A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster (67 page)

282
his job was “rescuing . . . Vere”:
EMF to Lionel Trilling, April 16, 1949, Columbia; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, II:237.

282
Placing the gorgeous, innocent figure of Billy:
EMF to WP, March 10, 1949, Durham.

282
“Why is it Vere’s touch”:
EMF to Lionel Trilling, April 16, 1949, Columbia; Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, II:237.

282
“soggy depression or growling remorse”:
EMF to Britten, early Dec. 1950, Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, II:242.

283
“yet he is Billy, not Christ”:
EMF to Britten, Dec. 20, 1948, Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, II:235.

283
“immersed in Billy Budd”:
Crozier to Nancy Evans, March 4, 1949, Mitchell et al., eds.,
Letters from a Life
, 497.

283
“sixteen remarkable Billy Budd days”:
EMF, Diary, April 12, 1949, KCC.

283
the “welter of technical [naval] terms”:
Crozier to Nancy Evans, Fri. [March 11, 1949], Mitchell et al., eds.,
Letters from a Life
, 498.

283
“typically generous”:
Crozier to Nancy Evans, March 4, 1949, quoted in Humphrey Carpenter,
Benjamin Britten
, 282.

283
“going through a period of revulsion”:
Crozier to Nancy Evans, March 6, 1949, quoted ibid.

283
“The great goodness and love of Bob”:
EMF, Diary, April 12, 1949, KCC.

283
Morgan began to plan:
Ibid.

283
“ought to be away from England”:
EMF to PC, Feb. 21, 1949, copy at KCC.

284
“I wish you could have [sketched] Bob”:
EMF to PC, April 21, 1949, copy at KCC.

284
“It was sad not seeing you”:
EMF to PC, June 18, 1949, KCC.

284
“Mr. Forster[’s] lifelong beloved”:
GW to Bernard Perlin, April 20, 1949, Beinecke.

284
“‘For being Morgan’”:
EMF, American Journal, 1949, KCC.

284
He crowed to a friend:
GW to Bernard Perlin, April 20, 1949, Beinecke.

284
“profound but not disturbing”:
EMF to GW, Feb. 28, 1949, Beinecke.

285
“In the American culture”:
Rosco,
Glenway Wescott
, 19.

285
a “prophet of a New America”:
Ibid., 46. This is the headline of a review in the
Boston Evening Transcript
.

285
“Glenway Wescott, Thornton Wilder and Julian Green”:
Ibid., 41.

285
“When you matriculate at the University of Chicago”:
Stein,
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
, 200.

285
“Freud Madox Fraud”:
Rosco,
Glenway Wescott
, 24.

286
“Dear Little George”:
Phelps, ed., Lynes, Wheeler correspondence, 1927–29, Beinecke.

286
It was Glenway’s “own fault”:
GW to George Platt Lynes, June 24, 1927, Beinecke.

286
The three men lived:
Phelps, ed.,
Continual Lessons
, 107. This is from a letter to Lloyd and Barbara Wescott, Feb. 26, 1943.

287
“seemed to consider the world a gift”:
Windham,
Tanaquil
, 84.
Tanaquil
is a novel, and this phrase describes Page, a photographer modeled on George Platt Lynes.

287
“worldliness personified”:
Wescott, ms. of “A Dinner, a Walk, a Talk . . . ,” Beinecke.

287
was “worried about it”:
GW to Bernard Perlin, June 1, 1949, Beinecke.

288
linking “ancient and primitive religions”:
Program, The American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of Arts and Letters Ceremonial Program, May 27, 1949.

288
It presented the “actual behavior of people”:
Kinsey et al.,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
, 3; quoted in Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex the Measure of All Things
, 259.

289
four percent of the men:
Kinsey et al.,
Sexual Behavior
, 651.

289
may have deliberately shaped his method:
Gathorne-Hardy,
Sex the Measure of All Things
, 259.

289
“all the staff”:
LK to CI, “Aug. last, 1949,” Huntington.

289
“went like a charm”:
GW to CI, May 16, 1949, Huntington.

290
“the cancer of unenforceable laws”:
Wescott, ms. of “A Dinner, a Walk, a Talk . . . ,” Beinecke.

290
not as much to “lumbermen, cattlemen, prospectors, miners and hunters”:
Kinsey et al.,
Sexual Behavior
, 631, 633.

290
Glenway was “surprised”:
GW to CI, May 16, 1949, Huntington.

290
“I favor reciprocal dishonesty”:
Monroe Wheeler datebook, Aug. 1949, Beinecke.

290
“I must say that it comforted me”:
Wescott, “A Dinner, a Walk, a Talk . . . ,” in J. H. Stape, ed.,
E. M. Forster: Interviews and Recollections
, 107.

291
“Effeminacy is only a manner”:
GW to CI, Sept. 20, 1971. Despite the date of the letter, GW makes it clear that the quotations are taken from contemporaneous notes on Forster’s conversation.

291
“A writer . . . who chose”:
Forster, “Art for Art’s Sake,” in
Two Cheers
, 88.

291
“I am the outsidest of outsiders”:
EMF to PC, Oct. 31, 1943. He is referring both to his limitation as a visual observer and his status as an artist.

291
“I would sooner be a swimming rat”:
Forster,
Two Cheers
, 93–94.

292
“beat it” to Glenway’s farm:
GW to EMF, Feb. 20, 1949, Beinecke.

292
“nature to advantage dress’d”:
Alexander Pope, “Essay on Criticism,” II:297–98.

292
“I don’t even use my truncheon”:
Wescott, “A Dinner, A Walk, a Talk . . .,” in J. H. Stape, ed.,
E. M. Forster: Interviews and Recollections
, 105.

292
“Mutual secrecy”:
Forster,
Aspects of the Novel
, 47.

293
“perfect for each other”:
Interview with Jon Anderson, Oct. 10, 2007.

293
“the toughest man”:
LK to CI, April 26, 1950, Huntington.

293
“reject[ing] intimacy without impairing affection”:
Forster, “T. E. Lawrence,” in A. W. Lawrence, ed.,
T. E. Lawrence by His Friends
, 285.

293
“Now, don’t you see better?”:
Wescott, “A Dinner, A Walk, a Talk . . . ,” in J. H. Stape, ed.,
E. M. Forster: Interviews and Recollections
, 106.

294
“[w]hen a camera approaches”:
Roerick, “Forster and America,” in Oliver Stallybrass, ed.,
Aspects of E. M. Forster
, 62.

294
“the subject whom he was photographing”:
Windham, “Which Urges,” 27.

294
“When Lynes photographed me”:
Ibid.

296
“the greatest collection of dirty art in the world”:
LK to CI, “Aug. last, 1949,” Huntington.

296
“great affection for America”:
EMF to GW, Nov. 22, 1951, Beinecke.

296
“The American life would have proved unendurable”:
Wescott, ms. of “A Dinner, a Walk, a Talk . . . ,” Beinecke. Though GW refers to “someone” telling him this, Kirstein, Cadmus, and Isherwood were likely his sources.

296
“Sometimes I wish”:
EMF to Monroe Wheeler, Jan. 1951, Beinecke.

296
a suspected “cancer?”:
EMF, Diary, Dec. 27, 1948, KCC.

297
“a tendency to dry-dock feeling”:
Eric Crozier quoted in Humphrey Carpenter,
Benjamin Britten
, 287.

297
“in a funny abstracted mood”:
Britten to Erwin Stein, quoted ibid., 297.

297
“one of [my] corpses”:
Mitchell et al., eds.,
Letters from a Life
, 521. Letter from Crozier to Nancy Evans, July [n.d.] 1949.

298
“Morgan was slow”:
Burrell, quoted in Humphrey Carpenter,
Benjamin Britten
, 290.

298
“To me, [Morgan] was chilly but polite”:
Crozier quoted ibid., 290.

298
“berated [Ben] like a schoolboy”:
Crozier to Furbank, in Furbank,
E. M. Forster
, II:285.

298
“I am rather a fierce old man”:
EMF, Diary, Dec. 31, 1950, KCC.

298
“Heavens the excitement”:
EMF to Tom Coley, Nov. 21, 1951.

299
a way to “wrestle with the void”:
EMF, Diary, June 29, 1950, KCC.

299
“gnawed by my failure”:
Ibid.

299
“As for Bob,”:
EMF, Diary, Dec. 31, 1950, KCC.

299
“but not at an accessible layer”:
Ibid.

299
“a little polished shell”:
Ibid.

301
“offered a Knighthood”:
EMF to JRA, Dec. 2, 1949, HRC. Morgan told Ackerley that he was surprised to have been approached, since Benjamin Britten had a theory that the king would not offer a knighthood to a homosexual.

301
“the nursing home”:
EMF to BB, Dec. 2, 1949, KCC.

301
“I seem to be a Great Man”:
Ackerley,
E. M. Forster
, 3.

301
“My fame is much more of a pleasure”:
EMF, Locked Diary, Jan. 10, 1949, KCC.

302
“if the Queen had been a boy”:
Furbank,
E. M. Forster
, II:289.

302
“Well, I got my little toy”:
Quoted ibid.

302
the boy with “a tattoo on his fingers”:
EMF to WP, n.d., Durham.

302
Their friendship was a “prank”:
EMF, Locked Diary, May 11, 1966, KCC.

303
“deprived of a house”:
Forster,
Marianne Thornton
, 205.

304
“I assumed the letters would be nothing much”:
EMF to Furbank, July 16, 1958, Lago and Furbank, eds.,
Selected Letters
, II:271.

304
a “silly idle useless unmanly little boy”:
Forster, “The Other Boat,” in
The Life to Come
, 170.

304
“Two people made to destroy each other”:
Furbank,
E. M. Forster
, II:303. This entry is from Furbank’s diary, dated Oct. 25, 1958.