[…]
Please write.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Greystones
July 5, 1952
Dear Fr Egan,
Well, here it is Saturday noon, and your gift has come — three days early for my birthday — and already I’m three sheets to the wind. Betty has her hands full keeping the kids out of the room, for they sense something is up, and I guess she’s right, not wanting them to see their old man in such a condition, having Smucker’s taken.
Father Fennelly was overwhelmed by your acceptance and approval of his prayer book. I let him see your letter, and where you say it’s fortunate we are to have a literate PP, he says: “He must mean literary.” No, I say, he means literate. “Why, that means to be able to read, surely he doesn’t mean that. No, he must mean literary. I can understand that. Ha, ha,” he laughs, at your reference to Sunday as the day on which you count the money. “These Americans! He must mean literary.” No, I think he means what he says — literate. “Oh, not at all. Literary is what he means. Just a slip of the typewriter. He must mean literary.” I don’t think so. “Oh, no doubt of it.” I say nothing. This is the man just back from Barcelona, the Eucharistic Congress, where he met the Spanish people, stayed right with them, in fact, in the same house with some, and they found him so different from their own clergy. “Yes, he means literary. The e should be a y, that’s all.” You know, Father, I think he meant to write literary where he wrote literate. “Oh, no doubt of it. Well, that’s pretty good, getting to see a letter like this. You have a typewriter. Make me a copy.” Just keep it. And so, after a while, I got him to keep your letter, and yesterday Betty met him in the street, and his printer hadn’t understood all you said—“Here, take a look at this if you think you understand the English language”—but he got the general idea, the e in that one word should be a y, of course, and there’s no doubt that you’ve made Fr Fennelly happy — happy as any other author would be at being well received by the critics. I gave him a copy of your pamphlet, and perhaps you’ll be hearing about it from him. I can’t help thinking of other great literary friendships, Flaubert and George Sand, Knox and Waugh, the Brownings. […]
We saw the Ardagh chalice — pretty uninspiring, I thought — and the Book of Kells, also disappointing. It’s at Trinity, the university founded by the first Elizabeth and now off-limits to Catholic students except by special permission, which is part of the present archbishop’s policy — just when the Catholics were beginning to dominate it, according to Sean O’Faolain. He told us — this when George was here, when we visited him at his home — of a priest, an old man who, speaking of the Book of Kells and where, alas, it had come to rest, said to the congregation, “If there was a man among you, you’d go down there and — have a look at it.” […]
I have no advice for you, with regard to getting the people to come up with it. Hy Weber, in Quincy, used to take 50c bets, and since I was just a lad then, with little to lose, I was glad that he did. […]
Always remember that I feel indebted to you, that on top of being indebted to you, and that I intend to make it up to you someday — if we both manage to live so long.
By “yellow slips” I meant those slips of paper, yellow in color, on which you write various tasks to be done and then play solitaire with in the mornings. No offense?
Believe it or not, it doesn’t rain here, and the grass in the backyard is brown. I carry water out to it in pans.
Lost at the Curragh (the headquarters of Irish racing), and didn’t like the place either: cement, gravel. Leopardstown is my place. Horses for courses, as you always say. […]
All for now. And thanks for the Smucker’s — it’s given me quite a nice edge.
Jim
Jim traveled with Father George Garrelts to England, where they visited Evelyn Waugh at Piers Court. Waugh was fascinated by the soles of Jim’s shoes, which he asked to examine more than once. They had been repaired, in a manner of speaking, by an Irish cobbler who had simply nailed ridges of rubber onto the original soles, giving Jim a rocking gait.
Jim and George went on to Scotland, where Betty joined them in Glasgow, leaving the girls at home looked after by an older Greystones woman. It was a disappointing trip for Betty, whose paternal grandmother had given her a hundred dollars to spend on visiting the Highlands, where she had longed to go. It was not to be. Leaving Betty in hotels, Jim and Garrelts went off together, sometimes to pubs, spending her money. In the end they visited only Glasgow, Edinburgh, Galashiels, Dumfries, and Stranraer, all crowded and tourist-ridden in Betty’s opinion.
HARVEY EGAN
Greystones
August 22, 1952
Dear Fr Egan,
Yours rec’d and enjoyed as usual and in fact read by George, who was here when it came, all of us — add Betty — having just returned from Scotland. I don’t recall whether you got into the British Isles (I know you weren’t here), and without being sure, I wouldn’t want to give you my impressions, which will be coming out in book form anyway (the Wanderer Press, 10 deutsche marks). Needless to say, I had enough to make a full-size book, had to, according to my contract. I’m taking a respite to write to you, having been very busy for some days with a chapter of my novel (the Wanderer Press, 5 deutsche marks), trying to get it into shape as a story. You know we have to do that, sometimes, to keep our names before the public who soon forget (but not soon enough, in my case).
We had a visitor this evening, our first since George disappeared (I don’t say “left,” because you know the melody lingers on, as does the Drambuie he gave us). But enough parentheses; I remember being cautioned about them; five on a page and you’re out. The visitor was Hep; W. D. Hepenstall, the playwright of Greystones. He’s an elderly gentleman (non-Catholic); had a play, Dark Rosaleen, on Broadway, way back, killed by hot weather — I report the news, no editing — and we hadn’t been favored with a visit since last winter. I think he found us damn little fun, expected a little more from Americans, not to find them as he found us, however that is.
I can’t say that we have a roaring time either. Every now and then he looks at you — usually, Betty — and says, “Well, what did you think of Eva Perón?” or “Well, how’re the family?” Seems Eva was just a peasant girl, before she met Perón. Weather in America — he’s been there, was out west in Buffalo — pretty tropical. Yes, we bathe in the river and irrigate the plantation (sometimes it’s the ranch), and you can really hear dem banjos ringin’. Takes soda in his Drambuie, thinks it’s regular scotch, I think. But all right. Brought us some inedible apples in a briefcase, much appreciated by Betty. When someone brings me watermelon, I’ll sit up. Or Smucker’s. I confessed Smucker’s last time, got the works; wants me to cut it out or at least — the confessor was on the in se himself — to cut down. How can I? I’m human.
In England, Geo. and I saw Fr D’Arcy (who has since written to the Earl of Wicklow,10 who has now written to me, and I have to him; we’ll have a meaclass="underline" he wanted us to join him on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, if you’re wondering how well we know each other). Fr D’Arcy fine, no ball of fire as we understand the term, but seems to have a way with people who read. Saw his room on Farm Street, lots of pre-Reformation junk, statues, chalices, plaques, big chair before fireplace, electric fire also nearby — someone said he’s waiting (and wants) to die — and I could see him there. Confessed desire for subscription to Time. Must see if George arranged for that, though it seems criminal to increase the circulation.