But I begin to see that I am cut out to be another Don Humphrey, frustrated and flailing at the air, the system eating away at me, the old body taking in more water, sinking, sinking …
How would you like me to handle a fund-raising campaign for you at Beardsley? I only want a fair share.
No word, no visits, from George. Idly, I wonder where he’ll go this summer. I have no trips, no lectures, scheduled. I am too heavy to ride on the flat, and the hunt season doesn’t open until November. I wish I could count on being in Ireland then. I don’t want much. Just a place on the rail at Leopardstown, a couple of bob down. Is that asking too much of life? Is it absolutely certain that one can’t go home again? […]
Ah, well.
Jim
What did you think of the Dodgers’ victory skein under Walt?2
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
Sunday a.m. [November] 1955
Dear Fr Egan,
I’ve been contemplating your invitation3 hungrily but must not accept, I fear. Betty is with child, and it could come around Thanksgiving; probably not; but it could. I’m sorry I can’t make it. I have nothing else (but Beardsley) to satisfy my yearnings for the higher things. Very dull here.
Last night, however, Mary Humphrey threw a big love feast (see Methodism, for my usage here). Fr Casey present with tape of Fr Hugo’s sermon. Many laypeople. The sermon holds up very well, I thought. […]
Accent (fall) not here yet.4 Commonweal soon, I understand;5 problem of story’s length, so (say I) why not make it an all-JF number? Introduction to my work by you; television ads from the hierarchy; reproductions of MS pages; and a garland of quotations from People Who Knew Me, headed by GGG.6 […] All for now.
Jim
Think of me if you have Bridgeman’s7 on Thanksgiving.
Hugh Wahl Powers was born on November 25, 1955.
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
November 30, 1955
Dear Fr Egan,
Baby born on Friday,8 and so I’m glad I didn’t go to Beardsley. We call him Hugh Wahl Powers. I held out for Harvey to the very end, put up with remarks about rabbits,9 etc., but perhaps it’s just as well. You never know how anyone’s going to turn out, though I guess calling him Harvey would’ve paved the way for him.
I read your lines on how much better I am with each child with a jaundiced eye. Let’s just say — from what I’ve seen so far — I’m not long for this world, to say nothing of the literary world. With each succeeding child, I see better the wisdom of H. Sylvester, a prophet of yesteryear, who, however, committed hari-kari.10 You know he remarried — a woman with three or four kids of her own. It’s hard not to get confused. Yesterday, enjoying an hour at Gopher Wrecking,11 it occurred to me I really ought to speak to someone there about work.
I’m glad you liked “Blue Island,”12 since good news hasn’t come my way lately — hardly any response to “A Losing Game”13—and your approval has always been elusive when it comes to my work. I know you admire the man of family, but what of the artist, I sometimes think.
Latest on the local front is that the Bp14 refused to consecrate one of Don’s chalices — made for one of the Hovda-Fehrenbacher15 school. Too big,* the Bp said. Well, keep it to yourself. I gather Fr F. shouldn’t have told Don at all what happened, and came around later to undo what he’d said, to get Don to believe it in no way reflected upon him and his work. Of course Don is a great one for seeing the worst side in a matter like this. I counsel caution. Time, I say, cures all, and besides he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Few of us have.
All for now. I’m interested in a few days around Christmas at Beardsley, and will let you know later how matters shape up here.
Speed.
(I sign my name as it is in religion.)
HARVEY EGAN
509 First Avenue South
January 10, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] I went to St Paul last Saturday for a party at Gene McCarthy’s house, at his invitation via long distance; down on train, back with Hyneses. Pretty good evening, lots of politicos, including the governor,16 whom I missed on purpose, and Miles Lord, the attorney general, an ex — Golden Glover, Gene said, who is having sleepless nights (Miles, I mean) over the bingo issue.17 Someone said if there’s ever an American pope, he’ll take the name Bingo I. Hey, what’s wrong with bingo? May it not be laudable and meritorious? […]
Yes, I have the D’Arcy and would like to keep it a while. I’m reading it now and would like to trap Hump into reading it (he has Black Popes18 now). I don’t think Don has ever entered the Church intellectually — and now the word is going around that he’s left it because the Bp refused to consecrate that chalice (this rumor from St John’s, some monk or other), due no doubt to Don’s big mouth somewhere along the line. Then I think of what Joyce said, that he’d preserve his life as an artist through silence, exile, and cunning — and Don, in a place quite as stuffy as Ireland in 1900, unable to practice any of these things. Well, he’s wide open. Emerson wants me to make a move, as Don’s friend. But I am doing nothing. I have to see the whites of their eyes, and maybe even then I won’t shoot. […]
Jim
17. Four children now, Jack. And this year, the man said, bock beer is not available in this area, February 29, 1956–August 24, 1956
Standing: Mary and Katherine; sitting: Hugh, Betty, Jim, and Boz
Jim’s short-story collection, The Presence of Grace, was published by Doubleday in March 1956.
HARVEY EGAN
FROM THE DESK OF J. F. POWERS, AMERICA’S CLEANEST LAY AUTHOR, PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY, THE HOUSE THAT MEANS BUSINESS
February 29, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
So glad to hear from you, to hear that you enjoyed “Zeal”1 at least until the end. […] I am trying to shake down some British publisher for a decent advance. I have a contract (which I haven’t signed) from perhaps the best one over there, Gollancz, but he won’t go over a hundred pounds (and I’ve heard that that much changes hands in seconds in poker games). There is an error on the front of the jacket, but then the effects of original sin are always with us — ain’t that right? But they’ve used better materials in the book than is commonly done nowadays. I am presently seeing no one much. (Fr Ong, SJ,2 was here with George, briefly, a month or so ago.) Adlai Stevenson is coming to St John’s on Saturday. I ought to call up the Hyneses and tell them Jacques Maritain3 will be here at our house on Saturday and see where he really stands; Hynes, I mean. They do love a lion, Arlie and Em. […]
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Thursday morning, 1956
Dear Fr Egan,
Your letter came just now, and I hasten to reply (not that it calls for that). I was writing to you the other night when despair overcame me and I tore up the letter and went to bed.
Yes, the Waugh review is good.4 There is much to meditate in it, as I told him in a thank-you note I got off yesterday. I hadn’t realized my diction was a difficulty; I had always thought I wrote without benefit of a private argot, not doing the sort of thing, say, that Algren, with his thieves’ language, does. I suspect you’re right in thinking with Waugh I don’t have the gift of fantasy. I wish that I did, of course, but until I know what is meant by fantasy, I must pass. I mean I actually don’t know. […]
I have signed with Victor Gollancz in England, for £200 instead of £100. There was a note in a recent CW 5 that he’d visited Hospitality House in N.Y. He is a first-class publisher — Sean O’Faolain said he was the best in Britain — and lots more, as his visit to the CW might indicate. I have been difficult in my dealings — amazing my N.Y. and London agents, I’m sure — but in the end it was worth it. We will now get through June, or a good part of it.