Yours truly,
J. Wade Hollinghead
(Hollinghead Hardware), Bath, Ontario
September 8
Dear Mr. Hollinghead:
Thank you for your kind invitation, but I am afraid you and I have both been ill-served by rumour. I am no longer Editor Cruzzi, having retired from the Banner more than ten years ago. Laughs by the barrel have never been my commodity. I am a strict vegetarian, eschewing fowl as well as other animal proteins. I am long-winded and bad-tempered and, since suffering a slight stroke, unpleasant in appearance. In short, I am afraid I will not “do” for the Ontario Bay Jaycees.
Yours,
F. Cruzzi
September 7
My dear Freddy,
Come and give me some cheer. I promise you roast lamb and a good bottle of wine. Possibly artichokes. Certainly my usual mustard sauce. Any evening will do, but make it soon. Forgive me, Freddy, but you’ve been alone too much since Hildë died. (I miss her too, and, selfishly, I miss your company.)
Yours,
Pauline
September 8
My dear Pauline,
I’ve just this minute written a shameful and pompous letter to a Mr. Hollinghead of Hollinghead Hardware in Bath, declining an unwanted invitation and claiming to be a vegetarian and curmudgeon. I hope I can be better company in your presence. Would next Friday do?
Your uncivilized old friend,
F.C.
September 15
Dear F,
I’ll come right to the point. I think it’s time you stirred yourself and came to Montreal for a visit. Thanksgiving to be precise. Come! I can’t bear to think of you in that big house by yourself with time hanging on your hands. And I can’t imagine why on earth you had the phone disconnected. What if there is an emergency? What if you need a doctoror something? And how would I get hold of you? Think about it. And think about coming for Thanksgiving. You could take the train. You used to love the train.
Take care,
Simone
October 3
Dearest Simone,
Many thanks for your card. Thanksgiving is impossible, I’m afraid, much as the thought of family tempts me. I’m loath to leave home for long these days. I seem to require certain things around me, my books especially. And I still look in at the Banner now and then, and there’s the Friday column, of course. The column is fast becoming a burden, since (to tell the truth) it is increasingly difficult to be genial and carping at one and the same time, or even to think of topics worth rumbling and rambling about. In the last month I’ve covered false gentility, technological insult, the crimes of local politicians and sins against the language—and now must thrust about for something freshly abhorrent. I enclose my piece on telephone tyranny, which partly explains my present state of disconnectedness. (The real problem, If you insist on knowing, is the press of invitations from long-lived widows, Hildë’s dear old friends, chiefly, who beseech me daily to come for suppers, lunches, bridge games, concerts, picnics, whatever. They believe me to be in need of comfort, and, as you know, comfort has always been the focus of my deepest skepticism.) And then there are the antiquarians, les bouqinistes (one in particular) who pester me via the telephone about selling my books and other oddments—as if I ever would.
Your loving,
F.
October 8
Dear Frederic Cruzzi:
I have been trying to reach you for some time by telephone, but without success. As Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Swann Symposium to be held in January at the Harbourview Hotel in Toronto (tentative details enclosed) I would like to invite you to be our Keynote Speaker. We on the Committee are all fully cognizant of your role as Mary Swann’s first (and only) publisher and one who early glimpsed her extraordinary (to my mind) textual genius. It seems, therefore, eminently appropriate to the members of the Committee (unanimous, in fact) that you be given a leading role in this first—though not, we hope, last—scholarly gathering to be held in her honour.
I understand that you have not been in the best of health recently, but we do, nevertheless, hope you will do us the honour of accepting. Will you be kind enough to contact me as soon as possible?
Yours very truly,
Willard W. Lang, Chm, Dept. of Eng.
University of Toronto
P.S. You probably don’t remember that we met some four years ago when I was bold enough to knock on your door while passing through Kingston. We had a most interesting (to me) discussion on modern poetics, as I recall, and on the work of Mrs. Swann. Please give my regards to your wife who, I remember, was kind enough to give me a cup of tea and a magnificent slice of walnut cake.
* * *
October 15
Dear Professor Lang,
I am sorry to say I am unable, for reasons of health and temperament, to take part in your “symposium.” It has always seemed to me that the glory of Mary Swann’s work lies in its innocence, the fact that it does not invite scholarly meddling or whimsical interpretation. As a close reader of her “text,” you will remember the lines that conclude her second water poem:
Let me hide.
Let this kneeling-down pain
Of mine
Wait safe inside.
Of course it would be ludicrous to interpret these lines as a plea that we not read her work. Poets, after all, write in order to show others their singleness of heart and mind. But I do believe Mrs. Swann would resist with all her “kneeling-down pain” any attempt to analyse and systematize what came out of her as naturally as did her own breath. I often think of the sage who commented, “ Critics are to art as ornithologists are to birds.” I remain grateful for the words and rhythms Mrs. Swann left us, and I have no wish to tamper with their meaning. Furthermore, it would cause me grief to hear others doing so.
Yours,
F. Cruzzi
P.S. My late wife would have been pleased, I know, that you have remembered her, and her walnut cake. As for me, I do indeed remember your visit and have often wondered what became of the poems you discovered under Mrs. Swann’s kitchen linoleum.
* * *
October 20
Dear Freddy,
The flowers are lovely and you are a dear to have sent them. I’m sure the sight of them will speed my convalescence and bring me good cheer. But I can’t help wondering if you aren’t the one who needs cheering. When you were here the other evening you seemed somehow quieter than usual, a little sunk in your thoughts. Are you still dwelling on South Africa? I hope not, for what can any of us do? Let’s you and me have a cheery drink together next Friday, any time after five. I’m afraid, though, I’ll have to ask you to bring along the gin since I won’t be allowed out on these wretched crutches for another ten days.
Yours,
Pauline
October 23
My dear Pauline,
Just a note to say I’ll be there on Friday with a bottle of Beefeater. We can console each other. I will question you about your poor fracture and your insomnia, and you may pry if you like into my current vexations, most of which I’ve brought upon myself. I miss my telephone for one thing, but hubris prevents me from contacting Ma Bell. And I’ve recently turned down, viciously, mockingly, arrogantly, and with a wide scatter of sneering quotation marks, an invitation to a symposium on Mary Swann that I now think I might rather have enjoyed. (What wickedness makes me so eager to snub the academic world?) Some of the spiritual poison has overflowed into my column—don’t tell me you haven’t noticed—and certainly my last piece on free-roaming dogs has caused hard feelings. It was Hildë, you know, who kept my malice under control, her daily innoculations of goodness, something in her more delicately balanced. Ah well …
Until Friday,
F
November 1
Dear F.C.,
Bravo and keep it up for crissake. The mail’s been raining down steadily since the famous dog piece (pro, con, mid-fence, you name it). And the thing on abolishing the senate g
ot good vigorous waves too. Judy and Fran and I were sitting around the other day going through the mail sack and got to wondering if you’d maybe do us two columns a week instead of the one. Say, Tuesday and Saturday kind of thing. I know it would be a break with tradition, but it’s terrific for circulation and gives the poor folks out there something to chew over besides the bloody Middle East. Let me know what you think. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of your getting your phone reconnected, is there? You might as well be on the moon instead of across town.
A suggestion for a future column!! How about pouring a little timely vitriol on pink plastic flamingos? Judy sends her love. Fran too. Also me.
TSH
November 6
My dear Tom,
Your note has just arrived; that’s six days for a quarter of an ounce of paper to travel half a mile. The moon indeed!
I’m afraid I must gratefully decline your twice-weekly column suggestion, since it’s difficult enough gathering ire for one. My ability to become incensed declines along with my various other physical parts, and I find that working up a lather even once a week is landing me in difficulties. The fact is, I like dogs. I believe, to a certain extent, in the senate. I admire courtesy, false or genuine. The majority of politicians are well-intentioned, strange as it seems. The English language must be kept pliable and open and out of the hands of pedants like myself. And the telephone is one of the world’s greatest conveniences. (I intend to get hooked up again in the New Year, as soon as the fuss has died down.) As you can see, my venting of spleen, now that it has become an artificial exercise, is depriving me of those beliefs and pleasures that have sustained my life. Nevertheless I will continue the Friday column for another year at least, a creaky perseverance being the prime disease of old age. But I’m thinking seriously of coming out in favour of something next week, just to see if I’m still capable of writing a piece that doesn’t “take umbrage.”
If I may make a suggestion, Tom, one syndicated column of advice for the lovelorn is quite enough in my opinion. And you may want to think about cancelling that “Advice to Golden Agers” fellow. We’re all going down the chute anyway, and that idiot’s little rays of sunshine are insulting.
F.C.
P.S. Afraid I cannot throw my heart into a condemnation of flamingos, nor the casual effrontery of garden elves, nor even Black Sambo at the gatepost. I feel quite sure these trinkets are purchased and displayed in an innocent attempt to ornament a bleak world, and how can one attack an impulse so simple and human as that?
November 7
Dear Mr. Cruzzi,
I apologize for bothering you once again with what at first glance may appear to be a commercial inquiry. You may remember that we spoke on the phone two or three times early in the fall and at that time you made it quite clear that you were not interested in selling any portion of your personal library, nor were you anxious to avail yourself of the sort of inventory and evaluation services in which our firm specializes.
This letter is written, frankly, in the hope that you may have reconsidered and may now want to liquidate your holdings and enjoy the benefit of alternate investment or disposable income for travel, charity and so on. It has been our experience that many people wait too long to dispose of their valuables, so that at the time of settling an estate, those articles most treasured and revered during a lifetime become neglected and overlooked by heirs. Instead of finding their way into the hands of those who would most appreciate them, cherished collections (books in particular) are broken up and scattered, or sometimes even destroyed by careless handling.
The special focus of our firm is the matching of books with discriminating collectors. While we are happy to consider entire inventories, we also deal in partial collections and even with individual volumes. At the moment for instance, we have a buyer keenly searching for first-edition Hemingway. Another active collector whom we represent has a special interest in the poet Mary Swann, whose work you yourself published in the not-so-distant past.
I can assure you that our firm appreciates and pays the top market price for such volumes. Indeed, in certain cases, such as Mrs. Swann’s rather curious little book, we are prepared to offer well above the going price, depending on condition, of course.
We invite you, at least, to consider our services and to contact us at the New York mailing address or to telephone the toll-free number indicated in our letterhead.
Yours very truly,
Book Browsers Inc.
November 11
Dear Book Browser:
I address you as such since you offer no other name. Please do not worry yourself further about what will befall my “estate” after my death. I have an extremely alert daughter-in-law who appreciates fully the value of the library that my late wife and I spent fifty years accumulating. What she will do with the collection when it becomes hers is up to her, but while I am still alive, and I expect to remain alive for some time, I intend to see that the library remains intact. My books, dear Book Browser, are a comfort, a presence, a diary of my life. What more can I say?
If it will ease your mind and prevent further communication, I will assure you that nothing of the Hemingway school occupies my shelves. As for the four remaining copies of Swann’s Songs (all that are left of the original 250 copies my wife and I published under the Peregrine Imprint), I have made provisions in my will that they are to go to the Queen’s University Library here in Kingston.
And so I am afraid, Book Browser, that I cannot be of help to you, nor you to me.
Respectfully yours,
Frederic Cruzzi
November 16
Dear Mr. Cruzzi,
My name is Sarah Maloney, and I’m a fellow Swannian. Recently I’ve had a phone call from Willard Lang, chairman of the Steering Committee for the Swann Symposium, saying you had declined the committee’s invitation to be our keynote speaker. I can tell you that we are all downcast at this news.
I’m writing to see if I can possibly persuade you, instead, to take part in an informal question-and-answer session concerning the original publication of Swann’s Songs by your own Peregrine Press. This hypothetical event might take place on the second or third day of the meetings, after the academic stiffness has been leached from our bones. Those of us in the Swann industry can endlessly speculate, but you’re the one who midwifed the original text and the only one to lay eyes (and hands) on the manuscript—which I understand was grievously lost some years ago. What a tragedy.
Speaking selfishly, I’d like very much to meet you and hear your impressions of Mary Swann. To me she remains maddeningly enigmatic, not only her work but herself. How did all those words get inside her innocent head? Perhaps you know. I think you may. I hope you’ll tell me. Please reconsider and come to the symposium. We can talk and talk.
With sincere good wishes,
Sarah Maloney (Ms.)
November 26
My dear Ms. Maloney,
Your charming letter arrived today. (Forgive me for suspecting that you make rather a specialty of charming letters. Certainly you flatter me with your suggestion that I understand the secret of Mary Swann’s power; in fact, I am as baffled as the next person by her preternatural ability to place two ordinary words side by side and extract a kilowatt, and sometimes more, much more, from them.) At any rate, I am both seduced and persuaded by your invitation, and feel this crisp fall morning decidedly anticipatory—though I will probably regret my decision in a week’s time.
As for my possible contribution, perhaps it would be useful to those at the symposium if I were to talk for a few minutes in a generalized “midwifery” way about how I came to know Mrs. Swann, though I expect the story of her bringing me her poems on that long-ago snowy day is fairly well known. I might also describe briefly, if it would be of interest, the odd clutter of paper, or “manuscript” as you call it, on which the poems were written. I’m not at all sure myself that I would call such a heap of scraps a manuscript, and I cannot agree w
ith you that the loss of it is “tragic.” (As a matter of fact, my late dear wife used it for wrapping up some fish bones after a particularly fine meal of local whitefish, but I believe that story too is well documented.)
Furthermore, as an old newspaper man, rather than a professional scholar, I may have rather less reverence than you for the holiness of working papers. If you are familiar with Urdu poetry, or indeed with the oral tradition of most of the world’s literature, you will know that this cherishing of original manuscripts is a relatively new phenomenon, and one that I find puzzling. A manuscript is, after all, only a crude representation of that step between creative thought and artefact, and might just as usefully be employed as kindling for a fire or in the wrapping of fishbones.
Frankly, the endless checking of one text against another, this tyranny of accuracy that rules the academic world, is all rather tiresome. I have found that it is sometimes better to look at the universe with a squint, to subject oneself to a deliberate distortion, and hope that out of the ‘jumbled vision, or jumbled notes if you like, will fall the accident that is the truth. So please, Ms. Maloney, don’t “grieve” for the loss of a few shreds of paper. As you surely know, there are other things to spend your grief upon.
Yours,
F. Cruzzi
P.S. May I compliment you on your handwriting—the almost engraved quality of your uppercase C’s in particular, and the deep whimsical, old-fashioned way you indent your paragraphs—very pretty indeed.
December 7
My dear Freddy,
Let me say first that you have nothing, nothing, nothing to reproach yourself for. I am not, as you suggest in your note, offended, and I am sure Hildë and my own dear Barnie, too, would think it the most natural thing in the world. You are not ready yet for mellow avuncularity, and why should you be? I was only a little startled, that’s all—it’s been so long. Oh, my dear, I am finding this difficult to put down on paper. What I know is that words are rather pathetic at times and that what we need most is to reach past them and touch each other. That’s all that happened, such a little thing, but what happiness it brought me, though you seem to have thought otherwise.