Graham Greene (6 page)

Have you ever noticed how useful numbers are in filling up a letter? Take the tip the next time you write to anyone. If you can’t think of anything to say just write something like this, ‘I hope you are in the best of health, myself I am somewhat

  
¹²

You can go on like this for a long time. Then they may think you are very deep, or they may think you are mad, & then
they
won’t write to you again, or else they’ll try & work it out, & then I am quite sure you’ll never have to write to
them
for a second time.

Of course, it may not look as if this little lecture has anything to do with your birthday, but it has really. Only it’s very subtle, & very, oh so very, deep. You’ll probably not understand it till you get into
treble years, though of course if it’s only a question of eighty-nine – I wish you’d consult a mathematician about it, or ‘teacher’ or somebody & set my mind at rest. As Mr Leslie Henson
¹³
sang

O, the last line doesn’t mean that at all. Don’t be ridiculous. You are very rude. Even if you are in double figures, you needn’t say that kind of thing.

What’s that? You didn’t. Then that thin & tenuous whisper that seemed just now to float mockingly round my head, tickling the back of my nose into a sneeze, cannot have been you at all. If it was Hugh, sock him one on the point of the jaw.

The enclosed letter is for Mumma, the book for you. Don’t muddle the two up, & keep the letter yourself & give the book to Mumma.

Love & happy returns

from Graham

On
22
January 1925, Graham, along with other young poets from Oxford, Harold Acton, Brian Howard, Joseph Macleod, Patrick Monkhouse and A. L. Rowse, read poems on the BBC
.

Balliol College, | Oxford [23 January 1925]

Dear Hugh,

Many thanks for the P.O.
¹⁴
You may as well throw the other books away. Congratulations on being moved up. Don’t work too hard!!

I went & had tea at Aunt N’s yesterday. I enjoyed the broadcasting
very much, though I felt extremely nervous. People in Oxford seem to have heard very clearly, did you? I read a thing, which has just been accepted by the
Weekly Westminster
. I’m rather glad, as their rate of pay has gone up. We sat in a kind of sumptuous drawing room, with beautiful armchairs & sofas, & each in turn had to get up & recite in front of a beautiful blue draped box on a table. I felt like Harold swearing on the saint’s bones. Now I’ve got to set to work & snatch a guinea from the
Oxford Chronicle
for a humorous account of it,
¹⁵
but I don’t know how to be humorous. Here’s a cig-card for Elisabeth.

Love,
     Graham

P.S. The B.B.C. got very nervous, when Bryan Howard started on his naked lady. They say they have to be very careful indeed.

This letter appears in the papers at the Huntington Library of Patrick Balfour (Lord Kinross), a gossip writer and friend of Evelyn Waugh. The addressee is unidentified
.

Balliol College, | Oxford [1925?]

Dear — —,

Perhaps it would be best to let out any ill-feeling there may be in a properly arranged fight in some agreed place, now that you are cooler. Not pokers of course. All lethal weapons must be excluded, as I should be so sorry if my young life (or even yours) came to an untimely end.

Yours affectionately,
     Graham Greene

In an issue of
Oxford Outlook
, Graham referred slightingly to ‘worship’ of the Virgin Mary. He received a letter from Vivienne Dayrell-Browning (later she altered the spelling of her first name), a Catholic convert who was Basil Blackwell’s private secretary, telling him that Mary was not worshipped but venerated, the technical term being ‘hyperdulia’
.
¹⁶
According to her recently discovered birth certificate, Dayrell-Browning was born in
1904
(not 1905) in Rhodesia; she died in
2003
at the age of ninety-nine. Her childhood was excruciating. Her father had an affair; her mother left him and required her at the age of fifteen to write a letter, ending their relationship
.
¹⁷
By the time Graham encountered her, Vivien had developed into a brilliant, complex and slightly eccentric young woman, ruled by a bitter mother. Doubtful about men and marriage, she hesitated as Graham flirted. Their courtship ought to have demonstrated that they were not suited to each other; nonetheless, they were married on
15
October 1927
.

Junior Common Room | Balliol College | Oxford [March 1925]

Dear Miss Dayrell,

I most sincerely apologise. I’m afraid any excuses will sound very lame. But I wrote the article in a frightful hurry, & without preconceiving it, as the paper was already in press. At the same time I was feeling intensely fed up with things, & wanted to be as offensive all round as I could. One forgets that
The Outlook
is read by other than undergraduates, whose thick hides challenge attacks of every description.

I really am very sorry. Will you forgive me, & come & have tea with me as a sign of forgiveness?

Yours sincerely,
     Graham Greene

Along with Ezra Pound, with whom she fell out, Amy Lowell (1874–1925) was a leading Imagist poet. She planned a reading tour of England to follow the publication of her biography of Keats in February 1925. Graham’s interest in her work was probably matched by a mischievous desire to bring a cigar-smoking lesbian to the university
.

Balliol College, | Oxford. [
c
. 1 March 1925]

Dear Miss Lowell,

I am writing on behalf of The Ordinary, the University Literary Club, to ask whether you could possibly be so good as to pay us a visit, when you are in England. If you would be so kind, perhaps you would let me know a date that would be convenient for you?

Yours sincerely,
     Graham Greene
        (Sec.)

Lowell accepted for
29
April, but cancelled because of illness. She died of a stroke on
12
May
.

29 Museum Road [n.d.]

Dear Miss Dayrell,

Splendid. Do you mind keeping me company in disreputability? Respectability I have left behind at my Summertown digs, & I dare not fetch it, since my land lady believes I am at home, & would be horribly annoyed to find I’d merely changed my digs.

The cinema with me has reached mania. I average four times a week. Every now & then I catch myself talking of live wires & the game kid, who could overdraw two dollars out of a Wisconsin County Bank, & was as quick as a Kentucky sausage.

Will seven o’clock at the George suit you?

I will pray for Skyscrapers & Sixshooters, for Black Jake of Dead Man’s Gulch, & the Man with the Broken Finger Nail.

Yours,
     Graham Greene

Balliol College| Oxford | Tues. 26 May | 11.10 p.m.

It must be rather fun collecting Souls, Vivienne. Like postage stamps. Last addition to collection Undergraduate Versifier, a common kind. Fair specimen, but badly sentimentalised. Colouring rather faded. Will exchange for Empire Exhibition Special Stamp, or ninepence in cash.

I wish you weren’t so futilely far off. I don’t mean the mile & a half between Magdalen Street & Thorncliffe Rd. Or I wish I weren’t in love with you. I’ve always enjoyed it before, even when I thought I was being miserable. So I could stand outside & write jangly verse & say to myself ‘That’s a good idea. That’s how I feel.’ But I don’t know how I feel now. I enjoyed this evening marvellously, but now I’ve got back I feel you are just as far away as ever, & that it’s just as hopeless that you will ever be more than mildly interested in that blasted non-existent soul of mine. This letter will help you to analyse the specimen won’t it?

What it all comes to, I suppose, is that I’ve never really been in love before, only suggested myself into a state of mild excitement in which I could draw fifteen bob out of the
Westminster
for a piece of verse. I can’t do that now though. I can’t think nearly clear enough to fit anything into a metre. You wouldn’t expect me to write verse when I was blind drunk would you? All this is ‘absurd.’ Of course it is to you. You can’t sympathise I suppose, any more than I can with the excitement & scurry of ants. Though how you can expect to know anyone’s mind or soul or anything, when you are so far off, I don’t know.

I don’t know why I’m being so heavy & horrid, when really I’m
frightfully grateful to you for to-night. If you ask me to, I won’t say a single serious thing, when I next see you. I won’t even talk about you, if you ask me not to. It’s wonderful what you put up with. With love (which you won’t understand
¹⁸
).
     Graham

The blot is not carefully arranged to show desperation, but my thumb slipped.

Do send me the snapshot you half said you would. Nine days! If you do, I’ll even discuss the Budget or the latest books with you. G.

On
1
May 1925, Basil Blackwell published Graham’s first book, a collection of poems. He had also finished a novel called ‘Anthony Sant’. Although Blackwell rejected it, the literary agent A. D. Peters liked it and tried, unsuccessfully, to find a publisher. In his last term at Oxford, Graham accepted a position in China with the British American Tobacco Company but resigned after a period of training
.

The School House | Berkhamsted [
c
. June 1925]

Dear Mr. Peters,

I must confess to a horrid crime. Being rather bored & not knowing how long I shall remain in England, as I am running for a post in China, I sent the volume of verse altered & revised, under the title of
Babbling April
, to Blackwell, who published it last month. Alas! I went & contracted for first refusal of my next two books, & sent the revised A.S. to him. I wrote yesterday asking him to come to a decision, & will write again today enclosing your letter, & asking him to let me know within a week. In any case, I shall be free of my contract I think by August, as I shall have a long poem ready for him by then. I have just started on a new novel,
which I think will [illeg.] than the A.S. If I may, I will send it you, when finished.

Yours sincerely,
     Graham Greene

29. Thorncliffe Rd. | Oxford [1925]

Dear Mr. de la Mare,

I hope it will not be presumptuous of me to send you this, my first book. I expect you’ve forgotten who I am, unless you remember our strawberry tea at Berkhamsted.

Yours sincerely,
     Graham Greene

Vivien had written, ‘Do you know you’ve had a letter every day this week? I shall appoint myself chairman of a Committee empowered to look into the matter & draw up a report.’

[2 June 1925]

On behalf of the shareholders of this Company I should like to state that we are fully satisfied with the management of the Chairman & Board, & would like the business of the Company carried on in the future on the same lines, which have proved so eminently satisfactory in the past. I should like to move a vote of very sincere thanks to, & confidence in, the Chairman & Directors of this Company.

I can’t say this in the Board Room, but the Chairman is the most wonderful person in the world.

You darling!

On Friday
, 20
June 1925, Graham and Vivien said a ‘final goodbye’ by the river at Wolvercote. However, the courtship resumed shortly after
.

The School House | Berkhamsted | 10 a.m. Mon. [22 June 1925]

I haven’t written before. I haven’t had much time, except in nearly four hours of ghastly train journey, & anyway I hoped I might be able to write a bit cheerfuller this morning. I’m sorry if I can’t. Your letter was lovely.

You were quite right about saying goodbye outside Oxford. I couldn’t have stood the bus journey back. And it is of value to have been the first person you’ve kissed. But it doesn’t make me feel a bit pleased with myself. It only makes me wonder how somebody like you can exist, who’s willing to do something you don’t want to do, just because a friend of yours is so mundane that he can’t do without it. And even if I can’t say as much, I can say that I’ve never kissed anyone I’ve wanted to really badly before, or held off for so long, for fear of offence. You are so precious that I’m afraid of doing or saying any thing which might prevent me seeing you.

Now I’m writing a horrid depressing sort of letter, which will come just when you’ve got nice & cheerful again, & giving a free lift to your shoulders & saying ‘Well at last, he’s over.’ You see, our depressions are so different. You feel melancholy, because you think you may not see a friend again. I’m depressed, because I love you so frightfully, & even though I do see you again several times, I shan’t be able to feel that you are there, living in the same place, & that I can always ring you up at any moment & hear your voice, even if it’s an angry or a bored voice. It’s all so silly that I should love someone, whom I should want to marry, whatever conditions she might choose to make, but just the someone who wouldn’t marry me on any conditions. It’s bad luck at the least. […]