Savage Beauty (102 page)

9.
“and if I come”: GD to ESVM, May 1, n.y., PM 1935. St. Coll.

10.
“though their hospitality”: GD to Allan Ross Macdougall, Feb. 4, 1951. UVa.

11.
“Me & George & Ugin”: ESVM to ADF, June 11, 1935.

12.
“Herewith the partial”: GD to Eugene Sax-ton, Aug. 20, 1935. Berg.

13.
“You will be surprised”: HM to ESVM, Sept. 28, 1935. St. Coll.

14.
“I want to tell”: HM to ESVM, Nov. 15, 1935. St. Coll.

15.
“It has to do”: Eugene Saxton to GD, Dec. 30, 1935. Berg.

16.
“unmindful of what you have said”: Eugene Saxton to ESVM, Dec. 27, 1935. St. Coll.

17.
“somewhere between Palm Beach”: ESVM to Gladys Brown Ficke,
Ls.
, p. 262.

18.
“Edna and I pick up”: EB to DT, Jan. 14, 1936. Joan Kennedy Taylor collection.

19.
“time to have”:
Ls.
, p. 263.

20.
“Poe spelled it Eldorado”:
Ls.
, deleted portion of letter, p. 264.

21.
“On the page”: GD to Eugene Saxton, Dec. 10, 1935. Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

22.
“TITLE OF BOOK”: ESVM to GD, Jan. 9, 1936. Syracuse University Library.

23.
“It never occurred”: ESVM to GD, January 1936. Syracuse University Library.

24.
“in your role”: GD to Eugene Saxton, Feb. 5, 1936. Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

CHAPTER 32

1.
“For some strange”: “Baudelaire in English,”
SRL
, April 4, 1936, p. 15.

2.
“LIFE IS BLAH”: ESVM to ADF, April 20, 1936. UVa.

3.
“incomparable”: Cuthbert Wright, “Charles Baudelaire’s Poems in English Dress,”
The New York Times Book Review
, May 3, 1936, pp. 4, 18.

4.
“There was no”: GD to Alix Daniels, May 15, 1962. Private collection.

5.
“We start motoring”: ESVM to ADF, May 1, 1936. UVa.

6.
“the only thing”:
Ls.
, pp. 282, 284–85.

7.
“Sweetheart”: NM to ESVM, n.d., c. May 1936. St. Coll.

8.
“It was a major tragedy”: EB to NM, n.d., PM blurred, c. May 1936. St. Coll.

9.
“Under more favourable”: ESVM, “Foreword,”
ConM
, p. vii.

10.
“We had an accident”: EB to Charles Ellis, n.d., c. fall–winter 1936–37. St. Coll.

11.
“On this day”: ADF diary, pp. 112–13. Beinecke.

12.
“My dear”: ADF to ESVM, Oct. 24, 1936. St. Coll.

13.
“Miss Millay, Esq”: ADF to ESVM, Oct. 26, 1936. St. Coll.

14.
“On an occasion”: ESVM to Harold O. Voorhis, Secretary of New York University.
Ls.
, pp. 290–91.

15.
“Well, I was”: Cass Canfield, interview with author, July 11, 1973.

16.
five honorary degrees: Two years earlier, Brown University had offered her its “honorary degree of Doctor of Letters” (Clarence A. Barbour to ESVM, May 9, 1935. St. Coll.); she did not reply. On May 6 they wired her; when they still had no word, they tried to telephone only to find she had no telephone. On May 9, 1935, they wrote again. There is no evidence either in her own files, at Steepletop, or in the records at Brown University that she responded. Whatever had happened, by the following year, 1936, telephones were installed at Steepletop.

17.
“Here’s to my new book” and subsequent quotes: Michael Mok, “Edna St. Vincent Millay Sings Again,”
New York Post
, July 15, 1937, p. 15.

18.
who had sided: Edmund Wilson,
The Thirties
, ed. Leon Edel (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980).

19.
“the conflict between”: Edmund Wilson, “Give That Beat Again,”
The Shores of Light
, pp. 681–87.

20.
“Say that We Saw”:
CP
, p. 377.

21.
“the brilliant book”: Kenneth Tynan, “Beat Attitudes,”
The New Yorker
, Feb. 20, 1960, p. 104.

CHAPTER 33

1.
“a depressing tour”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Oct. 17, 1936. St. Coll.

2.
“Darling”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Mar. 29, 1936. St. Coll.

3.
“Am I going”: George Slocombe to ESVM, Dec. 9, 1937. St. Coll.

4.
“in a lovely”: George Slocombe to Allan Ross Macdougall, Feb. 8, 1951. UVa.

5.
“You say you know”: ESVM to GD, Sept. 28, 1937. Syracuse University.

6.
“The reason why”: EB to GD, Dec. 5, 1937, n.d., c. February 1938; April 27, 1938; May 31, 1938. Syracuse University.

7.
“A delay in payment”: Henry Allen Moe to ESVM, Jan. 31, 1938. St. Coll.

8.
“I think if we”: EB to Curtis Hidden Page, Jan. 5, 1938. EB to Page, n.d., c. Feb. 28, 1938. UVa.

9.
“These reports reach”: ESVM to Henry Allen Moe and Members of the Committee, March 18, 1938 (draft). St. Coll.

10.
“He writes nothing”: Guggenheim report draft, c. 1938. n.p., n.d.

11.
“Listen, toots”: ESVM to Harold Lewis Cook, July 6, 1938.
Ls.
, p. 296, plus deleted portion. UVa.

12.
By the fall: Henry Allen Moe to EB, Jan. 13, 1939. St. Coll.

13.
“for God’s sake”: ESVM to GD, Sept. 5, 1938.
Ls.
, pp. 300–301.

14.
“Probably the others”: ESVM to GD, Sept. 21, 1938.
Ls.
, p. 302.

CHAPTER 34

1.
“a bad transplanter”:
Good Housekeeping
, May 1938.

2.
“Tell Charlie”: EB to NM, June 2, 1935. St. Coll.

3.
Edna wrote to Blanche Bloch: ESVM to BB, July 13, 1938.
Ls.
, p. 299.

4.
“Long before Tanglewood” and subsequent quotes: Alexander and Blanche Bloch, interview with author, July 15, 1973.

5.
“ ‘I’m crazy about’ ”: Dayton
Herald
, Oct. 31, 1938. ESVM, scrapbook. Helen Adair Bruce collection.

6.
“She was to give a reading”: Anonymous source to author, Dec. 9, 1975.

7.
“I am horrified”: Helen Adair Bruce, scrap-book, n.p., n.d.

8.
“Your wire was not”: EB to KM, n.d., c. February 1939. St. Coll.

9.
“Dear Sister Edna”: KM to ESVM, Feb. 20, 1939. St. Coll.

10.
“Dear Kathleen”: EB to KM, n.d., c. February 1939. St. Coll.

11.
“You were very good”: ESVM to Agnes Yarnall,
Ls.
, p. 294.

12.
“There was either”: Agnes Yarnall, interview with author, Nov. 13, 1974. Agnes Yarnall to author, June 30, 1975.

13.
“Darling, It is quaint”: ESVM to GD, Dec. 29, 1938. ABH collection.

14.
didn’t reach Clark’s:
The Goddard Biblio Log
, vol. 2, no. 4 (Winter 1972), p. 61.

15.
“my husband’s face”: ESVM to Ruth Dodd, n.d., c. 1941. UVa. (Not sent.)

CHAPTER 35

1.
“And what the hell”: Vincent Sheean, interview with author, Dec. 19, 1974.

2.
“I want to propose”: Peter Kurth,
American Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), p. 308.

3.
“ ‘appeasers’ ”: Ibid., pp. 308–10.

4.
“In this country”: “Edna St. Vincent Millay Warns of Internal Perils for America,” New York
Herald Tribune
, n.p., n.d., c. October 1939. Helen Adair Bruce scrapbook.

5.
“I can’t resist”: Helen Rogers Reid to EB, Oct. 11, 1939. St. Coll.

6.
“Lulu, my poor”:
Ls.
, p. 306.

7.
“They are dragging me”: Malcolm Elwin and John Lane,
The Life of Llewelyn Powys
(London: The Bodley Head, 1946), p. 271.

8.
“Alyse”:
Ls.
, p. 306.

9.
“Vincent has not”: EB to GD, Sept. 19, 1939.

10.
“Dear Mr. Boissevain”: Dr. Connie M. Guion to EB, Nov. 21, 1939. St. Coll.

CHAPTER 36

1.
“This is the first”: New York Hospital, Summary, History No. 252461. Millay, Miss Edna St. Vincent.

2.
“She’d look them straight”: Dr. Leila Wallice, telephone interview with author, Aug. 1, 1991.

3.
“Menopause” notes: New York Hospital— Cornell Medical Center, Medical Archives, Dr. Connie M. Guion, box 3, f. 3, Medical Notes Misc., c. 1937–54.

4.
“It is not quite”: Dr. Leila Wallice, telephone interview with author, Aug. 1, 1991.

5.
“This place has been”: EB to NM, n.d., PM March 2, 1940. St. Coll.

6.
Nembutal, a barbiturate: Goodman and Gilman,
The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics
, 8th ed. (New York: Pergamon Press, 1990), p. 358.

7.
“financial call”: Eugene Saxton to ESVM, July 12, 1939. St. Coll.

8.
During 1939: Royalty statement, Harper & Row, June 30, 1939. St. Coll.

9.
“What worries me”: Eugene Saxton to ESVM, April 12, 1940. St. Coll.

10.
“I don’t care”: KM to “The Millay Family,” n.d., PM Nov. 6, 1918. St. Coll.

11.
“Were there no Edna”:
Chicago Evening Post Literary Review
, Dec. 9, 1927. St. Coll.

12.
“Look where I am!”: KM to ESVM and EB, n.d., c. spring 1939. St. Coll.

13.
“If possible”: KM to ESVM and EB, April 28, 1939. St. Coll.

14.
“The doctor insists”: KM to ESVM and EB, Aug. 10, 1939. St. Coll.