I had a wonderful time in Northampton with Newton. I love him most tenderly, more really than I can tell you, for he is the sweetest, gentlest person, next to yourself, that I ever met. I had dinner with Marguerite [Young], another of your oh so ardent fans, and breakfast with Leo [Lerman] the other day. You know, no matter what his faults, Leo is a good person, and kind. I haven’t seen B. [Barbara Lawrence], except for a quick glance, but I shall this coming week. Carson [McCullers] is on Nantucket visiting Tennessee Williams, and having a wonderful time. She has postponed her European jaunt indefinitely. I knew she wouldn’t go.
Marylou, my dearest, I can never tell you what you really mean to me, I don’t know how … but you are one of the awfully few people in this world I love to the very core of my heart, and, though I want you to have as marvelous and as long a vacation as possible, hurry home to me darling, hurry … because I don’t want ever to be without you.
T.
[Collection Aswell Family]
TO JOHN MALCOLM BRINNIN
[1060 Park Avenue]
[New York]
[Early August 1946]
Thank you, dearest Malcolm, for the wonderfully amusing letter, and excuse me for not answering sooner, but things as you may imagine, have been rather chaotic, excruciatingly so: my New Orleans trip was doubly productive: blisters and fallen arches, that’s what I got; oh it had its amusing side, indeed it did, for we photographed everything from the incumbents of aristocratic Louisiana homes, to the inmates of a nut house; beautiful photographs, really, I can only hope my piece will be mildly worthy of them. However, a week in Northampton with Newton, and Newtonian wit has healed most of my wounds. He likes you enormously, for which I am grateful, for I would like you to be friends, and you will not meet anyone, Malcolm, who will appreciate your qualities more.
I had dinner last night with Marguerite [Young], and a curious thing happened; the people next door were having a party, and the host (whose name I forget) very kindly invited us over for a drink; Marguerite seemed dubious, but we went, and who was there but your friends Howard Moss and Anky Larrabee.36 They were awfully nice to me, and I liked them very much; she is most certainly not the monster someone informed me she was, but, I thought, a very entertaining, slightly crazy but awfully sweet girl, and Howard is charming. The party, though! M. rushed me out so fast I did not get a chance really to talk with Howard, but I should like to sometime.
I’m sorry you did not get my room, but if no one is there then you can use the terrace, can’t you?37 I miss you, Malcolm, and write me, please, and let’s see each other soon … please, also.
Love
T
[Collection University of Delaware Library]
TO MARY LOUISE ASWELL
[1060 Park Avenue]
[New York]
[10 August 1946]
You darling,
Your sweet letter came this morning, my darling Marylou, and I hope mine reaches you before departure for Clinton;38 it must be very beautiful there on Bear Island; I have always loved the idea of islands, and I would like some day to go to Maine … the coast, preferably, where there would be gigantic cold waves dashing, as in mystery novels, on old dark cliffs.
Of course the seperation [sic] agreement seems to you an emblem of failure, though that, I think, is a very distorted conception; it was a step in the right direction, that’s what I’d say dearest, for after all don’t you associate with that period of your life mostly unhappy things?39 You have two exquisite children, and you will always have them, and no one can take them away from you; they have the security of love, my dear, and that is the kind of security a child most needs.40 I know. And they will always have a great deal more security of every kind than I did. I understand this feeling of failure you have, though: it is a tricky thing, based on all kinds of self-falsifications. Newton knows all about such things, too; he lived eight years with a woman who every day of her life tried to impress him with his own unimportance and ended by driving him out of his mind.41 How can people be so insensitive, Marylou? Both you and Newton are as human beings the most successful people I know, for you are both very strong, and tender, and beautiful. Newton, of course, went through absolute hell, and thought he could never get his life straightened out, was, for the longest time, without any hope whatever … yet he has, and is living now the most satisfactory part of his life … he feels complete in every way, and happy. I do not think, my darling, you could ever reach quite the rockbottom he did … and you have so much of everything to live for. Those are marvelous children, Marylou, and they are yours, and you are going to have them … and everything of a practical nature will solve itself, too: it is curious, but do you know I’ve never worried about this at all, because I have feelings about things (I am almost a completely intuitive person) and I knew that it would come out far better and in a far simpler manner than you suspect.
I had a drink with Pearl Kazin the other day, and she is a dear person, and fantastically bright, much brighter, I think, than her brother, whose work I find very aggravating.42 Had dinner with Marguerite last night, and we talked about you, and how much we both loved you (who doesn’t?). B. [Barbara Lawrence] seems awfully busy, but in good spirits, and Leo has gone away for a couple of weeks. I went with Cartier [Henri Cartier-Bresson] to [Frances] McFadden with the N.O. pictures, and they were all crazy about them; they are really very wonderful, and I hope they like my piece only half so well; I’m turning it in early next week. McFadden is very nice.43 I understand why you like her so much.
Newton is doing wonderfully at Wesleyan, laying them in the aisles, or so George Cole writes me.44 I am going to see N. next weekend; I would like so much for you both to become GREAT friends, for you are the two people in the world who mean most to me … and that includes EVERYONE. Mille tenderesse [sic].
T
[Collection Aswell Family]
TO JOHN MALCOLM BRINNIN
[New York]
[Mid-August 1946]
Malcolm dear,
What an agreeable, though not, I must say, particularly prompt correspondent you do make: such an evocative letter, cherie [sic], always skimming on the verge of a major exposé (what IS the matter with Henrietta?), and managing to suggest direr situations than could possibly be. You are quite right, though, I do seem to give not much thought to Yaddo, which is odd, considering my GREAT interest in all the little intrigues, cabals etc.… but there is no time for that now: I’m merely drowning in the chaos of my personal life. You are a wise boy, Malcolm, to stay out of NY; it is no place for you, and it is certainly no place for me; I’m afraid I haven’t the sneering façade necessary for this giant snake pit; everything one says here seems to be repeated, or rather everything one hasn’t said; who are one’s friends and who aren’t?; nothing is never nothing and something is never something and everything is quite different from what it seems to be: Kafka, I feel, would’ve loved NY.
I ran into Ankey [Anky Larrabee] and Howard again at, of all places, B. Lawrence’s, and I have been worried since for fear they might have thought me rude that night, but the truth of the matter is I was feeling nightmarish, strange, indeed, and with good reason, for the next day I woke up to find myself with a 102 fever and a left foot that resembled a ballon [sic]: infected, very, and for no reason the doctor can fathom: just happened. So here I am stretched out on my bed of pain with the typewriter propped over my knees. I have to take sulpher [sic] drugs, which make me dizzy from time to time, but I am working … on my N.O. [New Orleans] notes, book, and an article I’m writing for a very chichi French magazine called ART ET STYLE. The article is supposed to be a kind of refutation of the French theory that the only American writers are Faulkner, Steinbeck, Dashiell Hamett [Hammett] and Hemingway. I am mentioning you in it, do you mind? You are a “distinguished young American poet whose work deserves international attention.” Hotcha! That will be $25, please.
Malcolm, this is something I’ve been meaning to write you about … solo, but I may as well put it in this letter. Now in November Cartier-Bresson’s sister, Nicole, is coming to NY; she is an extremely gifted poet: her book, Le Double Depart, won the Paul Valery prize last year; I have the book here, and it is marvelous; she is
