It is good to know you found the review to do what I hoped it might do. I see better why John Leonard asked me to do it, with my scholarly lacks—I had to do it anyway, for the reason of my own. That’s an appalling story about Mr. Lid’s career and the book—I don’t comprehend anything very much about the academic world, I guess—the only way I’ve ever seen it (since I got out of college) was from the outside, as a visiting writer or something. What villains it must have. I think Mizener is even dangerous to have around. He’s evil, to me.
Yours ever,
Eudora
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, April 27, 1971
Dear Miss Welty:
I’m so grateful that we understand each other and feel alike. General truths aren’t worth much until they’re applied, and ill-intentioned intelligence is worth less. University people sometimes forget that, and judge themselves not by what they do but by what they say, or what they think about what other people do.
It was thoughtful of you to send on that good picture of Ford and it has gone to the right place now, to Julie, who has only a few sparse mementoes of her father. But she is a cheerful woman, decently married (to a man who is writing a novel about FMF!) and working in the office at Claremont College, I believe. She will value that picture, and even more your Defense of Ford.
A footnote to the progression in which we were carried forward into clearer understanding: the day after your last letter came, a young man who was in my house for the first time, a hopeful writer, out of a blue sky said: “Did you ever hear of Professor Lid? He was the best teacher I ever had!” So the succession goes on, not apostolic but real and breathtaking, and breath-giving.
Love,
Ken
Though still addressing her as “Miss Welty,” Millar—acknowledging the closeness and deep emotion he felt—for the first time signed off with love. Welty, in response, also sent tactful love to “Dear Ken”—after which she to him would be “Dear Eudora.”
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, May 3, 1971
Dear Ken,
Your letters are like tokens of goodness and kindness coming to me out of a terrible world. Not “like”—they are. Thank you for the book too—I got it from Dr. Lid, with his inscription, and I’ll be thanking him. It will be good to read it straight through now out from under pressure, and I am so glad to have it.
Do you know about the thesis being written on you at the University of Chicago—I can tell you because I heard it in Jackson from the Chairman of the English Department there, Gwin Kolb, who was here on a visit—this is [his] home town. (I went to a little party for him and he told me because he’d read the review in the Times.) So there you are.
I looked up this off-print (Texas Quarterly, of about ten years back) hoping you might like it—and to read it for a part of my letter—of my thanks.
Love to you both. Take care.
Eudora
A week after sending Ken an offprint of her essay about English novelist Henry Green (1905–1973),14 Eudora sent him a pamphlet Doubleday, Doran had used in 1941 to publicize her first book, A Curtain of Green. It featured a cover picture of the author in the dappled light of a camellia shed made of lath and included her story “The Key” and the introduction Katherine Anne Porter had written for the new book. On the pamphlet, Eudora wrote: “A very early example of jailbirding/For Kenneth Millar (and Archer)/from Eudora Welty/Found April 12, 1971.” (“Jailbirding” referred to a visual image from The Underground Man with which Eudora had ended her discussion of that book in the New York Times Book Review.)
Eudora Welty to Kenneth Millar, May 11, 197115
Dear Ken,
This goes back to when I was working on the Ford review—and then it goes back 30 years beyond that. I was trying to find something in my mother’s desk and found this, which I hadn’t seen since its own day and I’d forgotten it existed. It came together with other things—I wrote on it to send you, and then our letters outdated it. I’d felt a little reluctant before—the gushy way I wrote to K.A.P. about Ford, and one or two things K.A.P. sort of made up about my life, out of benevolence and out of having too little to go on, and you wouldn’t know this. But the thing is it’s one more little piece, it belongs nevertheless.
My mother took the snapshot, in a local camellia shed.
That was the day (finding this) that the memory of Cairo came back to me—Cairo, Illinois. It was once when I was going north on the train and it was running away off schedule so that we went through Cairo by daylight, the one time for me, and I could see from the bridge. It’s the high railroad bridge and long trestle over a wide reach where the Ohio and the Mississippi and (I believe) a little local river too all come together. It took a long time to cross it and the train went slowly, and while we were still on it I saw high up in the light a long ragged V of birds flying south with the river. I kept hearing in my head all the way that beautiful word “confluence”—“the confluence of the waters”—everything the eyes could see was like the word happening. I don’t remember that there were any houses or roads or people anywhere, just treetops and water and distance and sky and birds and confluence. It may not be so rare but I thought so then and I do now—it’s all so rarely the blessing falls.
Love,
Eudora
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, May 12, 1971
Dear Eudora:
I greatly enjoyed your essay on Henry Green, don’t know the passage about Mr. Rock and the starlings, and would like very much to be introduced to it at your hands. It’s many years since I’ve read any Henry Green at all, and then only two or three (Blindness, Living, I remember.) You make him sound like just the novelist I need for my mature years.
I don’t think I ever told you, my writing friend from Alberta, Herb Harker, and I performed an experiment with some pages of Losing Battles, our purpose being to test the hypothesis that there is a continental popular language. The experiment consisted of his listening to me read dialogue aloud and stopping me when I came to a word that wouldn’t have been used in Cardston, Alberta. The only word he stopped me on was “choicy”: he would say choosy. Herb’s own novel, by the way, about a broken-down rodeo rider and his two boys, has been going the rounds and looks as if it has found a home, with Putnam. If so, it will be his first published fiction, after 25 years of writing, at age 45.
I’m off to New York this Sunday to receive an award! The award is of no great moment—a “Lively Arts” award from the Advertising Women of New York—but the occasion is lent a special glow by the fact that Will Durant will present it, and he was a great figure in my young life. In fact, his book “The Story of Philosophy” introduced me to the subject and made a great difference: Berkeley! Hume! Schopenhauer! Perhaps I’ll have a chance to tell him about it.
You mentioned the four letters, or notes, you had from FMF. Did you ever see the para he wrote in 1938 to Stanley Unwin about you? (Letters of FMF, ed. Richard M. Ludwig, Princeton, 1965): [In the paragraph that Ken inserted into his letter at this point, Ford recommended Eudora’s stories for English book publication, asserting that short stories of “such beauty and so beautifully written” might overcome the “usual objection” to this genre.]
Congratulations again, now that I’ve seen it in print (with only one word changed?) on your Ford defense. It badly needed doing, since the disrespectful book has spawned a batch of disrespectful reviews from writers who have no independent sources of information.
The Gatsby galleys are being auctioned next Tuesday in New York. I’m going to try to get to the sale, just for fun—I’m not a collector.—I plan to stay at the Algonquin and permit myself to feel like a writer.
Love,
Ken
Before Eudora received Ken’s letter about his upcoming trip to New York City and the Algonquin Hotel, she left Jackson headed for that very location herself. She arrived on Saturday, May 15, for a two-week sojourn. By Monday, Newsweek writer Ray Sokolov (who had done that magazine’s cover story about Ken), alo
ng with Walter Clemons and John Leonard of the New York Times Book Review, tracked Ken down and told him Eudora was at the Algonquin. There on Monday afternoon he waited until she returned to the hotel, introduced himself, and a long, animated conversation ensued. As they parted, Ken invited Eudora to dinner the following night. She had a previously arranged engagement with her Random House editor, Albert Erskine, but promised that she would try to reschedule it.16
Eudora Welty, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, to Kenneth Millar, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, Monday [May 17, 1971]
Dear Ken,
Albert said coming out Wednesday would be just as good, so we could have dinner tomorrow night if that’s still easy for you—Someone at Knopf just invited me to a party for you beforehand, and I’ll be so pleased to come to that too—
I hope your award and all will be fine this evening. I’m still finding this so amazing and still trying to take it in—
See you tomorrow—
Eudora
Kenneth Millar, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, to Eudora Welty, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, [May 18, 1971]
Dear Eudora:
I’m so delighted you can come to dinner and to Alfred’s party beforehand. I’ll see you there, or perhaps you would like to go over to his apartment in a cab with me, leaving the hotel lobby about 4:45.
I think one of us must be fey, and possibly both.
May Sarton, who read a poem tonight, sends her best to you.17
Ken
On the evening of May 18, Ken escorted Eudora to an elegant cocktail party at the home of Alfred and Helen Knopf on 55th Street just off of Fifth Avenue. There Ray Sokolov and Walter Clemons were also present and could see that their efforts to bring the two writers together had been a success. Later Ken wrote to Alfred Knopf, saying, “Your party was and will remain one of the high points of my life” and calling Eudora “my good angel.” After the party, Ken and Eudora went out for dinner and then walked around Manhattan, not getting back to the Algonquin, where their rooms were now side by side, till after midnight. “I took him down Broadway,” she remembered, “and he just came to life. He said, ‘Now this is where it is.’ The side streets had been sort of genteel, but here everything was going on. There was a cop chasing a man, shooting; the fire department was whizzing by. In fact I was kind of scared, with people running through the streets. But Ken just said, ‘Oh, my.’ He knew what all that was about. I said, ‘I’ve never seen a man chase another man in public with a gun before.’ He said that was an old story to him. And all this time he was so calm, and rather formal and everything; but he was all eyes and ears. He had a great inner calm, supposedly, but I think actually he was pretty emotional. But he had such control: the most controlled person I ever saw. [. . .] He respected other people, in a very grave way, and he would wait for them to speak.”18 Millar’s eyes were an amazing color, she thought: an almost violet-blue; and, when expressing enjoyment, he had a full and wonderful laugh. The two of them had spoken about books and authors, about their own family histories, about themselves and each other. They had had a magical evening, but that evening would be their last time together for two years. The next day, Ken would travel on to Kitchener, Ontario.
Kenneth Millar, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, to Eudora Welty, Algonquin Hotel, New York City, [May 1971]
Dear Eudora:
I never thought I’d hate to leave New York, but I do. I feel an unaccustomed sorrow not to be able to continue our friendship viva voce, and in the flesh, but these are the chances of life. But there is a deeper and happier chance which will keep us friends till death, don’t you believe? And we’ll walk and talk again.
Till then, Ken
Meanwhile there are letters.
From Kitchener, Ontario, where Margaret met Ken and both attended a celebration of their careers at the dedication of their old hometown’s new library, Ken sent Eudora an evocative scenic postcard.
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, May 23, 1971. Postcard of “THE KISSING BRIDGE West Montrose, Ontario—Near Kitchener—The only remaining covered bridge in Ontario, built in 1881.”
Dear Eudora:
This bridge was built to last. Much of the country around here is essentially untouched, and riotously beautiful at this spring season. The people—German and Pennsylvania Dutch—are very much themselves, like a little nation. Altogether most pleasant to this quasi native son—I’m even talking the language. And treasuring fond memories of New York and you.
Love, Ken
Eudora Welty, Lexington, Kentucky, to Kenneth Millar, June 3, 1971
Dear Ken,
It was such happiness to spend that time together. I feel that there wouldn’t ever have been a time when we wouldn’t have been friends, not when sympathy can work both backwards and forwards, and go anywhere—it would have made itself known at some point, as it did. But the way it happened that we came to meet was wonderful and right and exactly timed.
I was so glad that the occasion that brought you was a celebration, and that I could be a part—Thank you for seeing to it that I was there at the gathering at Alfred Knopf’s—John Leonard and Raymond Sokolov and Walter Clemons and the movie man and all, together in one room, and Mr. Knopf rendered so benign and so gratified and filled with pleasure, he could hardly let the party end. Then we had that lovely evening, which is now part of my life.
I hope Canada was all you hoped and all good, and that now you’re both safe back in the cool clean quiet of Santa Barbara and at work again—I won’t be home myself till next week, and this is coming to you from Lexington, Kentucky. My task has been to get from New York to Granville, Ohio, to Sewanee, Tennessee slowly. (I think I told you I was being given two honorary degrees—too close together to go home in between.) But it’s very hard to get anywhere slowly. I took a bus from NY to Columbus, Ohio, called a Luxury Special—reserved seats. But I could hardly believe my eyes when they spread a red carpet over the asphalt at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 8th Avenue for us to walk over, and when we were welcomed aboard by a hostess wearing a red cape and a little red pillbox hat with a crown insignia—she looked like some little Roxy usherette summoned back from movieland—“Folks, we want you all to be comfor’ble.” She served us every mile, it seemed, with food on little trays—ham sandwiches, peppermints, pea soup, apples, coke, cookies, in no particular order, just constantly, and all free. There was inexorable Muzak. I believe this bus went all the way to Los Angeles. But looking out the window was peaceful—while it was rural Pennsylvania & Ohio, the Mennonite and Amish country. I spent the night in Columbus, Ohio, & thought of Thurber. Another bus ride, and another Holiday Inn in Lexington. But you can’t be confused which Holiday Inn is which, because there’s a picture of Man o’ War hanging over the bed here. Tomorrow I get on to Chattanooga, not too early for them to be ready for me. And after Sewanee, home—It’ll be ready for me. I need to work.
Thank you for the note you left for me. I do feel the same. When I think of our meeting now I believe there was never the slightest danger of its not happening—everything was pointing and headed the other way.
Love and wishes to you both,
Eudora
Kenneth Millar to Eudora Welty, June 8, 1971
Dear Eudora:
Your letter from Lexington came yesterday, with the description of your journey between doctorates. I think the bus companies must be competing with the airlines, but at least you were spared the in-flight movie: on my latest trip it was Elvis Presley’s latest. Your mention of passing through the Mennonite country of Pennsylvania touched a chord, as perhaps you knew it would. My maternal ancestors farmed there since 1700 and about the middle of the last century walked up to Canada and settled in Southern Ontario. My grandmother was a Mennonite, and her church was my first church, or rather Sunday School, rather grim and frightening, I think. The area around Kitchener, where Margaret and I visited the other week, is heavily populated with Pennsylvania Dutch and German people and while I turned my back on t
hat place and its life long ago, I feel strangely and wonderfully at home there. Driving around Kitchener was like reading an old poem in which the words were street signs that I remembered as I read them. I hadn’t been back there in eleven years, and this was my first time as a free stranger. One of the first things that happened was a visit I made to the farm where I worked for a year and several summers in my teens. It’s called Oxbow Farm, because it’s enclosed in the deep bend of a river, the Grand River, and I found that it had been bought by the Conservation Authority and would be preserved as a public park. The man I worked for, or rather his son, Ray Snyder, has himself retired and bought a house directly across the river from which he can look out over his farm.—It was a wonderful month to get out into the Canadian country. The woods are still there, green overhead and wet underfoot, with ponds and small lakes scattered at random everywhere, and millions of trilliums. M. and I went birding with Ray Dickinson, a retired high school science teacher who taught us both in the thirties and later became the area’s leading conservationist. All three of us took great pleasure in visiting a recently designated wilderness area known as the F.W. R. Dickinson wilderness, after him. Ray must be the most rational man I ever met, gentle and calm. He wasn’t always, when he was a teacher, but he was so good at teaching you didn’t know he was good. He showed us a rose-breasted grosbeak, and fifteen buffalo in a fenced field, but no pileated woodpecker, though one has been seen in the area.—It was strange to see near-wilderness and near-metropolis cheek by jowl. Kitchener has quadrupled in my time, to a current population of 180,000, and is starting to build what I consider skyscrapers, buildings ten or twelve stories high. But it’s only now beginning to gain assurance in its own German culture—I attended a ceremony two Sundays ago which sort of signalized this. It was the reburial, in Kitchener, of all the German war dead (prisoners, internees) who had died in Canada during the last war; 119 Germans came over from Germany to attend the ceremony; and the place was thus recognized as the “capital” of German Canada. Half Deutsch and half Scots as I am, I felt very much at home in that company.
Meanwhile There Are Letters Page 4