Savage Beauty (100 page)

10.
“It might have been”: ESVM, notebook, no. 55, p. 104. Library of Congress.

11.
“Boys & girls”: ESVM notebook, no. 26, n.p. Library of Congress.

12.
“The Boissevains”: Tom de Booy, interview with author, April 26, 1974.

13.
“Dear Mother Millay”: EB to CBM, April 18, 1924. St. Coll.

14.
“She is doing fine”: EB to CBM, n.d., PM May 4, 1924. St. Coll. 264 “The old lady”: EB to ADF, n.d., PM May 4, 1924. Beinecke.

15.
“then
on foot
”
:
ESVM to CBM, May 4, 1924. St. Coll.

16.
“ring for it”: ESVM, Japan diary, May 5, 1924. St. Coll.

17.
“But … the moment”: ESVM to CBM, “June 22 (more or less) 1924.”
Ls.
, pp. 188–89.

18.
“having the most
wonderful
”: ESVM to CBM, July 14, 1924.
Ls.
, pp. 189–90.

19.
“gives instructions”: EB and ESVM to CBM, Aug. 18, 1924. St. Coll.

20.
“We left the hospital”: EB to ADF, Oct. 29, 1924. Beinecke.

21.
“a teeming family”: Hilda von Stockum Marlin, interview with author, Oct. 18, 1980.

CHAPTER 21

1.
“I thought she was”: Mary Kennedy, interview with author, Sept. 30, 1977.

2.
“cropped hair”: “Edna St. Vincent Millay Reads Her Poems at Literary Institute,”
Christian Science Monitor
, n.p., May 6, 1925.

3.
“as a married woman”: and subsequent quotes from John Hurd, Jr., “Poets and Writers Flock to Bowdoin for the Round Table of Literature,”
Boston Sunday Globe
, May 10, 1925, p. 12.

4.
“whose notorious sexual life”: Jeffrey Meyers,
Robert Frost, a Biography
(Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), pp. 173, 181–82.

5.
“Here we are”: ESVM to CBM.
Ls.
, pp. 194–95.

6.
“Darling children”: EB to ADF, n.d., PM illegible, c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

7.
“Darling Artie and Gladdie”: ESVM to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

8.
“I am speechless”: ESVM to ADF, n.d., c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

9.
“pretending not”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., c. fall 1925. Beinecke.

10.
“who would cure”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM Nov. 4, 1925. Beinecke.

11.
“Vincent now has”: EB to ADF, n.d., c. November 1925. Beinecke.

12.
“She looks over”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM Nov. 27, 1925. Beinecke.

13.
“God, but it”: EB to ADF, n.d., no PM, dated December 1925 by Ficke. Beinecke.

14.
“We saw the last”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, Dec. 30, 1925. Beinecke.

CHAPTER 22

1.
“because the workmen”: EB to CBM, n.d., c. summer 1925. St. Coll.

2.
“All I did”: Mrs. Joseph Sobleski, interview with author, October 1984.

3.
“We have 12 tons”: EB to ADF, Dec. 30, 1925. Beinecke.

4.
“Hallelujah! Vincent has”: EB to ADF, Jan. 2, 1926. Beinecke.

5.
“but I cannot leave”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, Feb. 2, 1926. Beinecke.

6.
“Vincent says”: EB to DT, Jan. 5 [1926]. Deems Taylor Papers.

7.
“in the old Saxon style”: EB to DT, Jan. 19, 1926. Deems Taylor Papers.

8.
“looking at everything”: ESVM to FPA, March 2, 1926.
Ls.
, p. 207.

9.
“I’m sending this”: ESVM to DT, n.d., “(Along in February, snowed in),” c. February 1926. Mary Kennedy Papers.

10.
“KINGS MESSENGER ABSOLUTELY”: ESVM. to DT, May 21 [1926]. Mary Kennedy Collection.

11.
“and you will be”: EB to DT, June 10, 1926. Mary Kennedy Collection.

12.
“I remember that”: Mary Kennedy, interview with author, Sept. 30, 1977.

13.
“Vincent’s illness”: CBM to——, Feb. 8, 1926. St. Coll.

14.
“Ugin and I”: CBM, diary, March 28, 1926. St. Coll.

15.
“Unpleasant here today”: CBM, diary, March 29, 1926. St. Coll.

16.
“We just received”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM March 20, 1926. Beinecke.

17.
“take any pictures”: EB to ADF, Aug. 9, 1926. Beinecke.

18.
“Vincie went on”: EB to ADF and Gladys Brown Ficke, n.d., PM Aug. 9, 1926. Beinecke.

19.
“Dear, dear”: ADF to EB, Aug. 15, 1926. St. Coll.

20.
“…  COME AND SEE”: AB to “Eugene Millay,” wire, Sept. 7, 1926. St. Coll.

21.
“If we have”: ESVM to CBM, Dec. 6, 1926.
Ls.
, p. 212.

22.
“a box”: EB to ADF, “From Steepletop to Santa Fe. Undated. Probably March 1927.” c. spring 1927. Beinecke.

23.
“You will have to be”: ESVM to CBM, Jan. 6, 1927.
Ls.
, p. 213. This letter also tells of Norma’s activities: “And Harry Dowd’s Mozart opera,
La Finta
, opens Jan. 17, just a month before mine, & Norma is singing Serpetta,—Folly—she just wrote me. Isn’t that thrilling?—If you come to New York for my opening, you can go to hear Norma in
La Finta
, too!—What a lovely life it is!—Isn’t it, darling?”

24.
“Mother Darling”: KM to CBM, February 1927. St. Coll.

25.
“The first rehearsal”: ESVM to Deems Taylor.
Ls.
, pp. 214–15.

26.
“My Darling”: Gladys Brown Ficke to ADF, ADF’s typescript, February 1927. Beinecke.

CHAPTER 23

1.
“I saw her wince”: Edmund Wilson,
The Twenties
, pp. 348–49.

2.
“When one looks back”: Edmund Wilson, “The Muses Out of Work,”
The New Republic
, May 11, 1927, pp. 319–21.

3.
“when she and”: Elinor Wylie, New York
Herald Tribune Books
, Feb. 20, 1927, section VII, pp. 1, 6.

4.
“very meager, poor”: Mrs. E. B. White to author, Oct. 5, 1973.

5.
“Edna Millay’s father” and subsequent quotes: Griffin Barry, “Vincent,”
The New Yorker
, Feb. 12, 1927.

6.
“About that stevedore”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., c. February 1927. St. Coll.

7.
“everybody worn out”: ESVM, diary, March 11, 1927. St. Coll.

8.
“I feel a little”: ESVM, diary, March 3, 1927. St. Coll.

9.
“Today on the front page”: ESVM, diary, March 9, 1927. St. Coll.

10.
“Now nobody wants”: New York
Evening Post
, March 8, 1927, n.p.

11.
selling for $60: Detroit
News
, Feb. 27, 1927.

12.
“Tonight Elinor told Gene”: ESVM, diary, April 4–5, 1927. St. Coll.

13.
“I gave it to her”: ESVM, diary, April 7, 1927. St. Coll.

14.
“I wrote Kathleen”: ESVM to CBM, May 25, 1927.
Ls.
, p. 220.

15.
“Immigrant”: Kathleen Millay,
The Evergreen Tree
(New York: Boni & Liveright, 1927), p. 13.

16.
“The Spinner’s Song”: Ibid., p. 29.

17.
“Washington is still”: Stanley Olson,
Elinor Wylie: A Life Apart
(New York: Dial Press, 1979), pp. 285–86.

18.
“I wrote a letter”: ESVM, typescript, April 18, 1927, p. 20.

19.
“It is not”:
Ls.
, pp. 216–17.

20.
“My darling”: Elinor Wylie to ESVM. “May second,” n.y., PM May 3, 1927, London. St. Coll.

21.
Sacco and Vanzetti: Herbert B. Ehrmann,
The Case That Will Not Die, Commonwealth vs. Sacco and Vanzetti
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), pp. 459–60; Katherine Anne Porter,
The Never-Ending Wrong
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1977).

22.
joined the picket line: Miriam Gurko,
Restless Spirit: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
(New York: Thomas X. Crowell, 1962), pp. 178–83.

23.
“I suggested that”: ESVM to Gov. Alvan T. Fuller.
Ls.
, p. 222.

24.
“Let us abandon”:
CP
, pp. 230–31.

25.
“And know that”: Kathleen Millay,
The Hermit Thrush
(New York: Horace Liveright, 1929), p. 121.

26.
“I don’t imagine”: ESVM to CBM, n.d., c. November 1927. St. Coll.

CHAPTER 24

1.
“Eleanor went”: ESVM, journal, April 2, 1927. St. Coll.

2.
“My darling Elinor” ESVM to Elinor Wylie, Sept. 19, 1928. Beinecke.

3.
“Let me add”: ESVM to GD, “Saturday, Dec. 15,” n.y. (c. Dec. 15, 1928). Alice Baur Hodges, cousin to George Dillon, kept a group of Millay’s letters to him. These letters were, according to Hodges, wrapped in tin foil by Dillon for safekeeping.

4.
“incandescent”: James Thomas Flexner, conversation with author, c. fall 1974.

5.
“Young Phil Hitchborn”: Laura Benét to author, Feb. 23, 1977.

6.
“Carl Van Doren wept”: Mary Kennedy to author.

7.
Details of Wylie’s funeral: Stanley Olson, pp. 331–32. The poem recited by Edna was “On a Singing Girl” from Wylie’s
Black Armour
.

8.
“Dear Vincent”: William Rose Benét to ESVM, Dec. 20, 1928. St. Coll.

9.
“Darling You”: ESVM to GD, n.d., PM Dec. 24, 1928. ABH Collection.

10.
“And do you think”: ESVM to GD, n.d., PM Dec. 29, 1928. ABH Collection.

11.
“Vincent is writing”: EB to GD, n.d., PM December 1928. ABH Collection.