The Interior Castle (65 page)

1
“If I have that dream again”: Sheed, “Miss Jean Stafford,” p. 96.

2
“By the time I knew him”: JS,
The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969), author’s note.

3
“whose life-long interest”: John R. Stafford,
When Cattle Kingdom Fell
(New York: B. W. Dodge and Co., 1910), dedication.

4
she was fond of citing: Eileen Simpson,
Poets in Their Youth: A Memoir
(New York: Random House, 1982), p. 122.

5
“as soon as I could” to “they won’t go back”: JS,
Collected Stories
, author’s note.

6
“
When Cattle Kingdom Fell
is back”: JS to Mary Lee Frichtel, postmarked Aug. 19, 1969, JS Collection, U. of Co.

7
In 1920 her father’s: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d. (probably May 1940), JS Collection, U. of Co.

8
Richard Stafford’s land and money: JS notes, Samothrace folder, JS Collection, U. of Co.

9
John Stafford and Ethel McKillop’s meeting, marriage, early married life: Marjorie Pinkham to author, Apr. 20, 1987; and Charlotte Margolis Goodman,
Jean Stafford: The Savage Heart
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), p. 9.

10
Malcolm McKillop and family: JS notes, Samothrace folder, JS Collection, U. of Co.

11
John Stafford’s career: obituary from JS Collection, U. of Co.; Marjorie Pinkham letter to author; John Stafford letter to JS, Dec. 21, 1951, JS Collection, U. of Co.

12
“get down to what”: John Stafford to JS, Dec. 21, 1950, JS Collection, U. of Co.

13
At the Covina ranch: Marjorie Stafford Pinkham, “Jean,”
Antaeus
, no. 52 (Spring 1984), pp. 11–13.

14
“Our days on the ranch”: Ibid., p. 11.

15
“She’s all right”: Ibid., p. 9.

16
“On the lippia lawn”: from a speech JS was to deliver at California State University at Northridge, quoted in William Leary, “Native Daughter: Jean Stafford’s California,” in
Western American Literature
21, no. 3 (November 1986), p. 198.

17
“There is drama”: JS childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

18
In 1920 John Stafford sold: Pinkham, “Jean,” pp. 15, 18–21.

19
“The Rocky Mountains were”: JS, “Enchanted Island,”
Mademoiselle
29, May 1950, p. 140.

20
“in truth [she] would”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

21
“My father … cursed”: JS notes, JS Collection, U. of Co.

22
“his mind was”: Pinkham, “Jean,” p. 14.

23
“She was nearly” to “not a man”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

24
“problem feeder”: JS, “On My Mind,”
Vogue
162 (Nov. 1973), p. 200.

25
“The Stafford-McKillop predilection”: JS to Marjorie Pinkham, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.

26
When Grandmother Stafford: David Roberts,
Jean Stafford
(Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1988), p. 43.

27
As for Dick: Pinkham, “Jean,” p. 20; and Marjorie Pinkham to author.

28
“Jean was a quiet child”: Pinkham, “Jean,” p. 15.

29
“pledged allegiance to the English language”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” lecture at 1952 Writers’ Conference in the Rocky Mountains, University of Colorado, p. 3.

30
“Sometimes when my eye”: JS to Marjorie Pinkham, Dec. 21, 1974, JS Collection, U. of Co.

31
“I typed it”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 3.

32
a friend, Howard Higman: Howard Higman interview with author, Dec. 18, 1986.

33
Anyone who walked with her: Mary Davidson McConahay, “Heidelberry Braids and Yankee
Politesse:
Jean Stafford and Robert Lowell Reconsidered,”
Virginia Quarterly Review
62 (Spring 1986), p. 219; and Edward Joseph Chay interview with author, Dec. 23, 1986, reminiscing about college.

34
“a race of social-climbing”: JS, “Vox Populi” column,
Prep Owl
, Apr. 24, 1931.

35
“It wasn’t everyone” to “so stupidly serious”: JS childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

36
“before August” to “cool shaded lakes”: JS, “Fame Is Sweet to the Foolish Man,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

37
“pounding out ‘shorts’ ”: JS, “Smith Saga,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

38
“with only the true passion”: JS, “Our Latin Teacher,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

39
“the most imaginative”: JS, “Miss Lucy,” childhood MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

40
“I am sending you”: John Stafford to Oliver Jensen, Nov. 13, 1950, JS Collection, U. of Co.

41
Roughing It
(one of the books at Stafford’s bedside): Joseph Mitchell interview with author, Jan. 30, 1987.

42
“Pretty soon he would be”: Mark Twain,
Innocents Abroad; Roughing It
(New York: Library of America, distributed by Viking Press, 1984), p. 541.

43
“The Reo was packed”: JS, “Disenchantment,” JS Collection, U. of Co.

44
“How we suffered”: Twain,
Innocents Abroad; Roughing It
, p. 546.

45
“Our beautiful dreams were shattered”: JS, “Disenchantment,” JS Collection, U. of Co.

46
“years of tiresome”: Twain,
Innocents Abroad; Roughing It
, p. 548.

47
“We were dismayed” to “celestial spirited”: JS, “Disenchantment,” JS Collection, U. of Co.

48
“After his schooling”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

49
“I will rigidly eschew”: Justin Kaplan,
Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain
(New York: Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, 1984), p. 67.

50
“Some persons may ask”: JS, “Some Advice to Hostesses from a Well-Tempered Guest,”
Vogue
164 (Sept. 1974), p. 296.

51
“frustrated spirit” to “spiritual valetudinarian”: Van Wyck Brooks,
The Ordeal of Mark Twain
(New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., 1933), pp. 40–41.

52
“Of course there’s no market”: John Stafford to JS, June 3, 1963, JS Collection, U. of Co.

53
“Only a few people have”: John Stafford to JS, Feb. 26, 1950, JS Collection, U. of Co.

54
“There was a photograph”: JS, “Woden’s Day,”
Shenandoah
30, no. 3 (1979), p. 13.

55
“Dan’s bilious moods”: Ibid., p. 16.

56
“laughter strangled him”: Ibid., p. 18.

57
“figure, this replica”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

58
“He got up at dawn”: Ibid.

59
“Much of Joyce’s tragedy”: Ibid.

1
“restless, plunging into work”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.

2
Joseph Cohen: Howard Higman interview with author, Dec. 18, 1986.

3
“In my chronic inability”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

4
Stafford encountered psychology: Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 61.

5
“the splendor of [Dr. Rosen’s] intellect”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

6
“Miss Irene Pettit McKeehan”: JS, “Miss McKeehan’s Pocketbook,”
Colorado Quarterly
24 (Spring 1976), p. 408.

7
“equipment as useless as any”: JS, “Souvenirs of Survival,”
Mademoiselle
50 (Feb. 1960), p. 175.

8
“express [her]self”: JS to Robert Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University.

9
“democrat of the” to “gangs”: JS, “Vox Populi” column,
Prep Owl
, April 24, 1931.

10
“my mother spared his feelings”: JS notes, JS Collection, U. of Co.

11
“ ‘Culture’ was a word” to “disrupts her plans”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

12
She wore jeans: Alex and Marie Warner interview with author, Dec. 17, 1986.

13
“Then she wandered about”: JS, “The Philosophy Lesson,” in
Collected Stories
, p. 362.

14
“She concluded”: Ibid., p. 365.

15
“In my last year”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 5.

16
“She did not really listen”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

17
“All of [the intelligentsia]”: Ibid.

18
“the red-haired queen”: Anatole Ehrenburg to author, Jan. 31, 1987.

19
“It was the fashion”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

20
“We would have been shocked”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 6.

21
“limp, disreputable entourage” to “terrifying modus vivendi”: JS to Edward Joseph Chay, July 3, 1948, JS Collection, U. of Co.

22
Lucy’s and JS’s relations: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.

23
Stafford was mesmerized: Ibid.

24
leaving the local boardinghouse: Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 66.

25
Her enthrallment: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.

26
according to another friend: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.

27
Just how entangled: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.

28
Lucy’s suicide: “Girl Student Shot Herself Late Saturday,”
Boulder Daily Camera
, Nov. 11, 1935.

29
“explanation of myself”: JS, “Truth and the Novelist,”
Harper’s Bazaar
85 (Aug. 1951), p. 1189.

30
“Most of them”: Sinclair Lewis, quoted in
After the Genteel Tradition: American Writers, 1910–30
, ed. Malcolm Cowley (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964), p. 174.

31
“the aroma of Bohemianism” to “nine months”: Maurice Zolotow, “Bohemianism on the Campus,”
American Mercury
(Dec. 1939), quoted in James Atlas,
Delmore Schwartz
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977), p. 35.

32
“Maisie herself was a symbol” to “imitate their ways”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

33
“My own morality” to “they existed in hers”: Ibid.

34
But it was not, it seems: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987.

35
“badly lived life” to “most precious thing you have”: lectures and plays file, JS Collection, U. of Co.

36
“Too bad I failed” to “for the lonely man”: Ibid.

37
“She believed herself”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

38
“I think you had left Boulder”: JS letter to Edward Joseph Chay, Oct. 12, 1944, JS Collection, U. of Co.

39
“undisciplined eating arrangements”: Paul and Dorothy Thompson interview with author, Sept. 3, 1986; and Paul Thompson’s transcription of his diary, Feb. 16, 1935, courtesy of Paul Thompson.

40
“We both like her”: Paul Thompson’s transcription of his diary, March 1, 1935, courtesy of Paul Thompson.

41
“Landlocked, penniless, ragtag”: JS, “Souvenirs of Survival,” p. 175.

42
Lucy’s parents evidently agreed: tape from Andrew Cooke, May 1987; and JS to James Robert Hightower.

43
Hightower and Fairchild had both met Stafford: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.

44
merely “physical”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 28, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.

45
The affinity between Stafford and Hightower: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.

46
her parents (who had temporarily moved to Denver): Marjorie Pinkham to author, Apr. 20, 1987.

1
“In Heidelberg, tongue-tied”: JS, “Miss McKeehan’s Pocketbook,” p. 410.

2
“Radcliffe or Bryn Mawr” to “impossibly silly daydream”: Ibid., pp. 410–411.

3
Initially a favorite: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.

4
“In a foreign country”: JS, “It’s Good to Be Back,”
Mademoiselle
34 (July 1952), p. 26.

5
“the helmets and the masks”: JS, “An Etiquette for Writers,” p. 1.

6
Stafford’s arrival in Heidelberg: James Robert Hightower interview with author, Oct. 20, 1986.

7
“The great engines of war”: David Donald,
Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe
(Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1987), p. 387.

8
“a nation of madmen”: JS to Andrew Cooke, Oct. 28, 1936, courtesy of Andrew Cooke.

9
“It was a grand, operatic, declamatory display”: JS notes for “Sense and Sensibility,” Barnard Lectures, unpublished MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

10
“It is with reluctance” to “very important work”: Martha Foley to JS, Jan. 25, 1937, Archives of
Story
Magazine and Story Press, Princeton University Library.

11
“This was the first time”: JS to Martha Foley, Feb. 5, 1937, Archives of
Story
Magazine and Story Press, Princeton University Library.

12
“I’m at work”: Ibid.

13
McKees’ loan: JS to James Robert Hightower and Robert Berueffy, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.

14
after a difficult December: Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 111.

15
“When I think”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Jan. 13, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.