectation in the house beforehand: applause after Lou Applebaum’s seventeenth-century arrangement of “The Queen”; cheers after the first act. All this rather overheated enthusiasm is, I think, because many wanted Plummer to have a triumph after the Macbeth fiasco. And he had it: a standing ovation and five calls, mounting to a storm when he was left alone on the stage. A handsome setting: I would not have thought so many variations on brown and grey possible. The only colours were Roxane in deep red on the battlefield, and de Guiche in Prussian blue. A bang-up production: Langham at his best with the great crowds. But I found the play less moving than I had hoped: Plummer’s style is dry and ironic and he cannot suggest adoration. In Act 1 Roxane gave him a white rose, which he later gave to the Orange Girl! What gallantry is that? Wished he might have some of the quality that Martin-Harvey50 possessed—he treated women like camellias. And in Act 3 “Roxane’s kiss” the bittersweet was lacking. But in all that was grotesque, humorous, and daring he was admirable. John Colicos was fine as de Guiche: he understands and believes in villainy. Douglas Rain a fine Ragueneau, a minor Cyrano. Toby Robins never suggested distinguished intellect as Roxane and was a bit Forest Hill, though very pretty, as always. Miranda was a précieuse and a nun and did well what she had to do. But the play! They adored this bauble as they have never adored Shakespeare.

  TUESDAY, JULY 31, STRATFORD: Miranda breakfasts with us, then we are away at 10:30 and home by 1:30. To the Examiner office, and a busy afternoon. Bill Garner meets the union again; a deadlock but he is very patient: not soft like Harold Garner, his father and general manager before him. In the evening unforeseen h.t.d., then pleasant reading and chatting.

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 5: To the Shakespeare seminar at Stratford. Arrive at 1; lunch and to the Mendelssohn concert, very fine; then chat with Miranda at her flat. At dinner at the Country Club we meet Nevill Coghill, my tutor at Oxford, whom I have not seen since 1938. He is delightful and expresses regret he was not of more use to me with my boy actors book,51 of which he speaks highly. He lectures in the theatre at 8 on “Listening to Shakespeare” and gives a fine example of Oxford wit, sensibility, and scholarship as a means, not an end, in appreciating literature. A party in someone’s room at the Windsor Hotel: John Wain52 was there, shows signs of being a drunk, with a sharp, disagreeable little Welsh wife. Reginald Foakes, a visiting English scholar, is patronizing to me about the line I mean to explore tomorrow. I sleep badly and am awake from 4 to 6. Coghill is a hard act to follow and I admire his style so much.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 6, STRATFORD: I lecture at 10 in the rehearsal room on “Changing Fashions in Shakespeare Production.” It goes very well and Brenda says I was good. To the matinée of Macbeth, which has not improved, though Plummer is better and Kate markedly worse. In the evening Foakes lectures on Macbeth at the Country Club, is tiresome about Coghill, and talks down in a very dull and obvious lecture. He must be extremely vain to think such stuff will do.

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, STRATFORD: Gave my second lecture in the theatre and was complimented when Helen Langham said I “spoke out” so well and was very easily audible at the back. It went well and when I did the end of the tent scene from Cibber’s Richard III, got a round. Two excellent rounds at the end—reward for a lot of hard work. In the afternoon John Wain lectured on The Tempest. A hotchpotch of conventional stuff, admirable personal judgment, and a moving plea for poetry in the theatre delivered in a fidgeting, throw-away, hung-over manner. Then Dama Bell talked on costume and props, incoherent in grammar but really communicating. Dined with Milly Hall and Jessup. Then to Cyrano. It is much improved, Christopher Plummer more touching and romantic and Toby Robins deeper, though it is a miserable part. Enjoyed it greatly. Nevill Coghill and Albert Trueman came back with us to Miranda’s flat, where we drink whisky and chat about Oxford. Very jolly and a revelation to Miranda. Nevill Coghill delightful, simple, distinguished, and continually interesting: he never proses and never strains for effect. We part at 2.

  In the night after the talk
with Nevill Coghill I dream I am naked: I hold up my left arm and from my armpit spews yellow bile, very bitter and stinking. I am greatly pleased and relieved.

  This meeting has had the oddest effect on me. I feel that at last, after so many years of feeling somewhat rejected by Oxford, I now have a friend there, and this comes to me like a benediction and is splendidly releasing. NC’S views of literature are my own: that it is an art, for the enjoyment of man in the deepest sense, and that one does not possess it but is possessed by it. Rich to find that the Oxford I loved still lives, and that what I remember is not invention. He tells me a strange tale of C.S. Lewis.53 He loved a married woman, who at last divorced her husband. She then fell ill of cancer. C.S. Lewis overcame his scruple and married her and prayed that he might bear her illness; and developed symptoms and pain, while she had a remission. She died after two or three years, but had had a stay of execution and an extraordinary love. Would like to know more of this. Fully believe it could be: love is surely as strong as hate?

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, STRATFORD: At 11:30 Dr. Rosemary Sprague lectured on the pseudo-Shakespeares and the Baconians; a pupil of Frances Robinson-Duff and speaks in the enriched, keep-a-smile-in-your-voice, “cultivated” tones of that woman. Her lecturing manner arch, and she quotes Gilbert & Sullivan with many a merry laugh. But she knew her stuff. In the afternoon to The Tempest, now greatly improved; Hutt is quicker and more at ease, and Colicos and Gerussi are now excellent. The conclusion is truly moving and the gawds of decoration did not trouble me so much as before. In the evening to The Shrew, now coarsened and with a lot of shouting, but Colicos had voice trouble and was forcing the pace. He does force, and has a great sway in his back, and I think he does too much, in the Alexander Technique sense.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 9, STRATFORD: In the morning there was an actors’ panel, with Langham in the chair. Stupid affairs, for actors do not express themselves well extempore and come out as egotists straining for laughs. We took Madge Sadler and Maudie Whitmore from the Brae Manor theatre54 to the Limelight restaurant where we had a reservation for 7; ordered at 8:10, were told the dishes we wanted were no longer available; grabbed something and ran at 8:25. Had a row with the headwaiter. Good gossip about Brae Manor days, and Christopher Plummer and John Colicos, whom they have both known from boyhood. Then to The Gondoliers and sat next to Coghill, who enjoyed it hugely. It is better. John Cook’s conducting? He seems to accommodate the tempi to the words better than Lou. Delightful.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 10: To Toronto, leaving the Shakespeare seminar and the company of Nevill Coghill, which I much enjoyed, at the behest of Vincent Massey, who phoned yesterday. A meeting at 12:45 with Eaton’s. The Foundation (Vincent, Lionel, and Hart Massey) and I lunched with Alec Russell and Bill Howard: VM uneasy and disgruntled. Then we havered over china, and chose some, and over silver, and phoned Eric Clements in London, and over glass and decided nothing. Hart is very negative and fusses that two sorts of silver might have different sheens that would not be congruous. Thank God I have no taste! What a burden it must be! VM angry and petulant and rude to Hart, who was patient and immovable; I have never seen VM so bloody-minded.

  At 5 with Ron Thom to the building and saw more clearly than before what its character is likely to be. The Round Room is much smaller than I foresaw, and the chapel bigger. The quad is very handsome in dimension. Ron promises a fountain in our garden. The lower library will be very interesting. Decided with VM to put the Founders’ Stone on the stairs. To the Park Plaza hotel with Ron where Brenda joined us and we dined. Ron is a fine artist: truly original and deep. We called Tanya Moiseiwitsch, to ask her to consider the task of designing and decorating the chapel. She refused to believe we were serious and it was not easy to convince her. Home by 11:00.

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 11: H.t.d. on waking. Wrote Tanya Moiseiwitsch to ask her to design chapel. Vincent Massey calls in a great dither about 10:30 p.m.: can Brenda and I go to Batterwood the Labour Day weekend with Lionel and Lilias to do some serious work on College furnishings? He fears time is fleeting and nothing is being done and won’t be done in committee. It will be a nuisance as we are to go abroad on September 4 but perhaps we shall go to Batterwood on Sunday only. But this is surrender: he realizes the Foundation can’t cope because it can’t decide anything. And it can’t decide anything because it is always quarrelling about matters of taste. I shall get some facts, and see if we can’t make some progress.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 13: Swam in blood: strike business, Vincent Massey calls, worry about College bursar, write an unforeseen article, a bushel of letters, Gordon Roper to lunch. Fall into bed too tired to sleep.

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15: Bill Garner meets the International Typographical Union for two hours and nothing gained. A strike is the next move. Very exhausting. Work on my report on College Hall furnishing and do academic work. In the evening worn out, read a mystery story.

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 16: Bill Broughall called in the morning to say that his evening with the Masseys on the 10th was the most embarrassing in his experience. Vincent Massey and Lionel were very emotional and now want to put all resources of the Foundation at the disposal of the College; Hart demurred. Vincent said, “I have never been so angry with you since you were a little boy.” Lionel accused Hart of trying to give Vincent a heart attack. Vincent asked what they would do if I threw up the College because it had no money. Hart said I would probably return to my profitable newspaper. Altogether a distressing scene. The real crisis would be if Vincent were to die before the College is launched, and Raymond were to head the Foundation! Apparently Mrs. Raymond, who is an American lawyer, is devilling National Trust because his money is in devalued Canadian dollars. What a comedy!

  Bill says the Masseys sometimes use the threat that I will desert them and this would be a disgrace as I am “Canada’s leading man of letters.” Am I so? The distinction is roughly that of the best rose-grower at the North Pole, or the best architect of snow sculpture in Hell. Meanwhile I have an impending strike at the Examiner to keep me from growing dull. The ITU votes to strike—29 to 4! Histed the organizer double-crossed Bill Garner by getting a final offer, then telling the men he could get more. The air is now cleared. Spend the evening considering the problem.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 17: Spent all day planning a strike strategy, but I do not think it will happen: some of the men are now scared. I am very tired and wonder if I can stand the strain of a holiday after such a summer as this. What rest is there in continual movement?

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 18: Many rumours about the strike, and Bill Garner, Ralph Hancox, Wilson Craw, and I sow a few more to cause dismay among the ITU types. Talk strategy with Bill.

  MONDAY, AUGUST 20: This afternoon an interesting experience of labour negotiation: the Examiner branch of the International Typographical Union had voted 29 to 4 to strike, after contract discussions since last December. We met in Bill Garner’s office: he, Mac Macauley, head of the composing room, and I for the management; for the ITU, Dormer and the Appleton brothers with Allan Histed, their organizer. He is a soapy blowhard of base mind: he told us as a great joke he did not suspect us of having a concealed microphone in the room to which they retired; left his briefcase with us, as he was sure we wouldn’t rifle it, etc. The men were quiet and rather shamefaced; felt they had gone too far in taking their vote. We discussed and bargained from 2:30 to 6, and at last agreed. We gave more money than we wanted to, but gave no reduction in hours, and got a contract for three years instead of two, and a competency clause which will enable us to get rid of inefficient men. Wearisome, exhausting, and tending to make me cynical of union protestations of “brotherhood,” as proposals had been made to us unofficially which were cut-throat in tendency. But the time taken by this—not this afternoon but for weeks past—has so disorganized my work that Brenda and I have had to cancel our trip abroad, to Chichester, Coventry, Amsterdam, and my beloved Wales, where I had hoped to be with WRD on his birthday.

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 24: Bill Broughall call
s at 11, very angry. Raymond and Geoffrey have written Vincent Massey saying they do not agree to foot the bills for the first four years, and VM has sent the letters to Bill to cope with! As Raymond’s letter is very nasty about Bill and National Trust and altogether emotional and stupid, this is tactless. Bill is being treated like a troublesome servant. I advise him to tell VM he will not be used thus. So he calls VM and calls me immediately after. He has threatened to resign from the Foundation and all VM can think of to say is “But Bill, we need a lawyer!”—not “We need a friend who understands what none of us do.” Bill has worked on the Foundation for over five years for nothing—no glory, no fun, no money. But VM is shaken, and I gather Bill was rough. He calls again this afternoon to read me a letter he has written VM; a stinker, but well-argued and just. Now the ball is with VM.

  But if Bill were to leave the Foundation I think I should have to throw in the towel; he is the only one who makes any sense. I cannot take on the College if I am to have to worry all the time about money; that would be the finish of me. The Masseys do not understand what they ask of other people. Their treatment of Broughall is cold and foolish, and if he left them who else would toil for them? Certainly I cannot make myself a care-laden drudge for the next fifteen years to satisfy their whims. Sometimes I wish I were out of all this, free and able to write another novel. Damned stupid, spoiled, cold-hearted, penny-pinching, ignorant rich people!

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 26: Breakfast in the garden and talk with Brenda and Rosamond. Lunch in the garden. They go to the Waddells’ to swim; I do odd jobs and think, to good purpose, and am much refreshed. My need for contemplation (if it may be so dignified) grows and without it I am adust and uneasy, and I do not find it abroad but at home. Would my diaries, edited, eventually make an autobiography?