The Interior Castle (67 page)

32
“curiously tortured story”: A. G. Ogden memo on JS’s revision of
Autumn Festival
, Atlantic Monthly Press correspondence file.

33
“doctrine of futility”: JS to James Robert Hightower, July 7, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.

34
“The war came along”: Mary Darlington Taylor, “Jean Stafford’s Novel—‘a Superb Literary Accomplishment,’ ”
Bridgeport Sunday Post
, Jan. 13, 1952, quoted in Mary Ellen Williams Walsh,
Jean Stafford
(Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985), p. 55.

35
“I am engaged”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Dec. 19, 1938, JS Collection, U. of Co.

36
“It is full”: Peter Taylor to JS, Dec. 24, 1954, JS Collection, U. of Co.

37
“Those two nice boys”: Peter Taylor to Robert Lowell, May 1, 1955, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

38
“mature and adult experience”: “1939,” Peter Taylor,
The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979), p. 337.

39
“ ‘critical’ and ‘objective’ ”: Ibid., p. 338.

40
“When we were”: Ibid., p. 345.

41
“Poor Carol Crawford!” to “
so
naive,
so
undergraduate”: Ibid., p. 351.

42
“I am confident” to “than by eccentricity”: Robert Lowell to Merrill Moore, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University, quoted in Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 65.

43
Lowell also had guilt: Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 64.

44
“glorious affair”: JS interview with Joan Cuyler Stillman, 1952, quoted in Roberts,
Jean Stafford
, p. 198.

45
Ransom obliged: Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 65.

46
“Lowell is more”: Ibid.

47
“should not have left” to “my natural days”: JS to James Robert Hightower, March 31, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

48
“I am beginning” to “he will have with me”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 4, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

49
“It was an absolutely” to “to the bone”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.

50
“Gossip that is said”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 23, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

51
“You may enjoy”: Robert Lowell to Charlotte Lowell, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University, quoted in Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 73.

52
“Customs are not”: Orations in the state contest of the Ohio Inter-Collegiate Oratory Association, 1940, Ibid., p. 68.

53
“dualism, division”: William K. Wimsatt and Cleanth Brooks,
Literary Criticism: A Short History
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 743.

54
“Cambridge ladies” to “comfortable minds”: e. e. cummings,
Complete Poems 1913–1962
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), p. 70.

55
“The tale is dismal”: Evelyn Scott to JS, Apr. 30, 1940, J.S. Collection, U. of Co.

56
“[live] for love” to “an intellectualized woman”: John Crowe Ransom,
The World’s Body
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938), p. 77.

57
“ornament” to “shining talent”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 26, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

58
“I’m a bitch”: JS to James Robert Hightower, n.d., JS Collection, U. of Co.

59
“Thank God”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 4, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

1
“we spent”: Caroline Gordon to JS, n.d., McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

2
“I told [the president of LSU]”: John Crowe Ransom to Allen Tate, spring 1940, in
Selected Letters of John Crowe Ransom
, p. 270.

3: “Louisiana, on the whole”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Mar. 4, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

4
“owes his first duty”: Allen Tate,
The Collected Essays of Allen Tate
(Chicago: Swallow Press, 1959), p. 71.

5
Their Agrarian goal: Grant Webster,
The Republic of Letters: A History of Postwar American Literary Opinion
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), p. 74.

6
“unification of sensibility”:
The Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot
, p. 248.

7
In fact, it was: JS to James Robert Hightower, late spring 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

8
“I feel exiled”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 6, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

9
“This place, Robert” to “nothing more”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 26, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

10
“The place is”: JS to James Robert Hightower, postmarked June 21, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

11
“I am not looking”: Robert Lowell to his grandmother Mrs. Arthur Winslow, n.d., Houghton Library, Harvard University, quoted in Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 75.

12
“About LSU I have” to “liberal English majors”: Robert Lowell to Robie Macauley, 1940, quoted in Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 75.

13
“The opposite of the professional”: T. S. Eliot, “Professional, Or,”
Egoist
(Apr. 1918), quoted in Menand,
Discovering Modernism
, p. 125.

14
“My life seems annually”: JS to James Robert Hightower, June 26, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

15
“To be intellectual” to “men are trained”: Ransom,
The World’s Body
, pp. 101, 103.

16
“because they are not”: Ibid., p. 103.

17
“It will probably”: Ransom,
The World’s Body
, p. 228.

18
“a great gauche lummox” to “wants a brain”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 31, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

19
There was an obvious: Robie Macauley interview with author, Oct. 1986.

20
“Peter & I got”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 31, 1940. JS Collection, U. of Co.

21
“berts”: Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, pp. 55–56.

22
plowing through Étienne Gilson’s: Ibid., p. 78.

23
“The religious mind”: W. K. Wimsatt,
Hateful Contraries: Studies in Literature and Criticism
(University of Kentucky Press, 1965), p. 48.

24
“the vision of suffering”: Wimsatt and Brooks,
Literary Criticism: A Short History
, p. 746.

25
“his mind was heavy”: Steven Gould Axelrod,
Robert Lowell: Life and Art
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 16.

26
new order and direction: JS letters to James Robert Hightower, JS Collection, U. of Co.

27
“My mission had not”: JS, “An Influx of Poets,”
The New Yorker
54 (Nov. 6, 1978), p. 49.

28
“Like Father Strittmater” to “which was blind”: Ibid.

29: “Cal is to make”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 31, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

30
“I can’t bear”: Evelyn Scott to JS, Sept. 1, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

31
“As for myself”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Oct. 31, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

32
twenty-seven-page manuscript: JS, untitled MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

33
“Theron once told me”: JS, “An Influx of Poets,” p. 49.

34
“It would be” to “no one can stop”: from
The Way of Perfection
, quoted in Teresa of Avila,
The Interior Castle
(New York: Paulist Press, 1979), p. 14.

35
“To judge by”:
Ascent of Mount Carmel
, vol. 1 of
Complete Works of St. John of the Cross
, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (London: Burns and Oates, 1964), p. 317.

36
“our soul to be”: from
The Way of Perfection
, quoted in Teresa of Avila,
The Interior Castle
, p. 20.

37
“the expert of experts”: William James,
The Varieties of Religious Experience
(New York: New American Library, 1958), p. 313.

38
“I refer to”: Ibid., p. 297.

39
“a gifted woman” to “while retaining sanity”: Ibid., pp. 301–302.

40
“Time was passing”: JS,
Autumn Festival
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

41
On a trip to New Orleans: Hamilton,
Robert Lowell;
Blair Clark interview with author, Jan. 30, 1987; Frank Parker interview with author, Nov. 23, 1990.

42
“She fancied the consummation”: JS, untitled MS, JS Collection, U. of Co., p. 5.

43
“The room was”: Ibid., p. 8.

44
“tranquil mortal melancholy” to “This she knew”: Ibid., pp. 10, 12.

45
“made on her”: Ibid., p. 13.

46
“Though the room”: Ibid., p. 12.

47
“Doing our own will”: Teresa of Avila,
The Interior Castle
, p. 65.

48
“Because her nose”: JS, untitled MS, JS Collection, U. of Co., p. 19.

49
“Her solitude was pyramidal”: Ibid., p. 25.

50
“Her solitude was a sustained shriek”: Ibid., p. 26.

51
“She was so loving”: Ibid., p. 27.

52
“Now she lay”: Ibid.

53
“essential aspect of fiction” to “his own self-division”: Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren,
Understanding Fiction
, rev. ed. (New York: F. S. Crofts and Co., 1943), p. xvi.

54
“The steadfast plant”: JS, untitled MS, JS Collection, U. of Co., p. 2.

55
“As the unworldly creature”: Ibid., p. 24.

56
“The surgical second” to “precipitate of section two”: Evelyn Scott to JS, Jan. 19, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

57
“My life has”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Nov. 15, 1940, JS Collection, U. of Co.

58
“Cal is becoming”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Feb. 10, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

59
“My particular brand” to “great compensations”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Mar. 4, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

60
With customary hyperbole: JS to James Robert Hightower, Aug. 6, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

61
“I have some new opinions”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Mar. 4, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

62
“turnabout as this may sound”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 9, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

63
“State some plan”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 17, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

64
“I never, of course”: JS to James Robert Hightower, May 4, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

65
“I think I can”: JS to James Robert Hightower, May 12, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

66
“Oh Lord … I cannot” to “always be in alien corn”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Aug. 6, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

67
“You would not recognize”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Mar. 4, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

68
“which is religious”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Apr. 9, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

69
Lowell’s short list: Hamilton,
Robert Lowell
, p. 79.

70
“Proust outstrips everyone” to “a comparison between them is precarious”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Mar. 4, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

71
“Having been reading” to “much admire him”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Aug. 6, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

72
“It has been a dreadful”: Ibid.

73
“We must avoid”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, July 30, 1941, courtesy of the Thompsons.

74
“I came to feel”: Irving Howe,
A Margin of Hope
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), p. 181.

75
“We are both excited”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Sept. 9, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

76
Allen had been hired: Ann Waldron,
Close Connections: Caroline Gordon and the Southern Renaissance
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987), p. 184.

77
“both of whom are”: JS to Peter Taylor, Oct. 1941, reprinted in
Shenandoah
30, no. 3 (1979), p. 33.

78
“nothing but ideas”: Howe,
Margin of Hope
, p. 130.

79
“Your poetic style”: Allen Tate to Delmore Schwartz, Jan. 5, 1939, quoted in Atlas,
Delmore Schwartz
, p. 129.

80
Frank Sheed, the founding editor: Wilfrid Sheed,
Frank and Maisie: A Memoir with Parents
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 135.

81
“I should tell you”: JS to Peter Taylor, Oct. 1941, reprinted in
Shenandoah
30, no. 3 (1979), p. 30.

82
“We went to look”: JS,
In the Snowfall
MS, JS Collection, U. of Co.

83
“I remember the translation”: JS notes, JS Collection, U. of Co.

84
“a rather exhausting joy” to “kind of fun”: JS to Peter Taylor, Oct. 1941, reprinted in
Shenandoah
30, no. 3 (1979), p. 33.

85
“We met Blackmur”: Ibid., p. 29.

86
“said it came”: Ibid., p. 32.

87
“It’s a conscious imitation”: JS to James Robert Hightower, Sept. 9, 1941, JS Collection, U. of Co.

88
“It is well written”: Robert Giroux, “Hard Years and ‘Scary Days’: Remembering Jean Stafford,” p. 29.

89
“not the twaddle”: JS to Paul and Dorothy Thompson, June 10, 1942, courtesy of the Thompsons.

90
two hundred and fifty dollars on signing: Harcourt, Brace and Co. contract for
The Outskirts
, Apr. 30, 1942, JS Collection, U. of Co.

1
“We always start working”: Caroline Gordon to Léonie Adams, n.d., quoted in Waldron,
Close Connections
, p. 208.

2
“We will just hole up”: Caroline Gordon to Malcolm Cowley, n.d., Ibid., p. 206.