All We Know: Three Lives (41 page)

“rather monotonous sojourn[s]”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, August 3, 1922, EWP.

“nothing but other Americans”
: Edmund Wilson,
The Fifties
, 254.

“one of the…me”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d., EWP.

“more and more devoted”
: Edmund Wilson to John Peale Bishop, June 30, 1920 [1923], in Wilson,
Letters on Literature and Politics, 1912–1972
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 106.

“unclouded”
: Edmund Wilson, “A Weekend at Ellerslie,”
The Portable Edmund Wilson,
194.

“‘Victorian’ article”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 12, 1922, EWP.

“the sheer intellectual…thing”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 15, 1924, EWP.

“We could discuss…done”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, August 9, 1922, EWP.

“the only complaint…to”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d. [circa September 1922], EWP.

“ruthlessly in at…off”
: T. S. Matthews quoted in Lewis M. Dabney,
Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 130.

“We fell on…chef”
: Wilson,
The Fifties
, 251–52.

“quietness and flatness…another”
: Wilson,
The Fifties
, 375–6.

“her gawky girlhood…York”
: Ibid., 254.

“the special characteristics…maturity”
: Ibid., 253.

“I had always…Divines”
: EM to Sybille Bedford, August 15, 1956, SBP.

“the Philistines are…them”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d. [circa September 1922], EWP.

“redeemers of mankind…me”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 15, 1924, EWP.

“Perhaps he interests…need”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 5, 1923, EWP.

“among the greatest…choice”
: Esther Murphy, “Books and Authors: ‘Love and Friendship’” (review of
Love and Friendship and Other Early Works
, by Jane Austen),
New York Tribune
, September 24, 1922; Esther Murphy, “Jane Austen” (review of
The Watsons
),
New York Tribune
, April 29, 1923, 27. If she saw Austen as clear-sighted about literary and sexual politics, she shared the more standard view that the novels display no evidence of power and politics beyond the family circle, writing that Austen “entirely overlooked the fact that history was being made all around her.” For the
Tribune
, Esther also reviewed biographies of Mrs. Humphry Ward and King Leopold of Belgium.

“
Hawthorne’s animosity toward
…
contemporaries
”: EM to Edmund Wilson, September 10, 1922, EWP.

“the Great and…Wharton”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, July 12, 1922, EWP.

“I’m going to…me”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, n.d., EWP.

“the custodian of…dwelling”
: All quotations from Edith Wharton, “The Angel at the Grave,”
Scribner’s Magazine
29 (Feb. 1901): 158–66.

“a dull enough…beauty”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, August 3, 1922, EWP.

“scheduled for future publication”
:
Los Angeles Times
, April 22, 1928, C17.

“demoted from a…kept”
: Abby Slater,
In Search of Margaret Fuller
(New York: Delacorte, 1978), 3.

“I did not…satisfactory”
: EM to Edmund Wilson, October 5, 1951, EWP.

BACHELOR HEIRESS

“decided to be…bottle”
: Wilson,
The Fifties
, 254.

“preliminary drinks…experience”
: Wilson, “A Weekend at Ellerslie,” 189, 191, 194.

“would occasionally bring…eloquence”
: Max Ewing to Mrs. Alice Manning [postmarked March 15, 1927], MEP.

“moved absent-mindedly…sequins”
: Max Ewing to parents, May  9, 1928, MEP.

“magnificent as the…convent”
: Max Ewing to parents, n.d. [postmarked January 28, 1930], MEP.

he painted Mercedes
: These portraits and others appeared in Chanler’s show at the Valentine Gallery in New York in 1929. “To be painted by Bob Chanler, says Carl Van Vechten, is to have a career, a social opportunity and an education,” wrote the art critic Henry McBride, “Spirited Portraits by Squire Chanler Shown—Authentic Celebrity Conferred on Sitters by Singular Artist—Process Revealed by Mr. Van Vechten with Reckless Abandon—Painter Himself Clings to Larger Aspects,”
New York Sun
, March 2, 1929, MEP.

“stormed and raged…death”
: Max Ewing to parents, Thursday, March 29, 1928, MEP.

“indomitable, impetuous intransigent…me”
: EM to Leonie Sterner, November 11, 1930, MDP.

“Next to Muriel…known”
: EM to Sybille Bedford, September 2, 1954, SBP.

“possessed of an…enthusiasm”
: Henry James Forman, “When All the Lions Came to Muriel Draper’s House,”
New York Times
, February 10, 1929, 62.

“outrageous remarks and outrageous hats”
: “Edwardian Pink,”
Time
, September 8, 1952.

“It was an…artists”
: Paul Cummings, “Interview with Walker Evans,” Connecticut, October 13, 1971, and New York City, December 23, 1971, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution,
www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-walker-evans-11721
.

“Muriel Draper Dies”
:
New York Herald Tribune
, August 27, 1952.

“You were superb…contemporary”
: EM to Muriel Draper, Wednesday, n.d. [mid-1920s], MDP.

“stood up & looked…‘gang!’
”: Max Ewing to parents, January 17, 1928, MEP.

“in pink spangles…flowers
”: Max Ewing to parents, Monday, n.d., MEP.

“wonderful vitality and…mind”
: Teddy Chanler to EM, April 25, n.d., AFP.

“a rather tormented…forty”
: Teddy Chanler to EM, July 5, n.d., AFP.

“I’m so anxious…you?
”: Teddy Chanler to EM, September 3, n.d., AFP.

“My boy friend…paradoxical”
: EM to Muriel Draper, Saturday, n.d. [circa 1926], MDP.

“I have really…difficult”
: Teddy Chanler to EM, July 5, n.d., AFP. “(I wonder, by the way, if in future years, providing we’re both famous, the history of Our Relationship won’t constitute a separate course at Columbia.)” Teddy Chanler to EM, September 3, n.d., AFP.

“a very usual occurrence”
: Teddy Chanler to EM, April 25, n.d., AFP.

Esther would pass out
: She later told Sybille Bedford that she woke in their apartment one morning to see an enormous portrait of Queen Victoria over the bed, inscribed by the queen:
TO MY DARLING GODDAUGHTER OLIVIA
. Sybille Bedford to author, conversation, London, March 30, 2000.

“the long-roofed…ship”
: F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Tender Is the Nigh
t (New York: Scribner’s, 1995 [1934]), 205.

for whom she…“admiration”
: EM to Gertrude Stein, Tuesday, n.d. [circa 1929–30], Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

“upbraid[ed]” her for…“Barney”
: Teddy Chandler to EM, August 6, [1926], AFP.

“outlet for sensibility”
: EM to Gerald Murphy, November 21, 1916, GSMP.

“could not be…themselves”
: Wilson,
The Sixties
, 289.

“Her behavior…rebuke”
: Vaill,
Everybody Was So Young
, 348.

“a process of…realities”
: Gerald Murphy to Archibald MacLeish, January 22, 1931, Archibald Mac Leish Papers, Library of Congress.

“full of homage…sure”
: William Carlos Williams,
The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams
(New York: New Directions, 1967), 228–29. Barney, Williams went on, “could tell a pickle from a clam any day in the week.”

“her strongest desire”
: Quoted in George Wickes,
The Amazon of Letters: The Life and Loves of Natalie Barney
(New York: Popular Library, 1978), 284.

“entirely selfish…compass”
: Sybille Bedford to author, conversation, London, June 30, 2001.

“vegetable-placid…really”
: EM to Muriel Draper, April 27, 1933, MDP.

“Above all
don’t…
novelist”
: Teddy Chandler to EM, April 25, n.d., AFP.

“Natalie Barney lay…bed”
: Esther Murphy, untitled story, ms., 1926, MDP. The piece ends: “Get out the scarves[?] from my armoire and give them to me. Then take off your clothes and give yourself thirty lashes on the”

“copiously”
: Esther Murphy, ms., n.d. [circa 1926], MDP.

“We talked again…earth”
: Max Ewing to parents, Monday, March 7, 1927, MEP.

“and by crazy…cuckoo”
: Max Ewing to parents, n.d. [circa May 1927], MEP.

“‘She is not’…by”
: Barnes,
Ladies Almanack
, 33.

“
ON WAY TO CAPRICE
”
: EM to Muriel Draper, June 2, 1927, MDP.

“Miss Barney directs…troops”
: Max Ewing to parents, n.d. [August 1927], MEP.

“Fancy Esther being”…long
: Dorothy Wilde to Natalie Barney, July 27, 1927, quoted in Joan Schenkar,
Truly Wilde: The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde, Oscar’s Unusual Niec
e (New York: Basic, 2000), 353.

“strange stay with”
: EM to Sybille Bedford, February 10, [1949], SBP.

“in a state of frenzy”
: Max Ewing to parents, “Sunday,” n.d. [circa May 1928], MEP.

“I suppose you’re…wife”
: Hugh Thomas,
John Strachey
(London: Eyre Methuen, 1973), 70.

“It was characteristic…all”
: F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Echoes of the Jazz Age” in ed. Edmund Wilson,
The Crack-Up
(New York: New Directions, 1993 [1945]), 14.

“inabilities to act”
: John Strachey to EM, Tuesday, n.d. [circa winter–spring 1928–29], AFP.

“startling and revelatory…ascertained?”
: Natalie Barney to EM, “late February” [1929], AFP.

“She
dreamed
of being appreciated”
: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, March 29, 2000.

“a sort of…purchase”
: John Strachey to EM, December 25, 1928, AFP.

“You are truly…satisfying”
: John Strachey to EM, Tuesday, n.d. [circa 1928–29], AFP.

“I’m going to…so”
: John Strachey to Yvette Fouque, February 22, 1929, quoted in Thomas,
Strachey
, 71–72.

“Last night…elsewhere”
: Max Ewing, n.d. Thursday [postmarked March 7, 1929], MEP.

“You would think…winter!”
: Max Ewing, n.d., Wednesday [postmarked March 13, 1929], MEP.

“
THINKING OF YOU CONSTANTLY
”
: EM to Muriel Draper, March 28, 1929, April 4, 1929, April 23, 1929, MDP.

“plunged into the…1929”
: EM to Sybille Bedford, September 30, 1959, SBP.

“To the Woman…Britain”
: Leaflet, “Parliamentary General Election, To the Woman Elector of Aston,” signed Esther Strachey, MDP.

“the swift ‘transformation…Commonwealth’”
: Thomas,
Strachey
, 75.

“the most important…hand”
: EM to Leonie Sterner, November 11, 1930, MDP.

“second place
…‘her’”: Thomas,
Strachey
, 78, 71.

“Remember, every upper…guilty”
: Ibid. 69.

“Congratulations, John!”…“you”
: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, March 29, 2000.

“It is not…them!”
: John Strachey to Yvette Fouque, August 13, 1929, quoted in Thomas,
Strachey
, 78–79.

“Darling, darling Muriel…strange”
: EM to Muriel Draper, April 23, [circa 1930], MDP.

“unbutton[ing] his fly”
: Mary McCarthy, “Fellow Workers,”
Granta
27 (Summer 1989): 107–23, 111.

“forth on the…world”
: Max Ewing to parents, Tuesday, n.d. [postmark September 15, 1931], MEP.

“The whole thing…money”
: Sybille Bedford to author, interview, London, March 29, 2000.

“a living corpse”
: EM to Chester Arthur, June 10 [1936], AFP. Over thirty years after Anna Murphy’s death Olivia Wyndham recalled “what [Esther] went through when her Mother was begging to die for months and Esther could do nothing about it.” Olivia Wyndham to Sybille Bedford, July 26, 1964, SBP.

“became ill with”
: Celia Strachey, unpublished memoir ms., JSP.

“sympathy and understanding”
: EM to Muriel Draper, n.d., MDP.

“does love you…this”
: Muriel Draper to John Strachey, April 6 and 15, 1932, JSP.

“She is a…being”
: Amabel Williams-Ellis to John Strachey, n.d., AFP.

“like a Victorian
…
her”
: Celia Strachey, unpublished memoir ms., JSP.

“My heart quite…of”
: Amy Strachey to Gerald Murphy, November 23 [circa 1932], GSMP.

“charming,—almost worthy…quite”
: Amy Strachey to EM, August 9, 1937, AFP.

Left Book Club
: See Paul Laity, “The Left’s Ace of Clubs,”
The Guardian
, July 6, 2001. “It was ‘the unorthodox political education of the Left Book Club,’ Aneurin Bevan said, which ‘prepared the way’ for the Labour victory of 1945…. LBC monthly book choices helped to make full employment, proper housing, socialised medicine and civilised town planning axioms of general expectation, not only for an increasingly politicised working class, but for residents in middle-class and suburban constituencies which had seemed beyond the reach of Labour in 1935.”