I was amazed to hear of Em’s coming trip to Paris, having heard from him in the first mail today. (Incidentally, there is another advantage, two deliveries of mail in Ireland.) Burden him with commissions; perfume; pornography; the latest on the priest-workers. You should get some good evenings out of his trip. Let’s hope it won’t all be the kind of grist he can turn to CFM1 purposes. I hope he manages to get drunk while there. I do not go so far as to wish him syphilis. But I do hope he has a good time. All for now. And please write. I was happy to have your letter, even though I could do with less detail on eye doctors (as you sensed, judging from your final remarks). You really must curb your interest in the physical, Leonard. Man does not live by homeopathy alone, you know. Do you need any seaweed?
Jim
We had a call from one of Fr Fennelly’s curates this afternoon. He disturbed me somewhat by repeatedly mentioning that I should call for him if I needed him. He asked what I thought of Fr F.’s practice of having the Mass explained from the pulpit as it’s progressing, and I said I didn’t care much for it but that I wasn’t much of a missal man myself. “Nor am I,” said he. We said we found eggs pretty high in Ireland, and he said, “Oh, keep a few hens.” He also said that Greystones was the most Protestant town in Ireland except for Belfast. Yes, I said, we’ve been told that living here, we’re not really living in Ireland. “Exactly,” he said. I thought this might be a good thing but didn’t develop the idea.
JOE AND JODY O’CONNELL
St Stephens
November 4, 1957
Dear Jody and Joe,
[…] JF taking over here (Betty suddenly conked out and would like to turn in but is chary of cold sheets). Let me say too that I enjoyed the letter and the portrait,2 and I wish you wouldn’t apologize for either — not that anyone did apologize for the portrait. I am thinking of a large — about seven feet — frame for it, the thing being so small it would have to be widely matted, with hair, I think, old beard combings or, in default of those, horsehair such as pokes through our mattress and through the sheet. I always think of Leonard when I feel a sprig of horsehair at my backside. But be that as it may. Both of you should continue in your respective fields: the news of the Movement from Joe; sketches from Jody — and how about a few nudes? The subject could be the same — say, that one scene where the principal ingredients are horror and moonlight, call it “The Kill,” or “Connubial Bliss.”
Sorry — referring back to your letter — that it has come down to the Humphreys and the Bakers. Still, that is a lot, by our standards here. We see no one at all. We almost rented a house in the same borough Sean O’Faolain lives in, and from friends of the O’F.’s at that, and I suppose they’ll hear about us from that encounter. I haven’t got in touch with Sean, preferring to wait until we can appear in a better light, internally, that is. We have been pretty low and probably show it. We have rented a house, however, in Dalkey, which is up the line a piece, toward Dublin, once the home of G. B. Shaw, the town, that is, not the house we’ll be in. We can’t move in until December, though. It isn’t quite what I had in mind (hardly anything is, I find), is large enough, imposing enough, with views beyond my expectations, but it won’t give me the solitude I seem to require to do my own work. […]
The bathroom is practically American, and we’ll have the use of appliances such as vacuum cleaner, washing machine, and fridge. These are items you begin to covet when you live in a place like our present one: our toilet seat, for instance, is unfinished lumber that comes apart on one side like a jigsaw puzzle and has a leather hinge; the kitchen, to put it in understandable terms, would be fine for a blind sculptor to mess around in, has a concrete floor. […]
Best,
Jim
P.S.: If Em wears a fedora and his mouton storm coat, won’t he have to cut a hole for his eyes? Best. — Jim
HARVEY EGAN
St Stephens, Victoria Road
Greystones, County Wicklow
November 12, 1957
Dear Fr Egan,
I’m slow on the rebound, I know, but do you know what I’ve been through? Nobody knows the trouble: children seasick, flu in mid-Atlantic, Betty down in Cork, and more of the same here. This house has view of sea, Bray Head, railroad tracks, but prehistoric kitchen and bathroom (the toilet seat has a leather hinge), and when you pull the chain, it sounds like the Grand National field landing in Becher’s Brook. […] Around the first of December we’ll be moving to:
Ard na Fairrge
Mount Salus
Dalkey, County Dublin
This house is 125 years old, four bedrooms, two living rooms, one of which will become my study, kitchen — dining room (the owners removed a wall after tasting life in America), a large room we’ll turn over to the children, formerly a billiard room, at present site of a loom for weaving tweed. And wonderful views of Dublin and Killiney Bays; Dalkey Island with a small ruins said to have been the stamping grounds of St Begnet (I think that’s the name). […]
No theatre yet, haven’t had the mind for it. Only managed the races last Saturday at Leopardstown. Very fine. I came home three or four quid to the good, thanks to being on the longest shot of the day—30–1. I do believe if I could just get away from the family long enough to concentrate, I could support them in style on my handicapping. I made one sentimental bet with you in mind: a horse called Four Roses ridden by a jockey named Egan. Ran way out.
Fr Fennelly going ahead with the liturgy. We arrived at the end of a week advertised as “the Greystones Pattern,” devoted to “togetherness,” culminating in a Gaelic football game visible from our back windows. Did you ever stop to think what the Communion of the Saints really means? It doesn’t mean what you might think; not Communion and not Saints; Togetherness. We haven’t spoken to Fr F., only to a new curate who asked me what I thought of the to-do at Princeton, saying he was for the man there because his bishop was supporting him. I mumbled something about Maritain being on the other side, but I gathered that bishops were trumps. I can never remember what’s trumps.
We are lonesome for the North Star State and our dear brethren there. Even the snow we hear about sounds attractive now. Amazin’, ain’t it? Sometimes I wonder if old Abbé Garrelts with his monotonous line about the far-off hills always looking greener hasn’t got a hold of something. What one needs is a pass on the airlines good all over the world. Some of the angels found heaven itself dull, didn’t they?
I had a copy of The Reporter with my story3 in it sent to you, and I hope — not that you actually liked it — but that it didn’t make you pewk. The few reports I’ve had have been favorable.
All for now. Emerson Hynes, by the way, is in Paris at the moment, I understand, as aide to Gene McCarthy and a congressional delegation. That’s the way to travel.
Please write all the news.
Jim
ART AND MONA WAHL; BIRDIE AND AL STROBEL; BERTHA SEBERGER
St Stephens, Victoria Road
Greystones, County Wicklow
November 19, 1957
Postscript to Betty’s letter:
Just a word of thanks, Birdie, for sending on the mail; I am always glad to know when I’ve written a good story and was cheered by your comments and by Nana’s, and today by my mother’s (who ordinarily has little to say but who loved this one) and by Chuck Shattuck’s, sent in your letter rec’d today. He is one of the dedicatees of my first book, and my best critic, and when he says I’ve done my most best, as he does, I feel repaid a hundredfold. We haven’t heard anything from Ruth Mitchell yet, and hope she was not disappointed, didn’t expect something different: she only knew that it was about the house. Of course it is, but about much more.