No More Learning

Then a lot of amusing
Russians (Obolensky), blue with blood and revolutionary priva­
tions, with whom I am so agreeably entangled that I cannot get
16
I heard (here of course) a marvellous performance of the
Marriage of Figaro, with a Cherubin[o] like a red haired version
17
away till Friday, though I had meant to go to-day.
of the Antonello boy? girl? in London. sorry to have over.
The first opera that I was
I expect to be in Munich a little before the end of the month,
pausing on the way in Bamberg, Niirnberg, Regensburg & per­
haps Wiirzburg, though I rather baulk at Niirnberg, of which I
18
have the gloomiest memories. restante, Munich.
Write in about a week paste
I am delighted to hear you are in better form since being
in London, which must seem a different place now that you
are shut of Cheyne Gardens. Is Geoffrey organizing a ruelle in
Harley Street? It is the kind of thing that I wouldn't put past
19
him. He has not written. His wife is too molle.
know. He is the man who when he met me in Harley St. on my way to Bion asked me was I going to an alienist. He himself
446
Wisdom I
is being put on the spot by Ernest Jones. My first experience of
him was in a day school in Dublin when he was famous for the
joy he took in making the wheels for his own toy engines. He is
20
mysterious "trouble" in Dublin, and of a "melo" timed for the
end of this week. After my experiences of him in the Dolphin I
can imagine what is wrong. Ifl am right I hope it is not as serious
as it might be. He seems to be in a completely obsidianal con­
21
Berlin - consternating. It was on the mend as I left Berlin, or rather I left Berlin as soon as it was on the mend, and now it has more or less settled down, though it is only a question of how often and how badly it will light up again before I finish this journey and can get home & have it cleared up. The damm old pruritis is just about as bad as ever, no doubt part of the same thing. But I am used to it. Otherwise I am as well as I ever am.
I suppose you have heard of the death of Charles Prentice's
father, when Charles himself was in Florence. I had a calm
letter from Greenock, and replied with paternal necrologies of
22
I have neither written anything nor wanted to, except for a
short hour, when the frail sense of beginning life behind the
eyes, that is the best of all experiences, came again for the first
23
447
a pedagogue.
I had a dark letter from Bryan [for Brian], full of some
16 February 1937, McGreevy
dition, physically also.
The anus is better, it was really awful for fully 10 days in
One should simply say "deepest sympathy" & begin a new sentence.
a despairing kind that I regret.
time since Cascando, and produced 2 lines and a half.
Perhaps you have heard also that Dent turned down Murphy, as I knew they would, in spite of Church's affabilities. So also, since, have Cobden Sanderson. So will have, soon, Faber, Secker & Hogarth. By which time if Nott does not
16 February 1937, McGreevy
renegue I shall be surprised. I dread going home with nothing
24
Love ever Sam
ALS; 2 leaves, 4 sides; TCD, MS 10402/117.
1 On 4 February, SB had received McGreevy's letter indicating that he would not come to Dresden (BIF, UoR GD 4/f. 67).
2 AugusttheStrong(knowninPolandasAugustusII,andinGermanyasFrederick Augustus I, Elector of Saxony, 1670-1733) and his son, Prince Augustus III (also known as Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, 1696-1763), established Dresden as a major center for the arts.
The Zwinger Museum in Dresden was built from 1709 to 1732 to house the Royal Collections. It was designed by Matthaus Daniel Piippelmann (1662-1736); in 1936 a restoration had been completed under Dresden architect Hubert Ermische (1883-1951) (Dr. Angel Walter, Chief Curator, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, 12 March 1993). Sanssouci in Potsdam was built later, from 1745 to 1747.
In Piippelmann's plan, the Zwinger was composed of seven halls and gatehouses connected by one-story galleries. In 1847-1854 a large gallery wing was added, designed in the style of the late Italian Renaissance by Gottfried Semper (1803-1879). It enclosed the square, closing off the north vista toward the Elbe River that had been integral to Piippelmann's original vision of two long palaces connected by galleries, with steps down to the Elbe.
3 The Royal Collection housed in the Zwinger was greatly enhanced during the reign of Augustus III (1733-1763) (for details of the acquisitions of this period: K. Woermann, Catalogue of the Pictures in the Royal Gallery at Dresden, 7th edn. ! Dresden: Kunstanstalt Wilhelm Hoffmann, 19081 1-7). The collection includes paintings on German historical and biblical subjects, portraits and pastels by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), court painter to August III, as well as plaster casts. The collection held 157 pastels by Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera. SB refers to Bernardo Bellotto (who signed his name as Canaletto outside of Italy, 1721-1780). Augustus III invited Bellotto to be an official court painter from 1747 to 1758, and the collection includes fifteen views of Dresden by him.
4 Giorgione's Venus (RPG, 185) had been partially repainted after 1837 in order to repair damage; this eliminated the Cupid seated at her feet, holding a bird that can be recognized through X-rays and infrared light (see Hans Posse, "Die Rekonstruktion der Venus mit dem Cupido von Giorgione," Jahrbuch der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen, Lil
448
cut & dried to do.
till I could get away again. They will expect me to cash in on this journey at once & all at once, and that cannot be, it will have been a better journey than that. But mother will want Morton or Doyle. 25
Proofs & a publication would carry me over
16 February 1937, McGreevy
[Berlin: G. Grote, 1931] 29-35; this article prints the Rontgen photographs of the painting). According to Posse's analysis, the line of the left leg was not altered, although Martin Conway calls the foot "inelegant" (Giorgione: A New Study of His Art as a Landscape Painter [London: Ernest Benn, 1929] 55). The landscape of the background was formerly ascribed to Titian, but now is thought to have been begun by Giorgione and completed by Titian.
In James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Mr. Casey tells the story of being with Parnell in Arklow, when the crowd was hostile; when Mr. Casey had had enough from a woman who was heckling Parnell. he spat his tobacco into her eye (36-37).
SB compares Venus with Giorgione's Bust ofShepherd with Pipe (Hampton Court, 111).
5 Giorgione was from Castelfranco, where many of his major works are kept. Matthias Griinewald's masterwork, the Isenheim Altarpiece, was painted for the Antonite monastery and hospital in Isenheim (Unterlinden Museum, Colmar); for images and description: Georg Scheja, The Isenheim Altarpiece, tr. Robert Erich Wolf (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1969).
SB uses the German spelling, Kalmar.
6 Raphael's Madonna Sistina (RPG 93), painted as an altarpiece, depicts the Virgin standing on clouds between Pope Sixtus II and St. Barbara. SB compares it with the Raphael Cartoons for tapestries hung in the Sistine Chapel; the Cartoons were in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London (see 20 February [1935], n. 12).
7 TheMartyrdomofSt. Sebastian(RPG52)byAntonellodaMessina(1430-1479)was acquired by the Zwinger in 1873 (Henner Menz, The Dresden Gallery [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1962] 67).
8 SBcomparesVermeer'sTheProcuress(RPG1335)intheZwingercollectiontohis painting The Girl with a Wine Glass in the Brunswick Herzog-Anton-Ulrich Museum (316). He finds similarity between Giorgione's "Venus" (n. 4 above) and his Portrait ofa Young Man in Berlin (18 January 1937 to Thomas McGreevy, n. 2), and further notes the resemblance between the dark figure on the left in The Procuress in Dresden and the woman in the The Girl with a Wine Glass in Brunswick.
9 Vermeer's The Procuress was hung near Portrait of an Old Man (RPG 1567) by Rembrandt, Jacob, Presented by Joseph to Pharaoh (RPG 1605) by Ferdinand Bo! (1616-1680), and Astronomer (RPG 1589A) by Salomon Koninck (1609-1656).
10 Poussin'sVenuswithAmor(RPG721)washungnexttoapaintingofNarcissusand Echo (RPG 722), then ascribed to Poussin (see Christopher Wright, who suggests that it was painted by a competent follower: Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonne [London: Jupiter Books, 1984] 241; Menz claims that Narcissus and Echo is an early, not fully accomplished work by Poussin in his The Dresden Gallery, 304). SB compares the treat­ ment of Echo, who is outlined on a block of stone, to Poussin's Echo and Narcissus (Louvre 7297) in Paris.
11 Hans Posse (1879-1942), Director of the Zwinger from 1910 until the gallery closed in 1939. From 26 June 1938 to 1942, Posse became Director of the Special Mission Linz, acquiring art works on behalf of Hitler's proposed museum in Linz, Austria (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 399).
449
16 February 1937, McGreevy
"Posse" (Lat. , to be able).
George Furlong was appointed as Director of the National Gallery of Ireland in October 1935; McGreevy had applied for the position.
12 The collection ofthe Moritzburg in Halle and the collection ofFelix Weise in Halle: 25 January 1937, n. 3. Porep, the stage decorator and Handel expert, friend of Traven and Darius Milhaud: 25 January 1937, n. 4.
13 The statues in the west choir of Naumburg's thirteenth-century Gothic Dom commemorate the family of Bishop Dietrich von Wettin (also known as Theodoric, 1243-1272) under whom the building was completed. There are four couples and four single men represented.
The concert on 28 January in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig was entitled "Heitere Musik" Uovial Music). It presented a number of short pieces: "Friihliche Musik fiir kleines Orchester" by Hermann Grabner (1886-1969); the recitative and aria of Zerbinetta "Grossmachtige Prinzessin, wer verstiinde nicht" from Strauss's opera Ariadne aufNaxos, sung by Ema Berger (1900-1990) of the Berlin Staatsoper; "Gestem Abend war Vetter Michel da," a humoresque in variations, op. 74, composed and conducted by Prussian pianist Georg Alfred Schumann (1866-1952); the rondo "Aufforderung zum Tanze" in D-flat major, originally for piano, op. 65, by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), orchestrated by Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) as "L'lnvitation a la valse"; two arias by Weber sung by Erna Berger: the scena and aria "Non paventar, mia vita" for soprano and orchestra, op. 51, and the recitative and rondo "II momenta s'avvincia" for soprano and orchestra, op. 16; and Kaiserwalzer, op. 437, by Johann Strauss, II (1825-1899).
14 German art historian Will Grohmann (1887-1968). Dublin artist Cecil Salkeld; German expressionist Willi Baumeister (1889-1955); Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).
For a complete bibliography ofGrohmann's studies ofPaul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Ernst Kirchner: Dina Sonntag, "Bibliographie Will Grohmann" in In Memoriam Will Grohmann, 1887-1968: Wegbereiter der Moderne (Stuttgart: Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1987) 58-64; for Grohmann's contributions to the Paris journal Cahiers d'art: Index General de la revue "Cahiers d'art," 1926-1960 (Paris: Editions Cahiers d'art, 1981) 58. After his death, some ofGrohmann's collection was given to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.
On 7 April 1933, "Jews and those deemed 'politically unreliable' were purged from government bureaucracies by the Professional Civil Service Restoration Act, an early milestone in Nazi persecution" (Barron, ed. , "Degenerate Art": The Fate ofthe Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany, 396). Although Grohmann was dismissed from the Padagogisches lnstitut der Technischen Hochschule, Dresden, he continued to write under the pseudonym Olaf Rydberg.
15 Ida Bienert (nee Suckert, 1870-1965) was associated with the women's move­ ment for social and educational reform in Saxony. She was a woman with "einem freien, unkonventionellen, geradezu revolutionaren Geist" (free, unconventional, virtually revolutionary spirit) (Heinrike Junge, "Yorn Neuen begeistert - Die Sammlerin Ida Bienert," in Heinrike Junge, ed. , Avantgarde und Publikum: zur Rezeption avantgardistischer Kunst in Deutschland 1905-1933 [Cologne: Biihlau, 1992] 29). Bienert developed her collection of modem art from 1905 to 1932 (Will Grohmann, ed. , Die Sammlung Ida Bienert, Dresden, Privatsammlungen neuer Kunst, 1 [Potsdam: Muller & I. Kiepenheuer, 1933]). Bienert's collection survived the war, moving with her to Munich
450
16 February 1937, McGreevy
in 1948; before her death, the collection was dispersed among German museums and private collections.
Artists represented in the collection included Paul Cezanne; French painter Femand Leger (1881-1955); Marc Chagall (1889-1985); Ukrainian-born artist Alexander Archipenko (1880-1964); Franz Marc; Edvard Munch. For details of SB's visit to Bienert's collection: Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 233-235, and BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 1.
Oskar Kokoschka's painting of Nancy Cunard. Engliinderin, is now in the Sprengel­ Museum. Hanover (Sammlung Sprengel, 1/146). Nancy Cunard recalls sitting for the portrait in 1924, according to her letter to Walter John Strachan, 21 June 1947 (ICSo, Strachan 58/1/5).
16 Anna von Gersdorff (nee Obolensky, 1898-1973) was the daughter of Prince Alexis Dimitrievitch Obolensky (1855-1933), who had been Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, a member of the Counsel of the Empire, Privy Counselor, Senator, and Equeny to His Majesty the Tsar. Writing later to Arland Ussher, SB described her as "intelligent and amusing" and told him to: "tell her I never think of Dresden without thinking of her but often think of her without thinking of Dresden" (SB to Arland Ussher, 11 July 1937, TxU). SB also met her husband Nicholas von Gersdorff(1882-1953) who taught Russian at a German school for officers, and her brothers, Dimitri Obolensky (1894-1945), who had been a cavalry officer in the Russian Imperial army, and Nicolas Obolensky (1896-1978), who was then a tour guide in Florence (RUL, GD 4/f. 69, 5 February 1937; see also Knowlson, Damned to Fame, 233-234).
17 Mozart'soperaTheMarriageofFigaro,K492,wasperformedattheDresdenOpera House on 3 February 1937. The role of Cherubino was played by mezzo-soprano Martha Rohs (1909-1963), whom SB compares to the figure in Portrait of a Boy (NGL 2509), then attributed to Antonello but now attributed to Jacometto Veneziano (fl. 1472-1498) (Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The Earlier Italian Schools [London: National Gallery, 19861 258).
18 SB refers to his overnight wait in the train station in Nuremberg in April 1931, as he traveled from Paris to Kassel (see BIF, UoR GD 5/f. 55, 1 March 1937).
19 McGreevy was no longer staying with Hester Dowden in Cheyne Gardens when he was in London.
Geoffrey Thompson and his wife Ursula lived above his offices in Harley Street. "Ruelle" (a bedroom salon); "molle" (soft, ineffectual).
20 John Oulton Wisdom (1908-1993) was educated with SB at Earlsfort House school in Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, where he was a Foundation Scholar in Mathematics. and graduated with First Class Honours in Philosophy in 1931 and a Ph. D. in Philosophy in 1933; from 1948 to 1965 he taught at the London School of Economics, and from 1969 to 1979 was Professor of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the York University, Toronto. Wisdom wrote many books on the history of philosophy and psychoanalysis; during the early 1930s, he was in analysis with psychoanalyst Alfred Ernest Jones (1879-1958), who had brought Freud to England, edited Freud's Collected Papers (1922-1924), and edited the International
Jaumal ofPsychoanalysis from 1920 to 1939.
21 BrianCoffey'stroubleisnotclear;"melo"isshortformelodrama.
451
16 February 1937, McGree. y
2 2 Charles Prentice's father Alexander Reid Prentice (1859-1937) died on 15 January 1937. Although SB's letter toCharles Prentice has not been found, Prentice wrote about it to McGreevy on 18 February 1937: "I've just received a letter from him from Dresden, a most touching & beautiful letter; but it's about my affairs & doesn't allude to his at all. A letter no one else could have written" (TCD, MS 8092/108).
2 3 SB's diary for 7 February 1937 records these lines: "Always elsewhere/ In body also/ T he dew falls & the rain from" ! incomplete lineJ (BIF,UoR GD 4/f. 77).
2 4 RichardChurch's response to Murphy: SB to Mary Manning Howe, 18 January 1937, n. 2 .
SB lists other London publishers that Reavey intended to try before going back to the offer of StanleyNott to publish Murphy if a co-publisher could be found. SB had approved of Reavey's attempt to hold Nott's interest in reserve while he tried Dent (see 27 December 1936, n. 4).
25 SBhadgivenhismotherMorton'sIntheFootstepsoftheMaster(see10March1935, n. 10). Lynn Doyle (ne LeslieAlexander Montgomery, 1873-1961) was anIrish humorist known for his series of stories about the fictional NorthernIrish village ofBallygullion.
ALICE SAUERLAN D T HAMBURG
19/2/37 Freiberg
Geehrte Frau Sauerlandt
Griissen Sie bitte Ihre Familie u. seien Sie selbst desgleichen
begriisst.
Sam. Beckett
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; Freiberg, Tyrnpanon der Goldenen pforte (Golden Portal); to Frau Sauerlandt, Hamburg, Loogestrasse 26; pm 19l-2-37J, Freiberg; Katarina Kautzky. Previous publication (facsimile): Quadflieg, Beckett was here, 14 2 .
19/2/37 Freiberg
Dear Mrs. Sauerlandt
Please greet your family and be greeted yourself, likewise.
Sam. Beckett
452
23 February 1937, Reavey
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
20/2/37 Bamberg
[no greeting]
Got your card just before I left Dresden yesterday. Spent a few hours in Freiberg in torrents, watery snow looking at this. The Bathsheba 3rd from left is lovely. 1 Arrived hear [for here] late last night. Going out now to have gawk - shall prob­ ably stay till Tuesday, then direct to Niirnberg or via Wiirzburg.
All well. Love
Sam
John Ev/ David/ Bathsheba/ Aaron2
APCS; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Freiberg I. S. Dom, Die goldene Pforte, 2. Viertel des 13. Jahrh. , Die Gestalten des rechten Gewandes, <darunter, Aaron, Ecclesia, David. >"; pm 20-2-37, Bamberg; to Thomas McGreevy, 49 Harrington Rd. , London SW 7, ENGLAND; TCD, MS 10402/118.
1 SB refers to the photographic image of "Die goldene Pforte" (the Golden Gate) of the Dom St. Marien, Freiberg, Saxony. The gate survives from the original Romanesque church, Die Llebfrauenkirche (The Church of our Beloved Lady), with sculptures that date from the 1230s. SB corrects the printed identification of the figures on the right of the portal (image on the card) from left to right: John the Evangelist, David, Bathsheba,Aaron. For several images of the door, and particularly of Bathsheba: Rainer Budde, Deutsche romanische Skulptur, 1050-1250 (Munich: HirmerVerlag, 1979) 112-113 and figs. 299 and 302.
2 SBcanceledprintedidentificationsofthesculpturesandwroteinhiscorrections.
GEORGE REAVEY LONDON
23/2/37 Hotel Drei Kronen Bamberg
453
23 February 1937, Reavey
Dear George
Your letter dated 17th reached me in Dresden the morning I
left. I suppose Murphy is now in the hands of Nott. I think there is another MS copy lying at home, that you could have had. Another is in Boston. And what � the position of Houghton Mifflin? Have you been in touch with them? Didn't Nott make it a condition that an American publisher should take sheets? Also it is possible that Dent's rejection may work on H. M. I understand the two firms are hand in gauntlet.
You never men­ tion the American end. Please do in your next.
The kind lady in Boston is doing it all for love, so far as I
1
occurs to me she may expect a rake off from H. M. She calls
herself their "literary scout". But she would certainly waive
all her rights and expectations if to do so were to make things
any easier for me. Perhaps you would write to her. Mrs Mark
Howe, 136 Myrtle Street, Boston, Mass. Her brother-in-law is
director or something in a big New York firm of publishers
whose name I forget. They turned down Murphy with the
classical obeisance et l'obligeance prophetique. She is perhaps
known to you in her maiden style of Mary Manning, author
of plays that have been performed at the Gate Theatre, Dublin.
I think she expects to have something on in London soon.
Pinker is her agent God help her. She ran for a time in Dublin
in connexion with the Gate a periodical called Motley. She is
writing a novel called Mount Venus. She is up to her eyes in the
family way. So now is the time if ever to prey on her feelings. I
should be happy to have you act for me in America as well as in
2
I should not agree to an option on my next two books without a
454
know. But no sooner do I see this sentence written than it
England. WithChatto&WindusIamboundinnowaywhatever. But
3
23 February 1937, Reavey
struggle. It is too general. Say on my next book of poems and prose work exceeding 60000 words.
Wollman can have whatever he wants. I take it he doesn't
4
I leave here to-morrow for Wiirzburg and expect to be in Munich about a week later. In Munich I shall stay at least a month. If you have not already written again to Dresden (in which case I shall not have the letter till the end of next week), or indeed whether you have or not, perhaps you would write Paste Restante, Munich, rather than wait till I can let you have a definite address.
I met a lot of Russians in Dresden, Obolenskys and Gersdorffs, very friendly, and heard an interesting lecture the evening before I leave [for left] by one Prof. Fedor Stepun on Belji. Why don't you translate the Silver Dove, or has it been done? 5
Ever
s/ Sam
It was kind of Miss Vernon to mention me to Laughton. Please
6
In Boston, Mary Manning Howe had contacted Houghton Mifflin as a possible American co-publisher, with Nott in London, of Murphy. SB repeats what Howe has told him about a joint venture between Dent and Houghton Mifflin, but no evidence has been found that they were formally associated.
2 Thebrother-in-lawofMaryManningHowewasQuincyHowe(1900-1977),then Chief Book Editor with New York publishers Simon and Schuster, who had turned down Murphy in October 1936 (see 9 October 1936, n. 11).
"Et l'obligeance prophetique" (and prophetic obligingness).
Mary Manning Howe had been Publicity Manager for the Gate Theatre, Dublin, and Editor of Motley, its magazine (March 1932 - May 1934). Her plays for the Gate Theatre in Dublin were Youth's the Season . . . ? (1931), Stonn over Wicklow (1933), and Happy Family
455
pay. I am glad you liked Cascando. There has been nothing since.
thank her. I am trying to think of something.
TLS with APS; 1 leaf, 2 sides; letterhead; TxU.
1 SBleftDresdenon19February.
23 February 1937, Reavey
(1934). Youth's the Season . . . ? opened in London on 5 October 1937 (see 7 July 1936, n. 7). James Pinker was her agent. Her novel Mount Venus was published in 1938 by Houghton Mifflin.
Reavey represented SB's work in the United States.
3 SB had published Proust and More Pricks Than Kicks with Chatto and Windus. The contract for More Pricks Than Kicks (then entitled Draff), signed on 3 October 1933 and acknowledged by Prentice on 4 October 1933, stipulated that Chatto and Windus be given the first option on SB's next prose work of 60,000 words. SB offered them the manuscript of Murphy, which they declined (UoR, MS 2444 CW letterbook 150/245).
4 Maurice Wollman (n. d. ), editor of Poems of Twenty Years: An Anthology, 1918-1938 (London: Macmillan and Co. , 1938) had asked Reavey to suggest younger writers whose poetry might be included in this collection. On 1 February 1937, Reavey suggested SB, Brian Coffey, Thomas McGreevy, and Denis Devlin; on 12 February Reavey sent Wollman a copy of Beckett's poem "Cascando" as well as Echo's Bones (TxU, Reavey). Wollman did not include any work by these poets in his anthology.
5 On18February,withIdaBienertandthevonGersdorffs,SBattendedalectureby Dr. Fedor Stepun (1884-1965), who had studied at the University of Heidelberg and taught at the Technische Hochschule Dresden. He spoke on the Russian writer Andrei Belji (or Belyii, now transliterated in English as Andrei or Andrey, Bely or Biely, ne Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, 1880-1934). For SB's response to his lecture: BIF, UoR, GD 5/f. 9).
George Reavey did eventually translate Serebryany Golub (1909; The Silver Dove, 1974).
6 AutographP. S. ,underscoredbydoubleloopedline,similiartoaninfinitysign.
Reavey's fiancee Clodine Gwynedd Cade" (nee Vernon Jones, 1901-7) had told the American actor Charles Laughton about Beckett's interest in film and his idea of a film of Samuel Johnson starring Laughton (see 13 December 1936, n. 9). As SB reported to Mary Manning Howe: "Reavey wants me to write stories for Laughton, bursting with big programmes. Irish and decently indecent. On no account scenarios. He has his own scenarists. You ought to do something about this. I can't" (21 March 1937, TxU).
THOMAS M cGREEVY LON DON
4/3/37
[Regensburg]
[no greeting]
I wanted your help badly with this door, built by Irish (not Scottish) monks in 12th century. Does the name Rydan
456
4 March 1937, McGreevy
sayanythingtoyou? Hewasthearchitect. 1 Itisoneofthebig "problems". Perhaps it means: "Heaven & Earth shall pass away, but. . " From Keltic motif one should arrive at something, but I am not competent. 2 Wiirzburg began Irish also: Kilian, Kolonat [for Colman] & Totnan, all martyred. 3 Going on this afternoon to Munich, where perhaps there is a letter from you waiting.
Loves.
APCI; 1 leaf, 1 side; "Schottenportal, Regensburg"; to Thomas McGreevy Esq, 49
Harrington Road, London SW 7; pm 4-3-37, Regensburg; TCD, MS 10402/120.
1 The door is the north portal of St. Jakob Kirche (also known as the Schottenkirche); it was built by twelfth-century Irish monks who were replaced in 1577 by Scottish monks. The portal is "fitted into a showpiece wall covered with reliefs" (Uwe Geese, "Romanesque Sculpture," in Romanesque: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, ed. Rolf Toman ! Cologne: Konemann, 1997] 316). Inside the north portal is a relief of Friar Rydan (c. twelfth century), who is depicted with door bolt and key. His role in the intricate design is unclear; he may have been architect, master of the portal, or one who trans­ mitted wisdom through the symbolic cycles depicted on the portal (Mona Stocker, Die Schottenkirche St. Jakob in Regensburg: Skulptur und stilistisches Umfeld, Regensburger Studien und Quellen zur Kulturgeschichte [Regensburg: Universitatsverlag Regensburg, 2001] 31, 54, 98, 106-107).
2 For a detailed study of the iconography of the portal of the Schottenkirche: Lore Conrad, Die romanische Schottenkirche in Regensburg und ihre Bildsymbo! sprache: Darstellung einer systematischen Deutung sakraler Kunst aus dem Europa des 12. Jahrhunderts, 5th edn. (Regensburg: Lore Conrad, 1987). The symbols depict conflict between good and evil, Christ and Antichrist, East and West; Celtic motifs adorn the pillars of the portal and are evoked in the animal allegories (Budde, Deutsche romanische Skulptur, 1050-1250, 52-54, figs. 83-85).
SB refers to Luke 21:33: "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. "
3 Kilian(c. 640-689),aBishopoflreland,wascommissionedin686byPopeConon to evangelize in Franconia (now Baden-Wurttemberg, Thuringia, and Bavaria in Germany). With the priest Colman (d. 689) and a deacon Totnan (d. 689), Kilian con­ verted Gosbert (n. d. ), the Duke of Wfuzburg. According to legend, Kilian's preaching convinced Gosbert that he had been wrong to marry his brother's widow, Geilana (n. d. ), provoking her to have Kilian and his cohorts killed ijohnJ. Delaney, Dictionary ofSaints, 2nd edn. [New York: Image-Doubleday, 2004] 358; the Martyrdom of St. Kilian and his Disciples is depicted by the Nuremberg Master IMainfrankisches Museum, Wurzburg: www. mainfraenkisches-museum. de]).
457
7 March 1937, McGreevy GEORGE REAVEY
LONDON
7/3/37 Pension Romana Akademiestrasse 7
Munchen
[no greeting]
I was hoping to find a letter from you Poste Restante. Here is my
address for 3 weeks or a month. I suggest you give the book to
1
APCS; 1 leaf. 1 side; '"Niirnberg, Selbstbildnis von Adam Kraft am Sakraments­ hauschen in der Lorenzkirche,'" [fiber/glue residue obscures description]; to George Reavey, 1 Parton Street, LONDON W. C. 1; pm 7-3-37, Munich; TxU.
1 StanleyNott was the only publisher who had accepted Murphy, but on the con­ dition of an American co-publisher being found.
THOMAS McGREEVY LONDON
7/3/37 Pension Romana Akademiestrasse 7
Munchen
Dear Tom
It was a great pleasure to find your letter waiting for me in
Munich. I arrived here last Friday evening from Regensburg & rushed straight to the P. O. , just in time to collect a large bundle ofletters. Yesterday I found this place, which is no worse than
458
the one & only Yess [sic] and have done with it. Yours ever
Sam
7 March 1937, McGreevy
another. My horizon is blotted out by the Counsel Academy, overpoweringly "lapidaire" as Thomas would say, with Castor & Pollux very black and Minerva against the sky looking like a quantity surveyer [for surveyor] taking a level. 1
The impression so far, to me wandering blindly among the monuments of its classicism, is not very agreeable. The evening I arrived was lovely, almost a summer warmth, with the blue trams and a thrush singing in Maximiliansplatz and the sense of relief at having reached a resting point again. But now it is snowing again. The lsar is a poor kind of a piddle after the lyrical Main in Wiirzburg & the heroic Danube in Regensburg, taking the Regen without a ripple, and the reinforced concrete of Museum Island doesn't help it. 2 How does one scuttle an island?
I remember the Bassano in Hampton Court very well. In the second or third room, isn't it? The wild tormented colour. Weren't the season allegories mostly by the son Francesco? There is a good Good Samaritan by Jacopo in Berlin and 5 or 6 in Dresden, skied & dirty, looking like not very good early El Grecos. 3
I haven't been to the Alte Pinakothek yet. I meant to go to-day, because of the nothing to pay & in spite of the mob, but discovered as I was setting out very late in the morning that it closes on Sunday at 1. A mark a time is a bit thick. Only 1O pf. for the Kaiser Friedrich and 20 pf. for the Zwinger.
The Tiepolo frescos in the Wiirzburger Residenz were won­ derful, crown to the spacelessness set up by Neumann, or better a firmament. Otherwise Wiirzburg is Riemenschneider, whom one likes or doesn't. There are good things, a lovely Adam & Eve from the first period, but from 1510 on he seems to crumple up in the immature voulu Renaissance irresolutions plus spurious
459
7 March 1937, McGreevy
severity that one finds then again in Ni. imberg in such painful
4
mean the Pleydenwurff-Wohlgemut [for Wolgemut]-Di. irer and the Stoss-Kraft-Vischer turnover from say 20 years before the
5
complacent jealous zealous artisan. What remains after the
technique is the vision ofthe sturdy burgher full ofthe sense
ofhis worth and the mysteries ofhis trade & the sweat ofhis
brow & a determination to stand up to all princes & potencies
sacred & profane. It is Hans Sachsism. Not only Meistersinger,
but Meistermaler & Meisterbildhauer & Meistererzgiesser.
6
in the Lorenzkirche is a frightful machine, more gothic than
the gothic, a miracle oflaborious statics, a skyscrapery in dingy
limestone with the pinnacle bent to follow the curve of the
vaulting, showing that he could have gone on had not space
forbidden. And the famous Vischer Sebaldus Altar in the
Sebalduskirche is just a good black solid heavy job of work
with no labour spared & no expense. 7 It was a democracy
without historical context, over excited & over irritable. They
drove out the Jews in 1499 and kept them out for 3 and a half
8
barrow. Stoss is the best ofthem, but seems to have been very
much influenced by Riemenschneider & to have gone the
way ofRiemenschneider. In his last period crucifixes that are
big & bare because bigness & bareness are the thing. Some
9
abundance. Andheisalwayssentimental.
The great Ni. imberg period is for me now a conspiracy. I
century end to 20 years after. It is all so terribly guildy and
Stairpainting & draperies. The famous Kraft Ciborium Altar
centuries. And the catastrophe of 1517 was right into their
ofhis earlier house Madonnas are lovely. The Di. irer room in the Germanisches Museum is a scandal. They have so little by him that any old rag dirty enough to have possibly come from his workshop is made to serve. The only unquestionable
460
7 March 1937, McGreevy
Diirer in the whole of Niirnberg is the small portrait of Wohlgemut. 10
And now it is the industrial centre of Bavaria and with Munich & Berlin the third centre of Nazidiffusion and the seat
11
period novels, did you know? And enjoys I think £500 a year. Has Flaherty finished with his elephantboy? 12
I had a letter from Brian who mentioned he had heard from you. He remains very mysteriously under some wooden sword of Damocles, says he told his father he was dead & so on. 13 How fortunate to have a father to say that one is dead to.
An amusing letter also from Jack Yeats, wanting to know the players' advice to Hamlet and very pleased with the Duchess
14
of art writing a thesis on the influence of 19th century Munich
painting on the American primitives! I felt this to be an under­
taking about as fruitful as say a study of the influence of Plato on
15
no. I really forget who was the last to scent the rejection slip. No
16
bolt back. It is the same thing over & over again & I do no work.
Stuttgart & Frankfurt remain after I am finished here, but unless
the mood, which has been developing for weeks, changes, I shall
give up the idea, move into digs here at half the price & save up
for the price ofan aeroplane to London, ifl can find some not too
particular travel agency to take Registermarks for the whole
17
461
ofJewbaiting Streicher & his rag.
I think I was at school with Mr Davidson. He writes facetious
ofMalfi at the Gate.
I met yesterday at breakfast a pleasant Californian student
Mrs Neighbour.
I was hoping to find a word fromReavey in the P. O. here, but
doubt there have been several more since.
I am very tired travelling and often feeling like making a
journey, and not merely to the frontier, as is the law.