by Edward Burns
The photograph is Man Ray’s 1927 portrait of Stein taken after she had cut her hair to a close-cropped style.
6. An illustrated edition of Van Vechten’s 1922 novel, Peter Whiffle: His Life and Works, was published in New York and London by Alfred A. Knopf in September 1927.
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[16 June 1927]
Thursday [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]
My dears,
Here I am once more, but only because I’m sailing from France June 25th. I would so love to see you both again before I depart and Miguel Covarrubias wants very much to meet you. When can you be seen I’m at the same Hotel Littré and will come to see you any time you suggest but tomorrow and I hope it may be soon.
Fania
To Gertrude Stein
[postmark: 19 June 27]
Sunday [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]
Dearest Darlingest lady Stein
Look, oh look what I drew yesterday I hope the gentleman who drew mine did as well cause I got an invitation to tea.1 But really when may I drop in to see you both make it soon, Please
Fania
1. Whatever Marinoff drew cannot be located.
To Gertrude Stein
[postmark: 20 June 1927]
Lundi [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]
Alright lady dear
[Miguel] Covarrubias and I will be chez vous demain à cinq heures and I for one will be very glad to see you both again
Fania
To Fania Marinoff
[Rose motto]
[22 June 1927] 27 rue de Fleurus [Paris]
My dear Fania
Here is the address of the Moroccan dinner, and we are planning to say how do you do in case you are there but in case you are not there we are xpecting you for dinner Friday at 7.30 and hoping you are enjoying yourself and all,
always
Gtrde Stein
To Fania Marinoff
[Rose motto]
[22 June 1927] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Fania,
I just remembered this and here it is and all to you and Carl.1 I am writing to him very soon and we did enjoy having you it kind of brings us closer not that we were not awfully close but it has kind of bridged the physical years and you know how much I love Carl and you. Best of happy times. I like your Miguel [Covarrubias] a lot.
Always
Gtde
1. Stein sent Marinoff a print of Man Ray’s photograph of Stein that she had admired in the artist’s studio. See Van Vechten to Stein, 28 May [1927], note 5.
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
23 June [1927] [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]
Darlings
Really you have quite spoiled me, besides making me feel fearfully important this last attention was the comble as they say so classically. You are both such darlings, Carl has missed a great, great deal by not having been here. But he’ll be delighted with the photograph which to him will be a new Gertrude Stein, yet the same, and the earrings, Alice chère are quite lovely, and becoming. I know you robbed yourself in giving them to you [i.e., me]. But that’s why you did it, of course. I think you’re both too wonderful and I send you heaps of love and showers of great blessings
Fania
To Gertrude Stein
[6? July 1927]
Wednesday morning Newlands Corner Hotel near Guildford Surrey [England]
Dearest Gertrude Stein
First you and Miss Toklas must know that the customs official in London refused to permit me to even open my trunk and after reading the list of dutiable articles I had nothing of that sort but the average amount of perfume which every female carries about with her. No mention of clothes or things of that sort whatsoever. Mr. Church is quite mad I think, and I’m indebted to him for a great amount of worry, an unnecessary deposit on a passage back to the U.S.A. and several bad night’s sleep and I came very nearly being silly enough to leave many of the things I had in Paris to pick up on my way back to the states.1 So that’s that Darling, your note with Bernadine’s2 letter came while I was packing your note was very hard to read, I couldn’t quite make it out, something about doing one of your plays for the benefit, instead of you speaking, was that it? Your letter is in my trunk. It’s not lost But I won’t unpack till I return to London on Monday, then I’ll get in touch with Bernadine, etc etc.
I came out here last night. It’s delightful and was recommended to me by Carl’s sister who had stopped off here while motoring. It’s only a half hour from London. It’s really quite a place marvelous service and food reasonable prices and comfortable accommodations, I felt I had to have a few days good air and quiet to get rid of this darn cold of mine. In London after much searching and trouble through a friend a [i.e., I] found a room at the Park Lane Hotel Piccadilly, only open three months and looks wonderful.
I saw Avery [Hopwood] Monday night But we were with other people, so I haven’t talked with me [i.e., him] at all. He looks spendid and is rehearsing his new play, The Garden of Eden.3 You were both such darlings to me. It’s my happiest and most charming remembrance of Paris and I love you both. My address in London will be American Express Co Haymarket not the Bank.
Fania
1. Ralph Withington Church and his mother had met Stein and Toklas through Sherwood Anderson. Church was, at this time, working on his doctorate in philosophy at Oxford University.
2. Bernadine Szold was a journalist who wrote about the Van Vechtens in her column “About Town” in the New York Sunday News, 11 May 1924, p. 14.
3. Hopwood’s play The Garden of Eden opened at the Lyric Theatre London on 30 May 1927. The play starred Tallulah Bankhead (1902–1968) in the role of Toni Lebrun. The Garden of Eden opened in New York on 27 September 1927 at the Selwyn Theatre and ran for twenty-three performances.
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[Postcard: Greek Head of an Athlete—Fifth Century B.C. The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
[postmark: 20 July 1927] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street
New York]
Darlings,
Loving greetings and embraces for you both. I’m glad to be back, and Carl has never been so nice. Your photo is our delight and every one else’s. We both love you both very much—
Fania
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 11 August 1927] Hotel Pernollet
Belley (Ain)
My dear Carl,
I am pleased to hear that Fania got home safe and New York is alright. I do wish you would come over and see us do come we are putting up a bust for Brillat Savarin on the 15 of September you could just make it, it is a nice little town Belley almost as nice as New York and quite as peaceful.1 We are here until the end of September and I am working a lot. I have gotten awfully interested in narrative and I am telling the pleasant events in the life of Lucy Church. You know I just did an opera about St. Therese and Loyola.2 I do want you to see it one of these days. I am very pleased with it but then we are often pleased happily for us. They also are sending you something which is a magazine called Close Up. I hope you will like Three sitting here.3 What are you doing, I know why you like niggers so much [Paul] Robeson and I had a long talk about it4 it is not because they are primitive but because they have a narrow but a very long civilisation behind them. They have alright, their sophistication is complete and so beautifully finished and it is the only one that can resist the United States of America. Of course Mabel [Dodge] and her Indian business is wrong because they were an undeveloped people and the Indians learn but the niggers don’t which is their problem. I am sorry we did not meet the last one but we will this fall, I guess.5 I like Miguel [Covarrubias] enormously, he did give me a charming bit of Mexico and he himself is like all your friends intelligent and delicate. It is a wonderful way that you can make them so different and yet all having these two qualities. It is kind of funny, Anyway I’d like to hear from you and I would like to see you.
>
Lots of love
Gertrude.
1. A monument to Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who was born in Belley in 1755 and died in Paris in 1826, was inaugurated on Sunday 11 September 1927. Brillat-Savarin was a lawyer, deputy to the National Assembly, and a high functionary in several departments of the French government. He is best known for his La Physiologic du goût (1825), a volume of meditations on gastronomy.
2. Stein is referring to her novel Lucy Church Amiably and to her opera Four Saints in Three Acts.
3. Stein’s “Three Sitting Here” was published in two issues of Close Up (September 1927), 3:17–28, and (October 1927), 4:17–25. Close Up was edited and published by Kenneth Macpherson and his wife Bryher.
4. Stein is here referring to a conversation with Paul Robeson when she first met him. See Stein to Van Vechten [9 November 1925].
5. A reference to Nella Imes (Larsen), the black writer. See Van Vechten to Stein, 28 May [1927]. Stein did not actually meet her until two years later.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 6 September 1927] Hotel Pernollet
Belley (Ain)
My dear Carl,
I am delighted with the photo you are a good looking chap and your head does come out awfully well nice in front and nice behind and well distributed in the middle.1 We are still in Belley but leave next week for Paris. I am meeting Blanche Knopf there on the sixteenth and I hope something will come of it, I would like to be along with you, anyway it is getting nearer. Avery [Hopwood] is with you now he is delightfully literal and I am so sorry I did not see him before he left but he will be back soon and you,
Lots of love to you always and to Fania and to Avery, and thanks again for the photo,
Always
Gertrude
1. Precisely which photograph Van Vechten sent Stein cannot be determined.
To Carl Van Vechten
MS. New York Public Library, Manuscripts Division
[postmark: 20 September 1927] 27 rue de Fleurus
Paris
My dear Carl,
Thanks so much for the new Peter Whiffle, we are all enjoying it enjoying it and enjoying the memories of it. I knew it was good I remembered it as good but it is even a whole lot better than that.1 It has an astonishing freshness, I think that is what is its very great quality, how to make a work keep alive and you do. I am most awfully pleased. Alice says thanks for having put in Lina Cavalieri, Janet [Scudder?] says thanks for Mabel [Dodge] only it is sweeter than she was but then she was sweet and I say thanks for having kept it all so fresh.2
Blanche Knopf turned up, I liked her and I think she liked me and we got along, something may come of it and that will be a great pleasure to me and thanks to you. And what is this about your not writing, do write anyone who can have things keep as fresh as this will make some,
Lots of lots of love
Gertrude.
1. See Van Vechten to Stein, 28 May [1927], note 6.
2. Lina Cavalieri (1874–1944) was a celebrated Italian soprano. She was at one time married to Van Vechten’s friend Bob Chanler. Cavalieri is mentioned on page 54 of Peter Whiffle: His Life and Works (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922). Stein had received the 1927 printing of the book (Knopf) that contained illustrations.
Janet Scudder (d. 1940) was an American-born sculptor who lived for many years in Paris. She had met Stein through Stein’s friend Mildred Aldrich.
The character of Edith Dale in Van Vechten’s novel is partly based on Mabel Dodge.
To Gertrude Stein
10 October 1927 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
Blanche Knopf is back and raving about you. She talks of nothing but your beauty and personality, thus lining up with everybody that’s met you. I hope some publication can be arranged. Paul [Robeson] is sailing Friday for a year’s concert tour, beginning in Spain. You will see him when he reaches Paris. I am trying to write a book. I am also trying to get an old farmhouse in Massachusetts where I can revert to type. Perhaps you can be persuaded to come to see me there. I am awfully interested in Tony Church1 and Marinoff and I send our love to you!
Carlo
1. Van Vechten misread the title Lucy Church in Stein’s letter to him postmarked 11 August 1927.
To Carl Wan Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 26 October 1927] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
[Paul] Robeson came in to see us and we had a long and delightful talk about you all.1 He is really a perfectly ideal companion, the last time I saw him it was only once and it was in a crowd of people. I liked him then but now after a quiet time alone with him we are really very good friends. I am sorry that I will not hear his first concert but I have had a bad cold and am a little afraid of the inside of a Paris theatre but we will hear his second. He is lunching with us next week to tell us all about it. And he did give charming pictures of you Carl, he does that awfully well makes the people he is talking about very really in front of you and it was nice having that done with you. Thanks for him. And I am delighted about the Mass. farm. We are trying for one in the Ain and hope to be having it in a year or so it would be nice to xchange visits to each other’s country.2 We are now getting there alright that is to the country stage. I am sending Blanche Knopf Lucy Church Amiably. I think it dances along nicely. Do have her show it to you and if you like it I am sure she will and that would be nice,
Lots and lots of love to each of you
Gertrude.
1. Robeson was in Paris for a series of concerts with Lawrence Brown. The first concert, at the Salle Gaveau, was on 29 October, the second on 2 November. Robeson also refers to seeing Stein when he was in the midst of a crowd of people in an undated letter to her from the Hôtel Paris-New York, 148 rue de Vaugirard, Paris (YCAL).
2. Van Vechten never acquired a country house. Stein and Toklas had first stopped in Belley in 1923 while they were on their way to visit Picasso in Nice. They returned to the Hôtel Pernollet in Belley each summer until 1929, when they acquired a lease on a house in Bilignin, a hamlet a few kilometers from Belley.
To Gertrude Stein
8 January [1928] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
I’ve had a rotten fall: two teeth out and then a succession of terrifying colds: in bed half the time: days in terrible hotels in Atlantic City, trying to get well, etc. I saw Paul [Robeson] for a few minutes the other day and he told me how nice to him you were: he adores you. The baby, by the way, is his miniature image.1 Marinoff is in Baltimore, trying to discover, via a stock company, whether she wants to (or can) act any more.2 In odd moments I am trying to write a book.3 Did you ever receive The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man which I sent you?4 Paul Morand was here the other day but he is about the only foreigner I’ve seen except Beverly Nichols who is very young.
a great deal of love to you, dear Gertrude!
Carlo.
1. Robeson’s son, Paul Robeson, Jr., was born 2 November 1927.
2. Marinoff had acted on the stage in New York and on tours regularly since 1913. Her last appearance in New York had been in Tarnish, by Gilbert Emery, a play that opened in New York on 2 October 1923. Marinoff had gone to Baltimore to act in Edwin Knopf’s company, which presented a season of plays at the Auditorium Theatre, Baltimore, beginning 26 December 1927. Marinoff appeared in the plays He Who Gets Slapped, Spring Cleaning, In the Next Room, and Captain Applejack. Marinoff did not play again in New York until 1931.
3. Van Vechten was working on the third draft of his novel Spider Boy. See Kellner, A Bibliography, p. 49.
4. Van Vechten had written the introduction to James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of An Ex-Colored Man (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927). Johnson (1871–1938) was one of Van Vechten’s closest friends. After Johnson’s death Van Vechten initiated the founding of the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collectio
n of Negro Arts and Letters at Yale University Library.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 13 January 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
I am so sorry that you are not well but I hope it is all over and you are all better now do be comfortable it is so much peacefuller and I hear you are finishing a book, what is it about. I liked the Colored Man, particularly the first part but surely in all those letters I wrote you I had already thanked you for that and much else. Here we are as usual. I am working very much these days, I have a new problem in construction, it is Finally George but it promises to be long, little things happen on the road.1 Otherwise there is no news, a great many people are young and others [have?] half of it, and beside I have written an opera and a rather amusing young American is making it put on the stageable well anyway lots and lots of love and do be all well.2
Always
Gertrude
Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson in the studio at 27 rue de Fleurus looking at the score of Four Saints in Three Acts, circa 1928–29.
COURTESY OF THE YALE COLLECTION OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY.
1. “Finally George A Vocabulary of Thinking” in Stein’s How to Write, pp. [271]—382.
2. Virgil Thomson (b. 1896), composer and critic, first read Stein when his friend at Harvard University S. Foster Damon, composer, poet, and Blake scholar, gave him a copy of Stein’s Tender Buttons.
Although Thomson traveled with the Harvard Glee Club on a European tour in 1921 and remained in Paris for a year to study with Nadia Boulanger, the celebrated teacher of composition and counterpoint, he did not meet Stein until 1926.