For the rest, I believe getting my own life into order, protecting myself from further sorrows is the best I can do for myself and for Harriet and even for you.
Love,
Elizabeth
170 . Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell
Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent
[September 24, 1971]
Dearest Lizzie—
I only partly understand your second paragraph about “recent shocks.” One of course is my book,168 but it doesn’t have a publication date, need not come out ever. It’s not defamatory, it’s/ like your Notebook,169 probably less astringent. My story is/ both a composition and alas, a rather grinding autobiography, what I lived, though of course one neither does or should tell the literal or ultimate truth. Poetry lies./ I’ll send it to you if you wish (when it’s in neater shape), you won’t feel betrayed or exploited but I can’t imagine you’ll want to scrape through the sadness and breakage now.
I can’t write much. Everything has fallen on us this week—false labor pains, rushed midnight trip to hospital, discovery that the child is upsidedown, feet-first, and must be turned./ For over a week I had continual nosebleeds (high blood pressure?) now stopped and cured by an expert stuffing wicking/ my nose.170 No more worry? Our whole household seems to be catching scabies/ from Bosun the pet toy/ dachshund.[*] What a moment! I guess all will be well.
Mail is queer. Some reaches me. I guess more doesn’t. Harriet’s didn’t. I’ll write her soon. Mary and Jim were here, sad over your illness and gloating over the reactionary Dr. Russell’s171 misdiagnosis. Poor Mary! She got some of the worst reviews I’ve ever read—worse than my Prometheus, more/ all inconsequential entertainment journalists. She seemed shaken; but a/ brave soul never shows it except involuntarily.
I can’t write more; all my love to you and Harriet.
*All must be washed boiled/, all us, and the clothes,/ rabbits and hedge. Could you give Blair some proof, like a library card, that I can exist and recover my/
Cal
171. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
Sept. 27, 1971
Dearest Cal: I am sorry, actually much distressed, by your ill health. I pray it is all gone and will not return. Caroline seems to have had a rough time, but that will inevitably be temporary and I hope all will go well. You will have the letter from Mrs. Zinsser by now. It will be a tedious, difficult and expensive thing, infinitely complicated—money paid to me taken off your income tax, some that can’t be etc./ I don’t know all the details. I can’t speak about the book. I know only the shocked reaction of our mutual friends. As for my journal—something I haven’t written in since last Feb.—I looked at it recently and it is nothing, alas, except a rather masochistic eulogy, explaining your tremendous efforts at survival, your heroic working life, your humor, etc.172 Also it is entirely in my own hand, first draft, just a diary really. I may tear it up; it doesn’t seem very much to the point any more. There is a good portrait of Merrill Moore and a not bad one of your parents and Dr. Bernard, Dr. Eissler … But nothing much.
This is just to say that I am/ frightfully worried about you, although I do believe you will be all right. I hope someone will let us know if anything goes wrong with you. I would bring Harriet right over.
I have to go now. But to cheer you up—a fantastic little exchange I had with Bill A. on the phone.
E: Did you know J. Berryman has called his new book Agnus Dei?173
B: I don’t know her.
E: She’s terribly nice.
A. Well, that’s good because we all know what a long suffering person Berryman has been!
E Yes, Agnus will be his fifth wife just as soon as she gets divorced from Mischa Solemnis.*
B Good, that will be a happy marriage.
I gather you need some sort of paper for some reason—whatever you scratched out of your last letter. I will send it. What is it? And when you get time let me know, or Mrs. Zinsser, about the lawyer. Whenever you get time to think about it.
Dearest love, & salud, always
Elizabeth
* * *
*I must confess to that terrible pun!174
172. Robert Lowell to Blair Clark
[Telegram]
[London]
[Received Sept 28 1971, 707 AM]
MR BLAIR CLARK 229 EAST48TH STREET
NEWYORKCITY
BOY ROBERT SHERIDAN BORN LAST NIGHT LOVE
CAL
173. Harriet Lowell to Mr. Robert Lowell
[Telegram]
[New York]
[Received Sept. 29, 1971]
MR ROBERT LOWELL MILGATE PARK BEARSTEDMAIDSTONEKENT
DEAR DADDY I TRIED TO CALL TO SAY THE NEWS IS GREAT STOP LOVE HARRIET +
174. Robert Lowell to Miss Harriet Lowell
Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent, England
October 1, 1971
Darling Harriet:
I feel … I mean to say that your lovely cable was like having another new child born. I remember Mother writing me last spring just telling you of our child’s existence, appearance,/ its coming existence—that she didn’t want you to hear the news in a telegram, she meant first hear of it existence that way of course; but I trembled a little at sending my cable to you.175 Forgive me, if this is clumsily said, but I am so tired I’ve half-forgotten English.
The last twenty days before Robert Sheridan Lowell’s birth were rough. Twice labor pains that stopped but were real and forced us to hurry in the middle of the night in an ambulance [to the] local hospital, then a last minute shift from the Maidstone Hospital to London, because here it took 12 hours to see a doctor—medicare not at its best. Just before all this, I had continual nosebleeds for 8 days, and had to suddenly go to London because of mistakes at Maidstone. It was as though we (Caroline and I) were in a basket of our/ blood. But all’s well.
After 12 hours of labor pains, Robert was born in thirty-seconds, no time to go to the delivery room. He looked like a lobster-red stiff/ gingersnap man, in a crimson stream mud/.176 His first sentence was (I had been praising you) “Isn’t Harriet a girl?”
We have two other babies: a taffy-colored Burmese kitten and a very floppy childish miniature long-haired dachshund: Moonlight and Bosun. Both are childish, Bosun incredibly so; Moonlight has his Uncle Sumner’s lovely voice, but unlike Sumner, an undignified fawning needling way of using it. The boy is much more dignified, despite looking like a bar tender, one who imbibes as well as sells.
What I want is for you to come to us as soon as you can. Christmas wouldn’t be too soon. There’s a famous progressive, casual country school in Devon that my oldest step-daughter goes to—Dartington. You might like it for a year or two before college, much less clamping than Dalton, and a change of scene. Ask Mother[.] It’s the one school in England almost that everyone anyone/ likes. My loveliest daughter, please come and stay.
Love,
Daddy X
(some John Hancock)
175. Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell
[Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent]
October 1, 1971
Dearest Lizzie:
We had to dash from Maidstone to London on the next to last day/ in order to get proper medical attendance; then after inducement, twelve hours of labor. Even fathers get tired, but all is well. Not enough to write much. letters./
Whatever you do, don’t burn your Notebook! I hope to live in it long after I’m dirt. What you showed me was some of your tenderest, and easiest writing. I wrote you that mine need not be published ever. It won’t be published, but kept. I won’t burn all but a few blue/ parts so you mustn’t. Maybe in calmer times we can publish the two books in one volume. I think in time to come, if we/ are still here, my poems will seem less disturbing to you. It’s my best last/ work maybe—isn’t an author always his own best critic? Particularly of a lately finished book.
My blood survives th
e tense last two weeks, two midnight ambulances etc. Not for me!/ It’s my old high wavery bloodpressure. Now I’m back on aldomet,177 have had and will, all sorts of tests. All’s well, heart, liver etc. Only the blood goes high then drops—not with inner anguish, but mysteriously. I guess it’s not too serious. Like me.
Oh the will—I mean the settlement—can’t your friendly lawyer draw up what seems right, and then I without a lawyer will object to what I wish to. I’d like to avoid lawyer costs. Though I pay less than my share, my expenses for the baby are heavy, will be. Also my royalties for this half (?) were only a little over $4000—with $7000 last spring this give[s] me only 11 or 12 thousand. A drop?/ Or is there some catch? On the other hand, I’ll have 140 thousand in trust/ from Harvard. Oh I’m well enough off. Of the common possessions, I’d like [a] few family possessions tokens/ for Robert; I’d naturally like to leave him something—maybe royalties. For myself, a few of the books. I have much of what I want in paperbacks. Thankyou for your dear concern.
Love,
Cal
Robert Lowell to Harriet Lowell, November 20, 1971
176. Robert Lowell to Miss Harriet Lowell
Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent, England
November towards Thanksgiving
[November 20, 1971]
Dearest Harriet:
I miss you very much, and really can’t bare bear/ not to see you much longer. I h/ave been looking over old New York and Maine poems. You and Mother are of course much in them. You both come back as I read, but where/ are the realities, the you/ living and breathing people? It’s hard to imagine you not around. And today, when there was actually ow on the ground, I thought I was back in Massachusetts’ untriside. You see my words are slipping off the margin: snow, countriside.
I think nothing takes one down more than trying to write a letter. Good after I’ve been teaching, and ready almost to improve the lines of the poets I am teaching.
We are all well and enjoying life alive/, though it takes forever for a Father (yours) to get up/ from his new birth. Love to mother, love to you. (I am making this letter short and, so you won’t have have to/ sweating much in replying. Hint.
Love,
Daddy (my best signature)/
177. Robert Lowell to Frank Bidart
[Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent]
[December 6 or 8?, 1971]
Dear Frank:
We’ve been having problem[s] of someone working for us suddenly going violent, somewhat insane, with many unpleasant side-effects. We were left with two little girls, a baby still at the breast and a large somewhat remote country house—all rather spooky for a week or so, but now over, I think.
I am writing to take you up on a favor. Could you come here after Christmas or early January? Here’s the agenda, as Pound would say. My new book, The Dolphin, about eighty poems, shorter than when you saw it, but with many new poems (it now ends in a long pregnancy and birth (one poem) sequence) everything endlessly rewritten, and about 40 poems about English statuary, demos etc. taken out/, not because they are bad, but because they clog the romance 2) To find/ something to do with the rejected poems; they can’t be a narrative, but could have a mounting drive/ of similarity. 3) Here’s where I need you most: I’ve tried to reduce Notebook to personal narrative. Mostly the Historic, the metaphysical and the political go, tho it keeps bits of each, then go the/ personal poems that fit well enough but are inflated, uninspired or redundant. I’ve done this in a sort of jerry-built first draft, and am not sure whether it works (half my new revision will go? etc.) You can see how your advice and care would be unique and invaluable. This all began by trying to get around the mounting pressure on me not to publish The Dolphin (For moral reasons). And indeed, it must wait.
Now my confession, I haven’t yet gotten around to your book178 and will in a few days and will write you. I’ve done nothing but schoolwork and my own work for a month—uneasy to have so much unfinished on my hands unfinisheding./
Anyway Caroline and I would love to have you here. I of course want to pay your passage. Do see if you can come. Miserable about Elizabeth B.179 I think With asthma you think you cannot breathe at all. I’m writing her but give her my love.
Affectionately as ever,
Cal
178. Mary McCarthy to Elizabeth Hardwick
141 rue de Rennes, Paris 6
December 9, 1971
Dearest Lizzie:
News: we are going to spend Christmas Eve and night with Cal and Caroline in Kent. I’ll write about this, them, and the baby on our return. This will be a stage on a Christmas trip to visit English cathedrals, going up as far north as Durham, southwest to Wells and Winchester and south-east, probably to Canterbury. Cal says all these are “only a stone’s throw” from Maidstone, but look at the map. This pilgrimage is a strange notion in the cold season, especially since some of these cathedrals are supposed to be dank and chilling even in full summer. But it strikes a common romantic chord in us, and practically we’ll take sweaters, wool socks, and above all fleece-lined boots.
The trip, I hope, is a prelude to my finally getting started on the book on the Gothic I’ve been planning for so many years. Meanwhile I’m still slogging away on Medina and doubt whether I shall get out of those trenches for Christmas.180 It’s my first experience with something like writer’s block, and God knows what exactly is the reason.
We had a letter from Elmer Wardwell saying that Tommy had been operated on twice but that he had seen the Missus181 downtown after the second operation and all was going well. Do you know anything about this? I shall write her.
Bob says you’re in splendid form, very much in demand, collecting your essays. This must mean the Gauss lectures finished well. How is Harriet? Here it’s been a rather gloomy late fall (I mean morally), perhaps partly connected with the Medina syndrome and partly with Jim’s troubles in Alabama, which are too long and complicated to detail now. But beyond these specific causes I feel wrapped in a dark heavy cloud, which may be just the world. I keep thinking about Dante. But we’re past the middle of life’s journey.182
Dear Lizzie I wish you, Harriet, and all friends a Merry Christmas and hope our attendance at Cal’s crib and fireside won’t give you pain.
Much love,183
179. Elizabeth Hardwick to Mary McCarthy
[“Season’s Greetings” card, Albrecht Dürer, “Mouse (detail from ADAM AND EVE),” Cleveland Museum of Art]
[New York, N.Y.]
[December 1971]
This doesn’t seem altogether suitable as a Christmas greeting. It was personally bought at the Cleveland Museum. Bob, Grace Dudley and I flew out here on Saturday to see the Caravaggio show.184 It is quite an astonishing museum, large, important, and all down there in the middle of the tracks, smokestacks, waste—we almost went on to the sights of Toledo and Kansas City, both actually supposed to be excellent museums also. It was rather a fantastic day, starting at 8 a.m. when Bob and Grace emerged from their suite at the Pierre!185 I don’t suppose I’ll forget the details and so they can be saved for a meeting sometime. There is one thing I finally get very nervous about with rich people—they like themselves far too much. Otherwise, fantasy land drifts about them like a dream I guess. I must say Bob is having real fun; she likes him, she takes care of him—he blinks with the newness of such attention, goes on talking, putting out the essays, telephoning, dining. Incredible.… New York is not bad right now, but I haven’t been feeling well, very, very tired. How awful that is. I have always had the habit of saying I was tired, but it meant something else. It will pass—I have pills and I am sure there is nothing at all wrong. Harriet seems fairly well. I had been wanting her to go away to school, thinking it would enrich her life, and I spent a lot of time on it—but she doesn’t want to. I would have missed her terribly of course and it is great fun having her in and out. I suppose my Princeton lectures went well. I enjoyed dashing over there; I’m going to Chicago and Univ. of Wisc
onsin in the spring—not for anything important, but just profitable enough to make it possible. I do wish you and Jim a good Christmas in Kent; it will be nice for Cal and so that pleases me. Much love, dear ones.
Lizzie
180. Robert Lowell to Miss Harriet Lowell
Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent
December 14, 1971
Dearest Harriet—
Almost an abstract Christmas present, but solid and the exchange value of the pound is rising. If you kept this till you were 100, who knows what it would be worth? Would to heaven I were with you in its place.
Love to you and mother,
daddy
181. Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell
[Card from the Scotch House, Knightsbridge, London S.W.1 X 41PB]
[Milgate Park, Bearsted, Maidstone, Kent]
Christmas 1971
Dearest Lizzie—I tried to choose something modest and sharp[.]186
With my love
Cal
182. Robert Lowell to MRS. AND MISS ROBERT LOWELL
[Telegram]
[Maidstone, Kent, England]
[Received] Dec 23 3 51 PM ’71
MRS AND MISS ROBERT LOWELL15 WEST67ST NEWYORKCITY
LOVE AND MERRY CHRISTMAS COULDNT PHONE LOVE AGAIN
DADDY
183. Harriet Lowell to Robert Lowell
[Card: Peyote Chief (ca. 1930) by Jack Hokeah, Kiowa, Museum of the American Indian: “A beautifully costumed ceremonial leader kneels on a colorful blanket, holding his gourd rattle, beaded staff and feather fan as he prays in Peyote rites. Hokeah was one of the original ‘Five Kiowa’ painters.”]
The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979 Page 24