MICHAEL MILLGATE
Baile Atha Cliath
July 5, 1958
Dear Michael,
First of all, excuse the envelope, but the J. F. Powers Corporation, Westland Row Division, is short of stationery at the moment. I write to tell you that Betty has produced a female child, weight eight and a quarter lbs, date July 2, and that we haven’t decided on a name yet but lean toward Radio Train, as combining the best in both the Irish and American traditions.
Anyway, these have been hectic days, especially for me, traveling back and forth in the middle of the night, supervising our help at home (which has been supplemented by, of all things, a competent woman). Everyone well at home, including Jacobite Echo, the cairn terrier who belongs to the woman who is helping out. […]
I saw Prof. Stanford twice clipping tall grass and said hello. Otherwise there hasn’t been much of that famous brilliant conversation for which we are noted over here.
I wonder how you and Amis got along. All for now, and if you cross over, give my regards to Broadway.
Jim
DON AND MARY HUMPHREY
29 Westland Row
July 17, 1958
Dear Don and Mary,
[…] We had a baptism party Sunday, lots of talk about “little Christians” and the traditional falling down and wetting of pants by children. I wish you could have been here. Speaking of all that, I see where the Hyneses are now able to tell parents how to sanctify vacation time for their children. My impressions are only impressions, of course, but it does seem to me that they are getting out of hand. Going a bit too far, if you know what I mean. I happened to see a brochure advertising a new publication by the Abbey Press in which this is presumably to be published, this sanctifying of vacation time. I also saw a picture of Betty’s brother and of Jack Dwyer — what happened to his tie? I assume he’s adapting to his environment. I see my compatriots without ties in the streets here, but most of them do wear a camera. All for now.
Jim
HARVEY EGAN
Dublin
July 23, 1958
Dear Fr Egan,
I was walking around in my office thinking my thoughts with a bottle of Pilsner Urquell (“The Only Genuine Pilsner”), product of Plzen, and a damn bad beer it is, inside me, when I looked up and there, staring downstage, from his place on the wall, was Fr Ed Ramacher3 (in earphones) cranking a television camera, and I thought it might be well if I gave you a little description of my office.
There is one door, formerly black with fingerprints, now clean, and it opens in, and on the inside is one hook, on which hangs my Dunloe “Fills the Gap” raincoat. The floor is wide boards now stained mahogany, by me, because I decided against buying Egan’s linoleum and that left only part of the floor stained. There is a small fireplace, but it isn’t used except for debris: bottle caps, matchboxes, “The Friendly Match,” and tobacco cartons. I have an electric fire with a copper reflector. The fireplace is to my right, the one window to my back, which looks out, west, upon Trinity College and something called “Dental Hospital,” on the sidewalk in front of which I have on occasion seen the blood of patients who didn’t eat enough unbleached wheat. The window is the dormer, or starving artist’s, type; all the roofs visible from it are slate.
I have this old sawed-off washstand for a desk — a really beautiful old finish, like a chestnut horse — and a Victorian tufted chair upholstered in one of the first imitations of leather and on the floor what appears to be an Oriental rug but is really only a bit of dyed burlap; this is under me and desk only. On the floor to my right are a number of empty bottles, witnesses to my cosmopolitan taste: Guinness, Mackeson’s, Younger’s, Ringnes’s. To my left are some old books and priceless manuscript pages (my own) to be used to start fires at home. On the wall I look at, straight ahead, a calendar and Fr Ed; to my right Fr Pinky Doherty smiling at some laypeople of both sexes; to my left Fr Urban pointing a pencil at a photograph of a new building — this is really a man named Dexter M. Keezer, president of McGraw-Hill publishing company, but I cut him out of This Week last year, put collar on him, and he is Fr Urban. He keeps looking over at me. Yes, so I’d better leave you now and get back to Duesterhaus. Thanks for your kind offer in your last; I hope I won’t come to that.
Jim
22. About Don, I haven’t been the same since I read your letter, July 26, 1958–November 29, 1958
Don Humphrey (1912–1958)
Dick Palmquist wrote to say that Don Humphrey had been diagnosed with a tumor in his head.
DICK PALMQUIST
Dublin
July 26, 1958
Dear Dick,
[…] About Don, I haven’t been the same since I read your letter, and know I never shall be, now. I do hope you are right in thinking he has a good chance. I don’t know a thing about such cases — I don’t even know what kind of case Don’s is, beyond that he has a tumor — but I am praying he comes out of it all right. I am sick with this news, for which I nevertheless thank you. I wish you’d keep me informed, since I can’t count on anyone else to do it, the way people are there about writing. Now that you’ve written once, perhaps you can go on doing it. I am tempted to call Mary long-distance, but I fear the consequences: fear it will not be the right time.
Until this morning, I didn’t really know what I intended to do with myself and family, whether we’d return to St Cloud or not. Now I know that if Don pulls through all right, that is what we’ll do. I guess I had thought of him as my best friend but had never realized until this morning how very much he means. I suppose you feel the same way these days, and many other people, to say nothing of his family. I will not pretend that I am hopeful. You can see anyway that I am not. This year has been a bad one. I pray God will redeem it by restoring Don to us and that I for one will get a chance to appreciate him again.
All for now. I know there’s no need for this letter, for this kind of letter, but I am like a man buried in a mine, tapping, going through the motions of hoping — I am hoping.
Jim
Journal, July 26, 1958
This, if it is the end, would go too well with Don’s poor, poor life. This is a tragic life. I pray it is not the end and that he recovers and that we both live as friends again. St Cloud without Don would have very little to offer me. I am already feeling what Don’s death would mean. Such a life, though, figures to end in such a way.
JOE AND JODY O’CONNELL
August 1, 1958
Dear Joe and Jody,
Very grateful to you for writing so often these last few days, for there is nothing else on my mind but Don. We have been hoping that all this will come to nothing, and though your latest seems to be a step in this direction — I mean I regard it as hopeful that the doctors can discover nothing wrong — I don’t feel much relieved. Too many people, in the last few months, have commented on Don’s appearance. […] How I wish I could go in with you on Tuesday. The picture of him enjoying himself with good food three times a day and visitors like Fr Egan, George, and Bp Cowley, well, that gives me great pleasure. If you should get this letter before you go to Mpls, please tell Don that I say, “Stop it. You’re hoggin’ the stage. First with your great reconversion and now this. Give someone else a chance.” […]