All We Know: Three Lives (42 page)

“dotty…eccentric will”
: EM to Chester Arthur, 23 September 1945, AFP. The will also left control of the company to Murphy’s mistress and secretary, who proceeded to run it into the ground.

singer Spivy LeVoe
: LeVoe performed at the nightclub and restaurant Tony’s and later ran her own boîte, Spivy’s Roof. She was “famous in the elite gay world.” George Chauncy,
Gay New York
:
Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940
(London, Flamingo/HarperCollins, 1995), 349.

“Never have I…depressing”
: EM to Muriel Draper, 27 April 1933, MDP.

“I feel the…me”
: John Strachey to Joseph Brewer, April 27, 1932, quoted in Thomas,
Strachey
, 119.

THE RUMBLE OF THE TUMBRELS

“saying, ‘The Duke’…etc.”
: Edmund Wilson, ed. Leon Edel,
The Twenties
:
From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975), 192.

“celebrated for her…history”
: Esther Arthur, “Have You Heard About Roosevelt…?,” 15.

“tall, gaunt, in…within”
: Powell,
Diaries
, 249.

“or at any…self-destruction”
: EM to Janet Flanner, April 25, 1938, AFP.

“To focus…her”
: Max Ewing to parents, n.d., [postmarked August 2, 1932], MEP.

“At the close…them”
: Esther Strachey, “Godfather to American Corruption,”
American Mercury
32, no. 126 (June 1934): 170–79, 179.

“were actually more…conspiracy”
: Esther Arthur, “
The Politicos, 1865–1896
, by Matthew Josephson,”
Common Sens
e (May 1938): 24–25, 25.

“Grant’s particular kind…America”
: EM, “Godfather,” 170–71.

“like the religious…Europe”
: EM to Janet Flanner, April 25, 1938, AFP.

“I have just…them”
: EM to John Strachey, October 31, 1938, AFP.

“Well,” she wrote…“consequences”
: EM to Amabel Williams-Ellis, April 17, 1939, AFP.

“the great prototype…failure”
: EM to Cliff McCarthy, May 4, 1938, AFP.

“The Slippery Sam…History”
: EM to Sybille Bedford, n.d., SBP.

“the uncertified lunatics…live”
: EM to Muriel Draper, September 1, 1938, MDP.

“when she got…tell”
: Sybille Bedford to author, conversation, London, June 30, 2001.

“I used to
…Mary”: James Douglas to author, interview, Paris, September 20, 2002.

“flirted with me…party”
: EM to Sybille Bedford, April 4, 1950, SBP.

“resembled nothing so…guns”
: EM to Gerald Murphy, June 20, 1958, GSMP.

“that she traveled…‘illuminating’”
: Wilson,
The Fifties
, 377. Of this friend, Lorna Lindsley, Esther also noted, only partly in jest: “She went to the coronation [of Elizabeth II] where of course she caused the bad weather.” EM to Sybille Bedford, June 14, n.d., circa 1953, SBP.

“talking, her devouring…reality”
: Wilson,
The Fifties
, 254–55.

“The Barney or…Nun”
: EM to Muriel Draper, Sunday, n.d.

“animated by rhetoric…evidence”
: Jill Lepore, “Just the Facts, Ma’am: Fake Memoirs, Factual Fictions, and the History of History,”
The New Yorker
, March 24, 2008, 80.

“a landed proprietor…solicitude”
: EM to Muriel Draper, December 16, 1929, MDP.

“the liberal…anachronism”
: EM to Muriel Draper, April 27, 1933, MDP.

“that insidious charm…Gamp”
: EM to Chester Arthur, May 20, 1936, AFP.

“whispering campaign…survive”
: Esther Arthur, “Have You Heard About Roosevelt…?,” 15, 16.

“incalculable influence…own”
: EM to John Strachey, October 31, 1938, AFP.

Esther’s use of…to come
: I am grateful to Regina Kunzel for this insight.

“a sort of…scene”
: EM to Carmel Snow, January 3, 1938, AFP.

“curious and ambitious…so”
: Esther Arthur, “Mrs. Luhan and Rousseau,”
The New Mexico Sentinel
, n.d. [1937], 6–7, MDP.

“You live on…extirpated!”
: Quoted in Martin Duberman,
The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein
(New York: Knopf, 2007), 234. Draper told Kirstein about this incident the next day, and he recorded it in his diary. Kirstein had been initially put off by Esther, “but before long,” writes Duberman, he “grew to appreciate her tenderheartedness, intelligence, and loyalty”; when they were in Europe at the same time in 1933, Esther was “a generous source of contacts and introductions” for him (151).

“as far as…years”
: EM to John Strachey, October 31, 1938, AFP. She noted that Wharton had also sent $5,000 to the cause of the Spanish government.

“As the late…‘way’”
: EM to Muriel Draper, October 25 [1935], MDP.

“one is forced…done”
: EM to Muriel Draper, December 1, 1938, MDP.

“As one grows…‘sorrow’”
: EM to Chester Arthur, September 12, 1936, AFP.

ALL VERY QUEER AND A LITTLE DEPRESSING

“You are too…me”
: EM to Muriel Draper, March 6, 1935, MDP.

“the only two…South”
: Wilson,
The Fifties
, 252.

“It is curious…Guermantes”
: Ibid.

“a man whose…presidency”
: EM to Muriel Draper, September 11, [1935], MDP.

“a marvelous character…selfish”
: Ibid.

“almost died of…handicaps”
: Chester Authur to Morse Erskine, “‘Have the Sexes Achieved the Equilibrium of True Equality?’ A Question Illustrated by a True Story,” n.d. [May 1950], AFP.

“sued him for…‘work’”
:
Time
, January 22, 1934.

“a collective endeavor…Age”
: Norm Hammond,
The Dunites
(South County Historical Society, 1992), 31. A decade earlier, Cecil B. DeMille, filming the first version of
The Ten Commandments
, had built the set for the City of the Pharaoh nearby, making the area the staging ground for another kind of fantasy. This was a “a 720-foot-wide, 120-foot-tall set that required 1,500 workers, 500  tons of statuary, a half million feet of lumber and 75  miles of reinforcing cable…Over time, DeMille’s Egyptian masterpiece became known as the ‘Lost City,’ buried by the shifting sands and forgotten by nearly everyone—except for the residents of Guadalupe who worked as extras on the film and knew all along that it had not been dismantled. To locals, it was simply ‘the dune that never moved.’” “Do the Dunes,” Santa Maria Valley press release, April 28, 2004.

“a series of…society”
: John Marshall, “Passports to Utopia—II,”
New International
1, no. 5 (December 1934): 145–47. John Marshall was a pseudonym of George Novack. Accessed at
www.marxists.org/archive/novack/1934/12/utopia2.htm
.

“full of a…idealism”
: Wilson,
The Thirties
, 508.

“high-class old…crowd”
: Edmund Wilson to John Dos Passos, April 27, 1935, in
Letters on Literature and Politics
, 263.

“The bride and…so”
: Wilson,
The Thirties
, 509.

“ten days of…suffering”
: EM to Muriel Draper, April 17, 1935.

“They are apparently…match”
: Gerald Murphy to Sara Murphy, February 15, 1935, in Linda Patterson, ed.,
Letters from the Lost Generation: Gerald and Sara Murphy and Friends
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 114.

“promised to be…heterosexually”
: Chester Arthur to EM, August 16, 1961, AFP.

“lonely, and…separately”
: Chester Arthur to Morse Erskine, “Part Two,” January 1, 1948, AFP.

“I feel that…physically”
: EM to Chester Arthur, Sunday, May 17 [circa 1936], AFP.

“Are you disciplining…angel”
: Chester Arthur to EM, November 4, 1942, AFP.

“more intimate than…anticipated”
: Havelock Ellis to Chester Arthur, May 2, 1935, AFP.

“I know I…day”
: EM to Chester Arthur, Sunday, May 17 [circa 1936], AFP.

“an enormous zig-zag…all”
: EM to Muriel Draper, September 11, 1935, AFP.

“a slight nervous…kinds”
: Chester Arthur to Frank Palmer, September 4, 1935, AFP.

“the most brilliant…York”
: Chester Arthur to Morse Erskine, n.d., AFP.

“Do write me…man?”
: EM to Chester Arthur, May 17 [circa 1936], AFP.

“various congressmen and…favorites”
: Chester Arthur to Rowena Dashwood Arthur, June 8, 1938, AFP.

A Time to be Born
(New York: Yarrow Press, 1991 [1942]), 279.

“one of the…1893”
: Esther Murphy, “Hetty Green,” labeled “Esther’s tryout for radio” by Chester Arthur, n.d., AFP.

“a corrective biography”
: Chester Arthur to May Jackson, February 2, 1940, AFP. He did not write this book. Instead, several decades later, he produced a quasi-mystical study called “The Wavelength of History,” which was mystifying to those who read it.

“scenario for Pompadour…was!”
: Chester Arthur to Rowena Dashwood, January 26, 1940, AFP.

“full of issues…radicalism”
: EM to John Strachey, October 31, 1938, AFP.

“The Republican Party…ideas”
: Murphy, “Democracy in Action.” Esther was working with Helen Gahagan Douglas, then vice chair of the state committee and chair of its women’s division.

“a superb political speaker”
: Chester Arthur to Morse Erskine, “Part III,” May 1950, AFP.

“
You really might…it”
: Harry Howard to EM, April 22, 1942, AFP.

“betrayed far more…it”
: EM to Muriel Draper, December 1 [1938], MDP.

“the most charitable…world”
: EM to Amy Strachey, December 7, 1938, AFP.

“Each new disaster…shock”
: EM to Janet Flanner, April 17, 1939, AFP.

“a book on…‘Men’”
: Brenda Wineapple,
Genêt: A Biography of Janet Flanner
(Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 1992 [1989]), 123. “I would give anything to have one book as my epitaph that I had written which was not concocted from other writings in newspapers…It makes me regret my entire life, work & so called career.” Janet Flanner to Sybille Bedford, June 8, n.d., SBP.

“The ‘recession’…it”
: EM to Janet Flanner, April 25, 1938, AFP.

“the incorrigible optimism…voice”
: EM to Janet Flanner, April 17, 1939, AFP.

“one of the…perpetrated”
: EM to Janet Flanner, April 25, 1938, AFP.

“We are not…it”
: “Speech by Esther [1941],” AFP.

“On the side…succeed”
: EM to Chester Arthur, January 19, 1943, AFP.

“that poltergeist…undoing”
: EM to Muriel Draper, April 17, 1935, MDP.

“all the fights…years”
: EM to Chester Arthur, January 30, 1943, AFP.

“as close to…life”
: EM to Chester Arthur, n.d., AFP.

“insatiable curiosity…acquaintances”
: EM to Muriel Draper, September 11, 1935, MDP.

“The lonely eager…night”
: Chester Arthur to EM, n.d., AFP.

“so bound by inertia”
: Chester Arthur to EM, February 26, 1943, AFP.

“a huge & rather
…work”: Chester Arthur to EM, n.d. [circa 1939–1941], AFP.

“You must really…talker”
: Chester Arthur to EM, February 26, 1943, AFP.

“have confidence in…handicap”
: EM to Chester Arthur, December 10, 1942, AFP.

“take heart and…failures”
: EM to Chester Arthur, Friday, n.d., AFP.

“fundamental trouble…are”
: EM to Chester Arthur, June 17, 1943, AFP.

“than to anyone…happens”
: EM to Chester Arthur, December 10, 1942, AFP.

“She has seen…(Mexico!)”
: EM to Chester Arthur, December 23, 1942, AFP.

“very kind and gracious letter”
: EM to Chester Arthur, Monday, n.d., AFP.

“Some of the…country”
: EM to Chester Arthur, November 6, 1942, AFP.

“A perfect memory…thought”
: Sybille Bedford to author, conversation, London, March 19, 1998.

“very busy writing…work”
: EM to Mrs. Wheeler, April 18 [1944], AFP.

“make a will…you”
: EM to Chester Arthur, September 23, 1945, AFP.

“Gavin Arthur smiled…in”
: Allen Ginsberg, “To Gavin Arthur,” in
Scrap Leaves: Tasty Scribbles
, handmade book, transcribed January 18, 1968; poem dated August 8, 1966. Accessed February 12, 2005, at
www.levity.com/digaland/scrap/garthur1t.html
. Ginsberg also used Chester to establish his queer literary lineage, telling an interviewer in 1973 that Neal Cassady, with whom he had had sex, had “slept with Gavin Arthur, who slept with Edward Carpenter, who slept with Whitman.” “The Gay Succession,”
Gay Sunshine
35 (1973). Accessed February 12, 2005 at
www.gaysunshine.com/exc_gaysuccess.html
.

“Gavin Arthur predicts…year!”
: Cited in “An Interview with Walden Welch, by Gina Cerminara.” Accessed February 12, 2005, at
www.wwastrologer.com/articles/mr_arthur.htm
.

“I have no…hippies”
: Chester Arthur to Janet Flanner n.d. [1967], AFP.

“the social institution…ephemeral”
: Chester Arthur to EM, August 16, 1961, AFP.

“may prove an…wealth”
: Chester Arthur to Morse Erskine, n.d., AFP. In 1949, for example, he claimed that her income was $1,000 a month and that he deserved half of it. Far from being her monthly income, it was more than a third of her yearly income, the total of which amounted to about $24,000 in today’s terms.