by Edward Burns
Gertrude
1. A reference to photographs Van Vechten had sent Stein.
2. Anita Loos (1893–1981), the writer, whom Stein had met when she visited California.
3. One of the lectures from Stein’s Narration, “English and American Language in Literature,” was printed in Life and Letters Today (September 1935), 13(l):19–27.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Giuseppe Bonito—Dama ignota. R. Galleria Nazionale di Roma]
[postmark: 23 September 1935] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Dear Papa W.
The whole country side is delighted with your Cesarian operation pictures, they all say in all these centuries that there has been a Ceyzerieu nobody has thought of it.1 I have signed the agreement with Mrs. [Lillian May] Ehrman’s brother, it would be nice if it came off, my name being mentioned like that may help.2 We are so happy that you are safely in 150, what happened to the move, and we so want to kiss you so warmly papa dear beloved papa W.
Baby W.
1. See Stein to Van Vechten [29 August 1935], note 2, and Van Vechten to Stein [8 September 1935], note 1.
2. Ivan Kahn wrote Stein on 28 August 1935 (YCAL) expressing interest in the screen possibilities of Stein’s story “The Gentle Lena.” He enclosed an agreement that authorized him to act on Stein’s behalf. See Van Vechten to Stein, 27 July 1935, note 1.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Self-portrait in Top Hat. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
23 September [1935] [150 West Fifth-fifth Street New York]
Dear Baby Woojums:
Has Harcourt sent you Mabel [Dodge] Luhan’s European Experiences? & have you see[n] how Mabel writes (at length) about you & Alice? I think you better had. It will amuse you or something!1
Love from Papa!
1. Mabel Dodge Luhan, European Experiences, Volume Two of Intimate Memories (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935). See chapter 13, “The Steins,” pp. 321–33.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Portrait of Alice B. Toklas by Sir Francis Rose]1
[postmark: 3 October 1935] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Autumn has come the time they shut puppies up in the outhouse and they cry, Mussolini I guess is awful nervous, there seems to be a [break?] of [waiting?],2 no we have not seen Mabel [Dodge] yet but we will of course she couldn’t not,3 the Ceyzerieu family were here yesterday and they thought Papa Woojums with the tea-cup was awful chic they thought Fania most handsome and they are most pleased but not so much as we who love you so4
Baby W.
1. The painting is now in YCAL.
2. Tensions had been rising between Italy and Ethiopia; after a series of border clashes each nation had called up reserve troops. Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, refused all offers to reach an agreement with Ethiopia. On 3 October his troops invaded Ethiopia and war was declared between the two nations.
3. Mabel Dodge Luhan’s European Experiences.
4. Stein had shown Madame Giraud and her family one of Van Vechten’s photographs, a self-portrait with teacup. Note by Van Vechten: “Papa with a tea-cup is a reference to a photograph. The reference to Fania is also photographic.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Perugino, The Resurrection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]
[postmark: 14 October 1935] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Baby Woojums—
Two nice books arrived. I read the one in Life and Letters with great pleasure. But what is the one with all the blank leaves? Anyway the inscriptions are wonderful & so is Baby W & so is Mama W!1 I cant read half [of what] you write in your letters anymore. . Your writing gets more & more & more illegible. But it is worth working on & I do!
Perhaps you explained about that Blank book & I couldn’t read it! … Fania is in the country & I am joining her today (Connecticut) to look again for houses. So when we live in the country Baby & Mama W. can come & stay & stay!
Love to you both! Papa W!
Please write me when you read Mabel [Dodge]’s book! A charming letter came from your Cesarian operation friend!2
1. Stein had sent Van Vechten a dummy, or layout, of her book Narration; see Stein to Van Vechten, [17 September 1935]. Stein inscribed the issue of Life and Letters Today: “For Carl who is the heart of all language for us. Gertrude.”
2. Madame André Giraud wrote to Van Vechten thanking him for the photographs he had sent (27 September [1935], YCAL).
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 15 October 1935] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dearest papa Woojums,
Thanks for the clipping,1 yes Virgil [Thomson] did do an awfully good job of the opera and I am glad they realise it, he does know how to do a whole thing, by the way what is he doing these days. We are hardly home yet, you see we have been away about a year and a half now, 7 months in America and six before and after at Bilignin and we are hoping something nice will take us to America in the spring. I have been seeing a lot of Picasso, he writes poetry, very good poetry, the sonnets of Michael Angelo, he says it takes his mind off of divorce better than painting, so he doesn’t paint,2 and Thornton Wilder is here he is quite mad about the new book of Human mind and human nature, and we have talked it over so much that we all think it would be an amusing thing if he added a running commentary of our xplicating conversations, he is leaving here soon and you will be seeing each other and he will be seeing Bennett [Cerf], and I hope you do like the idea,3 we are lunching to-morrow with Nathalie [Barney] the Duchess [de Clermont Tonnerre] and Romaine [Brooks] and we will talk about you and we will all tell about how sweet you are because you are, have not seen Mabel [Dodge]’s book yet but we will soon, and everything is peaceful and to-day is all saints day and god bless our saint Papa Woojums
Baby W.
1. This clipping cannot be identified.
2. When in June 1935 the pregnancy of Picasso’s mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, became known, Picasso and his wife Olga initiated divorce proceedings. The proceedings were eventually dropped because of complicated laws regarding community property. Marie-Thérèse Walter gave birth to Maria (Maia) de la Conception (named after Picasso’s sister, who died as a child) on 5 October 1935. Picasso and his wife Olga remained separated until her death in Cannes, France, on 11 February 1955.
3. Wilder contributed an introduction to Stein’s The Geographical History Of America Or The Relation Of Human Nature To The Human Mind.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Abbaye d’Ambronay—La Sacristie]
[postmark: 16 October 1935] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Just had a letter from [Ivan] Kahn at Hol[l]ywood, he is trying the Paramount for the gentle Lena, and is to let me know, we do hope and hope so, it would be lots of fun and this time perhaps Papa Woojums would fly out with us, god bless Papa Woojums.1
M.W. [i.e., B. W.]
Madame Giraud of Ceyzerieu is looking forward to a [superb time?] with you.2
1. Kahn’s letter is not in YCAL. In a letter to Stein, 8 January 1936 (YCAL), Kahn refers to his earlier letter: “The only time I wrote you was October 2 at Bilignin, Par Belley, Ain, in which letter I told you that I had taken The Gentle Lena’ to the Paramount Studios. I was not able to make a deal there.” Kahn’s letter is confusing because he had written Stein an earlier letter on 28 August 1935 (YCAL). See Stein to Van Vechten [23 September 1935], note 2.
2. Madame Giraud was planning a visit to the United States.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard] Carl Van Vechten painting by Martha S. Baker. Collection of Carl Van Vechten
[18 October 1935] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude.
In Jubilee (Moss Hart and Cole Porter) at the Imperial Theatre. When the lions begin to roar. Mary Boland cries “That’s Gertrude Stein” and the audience loves it.1 Bennett [Cerf] writes he got a cable on the [perfect?] day from Baby & Mama Woojums! He was pleased.2
Will you send Papa Woojums a cable when he gets married to a movie star?
all love
P.W.!
1. Jubilee!, by Moss Hart and Cole Porter, with music and lyrics by Porter, opened on 12 October 1935 at the Imperial Theatre, New York, and ran for 169 performances. In act 2, scene 4, which takes place in the zoo, there is an exchange between the King and Queen. The King is locked up in a cage.
King: Oh, no. There’s nothing in here but me. I meant that it seemed like yesterday the Jubilee was next week and now it’s tomorrow.
Queen: There is someone in there with you and it’s Gertrude Stein. Henry, the Jubilee’s tomorrow.
(Jubilee!, script #4340, NYPL-Lincoln Center)
2. Cerf had married the actress Sylvia Sidney. Cerf’s letter to Van Vechten is not in YCAL. Stein’s cable to Cerf is not in Columbia-Random House.
To Gertrude Stein
20 October [1935]
Sunday 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
New York City
Angel Baby W!
Here is another pretty nice mention.1 You see America has by no means forgotten Baby and Mama W ... DO READ MABEL [Dodge]’s book and write me about it!
Sunshine, honeycakes, sugar statues, coca cola, and sweet syrups of Asia to Β an[d] M W!
Papa W!
1. An unidentified clipping.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 23 October 1935] [27 rue de Fleurus Paris]
My dearest papa W.
We are so xcited about you turning farmers you and Fania,1 I always did sing to Alice the sad song of the farmer, a farmer’s life is a hard hard life a farmer’s life for me but we are xcited and want to know all about it right away. And the idea of Baby Woojums hand-writing not being legible it always was famous for its legibility, clear as mud but anyway what it was is this, the blue book I sent you is the dummy of the book the Chicago University Press is bringing out this fall of the 4 lectures that I gave there, there is not that clear as a bell, and here we are in Paris, and beside a possible king2 and a possible emperor vive le roi vive I’empereur, is the present cry in spite of all that and the Abyssinians3 everybody seems more cheerful than they were. Georges Maratier4 has just come in and says the cinema where I come in where they read a poem by me out loud while the toast burns is right around the corner Joie de famille W. C. Fields we will try to see it to-night,5 just got your postal we’ll send a cable joint because we love you you don’t have to get married any more.6 Thornton [Wilder] is coming to-morrow and we have just got here and this just to say how much we love you papa Woojums Mama and baby just love their papa W. and no mistake,
always,
Gtrde.
1. Note by Van Vechten, 23 January 1941: “Fania and I looked for an old farm house in Connecticut this summer but never very seriously.”
2. King George V of England (1865–1936) was extremely ill, and newspapers were already talking about his successor, his son, the future Edward VIII, later Duke of Windsor. The King died on 20 January 1936.
3. Italy had invaded Ethiopia (Abyssinia) on 3 October 1935. In November the League of Nations declared Italy to be the aggressor. Both British and French popular opinion supported Ethiopia and its Emperor, Haile Selassie. The French Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pierre Laval, and British Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, met in Paris on 7–8 December. They drew up a plan that would appease Italy at Ethiopia’s expense. The outcry from the British public was so great that Sir Hoare resigned on 18 December and was replaced by Anthony Eden. Laval left office in January 1936.
4. An art dealer and friend of Stein’s.
5. In the W. C. Fields film The Man on the Flying Trapeze (Paramount, 1935), Fields (Ambrose Woolfinger) returns home after spending a night in jail on bootlegging charges to find his family finishing an elaborate breakfast. As Fields slowly chews around the edges of a piece of toast, his wife, played by Mary Brian, reads aloud a selection from a “lady writer” obviously modeled on Stein. Joie de famille is the French title for the film.
6. See Van Vechten to Stein [18 October 1935].
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 1 November 1935] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
Dear dear papa Woojums,
It was just about one year ago that the two Woojums mama and Baby started off across the atlantic to be received in the welcoming arms of papa Woojums and how they welcomed and how happy all the Woojums were, well here we are happy but not so happy as when the Woojums are altogether over there, anyway we are leaving soon for Paris and after that, well we don’t seem to have any plans after that, but I’ll tell you all about how Paris is when we get there. I have walked miles and miles this summer with the speedometer [i.e., pedometer] and it is nice to have one, everything is nice but Papa Woojums is nicest. I am sending you the ms. Relation of human nature to the human mind, it is all finished now, and I am not showing it to Bennett [Cerf] yet so don’t say anything about it just read it and let me know how you like it, I am rather anxious about it.1 The Sforzas the Italian [family] has been visiting in the neighborhood, they are a nice family, he is going to America next month and I think knows you,2 the other [event?] is the Picasso divorce but that is going on in Paris, and Picasso has given up painting and taken to writing, but as yet he shows his ms. that is the outside of it but not the inside,3 have not seen Mabel [Dodge]’s book yet but we will when we get back to Paris and lots of love lots of it,4
Always
Gtrde.
1. Stein’s The Geographical History Of America Or The Relation Of Human Nature To The Human Mind.
2. Possibly a reference to Count Carlo Sforza (1872–1952), the Italian statesman who had opposed Mussolini and had resigned as ambassador to France in 1922. Count Sforza went into voluntary exile in 1927 and, after living in France, settled in the United States in 1940. He returned to Italy in 1943 and played a major role in Italian politics until his death.
3. See Stein to Van Vechten [15 October 1935], note 2.
4. Mabel Dodge Luhan’s European Experiences.
To Gertrude Stein
[? November 1935] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
New York City
Dearest Baby Woojums,
I sat down for a few moments with The Geographical History of America last night and was so amused and excited and interested in the manuscript I never laid it down until it was all read. I think it is Gertrude Stein PLUS, all the best parts of you stimulated and sorted out and worked into a complete pattern: the sublimation of the SUBLIME STEIN. . I think it’s more YOU than anything you’ve done, a great advance in clarity and definition. You have cut everything away that isn’t necessary. And it’s full of wit and wisdom and I can never forget “What is the use of being a little boy if you are going to grow up to be a man?” and your conjunction of TEARS and Human Nature and WRITING and Human Mind slays me, and I guess I am getting jealous of that nice Thornton Wilder because he plays such a large part in your best book, but I guess I wouldn’t like to be Jo Alsop or Bennett [Cerf]’s Communist Uncle, would you? . . The airplane parts are nice. I think you got a lot out of airplanes besides the ability to get from place to place quicker than quick. . I think the idea of T[hornton] W[ilder] doing a running commentary in connection with the book is an INSPIRED one and I can’t wait to see it all in PRINT. May I send the mss. to Mark [Lutz] to read? I’m sure he would love it. You ask about Virgil [Thomson]. I haven’t seen himx; nor have I been to one or am I going to the other of these concerts (on account engagements) but here is what he is doing.1. I am glad you are seeing Picasso again because maybe you can get him to let the Maestro photograph him next time Papa Woojums comes to Paris (if any). . If you don’t read Mabel [Dodge]’s book soon I shall go mad. Why DIDNT [Alfred] HARCOURT SEND IT TO YOU? Ask him, please. . Baby Woojums’ handwriting is all right again, most legible. . and we are not so near being farmers as we were. We look at houses and houses and houses and they get worse. I think we might try farming in Brookl
yn or in a penthouse. . Ellen Glasgow is here and we are giving her a little dinner on Friday. . The WC Fields cinema is still another one where you are mentioned: I haven’t seen that. You just get more and more mentioned in EVERYTHING and by EVERYBODY and Mama Woojums and I will soon have to do something, you’ll be so spoiled and won’t wear your rubbers or your union suits!
I am going into a photographic show (the first in which my work has been seen) at Radio City beginning the 26th and I am sending fourteen photographs and Baby Woojums and the Flag is ONE.2
so lots of love to Baby and Mama W from
Papa Woojums (and how!)
x. I am pretty busy with photographs—more busy even than usual.
1. Thomson’s music was the subject of a one-man concert on 8 November 1935 at the New School for Social Research, New York. This was the third in a series of five concerts devoted to different composers. Thomson played the piano for the concert; other artists included Ada MacLeish, soprano, and the Philharmonic Scholarship Quartet. The date of the concert allows placement of this letter before 8 November.