To Edith Gaddis
Houston, Texas
[16 March 1947]
Dear Mother—
You, I know, have spent much time in lesser cities of the United States — but never let fate hold anything for you like Houston, Texas. It is really pretty ridiculous, pretty dull, pretty bad. But we are leaving tomorrow — Monday — having had quite a “rest”. I have written one story here, whose merits I find less each time I think of it, and at the moment have no idea of what to do with it. That, however, is hardly a major worry just now.
To explain the wire — and many thanks for sending the 35—they require much identification here to cash a money order, and, since my wallet was in the stolen suitcase, I have absolutely none — living in constant fear of being picked up for vagrancy before we reach Laredo, since I do not look like a leading citizen in my present attire.
Heaven knows, now, whether we shall make it or not — but we are again starting off. I only hope that the border will not present too many foolish difficulties, since one look will convince any official that we are not young American tourists with untold financial resources — but once across the border I shall feel much better about all sorts of things, including the hopeful sproutings of a mustache, which at the moment is as unedifying as it is rigorous in its growth.
Love — Bill
wire: on 15 March WG wired a Western Union cable that reads: “VAGUE INSANITY PREVAILS. 35 DOLLARS WOULD SUSTAIN THIS HOUSTON IDYLL. SEN[D] TO ROBERT DAVISON CARE OF WESTERN UNION HOUSTON EXPLANATION FOLLOWS MY BEST INTENTIONED LOVE= BILL”
To Edith Gaddis
Hotel Casa Blanca
Mexico City
[7 April 1947]
Dear Mother—
Well — Finally Wells-Fargo opened — Mexico, you see, has been enjoying a four-day holiday for Santo Semana — Thursday through Sunday, everything closed. And so we have been living on about 2 pesos a day — borrowed, and now repaid as is our hotel bill.
Will I continue to disappoint you, cause you wonder? Because no big long talks with an American magazine editor here who gives the same story as all — no money to Americans in Mexico, unless they are “in on something.” The Mexico City Herald finally told me to come back in 2 or 3 weeks — and I finally understood that the best I could do there was about 10 pesos a day, for 8 hrs. proofreading.
But do not be disappointed immediately — for here is something heartening I hope. I have been working very hard. Many days. On a novel. It is something I have had in mind for about a year — had done some on it in fact, and the notes were stolen in New Orleans. But now I am on it, and like it, and believe it may have a chance. Right now the title is Blague, French for “kidding” as it were. But it is really no kidding. Silly for me to write about it here, though it is practically the only thing I think about. Now: Davison’s father is attorney for Little Brown & Co., the Boston publishers. And so I can be assured that if I can do it to my satisfaction, it will be read and if anyone will publish it, it will stand best chance there, since he has some “influence.” The really momentary problem is whether to do the first part, and an outline (which I have done) and try to get an advance — or to finish it now if I can.
What we hope to do — is sell the car, buy some minor equippage, including two horses, and set out and live in the less populous area of Mexico. And there I hope to finish this thing, while Davison lives outdoor life which he seems to desire, and I am not averse to as you know.
Could you then do this?: Send, as soon as it is conveniently possible, to me at Wells-Fargo:
My high-heeled black boots.
My spurs.
a pair of “levis”—those blue denim pants, if you can find a whole pair
the good machete, with bone handle and wide blade — and scabbard — if
this doesn’t distend package too much.
Bible, and paper-bound Great Pyramid book from H — Street.
those two rather worn gabardine shirts, maroon and green.
Incidentally I hope you got my watch pawn ticket, so that won’t be lost.
PS My mustache is so white and successful I am starting a beard.
Santo Semana: i.e., Semana Santa (Holy Week), which culminated on Sunday, 6 April 1947.
Davison’s father: at the top of the page, WG adds this note: “He is R. H. Davison—15 State Street — Boston, if you want to communicate with him for any reason.”
Blague: in a later letter (7 April 1948) WG describes this as “an allegory, and Good and Evil were two apparently always drunk fellows who gave driving lessons in a dual-control car,” but this is only a frame-tale enclosing stories of the lives of New Yorkers similar to the Greenwich Village sections of R.
Great Pyramid book: Worth Smith’s Miracle of the Ages: The Great Pyramid (Holyoke, MA: Elizabeth Towne, 1934), a cranky book that translates apocalyptic messages from the Great Pyramid of Geza (predicting Armageddon in 1953), which WG surprisingly took seriously and cites a few times in R.
H — Street: WG lived at 79 Horatio Street in Greenwich Village while working at the New Yorker.
To Barney Emmart
[A lifelong Harvard friend who worked in marketing in the 1950s, taught English for a year at the University of Massachusetts (1967), and died 1989.]
Mexico City
April, 1947
dear Barney,
Just a note of greeting. And to say that I earnestly wish you were here, because I am working like every other half-baked Harvard boy who never learned a trade — on a novel. Dear heaven, I need your inventive store of knowledge. Because of course it is rather a moral book, and concerns itself with good and evil, or rather, as Mr. Forster taught us, good-and-evil. You see, I call out your name, because other bits of life proving too burdensome, I have taken to the philosophers — having been pleasantly involved with Epictetus for about a year, and now taking him more slowly and seriously. And of course I come upon Pyrrho, and see much that you hold dear, and why. Also David Hume, whose style I find quite delightful.
Shall I describe Mexico City to you? It is very pleasant, and warm, and colourful of course — and we are here, and cannot get jobs because we are tourists, and live on about 30¢ worth of native food a day. And I’m sure you would like it. Also, we grow hair on our faces. And plan, as soon as we can manage to sell the Cord — beautiful auto — to purchase two horses, and the requisite impedimenta, and go off and live in the woods, or desert, or whatever they have down here. There I shall finish Blague—that is the novel. And have George Grosz illustrate it — he has the same preoccupation with nates that I do — grounds enough to ask him.
Well old man, this is just to let you know dum spiro spero — I haven’t learned Spanish yet — a noodle language if I ever heard one. Please give John Snow my very best greeting, tell him I shall write, would give anything for a drink and talk with you all. But must work. A dumb letter, but I am very tired.
Anyhow, my best—
Bill
Forster […] good-and-eviclass="underline" in The Longest Journey (1907), E. M. Forster writes, “For Rickie suffered from the Primal Curse, which is not — as the Authorized Version suggests — the knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of good-and-evil” (part 2, chap. 18).
Epictetus: Greek Stoic philosopher of the first century. WG owned George Long’s translation of The Discourses of Epictetus.