Monday, September 29th

THE BLESSING of the sun! A perfect shining blue day at last!

After I have been away even for a few days this place smites me with its beauty. When I went to fetch the paper yesterday I saw a hummingbird just outside the door stay quite still on a clematis seed … so rare to see one of these darting creatures still for once … his wings folded on his back. He made a curious little sound, tick-tick-tick-tick. Had he thought the shining whorls of the seed were a flower? He sounded quite cross. The Monarch butterflies cluster in droves on the English asters, and it’s a royal sight, the orange and black on the purple flowers. There are a few autumn crocus out here and there.

Among the magazines piled up when I got back I found a Listener with an excellent review of the Woolf letters by Margaret Drabble. I shall copy some of it to keep hold of what she says about the changing attitude toward V. W. (The Fortitude of V. Woolf, Listener, 18th September):

“There were those who staunchly, throughout, defended Bloomsbury, counter-attacking by accusing Lawrence and Leavis of envy: envy of the charmed circle, the social connections, the small private incomes. Myself, I plead guilty to envy. Reading Virginia Woolf’s letters is a deeply moving experience, and one of its most moving aspects is the glimpse it provides of a circle which, despite death, madness and suicide, was indeed charmed. Such loyalty, such friends, such love, such conversations and correspondences and journeys, such kindness: who would not envy them their solidarity? … Most writers are solitary and do not move in circles, but there cannot be many of them who do not feel stirred by the image of a golden age where a circle was possible. Bloomsbury provides such an image, and brings tears to the eyes of the outcast: of rage, of envy, of regret, who can say?”

M.D. goes on to speak of V.W.’s courage and resilience. It is high time that someone did so! Oh, how lucky I was that for a few years just before 1940 I had a little taste of that magic circle! I suppose it created a permanent nostalgia, for here in America I have never found anything like it. The pain and the jealousy are too great among writers here, and even in those days when Eberhart, Wilbur, Ciardi, Holmes, and I got together now and then to read and discuss poems, I always went home devastated and miserable.

It is next to impossible, I find, to go back into the immediate past when one is keeping a journal. I suppose the very nature of a journal is catching things on the wing … and by the time one has an hour in which to look back, so much else has already happened—such as seeing a kingfisher, a review of Woolf’s letters—that one has no interest in the immediate past.

The sun was out on my first day in Ithaca, fortunately at least a gleam or two, for Rita Guerlac took me on a walk down one of the gorges (it was Enfield Gorge) near the city. These are deep gorges brooks have worn down through slate cliffs … and that is partly why it is such an amazingly beautiful sight. All I could think of was Poussin, for the cliffs look quite architectural, with wide “steps” carved out, and sometimes clean geometrical edges. The brook flows fast, from one waterfall to another. I looked up the dark cliff side to see a maple, brilliant gold, clinging to a shelf, and, nearer by, exquisite harébells and moss in the crevices. It was like a dream of all the varieties of waterfall, from steep descents in a single narrow spill, to wide falls down under ledges.

Henry Guerlac had kindly arranged a dinner party in my honor at the Society of the Humanities. I so rarely attend a dinner party these days (have I ever, in fact, been part of society?) that I found it all delightful, especially as I sat beside Ammons, the poet, and felt at home with him at once. He is very shy, a sandy-haired, middle-aged man, who is recovering from winning all the prizes last year … I was quite amused to hear that he feels silenced at this point. Alison Lurie was two chairs away on my left. I really had no chance to talk with her. She looks like a gentle perceptive witch. Part of the charm of the evening was the great paneled room with romantic friezes painted along the ceiling, the formal scene itself, and such a splendid dinner, starting (curiously) with raspberries. I had had lunch with James McConkey and young McCall … I felt quite deprived that Jim was far away at the other end of the table. But for once I went to bed after a social occasion having no remorse for some faux- pas or madness of over-enthusiasm or rage.

The contrast to all this could not have been greater than the cellar room in the Massapequa, Long Island, library where I read poems the next day … but what a delightful audience it was! I do love reading the poems. It’s like hearing music again … you can hear it in your head, but it is not the same thing as a concert, and poetry only lives and breathes when it is spoken aloud.

I spent the night at Carol and Jim Heilbrun’s, in their spacious old apartment on Central Park West. They are on the second floor, just at the height of the treetops—such a romantic view! As we sat and talked, I felt perfect happiness and accord … and glanced now and then at Duncan Grant’s self-portrait on one wall and Vanessa Bell’s self-portrait over the mantel. It was moving to see them. (The Bell I had not seen before, as it is a recent acquisition.) I left five of the chapters from the book with Carol—and what a blessing when she told me she had read the Bowen and thought it good. I do not always agree with her, but her judgment means a lot to me, nevertheless. Who else is there whose literary acumen I trust?