In March 1958 Davies noted in his personal diary that he had received “a nice letter from A. Knopf about my reviews which has the effect of making me nervous of a decline.” Alfred A. Knopf was a leading New York publisher. He had seen Davies’s book reviews in Saturday Night magazine, been impressed by their breadth, sophistication, and enthusiasm, and in a subsequent letter proposed that Davies might write a book based on these reviews. Davies was thrilled by this invitation: “A dream come true: a conspectus of the modern literary situation. Can hardly believe this luck. Is the tide turning at last? A happy day.” He met Knopf in New York on May 21 and quickly came to a publishing agreement. On June 2 he was “culling what may be of use of my Saturday Night pieces. Surprised by how bad some are. I never think anything I have written retains any value.” On September 22 he wrote, “Began working on my sixteenth book. A beginning is always a nervous thing.”
By January 1959 he was well into the new book. In fact, although it used material from the Saturday Night reviews, it was largely new writing, and rather than “a conspectus of the modern literary situation,” it was turning into a series of explorations of books, many of them from the Victorian period, on subjects such as long forgotten bestsellers, drama, love, sex, pornography, and self-help. He was writing for a readership he called the “clerisy,” intelligent, informed readers, encouraging them to be both more adventurous in their reading and more critical. For the Canadian and American markets the book was ultimately given the obscure title A Voice from the Attic, and for the British edition, more helpfully, The Personal Art. In his diaries Davies generally refers to it as “Knopfbook.”
Rob and Brenda’s close friends in Peterborough at this time were Ross and Ruth Thompson, Tommy and Sheila Currier, and Robert and Val Porter. Ross Thompson was an insurance broker and Ruth a painter; Tommy Currier was a physician with an interest in psychiatry; and Bob Porter was the chief librarian in Peterborough. Ross Mathews was the Davies children’s doctor, and Rob and Brenda saw Mathews and his wife socially on occasion. Other friends were the writer and sports reporter Scott Young and his wife (the parents of Neil Young), who lived in the country outside Peterborough.
During 1959 Davies kept his daily personal diary, made entries in what he called his “big diary,” and wrote an extended travel diary in July, but he did not keep a separate theatre diary. Two entries from his 1958 diaries lead into 1959.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1958, NEW YORK: To Hugh MacCraig, astrologer, who appraised my character well: I am not as needful of people as many, and live much in my mind, and my health is bound up with my mental health; avoid doctors’ drastic remedies and trust my intuitions about myself; am highly intuitive and should trust it; will be increasingly concerned with metaphysics; am entering on an important stage of my life which will mount for many years. My writing is especially successful when it relates the past to the present. The collaboration with Tony Guthrie will be difficult, but if I treat him with kid gloves his jealousy of me may be blunted (I do not believe this of Tony). The Casanova play will be a marked success. I am on an upward pathway. Will retain health and semblance of youth, and be increasingly with young people. Will live into my eighties, with good health. Brenda is an “Old Soul” and in many respects my teacher: respect her intuition. I should live southwest of my birthplace, and preferably on a hill with a view of water. Will in time move from where I now live and have already begun to meet the more interesting and influential people who will influence my life and thought. Will in later life be very much a sage and teacher.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1958: H.t.d.—admirable—and spend the afternoon in bed with Brenda, naked, happy, and warm. In the evening to Tommy and Sheila Currier’s for two hours, then to Bill and Gwen Brown’s at 11:30 and see the New Year in. To bed at 2.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 1959: Lay late, then to the Mathewses’ bouillon party and as usual enjoyed it greatly. Worked on my Star article on Boswell and Johnson, then all of us to the movies to see Damn Yankees, very good, and admired Gwen Verdon, melting and very icy. Splendid dinner with Gevrey-Chambertin, and a quiet evening. Bed betimes. A happy day.
What did I achieve last year? A Mixture of Frailties came out in U.S.A., England, and Canada, and has had the best notices yet and is admitted by all to be my best work—but has not sold well. Yet I do not grieve, as once I would have done: my joy is to write and write well, and if fame and money do not follow I can do nothing about it. I finished the Casanova play General Confession, my best yet, and Michael Langham likes it much and says it has fifty times the content of the scripts sent him from New York. And now I am to do a book column for the Star for a high fee, and I am busy on the Knopfbook, which I greatly enjoy and of which I have high hopes, and the Theatre Guild wants me to collaborate with Tony Guthrie on a play from Leaven of Malice. Who says the world isn’t my oyster? In addition the Examiner is doing better than ever.
In the home all is as well as I have any right to expect. Brenda said a few days ago that she liked her life and would not change it for any other, which greatly pleased me, for I sometimes feel guilt at keeping so talented a woman in Peterborough, which has so little use for her abilities. We both work faithfully at the Alexander Technique, which continues to help us and has made me more truly self-possessed than ever before. So all seems fair, and if I can continue to juggle all the bright balls which Fate has thrown me, and drop none, it should be fairer still. I am a very lucky man and I must be sure to deserve my luck.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 2: As always on the first business day, much to do, and I pegged away unremittingly. In the afternoon wrote my Saturday Night book review column on some Canadiana books: hard work but came out better than I expected. Evening, slept a lot in my chair, and from 10 till 12 Brenda and I talked with Miranda and Jenny, who are dears but masses of temperament, especially Jenny, who weeps easily and drowns criticism.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 3: Enjoyed working on my next Star column. Hope my great pleasure in it continues. In the afternoon get the Star to see my first column and find it very flat and disappointing, but Brenda and Miranda say it is good. Did short notices for Saturday Night.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 4: This year I must organize my time more efficiently, for though I get a lot of work done, it is accompanied by much foolish fussing. If I could reclaim the fussing-time for leisure I should be rich indeed.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 8: Am making progress with Knopfbook but slowly: still, it will not need much rewriting. I have given the order that Examiner reporters must wear ties, an odd thing to have to do but they are obsessed by a dirty Bohemianism. In the evening read Brendan Behan and invited my soul,1 which needs it.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 9: To Toronto: the Youngs lunch with us at the University Club. Shop for Brenda’s birthday, then drive to Stratford and call on Dave Rae, the president of the board of governors, who is very alarmed by the crisis about the approaching season, and Floyd Chalmers2 makes him no better: Chalmers is very vain, not a really bad man but so self-absorbed he has no tact. We stay with Alf and Dama Bell3 and share a double bed.4
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, STRATFORD: To a committee meeting at 9, and the board meeting from 11 to 4; weary, and Doug Ambridge of Abitibi Paper very wearisome: a farcical tycoon. Away at 4 to Toronto and dine with WRD at Hawthorn Gardens. Doubleday wants him to write his memoirs.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, TORONTO: Chat with WRD and Margaret,5 who are worried about illness of several elderly relatives. To Peterborough and to the skating arena and see Rosamond win dance-pair trophy: proud of her. Quiet evening and mitigated h.t.d. before the fire, most refreshing to both of us.
The Star column already seems to have made some slight stir: it could build into a substantial thing if I do it well. I think about it a great deal and hope to make it more supple, but am still getting the “feel” of it.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14: Again very busy on Knopfbook: it goes better now. Wonderful letter from Hugh MacLennan about A Mixture of Frailties: praise from a pro is very sweet, for he knows what I
have done as others cannot. Brenda rehearses6 in the evening and I work.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 16: Hope now the muddle of Chapter 3 is over the Knopfbook will go more smoothly: Brenda says it is very compact and certainly I do not think it is padded; the trick is not to lose my theme and merely waffle in a bookish fashion.
MONDAY, JANUARY 19: Very busy day: wrote an editorial in the morning and a Star column in the afternoon and rewrote the end of Chapter 3 in evening. I can do this now, but ten years ago I could not without severe fatigue. Very heavy snowfall, the most since 1944, and I toil through it like a trapper.7
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21: Miss Rodney, our accountant, tells me we made $118,185.25 net at the Examiner in 1958: very good. Worked in the afternoon and evening at Chapter 4, which is amusing but material hard to control. I read and read and make notes and am a pedant and a drudge but happy. Rain and ice all day.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2: Our nineteenth anniversary and I thank God for the blessing my marriage has been to me. A very busy day but manage it all: Don Herbert, the partner with the Theatre Guild in New York, calls and schedules production of the Leaven of Malice play for January–February 1960. A meeting at the Examiner about advancing our press time: I do have varied interests! Quiet evening as we doze and read, rather old-folksy.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5: In the evening to Dr. Calvert’s to discuss relations between local doctors and the Examiner: very genial, and doctors tell of a man at General Hospital here with lady’s high-heeled shoe stuffed in his rectum, of monster bladder stones, of strange local rapes and prostitutions: a new light on Peterborough.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9: Jenny still ill and Miranda retires to bed: a positive lazar-house. Write a good deal for the Examiner and do a Star column on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In the evening chat with the girls and Brenda and read a little and groan about the winter: am panicking slightly about the work I have to complete this year.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11: Ash Wednesday. I weigh 218, so embark on a Lenten no-second-helping diet. Miranda goes back to school, doctor says Jenny must stay home till Monday at least. Get good work done on book but wonder if it will be too dry for general reading. To the film Gigi with Brenda and enjoyed it greatly.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18: Completed Chapter 4 and am excited about it: it may be criticism well above my usual level, but only revision will tell. In the evening I do make-up for Our Town dress rehearsal and it was really very good and I was moved—what a play!
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22: As always, February is a hard month but this year unusually so. I feel old and defeated and the long prospect of work this year gives me small pleasure: I try too hard and am losing the fight. But one turns on the wheel, like Ixion.8
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24: Low and depressed: work on book but many visitors and a very frampold day. In the evening help Rosamond with her recorder, then read Raising the Wind by James Kenney, Miss in Her Teens by David Garrick, and High Life below Stairs by Rev. James Townley:9 what good English they are in. But February has me in its clutch.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26: Still much depressed: why? It is some time since I had such a fit. Laboured to write a review of Hugh MacLennan’s book The Watch That Ends the Night and can praise it generously but do not want to knock the heroine, who is so obviously his wife. In the evening, worked on book but badly and was thoroughly unnerved.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27: Depression the worst yet. The international situation10 is especially gloomy. Brenda goes to Toronto and gets home on the late train; I read Jerrold and Sheridan Knowles and some Carl Jung,11 most of which I do not understand, but his approach to mythology explains many popular theatre themes and thus is fruitful for me.
SUNDAY, MARCH 1: Lay late reading Jung. Confided my worry about international affairs to Brenda and felt much better. Analyzed my dread, which is of course personal, and think I hounded it almost to its lair, but some childhood memories still elude me. Introspection brought a lightening of mood and a kind of peace.
FRIDAY, MARCH 6: Gloomy day. Felt like hell. In the evening to skating carnival: better than usual because quieter, but there are no more than six things that can be done on skates and all were done hundreds of times. Brenda says I am impossible about it. But I grow weary of boredom, always being kind, a good father, and all the rest of the bourgeois life.
SUNDAY, MARCH 8: My appearance on TV12 was depressing because I appeared on it as such an oddity—a fat, woolly man, waving small fin-like hands, and cooing archly in a high, reedy voice—Brenda says this is not so, but one has one’s unflattering view of oneself.
TUESDAY, MARCH 24: Busy: wrote editorials; talked to Miss Rodney about income tax which is heavy this year: I pay up to 48% on some money, which makes the Star column less gladsome than it seems. Later, wonder if my Casanova play is likely to creep upon me in autumn.
FRIDAY, MARCH 27, GOOD FRIDAY: A good day: worked morning and afternoon on Chapter 5 and finished it. In the evening saw T.S. Eliot’s Family Reunion on TV, well done. I like Good Fridays as there is no obligation to make merry and one can do one’s work in peace.
SATURDAY, MARCH 28: Very busy morning as Ralph Hancox13 and Miss Whalon14 not in: do lead editorial and Star column amid interruptions. In the afternoon revise Chapter 5; in the evening paint and fill Easter eggs with Brenda; then splendid h.t.d. on floor in bedroom: this improves with time though frequency inevitably less.
SUNDAY, MARCH 29, EASTER: To Communion15 at 8; breakfast at 9 and unwisely ate a chocolate chicken, a gift of Mrs. Pedak.16 Brenda reads fifth chapter and says it is stodgy: must open it up.
Thirty years this Easter since first I heard the St. Matthew Passion and now my daughters sing in it. Do I feel any older or wiser? A little, but not enough: the thought of the Theatre Guild job hangs over me like a sword of Damocles. Wish I were a less fearful creature.
FRIDAY, APRIL 3: Again very busy: worried by the Ireland visit this summer. CBC wants me to do commentary at Stratford when Queen will be there in July. Quiet and restful evening and finish Angus Wilson’s The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot. Some boys smash one of our windows with snowballs: Herod understood boys.17 I am nervous and deeply apprehensive.
FRIDAY, APRIL 10: Up early and to Toronto. Dine at University Club and to Crest Theatre to The Entertainer, very well done but a hell of a play, the fashionable romanticism of despair.
SATURDAY, APRIL 11, TORONTO: Up early and take 8:10 train to Stratford for board meeting. Other board members Floyd Chalmers, Theodore Meighen,18 and Erwin Schuller19 on train. Long rather dull meeting and take 4:40 back with the same group. I enjoy Schuller’s talk: a really literate man. Home on the 11:15—a very long day but pleasant.
SUNDAY, APRIL 12: As always my discontent with Peterborough mounts in spring, and talking with Schuller and Chalmers disturbs me: how hard I work compared with them. Of course they create nothing and my writing is my hardest work, but my life is so provincial!
TUESDAY, APRIL 21: Worked well on Chapter 6. Brenda home from Toronto for dinner and gives me a detailed account of Michel St. Denis’s fine lecture and sharp criticism of the Method:20 she found it refreshing and stimulating. We talked about possibility of undergoing a Jungian analysis and she advises me to investigate when we are in New York.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22: Wonderful day, but my allergy bothered me and made me heavy-headed; worked in afternoon on Knopfbook, not badly. Evening read Dr. Esther Harding21 and have written to her for an appointment but will probably not get one. I could not manage analysis, if it meant leaving my job and living in New York.
THURSDAY, APRIL 23: Another superb day: work well and in evening read Harding. Continue to toy with idea of analysis but practical difficulties are great: I could afford it, but it would mean both Brenda and me living in New York and what about the girls? And what would it do to my work?
SATURDAY, APRIL 25: Wrote Star column on Jung in the morning and then to the cottage,22 where it is very beautiful. In the evening we motor to Cobourg and see the Canadian National Ballet in the charming old
Opera House. The governor general, Vincent Massey, was there and I spoke briefly to Lionel Massey,23 who looks furrowed and harried. Ballet somewhat coarse—no elegance; home by 12:15.
SUNDAY, MAY 3: Lay late with deep sense of peace, for I have fought through a great amount of work since Christmas and especially the past two weeks, but it is done and well done. Feel that Knopfbook is well in hand and that the play may even be a pleasure. Till now I have thought of it only as a bugbear and certain failure, but even if it does not work on Broadway, it can be a very good piece of work.
In 1955 Davies had begun having trouble with his left leg. It was weak and he often lost feeling in it after long periods of sitting. He could get no useful medical advice, but a chance conversation with a friend led him to the Alexander Technique, a system of thinking about movement for posture control and physical ease developed by F.M. Alexander at the end of the nineteenth century that had become popular particularly with actors and musicians. There was no Alexander teacher in Canada at the time, and in January 1956 Rob and Brenda went to New York for the first of many sessions with Lulie Westfeldt, who had studied with Alexander. Lulie Westfeldt and the Alexander Technique became important features in the lives of the Davieses. Most years they went to New York for lessons with her in May and again in December, and some years they met her in the summer as well.