The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, Volume 2
Page 5
I got Theodatus’s litany from a little book of Roman devotions; I agree that Parce nos7 sounds all wrong, but it may be a mediaeval construction. I will have it looked up again.
We have started rehearsing, and performances begin on June 18th, extending over a week as you will see by the enclosed circular. I do hope you will be able to come and see the thing. I shall be attending the first performance on Saturday afternoon, together with a number of friends and sympathisers, so do join us if you possibly can.
Our Peter8 is still bothered by ill health, but seems to be keeping his end up and giving very good performances. I will give your message to Mr. Arneil,9 who will, I am sure, be most grateful for your kindness.
Wishing you all the best, and hoping to see you at Canterbury or elsewhere before long,
Yours ever, with love,
[J. G.]10
1 Dorothy Hanbury Rowe (1892–1988), a contemporary of D. L. S. at Somerville. She taught English at Bournemouth High School and directed an amateur theatre. See letter, 8 October 1915, The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899–1936, pp. 113–115; also Index.
2 D. L. S. had sent her a copy of the typescript of The Zeal of Thy House, seeking her opinion as an expert on drama. Dorothy Rowe had replied: “Oh, how comely it is and how reviving to the spirits of just men long oppressed to find a plot based on inexorable logic…” She was one of the few who immediately perceived the connecting link between Gaudy Night and the play: integrity and selfless dedication to one’s work. (See also Barbara Reynolds, Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul, p. 286.)
3 One of the colleges of London University, then in Regent’s Park and for women students only. Now merged with Royal Holloway College in Egham, Surrey, and co-educational.
4 Assistant Stage Manager.
5 Muriel St Clare Byrne, who was Lecturer in Drama at Bedford College.
6 Tobias and the Angel, a play by James Bridie (pseudonym of Osborne Henry Mayor, 1888–1951).
7 Latin: “Have mercy upon us”, words which Theodatus recites while testing the rope. Dorothy Rowe had pointed out that it should be Parce nobis, since the verb parcere is followed by the dative. In the printed version of the play the words were altered to parce nobis.
8 i. e. Dennis Arundell. See letter to James Passant, 19 January 1937, note 3.
9 Theatre manager.
10 D. L. S. usually signed herself John Gaunt, or J. G., in her letters to Dorothy Rowe, in memory of the part she played at Somerville in Admiral Guinea by R. L. Stevenson and W. E. Henley.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO MARGARET BABINGTON
18 May 1937
Dear Miss Babington,
Many thanks for your letter. Please do not bother about hospitality for me if it is difficult to fit it in; I can always quite easily go to an hotel, and so long as Busman’s Honeymoon keeps running, can stand the financial strain! Then I shall feel free to run down whenever the producer wants me, and not make myself more of a burden than the author is bound to be in any case! As regards the Festival week, I do not know how many performances I shall be able to attend; I know that I am bound to be in Oxford for part of the time, in any case. I will let you know nearer the time, but please do not bother about me.
I am writing to the Railway Company to book seats for all my guests on the special train, and they and I should be grateful indeed if you could possibly manage to give them and me seats together for the performance, and in the Cathedral. I ought, perhaps, to have told you that nearly all of them are eligible for the Arts and Crafts Service on their own merits, quite apart from being friends of mine. Miss Byrne, in addition to being my collaborator in Busman’s Honeymoon and the author of various books and plays of her own, is an amateur theatrical producer of considerable experience. Mr. Michael Mac Owan1 is producer at the Westminster Theatre, and his wife, Alexis France, is an actress. Mr. Scott-Giles2 is at the Institution of Municipal and County Engineers, of which he is the Secretary, and is a very fine heraldic draftsman and authority on heraldic art; and his wife is an artist. Mr. Denis Browne the surgeon does not, perhaps, quite fall into the category, but his wife is Helen Simpson the novelist, and certainly fits the bill. Miss Lake is my secretary, and certainly needs a certain amount of art and craft in dealing with me. Miss Dorothy Rowe, who wrote to you separately from Bournemouth has, I think, already explained that she is producer there at one of the most important amateur theatres in the kingdom. If it is possible for her also to be seated with us, I should be exceedingly glad. I am waiting to hear from another friend of mine, Miss Barber,3 whether she can join us, but she will not know her arrangements for certain until Thursday. Would it be possible to squeeze her in if she can come?
With many thanks for all the trouble you are taking,
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 Michael Macowan (b. 1906) was to produce Christopher Hassall’s Christ’s Comet at Canterbury Cathedral in 1938.
2 Wilfrid Scott-Giles (1893–1982), Fitzalan Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary. See The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899–1936, p. 368 and letters to him.
3 Marjorie Maud Barber (1894–1976) was at Somerville College from 1914 to 1917. She taught English at South Hampstead High School for Girls and shared a home with Muriel St Clare Byrne.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO THE HON. JOHN F. A. BROWNE1
19 May 1937
Dear Mr. Browne,
Many thanks for your letter. Being distracted at the moment with theatrical business, I have not fully planned out what I mean to say to the women students on the 25th; but roughly speaking, I intend to follow the lines you suggest, saying really much the same things that I have said previously about the value of a University education. Roughly, I imagine it will work out as follows:
(1) For the pure scholar, the value of knowledge for its own sake and its increasing value as life goes on. (2) For those who are bound to think of practical affairs, the actual advantage one finds, even in ordinary business, of having the right attitude to the tools of one’s trade, i.e. willingness to learn, generosity of mind, and so forth. (3) The importance of a single-minded attitude to one’s job, whatever the job is; with special application to the common charge against women, that they put personal feelings before the job. A charge which is not true of those who carry the University attitude of mind into their work. (4) In public affairs especially, the advantage of having been trained to think accurately and not be at the mercy of words and slogans. After this, I propose to pass on to the two-fold duty of the University graduate: (a) to apply to life in general the trained habits of thought which she has learnt to apply to scholarship, and (b) the duty of not only keeping the world in touch with Oxford, but of keeping Oxford in touch with the world. If the Universities are not to become desiccated and insular, then her old members must be perpetually revivifying her by contacts with the outside world. I shall then add those practical details about membership with which you have been kind enough to furnish me.
It is quite possible that I may give some offence at Oxford by what I may have to say about this subject of insularity; but it is my experience, and I believe that of many other University people, that this kind of insularity does exist, and forms a sort of barrier against those who return to their Universities from the outside world. The academic mind seems to find a good deal of difficulty in facing material facts with the same honesty with which it would face a fact of scholarship. There is a tendency to regard Oxford as a closed system into which ordinary considerations of public policy – and I will say frankly, even of business honesty – do not penetrate. People who come back from other jobs are disheartened by finding in Oxford a curious lack of sympathy for interests and problems in a community where so much is regulated by tradition and by personal influence; but the barrier certainly does exist and can, I think, be got over only if those who have gone down will exert t
hemselves to keep in touch with the Universities. I do not mean, of course, that I want Oxford to be modernised into a school of commerce, God forbid! but only that she should be able to receive as well as give, and that the students’ concern with the University should not end with the taking of the M.A. degree.
I have expressed all this very badly; I will try to do it better on the 25th.
Will you be good enough to let me know for what length of time you would like me to speak?2
Yours sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 An undergraduate at Oxford, Secretary of the Oxford Society.
2 Cf. her article “What is Right with Oxford?”, Oxford, No.1 Summer 1935, vol. 2.
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
TO HER SON
23 May 1937
Dear John,
Oh, yes! – I think the exchequer will run to riding-lessons, if you would like them;1 please ask Mr Tendall (or whoever is the appropriate authority) to get you your kit and say that I hope to run down and see him one day before long – not this week, when I am engaged every day, but possibly next week or the week after.
I saw the Coronation procession,2 which was a magnificent show. I tried to take some coloured photographs of it, but unhappily the rain came down just as it started, and by the time the King and Queen came by, the light was about 1 candle-power! By the way, the stamps on this letter are, as you will notice, King George V and his two sons3 – a thing which apparently is the proper thing to have on one’s letters nowadays. Or so your Father4 says, who put these on for me, extravagantly busting one extra halfpenny in the process, as his supply of Edward VIII halfpennies had run out!
Hope you will have a good term.
With best love,
Mother
1 A moment of gratification for D. L. S. in being able to afford riding lessons for John Anthony.
2 Of George VI.
3 Edward VTII and George VI.
4 Atherton Fleming, his father by adoption.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO MRS WILFRID SCOTT-GILES
7 June 1937
Dear Mrs. Scott-Giles,
This is just to remind you of the Canterbury play on Saturday, and to tell you about the arrangements. I shall not be going down myself that day since I shall have to be in Canterbury for the dress rehearsal, but my secretary, Miss Lake, will be at Victoria at ten minutes to twelve standing by the barrier from which the Canterbury train departs. She will carry and display conspicuously the novel of Busman’s Honeymoon;1 she will have got all the tickets with her including those for the train. I expect, perhaps, there will be rather a crowd at the barrier, but with this indication I do not think you can miss her even if you do not immediately recognise her. I do not know what arrangements are made at the other end for transporting pilgrims to the Cathedral; but no doubt plenty of conveyance will be provided for pilgrims, since Canterbury is organised to that end during the Festival week. Lunch is provided on the train and included in the price of the tickets, and I imagine from the station you will go direct to the Cathedral.
I hope we shall have a good performance; everything seemed to be going pretty well last time I was there.
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 The Gollancz edition had a bright yellow dust-jacket.
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
TO DENNIS ARUNDELL
7 June 1937
Dear Dennis,
Isn’t it scandalous? Your 200th performance tomorrow, and I shan’t be there to congratulate you, having basely deserted to Canterbury, to follow the fortunes of your Uncle Bill! (He is doing us proud – how I should get along without your family I can’t think!) I’m sorry you can’t get down and be photographed too, but Tuesday was the only possible afternoon, and we didn’t think we should be able to manage that, since a number of the costumes seemed to have vanished into Limbo. However, they turned up on Friday night, per Carter Paterson1, after a dawdling progress through the Garden of England.
How are you bearing up? I saw in the cards the other day that you didn’t seem to be feeling too good – but the trouble looked like a passing one, and the future was full of good trumps, so I put it down to the heat. I wish you could get down to see one of the performances, but it would be frightfully exhausting, rushing down and back again. Anyhow, wish us luck for Saturday, and in the meantime all the best to you all and to your lordship in particular.
Yours ever,
Dorothy L. Sayers
1 A firm of furniture removers.
London
TO DENNIS ARUNDELL
23 June 1937
Dear Dennis,
I was so sorry I couldn’t stop to see you and Veronica1 yesterday. I had to gallop round to my agent and then rush home to succour Frank Napier,2 who was shut up in my flat with nothing to eat but a telephone, and unable to move till I got back, because I had given him my keys! The Zeal of Thy House is (touch wood!) coming to London at the end of July, and we are all in a grand kerfluffle3 of casting and costings – “back to the old grind”4 – but all great fun.
I’ve got to go back to Witham today and to Oxford on Friday for a Gaudy (save the mark!), but next week I shall be up and will bring you your signed copy of the Busman novel, which is waiting down in Essex.
How are you getting on? And how is the inside? I’m glad business is picking up – that’s a comfort – I thought it would about now. I gather that the balance of “straight” and “low-comedy” is getting a little disturbed, so I am suggesting that Beatrice5 and Harold Arneil should get together and do a spot of re-polishing, with your co-operation, and see if we can’t get back to the standard of our earlier performances; things are apt to come a bit unstuck after a long run, aren’t they?
With all good wishes,
yours ever,
Dorothy L. Sayers
1 Veronica Turleigh. See here, note 2.
2 Producer, with Harcourt Williams, of The Zeal of Thy House.
3 Slang for confusion.
4 Words spoken by Lord Peter in Busman’s Honeymoon.
5 Beatrice Wilson, the producer.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO DOROTHY ROWE
24 June 1937
Dear Dorothy,
I was terribly sorry not to see you at Canterbury, we had a most lovely production and a very fine reception. We are now all thrilled by the hope that the play will be produced in London at the Duchess within the next few weeks; if so, I hope you will be able to come and see it there.
Forgive a short letter; as you can understand, I am all in a kerfluffle with this tremendous excitement.
With love,
Yours affectionately,
[J. G.]
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
TO SIR DONALD F. TOVEY
6 July 1937
Dear Sir Donald,
Thank you so much for your letter; I am delighted to know that you thought so well of The Zeal of Thy House. It really was a most beautiful production at Canterbury, and I am very much hoping that the play will come to Town some day or other. The musical interludes had to be a good deal cut in the acting version, because the whole thing had to be got into an hour and forty minutes, and Mr. Knight, the Cathedral organist, set everything very simply but, I think, very effectively. I expect if you had done the music, which would have been delightful, you would have wanted to let yourself go, especially on the John Donne choruses! We only had a small and rather inexperienced unaccompanied choir, among whom I caused consternation at rehearsal by exhorting them to cut out their “faint ecclesiastical rejoicing” and try and feel like the morning stars singing together and all the sons of God shouting for joy! Poor dears!
I will think over what you say about a volume of memoirs for
the Dowager Duchess;1 in view of the lady’s loquacity it would probably be a work in several volumes!
Wishing you a good stay at Aix-Les-Bains and a “good deliverance”2 from the clutches of gout.
Yours very sincerely,
Dorothy L. Sayers
1 i.e. Lord Peter Wimsey’s mother.
2 An echo of the Book of Common Prayer.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO CANON F. J. SHIRLEY1
6 July 1937
Dear Dr. Shirley,
Thank you very much indeed for your kind letter. It was good of you to let me know Canon Lanchester’s opinion2 of the play; I feel it would be a great help to us if he would either write something about it for a Church paper, or let us have something that we can quote when sending out publicity for a London production. Just at the moment we have been disappointed in our hopes since the managements who were interested in the play have wanted either to put it on straight away in the slack season for a few weeks to fill up time, or to postpone production until Christmas. The first plan was impossible, since some of our actors have other engagements, and it also seemed unadvisable to start at such a bad time of the year with no prospects of an assured run. The second plan creates again enormous difficulties with the actors, who naturally have to live in the interval, and as I am determined not to put the play on without Harcourt Williams at any rate, we are faced with a good many difficulties. Both I and my agents feel, however, that the play ought to be seen in London, and that it has a very good chance of success, so the only thing to do is to hope for the best, and in the meantime to get together as much advance interest as possible. Whatever happens, we can never hope for anything like the same atmosphere which we had at Canterbury; but Canterbury is, of course, a unique experience quite outside the range of the commercial theatre. I feel sure that we can count on the help of our Canterbury friends to interest people in the play both before and after production.…