The Interior Castle (71 page)

80
“gifts for language” to “all the paraphernalia”: Peter Taylor, jacket blurb,
The Catherine Wheel
.

81
Lowell was struggling: Axelrod,
Robert Lowell: Life and Art
, p. 81.

82
At the end of her life: Robert Giroux, “Hard Years and ‘Scary Days,’ ” p. 29.

83
“I’m very happy”: JS to Peter Taylor, Apr. 19, 1954, Vanderbilt University Library.

84
“I see almost no one”: JS to Blair and Holly Clark, n.d., courtesy of Blair Clark.

85
“spinsterish, rural life”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, Jan. 13, 1954, courtesy of the Thompsons.

86
“The depression has”: Apr. 8, 1953, JS diary, JS Collection, U. of Co.

87
“writing like crazy”: JS to Blair and Holly Clark, n.d., courtesy of Blair Clark.

88
“an example of emotion”: Mary Louise Aswell, ed.,
New Short Novels
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1954), introduction.

89
“I am at peace”: JS, “A Winter’s Tale,” in
New Short Novels
, ed. Mary Louise Aswell, p. 226.

90
“an ascetic Boston Irishman”: Ibid., p. 230.

91
“It was not love”: Ibid., p. 262.

92
“a lack of talent”: Ibid., pp. 259–260.

93
“I haven’t any politics” to “best of all”: Ibid., pp. 272–273.

94
“There had always been”: Ibid., pp. 275–276.

95
“I am exalted”: Ibid., p. 276.

96
dispute with Harcourt, Brace: Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 314.

97
“It’s mainly indolence”: JS to Albert Erskine, n.d., Random House Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

98
“I’ll tell you”: Alden Whitman, “Jean Stafford and Her Secretary ‘Harvey’ Reigning in Hamptons,”
The New York Times
, Aug. 26, 1973, p. 104.

99
“I do hope”: Katharine White to JS, July 14, 1955, JS Collection, U. of Co.

100
“absolutely on top”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, Dec. 1954, courtesy of the Thompsons.

101
“I’m still no better”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, Jan. 13, 1954, courtesy of the Thompsons.

102
“I have never had”: JS to Blair and Holly Clark, n.d., courtesy of Blair Clark.

103
“I dreamed that”: JS hospital diary, July 28, 1947, JS Collection, U. of Co.

104
“Jean, why the Sam Hill”: John Stafford to JS, Feb. 1, 1955, JS Collection, U. of Co.

105
“But each knew”: JS, “Fame Is Sweet to the Foolish Man,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U of Co.

106
“to try to pleasantly remind”: Mark Twain,
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
, ed. Paul Baender (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982), preface.

107
“people you thought”: Robert E. Kroll, ed.,
Weldon Kees and the Midcentury Generation: Letters, 1935–1955
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), p. 107.

108
“I do not think”: JS, “The Healthiest Girl in Town,”
Collected Stories
, p. 207.

109
“awful tongue”: JS, “Bad Characters,”
Collected Stories
, p. 263.

110
“Emily Vanderpool”: JS, Bad Characters (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1964), pp. vii–viii.

111
“possessed with a passion”: JS, “Bad Characters,”
Collected Stories
, p. 263.

112
“Tom was like”: Twain,
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
, p. 48.

113
“Yes, sir, Emily”: JS, “A Reading Problem,”
Collected Stories
, p. 343.

114
“I had never heard”: JS, “Bad Characters,”
Collected Stories
, p. 268.

115
“She felt that she was”: JS, “Cops and Robbers,
Collected Stories
, p. 431.

116
“life was essentially”: JS, “In the Zoo,”
Collected Stories
, p. 286.

117
“How lonely I have been”: JS, “The Liberation,”
Collected Stories
, p. 322.

118
“bamboozled into muteness”: JS, “Maggie Meriwether’s Rich Experience,”
Collected Stories
, p. 5.

119
“the most sophisticated”: Ibid., p. 17.

120
“They were far too young”: JS, “Caveat Emptor,”
Collected Stories
, p. 79.

121
“When Beatrice”: JS, “Beatrice Trueblood’s Story,”
Collected Stories
, p. 385.

122
“whole menagerie”: Ibid., p. 390.

123
“humiliating, disrobing displays”: Ibid., p. 401.

124
“She had not bargained”: Ibid.

125
“My God”: Ibid., p. 403.

126
“I have had two”: JS to Ann Honeycutt, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.

127
“If one can accept”: JS to Nancy Flagg Gibney, quoted in Nancy Flagg, “People to Stay,”
Shenandoah
30, no. 3 (1979), p. 75.

128
Writer’s Newsletter:
Jessyca Russell, quoted in James Oliver Brown to JS, Apr. 18, 1956, James Oliver Brown Papers, Butler Library, Columbia University.

129
“is done in such an interesting style”: Katharine White to JS, Oct. 13, 1955, JS Collection, U. of Co.

130
“one of the most beautiful women”: JS, “The End of a Career,”
Collected Stories
, p. 447.

131
“Perhaps, like an artist”: Ibid., p. 451.

132
“There is an aesthetic”: Ibid., p. 456.

133
“If [my gift]”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, June 10, 1949, JS Collection, U. of Co.

134
“If any little detail”: Peter Taylor to JS, Dec. 24, 1954, JS Collection, U. of Co.

135
To Nancy Flagg Gibney she admitted: JS to Nancy Flagg Gibney, n.d., courtesy of Eleanor Gibney and Charlotte Margolis Goodman.

136
“I thought the story”: JS to Peter Taylor, Mar. 16, 1955, Vanderbilt University Library.

137
“I’m quite sure”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, Feb. 22, 1956, courtesy of the Thompsons.

1
“Your last letter” to “to please you”: Katharine White to JS, July 26, 1956, JS Collection, U. of Co.

2
Despite her health: Goodman,
Jean Stafford: The Savage Heart
, p. 252; and JS letters to Ann Honeycutt, JS Collection, U. of Co.

3
“I have eaten nothing”: JS to Ann Honeycutt, June 25, 1956, JS Collection, U. of Co.

4
“After the age”: JS to Joan Stillman, June 15, 1956, quoted in Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 318.

5
“is so much”: JS to Ann Honeycutt, July 16, 1956, JS Collection, U. of Co.

6
“I have looked on myself”: JS to Nancy Flagg Gibney, Sept. 12, 1955, courtesy of Eleanor Gibney and Charlotte Margolis Goodman.

7
“As to the word waif”: A. J. Liebling to JS, July 16, 1957, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

8
“the abrupt lunge”: Raymond Sokolov,
Wayward Reporter: The Life of A. J. Liebling
(New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 286.

9
“I’ve been having”: JS to James Oliver Brown, Aug. 1956, James Oliver Brown Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

10
“I seem to have held”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Oct. 16, 1956, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

11
“All through the last 100 pages”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Nov. 18, 1956, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

12
“I began to write”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Feb. 10, 1957, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

13
“Liebling and his set”: Wilfrid Sheed, “Miss Jean Stafford,” pp. 94–95.

14
“I want you to write”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Dec. 13, 1956, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

15
“The bookstore in the hotel”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Feb. 23, 1957, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

16
“forward to the night”: Robert Lowell,
Life Studies and For the Union Dead
, p. 19.

17
“On the joint Mason-Myers bookplate”: Ibid., p. 12.

18
“Well, I stand off”: Robert Lowell to Peter Taylor, Apr. 11, 1955, quoted in Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 221.

19
So did Liebling: Sokolov,
Wayward Reporter
, pp. 292–293.

20
“I was moving”: JS to Nancy Flagg Gibney, Feb. 1957, courtesy of Eleanor Gibney and Charlotte Margolis Goodman.

21
The project”: Sokolov,
Wayward Reporter
, p. 296.

22
“The book’s the thing”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Spring 1957, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

23
“It may be all”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Mar. 29, 1957, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

24
“I don’t understand”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Spring 1957, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

25
“The New Yorker married us”: A. J. Liebling to JS, Aug. 1, 1957, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

26
“kept getting too busy”: Sokolov,
Wayward Reporter
, p. 290.

27
“During our marriage”: Ibid., p. 299.

28
She told Blair Clark: Blair Clark interview with author, Jan. 13, 1987.

29
“You will have read”: JS to Peter Taylor, Feb. 3, 1958, Vanderbilt University Library.

30
“On a winter night”: JS notes, Samothrace folder, JS Collection, U. of Co.

31
“My dreams are” to “work of non-fiction”: Ibid.

32
“plain, thrifty”: Ibid.

33
“Why shouldn’t the island” to “was my husband”: Ibid.

34
“As an old student”: Karl Lehmann to JS, Samothrace folder, JS Collection, U. of Co.

35
“felt now that I”: JS notes, Samothrace folder, JS Collection, U. of Co.

36
“I was at the castle gates” to “I had never heard”: Ibid.

37
“The trip was”: JS to James Oliver Brown, Sept. 22, 1959, James Oliver Brown Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

38
“My weekend in the bosom”: JS to Nancy Flagg Gibney, n.d., courtesy of Eleanor Gibney and Charlotte Margolis Goodman.

39
“Really, when I come back”: JS to James Oliver Brown, James Oliver Brown Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

40
called the
Griffin:
Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 339.

41
“It’s been so long”: JS to Peter Taylor, May 2, 1961, Vanderbilt University Library.

42
“for a number of reasons”: JS to Albert Erskine, May 31, 1962, Random House Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

43
Later that spring: Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 344.

44
“Robert [Giroux] is”: James Oliver Brown to JS, June 27, 1962, James Oliver Brown Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

45
“from the spectacle”: JS, “The Tea Time of Stouthearted Ladies,”
Collected Stories
, p. 227.

46
“For the first time”: Sokolov,
Wayward Reporter
, p. 319.

47
“I can show you”: A. J. Liebling to JS, May 25, 1963, Dept. of Rare Books, Olin Library, Cornell University.

48
He had in mind a “Wayward Press” column: Sokolov,
Wayward Reporter
, p. 319.

49
“Jean, I am now”: John Stafford to JS, Dec. 26, 1963, JS Collection, U. of Co.

50
“Please forgive me”: John Stafford to JS, n.d. JS Collection, U. of Co.

51
“You and I might as well”: JS to Ann Honeycutt, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.

52
JS’s symptoms: Dr. Thomas Roberts’s files; and Dr. Thomas Roberts to JS, June 1, 1964, courtesy of Dr. Thomas Roberts.

53
“I’m so very glad”: James Oliver Brown to JS, Jan. 7, 1964, James Oliver Brown Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

54
“like a bear”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Dec. 14, 1964, JS Collection, U. of Co.

55
“It was interesting”: Ibid.

56
“we learn”: Robert Lowell, “Jean Stafford, a Letter,” in
Day by Day
, p. 29.

57
“In the spring”: JS,
Parliament of Women
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

58
“My disappointment” to “distressful secret”: Ibid.

59
“I tried to recite”: Ibid.

60
“I was a sick”: JS,
State of Grace
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

61
“Within such cul de sacs”: Ibid.

62
“This is not bilocation”: Ibid.

63
“I wish” to “unfathomable mystery”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, Aug. 1964, JS Collection, U. of Co.

64
“There’s no possible way” to “cherish that”: JS to Robert Lowell, May 6, 1964, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

65
“Cal is at work”: JS to Peter Taylor, May 26, 1964, Vanderbilt University Library.

66
“All is well”: JS to Peter Taylor, July 6, 1964, Vanderbilt University Library.

1
“I’m well and restless”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.

2
“I should be forced”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.

3
“not a word”: JS to Nancy Flagg Gibney, Aug. 1, 1965, courtesy of Eleanor Gibney and Charlotte Margolis Goodman.

4
“There’s something inimical”: Helen Dudar, “The Subject Would Not Sit Still,”
New York Post
, Mar. 27, 1966, p. 27.

5
“for a magazine”: JS to Allen Tate, n.d., Princeton University Library.