I appreciate your considerate news about the multitude of rejection slips and will be glad to get back the poems so I can reassemble them and try to get leads on the British literary magazines. Can’t wait till I get established and can really start writing again. I feel this spring should be most fruitful. An acceptance now, of course, would be most kind to my morale. I’ve been living, acting, and being so much lately that it will be pleasant to grow contemplative and gestate again, “recollecting in tranquillity.” …
… I would welcome any cookies … to remind me of home. I shall probably sound quite homesick these first few weeks; I always enjoy giving love, and it is slightly painful to have it shut up in one until deep friendships develop with fruitful, reciprocal confidences involved. Do bear with me. It really helps to write you and will be nice to establish a regular correspondence where we answer each other instead of talking in a sort of vacuum.
I have to begin life on all fronts at once again, as I did two years ago, but I have all that experience behind me … Remember, I love you very, very much, and give my dearest love to my favorite brother and the grandparents.
Your own Sivvy
OCTOBER 5, 1955
… Thought I’d follow up my rather tristful Sunday letter with news of the cheerful days following. Honestly, I love it here….
… I can’t wait to start meeting the British men, instead of all these familiar Americans. Imagine, the ratio here is 10 men to each woman! Evidently, as this vivid Margaret Robarts (the S. African with the motorcycle) told me, you could spend all your time doing nothing but seeing men socially, once you begin meeting them. I bought the Varsity Handbook, which tells about absolutely everything here and is quite witty. Extracurric life makes organizations at home look like child’s play. There is a club for everything from Esperanto to wine-tasting to Gepettos (puppetry) to tiddleywinks! Clubs for each Faculty, social clubs, talent clubs, and hundreds of musical and theatrical societies.
Writing is evidently “in the doldrums.” I gather the University magazines rise and rapidly wither, and from the one I glimpsed on the stands, poetry is fast fading from galloping consumption. I’m going to try finding out the British lit. magazines and pounding at them. My first poem published here officially will make me feel honestly a literary citizen.
Today I see my Director of Studies: don’t know how I can ever choose between the miraculous smorgasbord of lecturers: much more tantalizing even than Smith! Bye for now. Love to all.
Your own happy Sivvy
OCTOBER 9, 1955
… Today is the anniversary of my first week in Cambridge, and as yet, all is poised on the threshold, expectant, tantalizing, about to begin. Lectures started Friday, and I have already been to four, but I have yet to establish the regular schedule of my days. I am most excited about my program, which I arranged with my director of studies, Miss Burton … who is to be my supervisor of studies this term (e.g., I meet with her and another student once a week and do papers on Tragedy) and [my] practical composition and criticism tutor (also one hour a week). This is apparently the only regular work I will be asked to produce, as there are no exams until a year from this coming June! I have chosen the exams I will “read for” and am at present wondering how two years will ever be enough! My lectures are chosen to lead into the subjects I’ve picked for exams.
There are six exams in all, three required. Of these, two are on composition and criticism (general) and one enormous one on Tragedy! This is marvelous for me, because over the next two years I’ll be reading tragedy from the classics up to the modern French playwrights, Pirandello, Cocteau, etc., which includes enormous hunks of literature I’ve never seen before. (This term I’m attending lectures in the history of tragic theory, tragedy from Racine to the present, and Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy.)
… The other exam is on the English Moralists in relation to the history of moral thought, which is a fat exam with a huge reading list, and I picked it not only because I know nothing about it, but because I’ll have a chance to read a great deal in philosophy and ethics: from Aristotle to D. H. Lawrence! The third paper I chose was the history of literary criticism, with reference to English literature. This again seems excellent, because I’ll have to read both criticism and the literature.
For the first time, I’m taking a program which should slowly spread pathways and bridges over the whistling voids of my ignorance. My lecture schedule is about 11 hours (morning) during the week with men whose books are beginning to fill my shelves: F. R. Leavis on criticism: a magnificent, acid, malevolently humorous little man who looks exactly like a bandy-legged leprechaun; Basil Willey on the moralists (he’s written enormous, readable books on the 17th, 18th, and 19th century backgrounds); and, if I have time next term, David Daiches on the Modern English Novel. (Really “modern,” I think, instead of the usual concept of “modern” here: e.g., “modern poets” are considered to be Wordsworth, Arnold, and Coleridge!) I must admit, my enormous ignorances appall me (all I seem to have read is Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, the 19th and 20th century writers!), but instead of feeling frustrated, I am slowly, slowly going to remedy the situation by reading and reading (most work here is independent reading) from the lists until my awareness grows green and extensive as my philodendron at home!
… Daily life here is at last becoming usual, so before everything becomes natural, I’ll tell you a few details that struck me as unique at first. Our rooms are cool enough to keep butter and milk in (!) and I can see why there are so few iceboxes here. Imagine, in the morning when I get up to wash in the bathroom, my breath hangs white in the air in frosty clouds! …
… In lectures, women are very much the minority, which is a pleasant change, and I imagine much the way it is at Harvard and Radcliffe.
… I’m going to investigate a Dramatic Society today, and if there is no room for amateur beginners like me, I’ll try the college newspaper. I hope to submit to the little pamphlet magazines here “free lance” and perhaps shall join the Labour Club, as I really want to become informed on politics, and it seems to have an excellent program. I am definitely not a Conservative, and the Liberals are too vague and close to the latter. I shall also investigate the Socialists, and may, just for fun, go to a meeting or two of the Communist Party (!) here later on. Anyhow, I hope to join a group where I can meet people socially who share my interests, instead of just viewing them from afar at lectures….
Newnham is to be honored on October 20th by a visit from the Queen herself and the Duke (their first visit to Cambridge) and so the place is already in preparation for her coming. I can’t believe I shall actually see her in the flesh. Imagine, she’s coming to open a new veterinary laboratory: how poetic!
… When I am acclimated here, to the work, first of all, and the people, I want to try to do a few articles on the atmosphere here, and if I am ambitious, a sketch or two, to try out for the Monitor. As yet, I feel too much an initiate to hold forth. The same holds true of writing. We’re allowed only three weeks by the Fulbright abroad each of the small vacations (December and April, roughly) so I think I shall stay in Whitstead for a week or two in each of the 5-week Cambridge vacs to write and catch up on my reading, as it is less than $2 a day to stay on for board and room. Lord knows what I will finally do in my vacations. I would like to ski in the Tyrolean Alps and go to southern France and Italy, but it remains to be seen when and with whom. As yet I do not know if Sassoon is going to be at the Sorbonne, which I sincerely hope he will be, because it would be ideal to have such a connoisseur escort me around Paris. But that is still a vague dream.
… Much love to all—Sivvy
OCTOBER 14, 1955
Dearest Mother,
Hello again! I’ve told you the grimmer side of the week [she’d been ill], let me tell you the lovely part. To begin with, I went with some of the girls at Newnham to a Labour Party Dance Monday night. It reminded me a little of the old dancing school days, but once I got out on the floor, I didn’t lac
k for partners. In particular, one tall, rather handsome, dark-haired chap, named Mallory Wober, caught my interest. He is a Londoner and has lived nine years in India (where his father is an executive of some sort), is reading for Natural Sciences, and seems extremely versatile, with a nice kind of humor … I think he “goes with” another girl here, but he invited me to tea with her and another boy Thursday (sufficient reason to make me recover and leap out of the Newnham hospital) in his “digs.” It is the habit here, I gather, to write notes of invitation (which he did) and for the girls to go to the boy’s place for tea or coffee … Seeing young men make tea is still a source of silent mirth to me!
Anyhow, Mallory has his own piano in his rooms and evidently is a brilliant pianist (he had Scarlatti’s Sonatas out and the [a] Brandenburg Concerto, and much else that made me regret my own lack of musical knowledge and understanding). The other girl, Elizabeth somebody, was British and had just come in from “beagling” (hunting animals with beagles, I think) and was the kind of fair-skinned, rather hysterical and breathless type of English girl I’ve met so far. I must say, I am happy living in Whitstead where the girls are mature and well-rounded. I love this vital South African girl, Margaret Robarts, and the lovely blonde Marshall scholar, Jane Baltzell, from Rhode Island, who is reading English with me.
… Best news of all is the next. I decided to go out systematically for several activities I was interested in, so that I would have a chance to meet people socially this way. Well, I made a mental list: theater groups, newspaper, political clubs, and decided to try from the top. I had my audition (with about 100 other people at least) for the A.D.C. (Amateur Dramatic Club) here, which is the top of the several acting groups here and is the only one to have its own theater, where all the student productions are played out. I was scared to death as we all sat in the theater together, and I watched about 20 people have auditions before me, which was a bit gruelling. Also, I still had the end of my sinus cold and felt a bit giddy.
Well, once I got up there on stage, the natural ham in me came out, and so I did a bit of Rosalind in As You Like It (we could choose from ten set Shakespearean pieces) and the part of Camille in Tennessee Williams’ play Camino Real. I also made a few remarks in between, describing a stage set which made them all have a siege of laughter, and this was most gratifying. Anyhow, I had no idea how I did, but one nice, ugly little boy came up to me later on the street and told me admiringly what a wonderful voice I had, that it filled the whole auditorium! Such joy!
The pleasant upshot of all this is that I am one of the nine girls to become a member of the Amateur Dramatic Club this term.
This coming Saturday night, we are putting on three 1-act plays in a “nursery” production to which influential people will be invited to see the “new talent” A.D.C. offers. All of the new members have [a] part in a play; mine happens to be not the feminine lead, but a rather dramatic character part in a farce by Pope about cuckoldry (!) in which I play a verbose niece who has high-flown and very funny ambitions to write plays and poetry. I come in about four times and have a short part (as do most of the players), so it is just enough to be stimulating …
Well, I just had to spill over my little triumph. Cross your fingers for me. I think I’ll have a really good time in this Dramatic Club …
Best love to all,
Your loving daughter, Katherine Cornell
P.S. Your letters are a constant joy! They really capture the spirit of home. I love hearing news about everyone and the “little things” count most!
Sivvy
OCTOBER 18, 1955
Dearest Licensed Mother!!!
[I had finally received my driver’s license.]
… I am in a marvelous mood. I feel as if I had planted a tree in new soil and were watching a few blossoms open slowly, lovely things, but, best of all, promising the most delectable fruit to come in the maturing sun. Such wild metaphors! It is probably the influence of my absurdly verbose appearances in our coming one-act play.
Instead of being snowed by the enormous amount of work and reading I must do to gain the full benefit of my academic life here, I am sturdily doing a little at a time and feeling most happy….
I have been going to lectures and enjoying them immensely and am quite loving wearing my black gown, which makes me feel so wonderfully a part of this magnificent place. Sort of like sacramental robes! Best of all, my dear, adorable play director gave me the ultimate laurel today by saying my performance was “excruciatingly funny” and doubling up with laughter. I was so happy, because the part of this mad poetess, Phoebe Clinkett, is rather absurd farce and depends on a kind of double entendre slanting of words and gestures which I tried today, having just learned my part, 15 flighty, rather verbose speeches … I just hope that I can audition for some of the larger productions after this. My voice is the main thing in my favor. I have, of course, never moved about on stage except in the ancient Admirable Crichton [high school play] …
A tall, skinny, rather sweet chap came over yesterday and took me on an exquisite walk to Granchester for tea. I can’t describe how beautiful it was to go down the little cobbled streets in the pink twilight with the mists rising from the willows along the river and white horses and black cows grazing in the pastures. Remember Rupert Brooke’s poem? Well, we had tea by a roaring fire at “the orchard” (where they serve tea under flowering trees in spring) and the “clock was set at ten of three” and there was the most delectable dark clover honey and scones! …
Much love to all,
Your happy Sivvy
MONDAY NIGHT
OCTOBER 24, 1955
Dearest Mother,
“Why, Emmaline! Where have you been?” “To see the Queen!” Yes, I stood about a yard from the gracious Queen Saturday morning, speechless with excitement. It rained and rained all morning, and the royal party was scheduled to visit Newnham (for sherry and a few presentations) on their way to open a veterinary lab. All of us gathered in the dining room in our black gowns on either side of the aisle up which the Queen and Duke were going to walk. I stood right at the foot of the little platform on which the ceremonies were to take place and felt an eagerness which surprised me.
After many false alarms, there was a hush; then we all cheered as the royal couple walked into our humble dining hall with its white wedding-cake ceiling. The Queen looked quietly radiant in a Kelly-green princess-style coat and hat, and the Duke was most talkative and humorous, with a smile that passed all believing; he was enchanting ! They stopped at random and chatted with girls down the line, the Duke making many amusing observations. Then four of the top students of Newnham were “presented” to the Queen and Duke. It was all quite lovely, and I ran out in the rain afterwards to see them go off in the royal car (again feeling unaccountably elated to be within touching distance of the handsome pair). Camera bulbs flashed, more cheers, and they were off for lunch at Trinity College.
A rather amusing sequel occurred in the afternoon. I was biking in the rain to the ADC theater for a last rehearsal before the performance that night and saw crowds of people lining the long road down which I had to hurry to reach my destination. I asked a policeman when the royal car was coming, and he laughed and said, “In a couple of minutes; hurry up.” So the policemen (in their best white slickers) beckoned me on, and I flew down the street in my red mackintosh on my bicycle, feeling that I should be scattering rose petals or something, while a ripple of laughter ran through the waiting crowds. If I’d had the courage, I would have bowed right and left as I went by, but didn’t want to create a mob scene. I must say the royal couple is most genial and attractive, with a kind of radiance which appeals to me. I do, however, envy them not at all the daily round of functions which must be their lot. Apparently, they enjoy it no end, though, and the people certainly all turned out to cheer their Queen in the pouring rain! …
… I had the loveliest time last night with the boy I met at the Labour Club dance and went to tea with last week—Mallory W
ober. He gets more and more dimension each time I see him. First of all, he is extremely handsome in a rugged way, quite different from the pale, delicately made Englishman. He is tall, strong, with coal-black hair and vivid red cheeks and boldly cut features. He is a Natural Sciences major, and imagine my delight when yesterday afternoon, a gray rainy time, he settled me in a large, comfortable chair with a glass of sherry and played the piano for me for over an hour: Beethoven, Scarlatti, Haydn, with comments now and then. He plays excellently and has a sense of humor in his interpretations about it which helps me understand the music. Then we dropped in at the ADC party; then to the most magnificent Sunday night concert in the King’s College dining hall, where the architecture looked like a lace of shadows and light, and we heard Hindemith (oboe and piano), Bartok (two violins) and Schubert’s songs for five of Heine’s poems! Then the Taj Mahal, an Indian restaurant, where Mallory spoke Hindustani and introduced me to mangoes and bindhi quaht (he’s lived in Darjeeling for nine years) and the waiters. Biked home after a perfect evening. Do hope to see more of him. Must work hard this week. Very happy—
Sivvy
OCTOBER 29, 1955
Dearest Mother,
Greetings from your happily aged daughter! [October 27 was her twenty-third birthday.] It was so lovely to get your telegram and the wonderful birthday gifts and letters from Warren, you and Dotty [my sister] and dear Grammy and Grampy. I must say the best present anyone can give me is a fat typed letter: all the news from home, even the tiniest daily details, are most welcome. Strange, but true, I feel so close to you all, as if I were only a short drive away. Probably it is that the language is native to me (even if the accent isn’t!) and that from my childhood I built up by reading a feeling for England (I’d forgotten how many British writers I must have read, but so much here seems dearly loved already because I’ve met it before in my reading: the rooks and tea time from The Cuckoo Clock, the poetry about Granchester and the Cam, crumpets and scones from T. S. Eliot)….