by Edward Burns
One final incident reveals a great deal about the nature of Stein’s omissions in these letters. One evening in late April 1932, while showing the writer Louis Bromfield some of her unpublished manuscripts, Stein came upon the manuscript of her early novel Q.E.D. (not published until 1950 and then under the title Things As They Are). Stein said later that she had forgotten about the existence of this 1903 work, and Toklas had never seen it or even suspected its existence. Van Vechten did not know of it. Stein gave the novel to Bromfield and to her agent William A. Bradley to read. Because of its lesbian content, they both advised against publication.
Toklas recognized in the the novel a thinly disguised lesbian love triangle in which Stein was one of the participants. In fact, the novel was Stein’s faithful portrayal of her abortive love affair with May Bookstaver (later Mrs. Charles Knoblauch). What made the revelation of the affair with May Bookstaver so painful for Toklas was that Stein had never admitted to it. When Toklas pieced it together, she became furious and a strain entered their relationship that threatened to destroy it. Yet nothing of this crisis surfaces in the letters.
In October 1934 Stein and Toklas arrived in New York still very ill at ease, especially as Stein was returning to the scene of the Bookstaver affair and might see the many friends who knew of it. None of this did Van Vechten know or even suspect while he traveled with them, entertained them, and introduced them in America. Although Stein had enormous confidence in Van Vechten, the effect of the Bookstaver discovery on her life with Toklas was not known to him. It was not until years after Stein’s death that Toklas told him the complete story of her own jealousy.10
As is commonly and resignedly recognized, the bulk of Stein’s written work is what Virgil Thomson called it: “hermetic.” The wall that even her best critics come up against in much of her work is simply this: they have difficulty with her prose style, and they cannot discern the subject matter of her compositions. Though much of her work remains opaque, these letters occasionally give us a direct clue as to the source or inspiration for Stein’s writing.
One such instance comes when Stein writes Van Vechten that she has written a play, A List, and that it was inspired by a play of Avery Hopwood’s. Although Van Vechten writes several times asking which play of Hopwood’s she had read, Stein never replies. Some hints of how Stein “used” or “absorbed” the play (Our Little Wife) occur in letters Stein wrote to Edmund Wilson, who considered publishing Stein’s play in Vanity Fair (see Stein to Van Vechten, postmark 6 July 1923, note 3).
Another instance where Stein hints at what she tried to achieve in a work is when she writes to Van Vechten, in a letter postmarked 25 March 1936, that in her play Listen to Me she “tried to make it like my memories of the Kirafly brothers and the Lion tamer.” (In a letter to Bennett Cerf, ? March 1936, Columbia-Random House, Stein adds the name “Wilson” to a similar statement about “the Lion Tamer.”) Such tantalizing clues as to what hovered in Stein’s mind as she composed these plays give the reader some assistance in approaching these works.
Stein’s writing is almost always based on her experiences. To unlock the intricate and complex rhetorical structures in her work requires an immense knowledge of the details of her life. Some of those details, perfunctorily mentioned or only alluded to in passing, are in her correspondence. Once in a while a small, seemingly insignificant detail or phrase can shed unexpected light on a composition.
Gertrude Stein is often seen as the willful creator of her own myth. Statements such as “Think of the Bible and Homer think of Shakespeare and think of me,”11 “I am one of the masters of English prose,”12 and “I have been the creative literary mind of the century”13 are often cited as examples of her bravura personality with its penchant for self-praise. The Stein revealed in these letters gives balance to that view. They follow the agonizingly slow progress toward public recognition of her work. They record her optimism at every opportunity to be published and her despair when her writings are turned down. Throughout these struggles it is the patience and support of Van Vechten that bolster her. Van Vechten sums up his relationship with Stein in a letter written to Toklas on 28 July 1946: “Those who knew her only through the greatness of her work will never know how great she could also be in friendship.”
Thornton Wilder was responsible for persuading Stein to deposit her manuscripts and correspondence in the Yale University Library. Wilder also persuaded many of Stein’s friends to give her letters to them to Yale. In a letter he wrote to Elizabeth Chapman on 29 November 1956, Wilder characterizes one aspect of Stein’s letters:
Gertrude consciously saved her intellectual energy. … Very rarely did she put into a letter the full strength of her mind. We should not regret this, because she gave to the world in her books what she definitely abstained from giving to her friends in correspondence. … Instead in the letters we get the dear, spontaneous, often rollicking charm.14
Stein’s correspondence with Van Vechten has other, far wider, dimensions than Wilder saw in the correspondence with Mrs. Chapman (the former Bobsy Goodspeed). The Stein-Van Vechten letters are of interest as documents of cultural history. They are also significant for the light they shed on the personality of each correspondent. They are rich in biographical detail; they help to clarify the chronology of Stein’s writings; and they chronicle Van Vechten’s varied careers: music and dance critic, essayist, novelist, photographer, participant in the Harlem Renaissance, and promoter of various causes.
The subject matter of the letters is most commonly taken from Stein’s daily concerns, from the events, people, landscape, and objects at hand. Even public figures about whom she sometimes writes are observed not from a public vantage point, but from a private and intimate one, having to do with flashes of insight into personality. Since these letters often bring to light the nearby objects and people and places that were grist for Stein’s writing, their importance for an understanding of her work is immense.
1. Thornton Wilder, “On Reading the Great Letter Writers,” in his American Characteristics and Other Essays, ed. Donald Gallup (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 157. This was the Daniel S. Lamont Memorial Lecture delivered at Yale University on 4 May 1928 as “English Letters and Letter Writers.”
2. Ibid., p. 154.
3. Stein’s letters to Wilder and Wilcox are in YCAL.
4. Van Vechten first used the term Woojums in a letter to Stein, 26 April [1932].
5. Quoted in Leon Katz, “Weininger and The Making of Americans,” Twentieth Century Literature, Gertrude Stein Issue, 24, No. 1 (Spring 1978), 22.
6. Stein’s “She Bowed to Her Brother,” in her Portraits and Prayers (New York: Random House, 1934), pp. 236-40.
7. Stein’s “A Message from Gertrude Stein,” in her Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein, ed., intro., and notes Carl Van Vechten (1946; rpt. New York: The Modern Library, 1962), p. [vii].
8. Ernest Hemingway, Letter to Gertrude Stein, 17 February 1924, in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961, ed. Carlos Baker (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1981), p. 111.
9. Mabel Dodge Luhan, European Experiences (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935); pp. 332-33.
10. I am grateful to Dr. Leon Katz and Dr. Ulla Dydo for the details of the Stein-Toklas dispute.
11. Gertrude Stein, The Geographical History of America or The Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind (New York: Random House, 1936), p. 81.
12. Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1937), p. 114.
13. Ibid., p. 23.
14. Thornton Wilder, Letter to Elizabeth Chapman, 29 November 1956, YCAL.
The Letters
To Carl Van Vechten
[30 May 1913] 27 rue de Fleurus [Paris]
My dear Van Vechten
Will you dine with us to-morrow Saturday evening at 7.30. Let me know immediately
Yours sincerely
Gertrude Stein.1
To Gertrude Stein
[31 May] 19
13 Saturday American Express Co. 11 rue Scribe, Paris
Dear Miss Stein,
I’ll dine with you with pleasure this evening.
Sincerely,
Carl Van Vechten
1. On verso in Van Vechten’s hand, “J. Bronon 95 ave. de Villiers Tel. Wagram 13-55.” I cannot identify the name.
To Gertude Stein
[1-4 June 1913] American Express Co. 11 rue Scribe, Paris
Dear Miss Stein,
I’ve just been invited to the premiere of Kovanchina on Thursday night.1 Can we change our rendez-vous to another day? [Pitts] Sanborn is going away on Friday for the day and as I want to bring him over perhaps we had better not name a day until later.2 I’ll send you a petit bleu and if you are not free you can let me know.
I want so much to read the plays3 and Sanborn wants to see those extraordinary Picasso drawings.4
Sincerely,
Carl Van Vechten
1. Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina had its premiere on 5 June 1913 (delayed from 30 May). The opera was presented by Diaghilev as part of the Saison Russe at the newly opened (2 April 1913) Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
2. John Pitts Sanborn (1879-1941), music critic, novelist, and essayist. Sanborn and Van Vechten had traveled to Europe together. Sanborn served as music editor for the New York Globe, the New York Evening Mail, and the New York World-Telegram during his career as a journalist. In the summers of 1912-16 and 1919-20 Sanborn also contributed to a number of the new literary reviews including The Trend and Others.
3. Van Vechten is probably referring to Stein’s plays What Happened, A Five Act Play and White Wines. Stein, who had begun to write plays only a few months earlier, had been showing these plays to a number of her friends (see Florence Bradley to Stein [? June 1913], YCAL).
4. In a letter to Fania Marinoff (postmark 2 June 1913, NYPL-MD) Van Vechten wrote about his first visit to Stein’s apartment and of the Picassos he saw there:
Last night I had dinner at Gertrude Stein’s. She is a wonderful personality. I wish you could meet her. You will sometime. She spoke of you. … She lives in a place hung with Picassos and she showed me some more sketches of his including men with erect Tom-Tom’s much bigger than mine.
Stein’s collection included a large number of Picasso drawings, including some in a satiric vein that showed nude men.
To Gertrude Stein
[7 June] 1913 Saturday American Express Co. 11 rue Scribe, Paris
Dear Miss Stein,
May I bring [Pitts] Sanborn over tomorrow—Sunday—afternoon—say at 4 o’clock? If this is convenient for you will you let me know at 47 Rue de Trévise where I seem to be for the moment!1
Sincerely,
Carl Van Vechten
1. Van Vechten was staying at the Pax-Hôtel.
To Carl Van vechten
[postmark: 7 June 1913] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Van Vechten,
To-morrow afternoon suits, will xpect you and [Pitts] Sanborn about four
Sincerely yours
Gertrude Stein.
To Gertrude Stein Calling card: Carl Van Vechten
[? June 1913] [Paris]
Miss Stein—
I’m so sorry to have missed you. If you can see me will you write me at the American Express Co?
Yours
C. V. V.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 20 June 1913] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Van Vechten
I am sorry to have missed you. I have heard nothing more from Mabel [Dodge]1 and I am afraid of not seeing her as we have to be in Céret on the 28th and so leave here the 27th.2 Do let me know what you know. I am going out of town Saturday and Sunday, will be glad to see you any time after that
Sincerely yours
Gertrude Stein
1. Van Vechten and Stein had been discussing the anticipated arrival of Mabel Dodge. Since his arrival in Paris, Van Vechten had received only one letter from Dodge, in which she said that she might sail on 19 June but was not sure (Van Vechten to Marinoff, postmark 8 June 1913, NYPL-MD). Stein’s only information about Dodge’s plans had been a letter she received May-June 1913, “Just a word to say you & Alice must come to spend July at Villa as I will be there only for July. I leave here June 19—& go at once to Florence” (Dodge to Stein [May-June 1913], YCAL). Not having definite information about her arrival plans, Van Vechten left for London on 20 June (Van Vechten to Marinoff, 22 June [1913], NYPL-MD).
This letter, addressed to Van Vechten at the American Express Office in Paris, was forwarded to him at the American Express Office in London.
2. In mid-March Picasso and his mistress, Eva Gouel (also known as Marcelle Humbert), had arrived in Céret, a small town in the French side of the Pyrénées. Stein and Toklas intended to stop there on their way to Spain in early July. They changed their plans, however, after Picasso wrote to them on 10 June (YCAL):
… Je suis bien content de vous voir bientot. Merci il faudrait que vous avancerez votre voyage de quelque jours pour etre ici le jour de ma fete le 29 juin jour de la Saint Paul. Il y aura une grande course de toros aux arena de Ceret.
Picasso became ill (it was later diagnosed as a mild case of typhoid) and decided to return to Paris. He wrote to Stein, “Je rentre a Paris demain et nous irons voir le meme jour de l’arrive” (Picasso to Stein, 19 June 1913, YCAL). When she wrote Van Vechten of her plans to leave for Céret, Stein had not yet received this letter from Picasso.
To Gertrude Stein
[Telegram]
[postmark: 28 June 1913] London
WHERE IS MABEL DODGE I AM AT LONDOUN [i.e., Loudoun] HOTEL SURREY STREET LONDON
CARL VAN VECHTEN
To Carl Van Vechten
[Post office telegraph]
[postmark: 28 June 1913] Paris
MABEL DODGE IS AT HOTEL PAS DE CALAIS RUE SAINTS PÈRES PARIS1
GERTRUDE STEIN
1. Dodge had arrived in Paris on 26 June (Dodge to Stein, postmark 27 June 1913, YCAL). Van Vechten arrived back in Paris on 30 June and wrote to Fania Marinoff about his plans:
… Mike [i.e., Mabel Dodge] is here with two boys. She doesn’t know yet what she is going to do but thinks she’ll go to Florence later. Her motor is broken, she leaves for England tomorrow with the two boys—John Reed and Bobby Jones—and she will stay there for a couple of weeks. (Van Vechten to Marinoff, 30 June [1913], NYPL-MD)
The plan to go to England was quickly dropped (Dodge to Stein [1 July 1913], YCAL). Dodge sent her son, John Evans, and his nurse, Miss Galvin, to Florence by train, and on 6 July she, Van Vechten, Reed, and Jones left by car for Florence (postcard, Dodge, Van Vechten, Reed, and Jones to Stein, “So this is Fountainbleau,” postmark 6 July 1913, YCAL).
To Gertrude Stein
[? October 1913] Hotel Longacre
157 West 47 Street
[New York]
Dear Miss Stein—
I did so want to print one of your new plays in my paper and Mabel [Dodge] was going to write one of her fascinating introductions—but Miss [Florence] Bradley wouldn’t let us have one—at least not now.1
I am sending you my interview with George Moore2—which is absolutely stenographic and which, I fear, won’t interest you much, and I am sending Miss Taklos3 the pictures of Fania Marinoff, which she asked for. … These are totally inadequate but the best at hand.4
New York is madly interested in Hamlet just now. Even Hutch[ins Hapgood] is writing articles about him. There are two theatres giving Hamlet now.5 Mike [i.e., Mabel Dodge] and I have devised a plan for [Robert de la] Condamine to play the part—with Aubrey Beardsley costumes!6
Otherwise there are no booms. I hope all goes to your liking and wish I could drop in upon you. Please remember me to Miss Taklos.
Sincerely,
Carl Van Vechten
I seem to be living at the Hotel Longacre, 157 W. 47 St.
1. When he returned to New Yo
rk in August 1913, Van Vechten resigned from the New York Times, where he had been a staff reporter and then assistant music critic since October 1906.
He then joined the New York Press as drama critic, reviewing individual plays and writing weekly articles for the Sunday editions. He remained with the New York Press until June 1914.
Van Vechten, Mabel Dodge, and Hutchins Hapgood had discussed among themselves the possibility of printing one of Stein’s plays (either What Happened, A Five Act Play or White Wines) as part of the Sunday supplement of the New York Press. Dodge, who had written about Stein at the time of the Armory Show earlier in the year (“Speculation, or Post-Impressionism in Prose,” Arts and Decoration [1913], 3:172-74), would write an introduction to the play. When the idea was presented to Florence Bradley, possibly in a letter by Hutchins Hapgood, Bradley objected. In a letter she wrote to Stein on 12 October 1913 (YCAL) she included a copy of her letter to Dodge setting out her reasons:
In answer to Hutchins [Hapgood] letter—I understand that I have the option of giving these plays—I shall not know for a month—at least—when—whether it is practical now or later to produce them—of course the moment the plays are published they lose practical value—this they stand in need of already. The novelty is what I’m banking on to get the nonthinking and over thinking public—it must not have time to make up its mind beforehand. However if Miss Stein and you think otherwise all well and good.