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The Last Word
A Record of
the Auxiliary Library at Tor House
compiled by Maureen Girard
This is a very long document for a web page.
Please be patient as you search or peruse it.
"S. J." The Round Towers of Ireland: Their Origin and
Uses. Belfast: D. T. Doherty, 1886. Notes: Under the appellation "S.
J." on title page, Una writes, "John Salmon." The introduction identifies this
work as an essay which was originally read "in St. Mary’s Minor Hall, Belfast,
on the evening of 10th November, 1886, before a large and appreciative
audience." In the margin on the page headed "Authorities," Una has added,
"Forbes, John, M. D., F. R. S., memorandums made in Ireland in the autumn of
1852. [Published?] 1883." Note alongside says, "This has a good chapter on Round
Towers. . . ." Like most of the notes here, this is in tiny, faded, almost
indecipherable script. The notes do, however, appear to be Una’s in all cases.
(It will require a magnifying glass, an Irish dictionary and some additional
time to decipher all of Una’s emendations here.) Page 14: Una marks a
passage concerning the construction of the Round Tower of Devenish: "The stones
used in the construction were all chiselled to the requisite curve, internally
and externally, before being placed in position. Those of Ardmore Tower were
similarly shaped. The quantity of mortar employed in some of the Towers is so
small that a close inspection is necessary to discern it." Page 20: The
text reads, "Owing to the discrepancies which confront one in sundry works, it
is difficult to state, with confidence, the precise number of Round Towers,
intact or partially ruinous, at present in the island." Una notes in the margin,
"70 to 80--see Forks." She marks a passage further on which refers to the
"vandalism of one of the Marquises of Downshire in 1789" in connection with the
destruction of the "Round Tower which formerly stood at Downpatrick." Page
25: The text reads, "It is too late to tell the world that history is a
blank respecting the Round Towers when an Irish archaeologist like George Petrie
has shown that existing Irish records deal with them. . . ." Una notes in the
margin, "But all do not agree with him. See Godkin’s "Rel. Hist. Ireland."
Page 28: When the writer asserts that coins were deposited "under the floor
at construction of the Tower" of Kildare, thereby proving a Christian origin for
the tower, Una notes in the margin, "No! They are proof under the foundation
stone." A difficult-to-read note by Una accompanies a discussion in the text
of the linguistic clues to the earliest erection of round towers; she appears to
disagree with and correct the author’s perception. Page 41: The text
reads, "Those who hold that the Round Towers were fire-temples are entitled to
explain why there are two or more Round Towers in one place." Una notes in the
margin, "Save [unreadable] to the argument that they were bell-towers. If so,
why two adjoining [at] Cloun Moonoise." Page 67: Una marks the author’s
acknowledgment that the arguments in Petrie’s Inquiry into the Origin and
Uses of the Round Towers and "Religious History of Ireland" by James Godkin,
are persuasive.
"The Studio" Year-Book of Decorative
Art, 1919: With Special Articles on Cottage Design, Decoration, and
Equipment. Publication information obscured by pasted-in clippings.
Notes: This book represents a serious study on Una’s part of English village
architecture and landscapes; it contains dozens of clippings showing
architectural details, landscape features, interior sketches, and fabric and
wallpaper designs. Clippings of some sites of historical interest are also
pasted in. (All notes and legends appear to be in Una’s handwriting.) Inside
front cover: Clipped pictures of West Wycombe; Stratford on Avon Almshouses;
Eynsford, Kent; Thaxted, Essex; Windmill on Mousehold Heath, near Norwich; The
Manor House, Wool. Title page: Clipped pictures of The Glory Hole,
London; Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire; "The Typical English Village: Bredon," and
Worcestershire. Table of Contents pages: Clipped pictures of Winsford,
Somerset; Tolpuddle; Dovdale; Ovington Mill, River Itchen; An Axmouth Smithy;
The Wharf, Berkshire (Lord Oxford). Facing page 1: Clipped pictures of
The Priest’s Walk, Lincoln and "Sir Cloudesley Shovell’s quaint old house in the
Old Town, Hastings." Page 3: Clipped picture of "The Old Postoffice,
Tintagel." Page 5: Clipped picture of the Flower Pot Yard, Norwich.
Page 7: Clipped picture of Dunster Castle. Page 10: Clipped pictures
of "Beyond Steyning"; Long Itchington; Southam; and Warwick. Page 15: Old
Shropshire Cottage. Page 32: Chipping Cawden; Welford-on-Avon. Page
35: Clipped picture captioned "Inn, Cambridge." Page 36: Clipped
picture of Warwick. Page 37: Clipped picture of Kidwelly Castle,
Carmathenshire. Page 39: Clipped picture of Campbelltown, Kintyre.
Page 40: Clipped pictures of the drawing room in William Morris’s home and
an unnamed village scene. Page 46: Clipped picture of Chenies,
Buckinghamshire. Page 51: Clipped picture of Pinchingfield, Essex.
Page 60: Clipped picture of Carisbrooke Castle. Page 61: Clipped
pictures of Farley Mount, near Winchester and Stonehaven, Kincarden. Page 62:
Clipped pictures of a scene in the Cotswolds, and of Turville, Bucks, in the
Chilterns. Page 63: Clipped pictures of Guys Cliff Mill, Warwick, and of
Ringmer. Page 64: Clipped picture of the Old Plow Inn at Speen, near High
Wycombe, Bucks. Page 67: Clipped picture of Mermaid Street, Rye; of the
interior of a cottage kitchen; and of Alconbury, Weston, Huntingdon. Page 68:
Clipped picture of Hurstmonceux Castle, near Pevensey. Page 70: Clipped
picture of Huddington Court, near Droitwich, Worcestershire. Page 71:
Clipped picture captioned "Gravel Walk, at Forncett, Where Dorothy Wordsworth
lived with her uncle, Canon of Windsor." Page 72: Clipped pictures of "Bodrhyddan
Hall (Denbeigh Flintshire Hunt)" and Green Dragon Inn, Welton, Yorkshire, "where
Dick Turpin was captured." Page 73: Clipped pictures of a gathering of
Cabinet ministers at Mount Stewart, Ireland, and of a 1672 drawing of the baths
at Bath. Page 74: Clipped pictures of scenes from South Newington, Oxon;
Portbury, Somerset; Boscastle, Cornwall; and Zennor, near St. Ives, Cornwall.
Page 75: Clipped picture of the St. Cross district, Winchester. Page 79:
Clipped picture of an unidentified village scene. Page 80: Clipped
pictures of The Abbey Gateway, Evesham; of Itchen Stoke, near Winchester; and a
scene captioned "Road Mending, Essex." Page 81: Clipped picture taken at
Wingrave, Bucks, near Aylesbury. Page 83: Clipped picture of Vine Hunt at
Old Basing, Hampshire, "noted for its topiary work." Page 84: Clipped
pictures of Warnford Church, Meon Valley, Hampshire and of Broughton, Monchelsea
near Maidstone. Page 85: Clipped pictures of Minster Lovell, Oxton;
Dunster, Somerset; Cromhall, Gloucestershire; Upton-Snodsbuy, Worcestershire;
and of Chevening Church, Pilgrim’s Way, Kent. Page 86: Clipped picture of
the Old Marriage House, Coldstream Bridge over Tweed, Scotland. Page 91:
Clipped picture taken at Dedham, Essex. Page 92: Clipped picture of an
unidentified pastoral scene. Page 93: Clipped picture taken at Wilderhope
Manor, Wenlock Edge, Salop. Pages 94-95: Clipped, full-page, color
picture of "A group, modelled by Roubiliac, which was sent to London as of
little value and sold for £3250: a remarkable piece in the ‘Porcelain Through
the Ages’ exhibition." (Note by Una: "Bought by J. Pierpont Morgan, it was
resold at Christies March 1944 (wartime) for £2047 - 10/5.") Page 96:
Clipped picture of a Suffolk village scene. Page 97: Clipped picture of
Berkswell, Warwickshire. Page 100: Clipped picture of an old house at
Evesham. Page 101: Clipped picture of Claypots Castle, Angus. Page
102: Clipped picture of a farmhouse at Sussex. Page 103: Clipped
picture taken at "Yew Tree House, XVI century, St. Mary Bourne, Hampstead."
Page 104: Clipped picture of Castle Combe, Wiltshire ("village for sale
because of taxes"). Page 105: Clipped picture of castle and cathedral,
Rochester, Kent. Page 106: Clipped picture taken at Kingston Bagpuze,
Berkshire. Page 107: Clipped picture of an old house in Mill Street,
Ludlow. Page 108: Clipped pictures of Thorner, Yorkshire (near Leeds) and
of Aldborough, West Riding, Yorkshire. Page 109: Clipped pictures of
Merthyr Dyfan, near Barry, Glamorgan, and of Earls Croome Court, Worcestershire.
Page 112: Clipped picture of Longshaw, Derbyshire. Page 113:
Clipped pictures of Moreton Old Hall, Newcastle - Congleton Road, and of "Old
thatch, Harefield between Ringwood and Verwood, border of Hampshire and Dorset."
Page 114: Clipped picture of the interior of No. 3, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea
(five keyboard instruments visible). Page 115: Clipped picture taken at
the Geffrye Museum, Shoreditch (view of room dating from the Stuart period).
Page 117: Clipped picture of Castle Mill, with twin water wheels, Dunster,
Somerset, "mentioned in Doomsday book." Page 118: Clipped picture taken
at Dunsford near Exeter. Page 119: Clipped picture taken at Newton,
Tracy, Somerset. Page 120: Clipped picture taken at Sutton Poyntz, Dorset
("Overcombe" of Hardy’s "Trumpet Major"). Pages 122-123: Clipped pictures
of Dutton Hall, "moved from Cheshire to Sussex" (paragraph describes the
considerations in enlarging a house "by amalgamating it with another"), and of
the River Mole at Church Cobham, Surry. Page 124: Clipped picture
captioned "Time in a timeless village" - Abringer Hamner, Surry. Page 129:
Clipped picture of The Parrot in Suffolk. Page 130: Clipped picture of an
unidentified village scene. Page 131: Clipped pictures of Old Moreton
Hall, Cheshire, and of Warwick Castle, the Leycester Hospital and West Gate.
Page 132: Clipped pictures taken at Shrewsbury, and at "Ightham Mote,
Sevenoaks, Kent, near Oxford." Page 133: Clipped pictures of Gormanston
Castle, County Meath; Woolsthorpe House, Lincolnshire, "the birthplace of Sir
Isaac Newton"; and of Sutton Poyntz, Dorset. Page 134: Clipped pictures
of Laveham, Suffolk; Albury, Surrey; Corfe Castle, Dorset; and Mickleton,
Cotswolds. Page 135: Clipped pictures of Stokesay Castle near Ludlow,
Shropshire, and of Harlech Castle "overlooking Cardigan Bay." Page 136:
Clipped sketch of "round tower," and a clipped picture of Stanton,
Gloucestershire, Cotswolds. Page 137: Clipped pictures of Wenlock Priory,
Much Wenlock, Shropshire; Stokesay Castle, near Craven Arms, Salop; Ripley
Castle, Yorkshire ("gave lodging to Oliver Cromwell on the eve of Marston
Moor"). Inside back cover: Clipped pictures of "Cottage homes on St.
Catherine’s Hill, Guildford"; Corfe Castle village, Dorset; the Butter Cross,
Oakham, Rutland; Childs Wickham, Gloucestershire; Saltcoats Castle, East
Lothian; "XIV century cross, Ludgershalt, Wiltshire"; Ombersley, Worcestershire;
and Nether Wallop, Hampshire.
A’ Choisir-chiul: The St. Columba Collection of Gaelic
Songs, Arranged for Part-Singing. London: Bayley
and Ferguson, n.d. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, On
board ship Oban--to Iona and Staffa, September 1929." Inside front cover:
Pasted-in clipped verse: "From the lone shieling of the misty island / Mountains
divide us, and the waste of the seas-- / Yet still the blood is strong, the
heart is Highland, / And we in dreams behold the Hebrides."
A Practical Hand-Book to Galway, Connemara, Achill, and
the West of Ireland, with a Description of the Principal Objects of Interest on
the Journey from Dublin. Dublin: The Midland Great
Western Railway Company, 1896. Notes: Flyleaf: In Una’s hand,
"Round Towers--Donoughmore 12; Taghadre 23; Clonmachnors 37; Aran Islands 50;
Aghagower (near Westport) 94; Killala (nr. Belfast) 120."
A. E. (George William Russell). Voices of the Stones.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925. Notes: Inside front cover:
Clipped drawing of A. E. by William Rothenstein. In Una’s hand, two poems: (1)
"Ah, when I think the earth on which I tread / Hath borne these blossoms of the
lovely dead / And makes the living heart I love, to beat / I look with sudden
awe beneath my feet / As you, with erring reverence, overhead." (2) "‘I look on
wood and hill and sky, / Yet without any tears; / To the warm earth I bid
goodbye / For what unnumbered years. / So many times my spirit went / This dark
transfiguring way, / Nor ever knew what dying meant / Deep night or a new day, /
So many times it went and came, / Deeper than thought it knows / Unto what
majesty of flame / In what wide heaven it goes’ (The last poem in A. E.’s last
book of verse)." Half-title page: clipped verses pasted in: "Call now thy
wanderer home as yet, / Though he be late. / Now is his first assailing of / The
invisible gate. / Be still through that light knocking. The hour / Is thronged
with fate. • • • Let thy young wanderer dream on, / Call him not home. / A door
opes, a breath, a voice / From the ancient room / Speaks to him now. / Be it
dark or bright, / He is knit with his doom." Title page: Loose, a small
card, with a brightly colored Irish symbol printed on it, and inscribed in Una’s
hand, "Mrs. Jeffers." Page 62: Four clipped poems: (1) "Still rests the
heavy share on the dark soil; / Upon the black mold thick the dew-damp lies. /
The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil / The plowboy to the morning lifts
his eyes. / The unbudding hedgerows dark against the day’s fires / Glitter with
gold-lit crystals: on the rim / Over the unregarding city’s spires / The lonely
beauty shines alone for him. / And day by day the dawn or dark enfolds / And
feeds with beauty eyes that cannot see / How in her womb the Mighty Mother molds
/ The infant spirit for eternity." (2) "Vale." "This was the heavenly hiding
place / wherein the spirit laughed a day, / All its proud ivories and fires /
Shrunk to a shoveful of clay. / It must have love, this silent earth, / To leap
at the King’s desire, / Moving in such a noble dance / Of wreathed ivory and
fire. / It will not stir for me at all, / Nor answer me with voice or gleam. /
Adieu, sweet-memoried dust, I go / After the Master for His dream." (3) Now the
silver light of dawn, / Slipping through the leaves that fleck / My one window,
hurries on; / Throws its arms around my neck. / Darkness to my doorway hies, /
Lays her chin upon the roof, / And her burning seraph eyes / Now no longer keep
aloof. / And the ancient mystery / Holds its hands out day by day, / Takes a
chair and croons with me / By my cabin built of clay." (4) "Platonics." // "I
walked with a young dryad through the woods, / And though the town poured out
its noisy folk / That all might seem as common as the street / Under the palace
of leaves, yet nothing broke / The sweet antiquity wherein my feet / Kept pace
with a young dryad through the woods. / Was not thy light-limbed beauty an
evocation / Of the gay Child that ever in us bides / Ancient with youth? Even
under gray hair / It leaped up golden, the shining wanderer, / The unwithering
life that in the mortal hides. / Of this was thy light beauty the evocation. /
Unknowing the subtle Master of Every Art, / Thy gentle finger shaping thee to
His mind / With airy touches, think not fantastical / The words that praise thee
as being over kind-- / A friend’s blindness. No. I see but in all / The subtle
hand of the Master of Every Art." Page 63: In Una’s hand, "Sacred Hazel =
the Celtic Tree of Life. It grew over Comla’s Well and the fruit which fell from
it were the Nuts of Knowledge which give wisdom and inspiration. Comla’s Well is
a Celtic equivalent of the First Fountain of Mysticism. ["Comla’s" is my best
guess; Una’s handwriting here is a bit difficult.] / The three great waves = the
wave of Toth, the wave of Rury, and the Long, slow white-foaming wave of Cleena.
In the bardic stories those three mystical waves shout round the coast of
Ireland in recognition of great kings and heroes. / Fomor (the dark powers) were
defeated by the Tuatha de Danaan (hosts of light) at Moytura led by Lu (or
Leigh) god of light who slew Balor of the Evil Eye by a cast from a sling."
Page 64: Clipped fragment of an article about A.E.: ". . . . the god,
jealous that their high inheritance shall not perish: ‘Let it not die, let us
still be / Even in heart-torturing remembrance bound / to what we were.’ / There
are magnificently sweeping passages in this poem, passages of exaltation and
inspiration. A. E., sage of the years, has once more descended from the mountain
ranges of thought to call hopefully to the children of men. Armid had been
keeping vigil with the droning king to whom she had brought the vision of the
future. the poem ends thus: ‘So the high king, rapt in his vision dreamed / Of
that great hostel. at the end of time / Where all the cycles sleep; and came at
last / To open his eyes upon the brazen gloom / To know the labor before him,
and to hear / The Titans raving madly in the hall.’" Below is a picture of A.E.
from a print by Walter Tittle. Page 65: Two clippings: (1) "Those images
of beauty / That once I did despise, / Now in my age I cherish / And clutch with
miser’s eyes. / Even for one frail blossom / I will make sacrifice. / Once there
were other treasures / I had, O strange to say, / Made dim those magic blossom /
And I cast them away. / I cast beauty from me / As a god child might in play. /
O what was in the being / Of boyhood that could make / Beauty seem but a glimmer
/ That followed in the wake / Of some proud sail set sunward / On some enchanged
lake." (2) "Still lit with that loving directness, the mind can turn with no
misgiving to the cloudy radiance of AE, as a friend of painting might turn from
a Dutch interior to Murillo. AE is the true mystic, the thinker who thinks to
the end, and then abandons thought, not because he is incapable of it, but
because he chooses a nobler use, or one nobler to him:-- ‘Is there still in us /
A heaven-descended ray / Of that which built the palaces / Of night and day? /
Do our first works, sun, noon and stars, / Shine on our clay?’ Yes, there is
such a heaven-descended ray in this poet. He has rhythms so slow that you would
think that they could not overtake a shadow. That is their cunning. They can
overtake, and hold, the light that casts it." (No source, no attribution, no
identification of poems.) Inside back cover: Two clipped portraits of A.E.,
one a photograph and the other a painting by Jack Yeats.
A. E. (George William Russell) AE’s Letters to
Mínanlábáin. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937. Notes: This
volume is a collection of letters written by AE to Kingsley Porter and his wife,
Lucy Kingsley Porter (who wrote the introduction). Flyleaf: Two
inscriptions: (1) "Tor House, Carmel," in Una’s hand. (2) "To Mrs. Jeffers, who
carries the spirit of Glenneagh within her. Carmel, Feb. 23, ‘46, Lucy Kingsley
Porter." Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, "‘We who live inland never
know anything about islands. We never know what the sea is like with its spaces,
its storms, its sadness, its exaltation. We have never felt the wild wind
sweeping unbroken from the rim of the world. We know nothing of islands. Why,
the sea is full of islands, thousands of them of all sizes--some with mts.
rising high out of the water, others with low rocks and green fields and beaches
with sea birds. It is in islands there is magic. It is in islands one breathes
fresh, salt air. Heavy-footed dwellers on the mainland never know joy. It is the
island-dweller whose heart leaps and sings.’ (Kingsley Porter wrote this in an
unpublished play.) See page 15 this book. Inish Bofin (Island)." Page
15: Lucy Kingsley Porter’s story about her voyage from Inish Bofin to the
mainland, where AE was waiting for her, knowing that her husband had been swept
off the cliffs and lost. Back flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "AE: ‘It is part of
my philosophy that things that are evil can be got rid of by thinking of their
opposites.’ Moore: ‘I think AE is too great a man to be a great artist.’ Moore:
‘Art with AE is a means rather than an end; it should be sought, for by its help
we can live more purely, more intensely but we must never forget that to live as
fully as possible is, after all, our main concern. . . . . he sets life above
craftsmanship.’"
A. E. (George William Russell) The Candle of Vision.
London: Macmillan and Company, 1920. Notes: Inside front cover:
Pasted-in photo of A. E. Front flyleaf: Inscribed in Una’s hand, "Una
Jeffers." Back flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "As he spoke he paused before a
great mound grown over with trees and around it silver-clear in the moonlight
were immense stones piled, the remains of an original circle, and there was a
dark, low, narrow entrance leading therein. ‘This was my palace. In days past
many a one plucked here the purple flower of magic and the fruit of the tree of
life.’ And even as he spoke, a light began to glow and to pervade the cave and
to obliterate the stone walls and the antique hieroglyphics engraven thereon and
to melt the earthen floor into itself like a fairy sun [had?] dimly uprisen
within the world, and there was everywhere a wandering ecstasy of sound: light
and sound were one; light had a voice and the music hung glittering in the air .
. . ‘I am Aengus; men call me the Young. I am the sunlight in the heart, the
moonlight in the mind; I am the light at the end of every dream, the voice
forever calling to come away; I am desire beyond joy or tears. Come with me,
come with me, I will make you immortal: for my palace opens into the Gardens of
the Sun and there are the fire-fountains which quench the heart’s desire in
rapture.’"
Abbott, Herbert Vaughan, Ed. The Sir Roger de Coverley
Papers from The Spectator. Chicago: Scott Foresman, 1899. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Call" at top of page and "Donnan Jeffers" at bottom.
Page 12: Pasted-in clipped portrait (original by Sir Godfrey Kneller) of
Joseph Addison. Page 207: Pasted-in cartoon illustration by H. M. Brock
for "an Edition of ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’" captioned "Lulled Asleep with solid
and elaborate Discourses of Piety."
Adamic, Louis. The House in Antigua: A Restoration.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1937. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To
Garth Jeffers, I hope you’ll go to Guatemala some day, Louis Adamic, 1938."
Listed under "‘Other Books by Louis Adamic,’ Robinson Jeffers: Portrait of a
Poet (Pamphlet; out of print)."
Aeschylus. Agamemnon. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius
Company, n.d. Notes: Little Blue Book Series Number 760. Cover: In
RJ’s hand, faint writing which begins, "A story of [the rest is unreadable]"
Inside back cover: Pasted in, a brief, clipped fragment (no source, date or
attribution) discussing the value of "freedom" or "liberal variations on the
Greek," giving "force and vigour" to the translation of Greek dramatic verse by
Professor Murray.
Aldington, Richard, Ed.. The Viking Book of Poetry of
the English Speaking World. New York: The Viking Press, 1941. Notes:
Contains two poems by Jeffers: "Signpost" and "Shine, Perishing Republic."
Page 98: Una notes the lines "But from this earth, this grave, this dust, /
My God shall raise me up, I trust," from Sir Walter Raleigh’s "Verses Written in
His Bible." Page 139: Una notes "The Shepherd’s Wife’s Song" by Robert
Greene. Pages 184, 188, 189--Una notes songs from Shakespeare. No
marginalia to indicate which of the songs was of particular interest.
Alighieri, Dante. La Vita Nuova (The New Life).
Translated and illustrated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London: George Routledge
and Sons, n.d. Notes: Inside front cover: Museum picture-card
showing Paolo and Francesca (no other identification). Book purchased in
Florence, according to bookstore’s plate, also inside the front cover.
American Academy of Arts and Letters.
New York: National Institute of Arts and Letters. Notes: These are the
Academy’s yearbooks for 1950-55; 1957-60. Jeffers is listed as having been
elected to the Institute’s Department of Literature in 1937, and as having been
elected to the Academy in 1945 (he held Chair 28-3). Jeffers does not appear to
have been otherwise active in the organization, as he is not listed as an
officer, a committee member or as the recipient of any of the organization’s
awards.
American Red Cross First Aid Text-Book.
Philadelphia: P. Blakiston’s Son and Company, 1937. Notes: Fkyleaf:
Una has written notes for treatment for shock in flyleaf. Page 130:
Inserted loose: 1942 leaflets on "The Application of Traction Splints" and "War
Gases," and a clipped article titled "What to Do in an Air Raid . . . What to Do
in a Gas Attack." On back cover: Una’s handwritten notes on treating
sprains, strains, puncture wounds, hemorrhaging and blood poisoning.
Amphora: A Collection off Prose and Verse Chosen by the
Editor of the Bibelot. Portland, Maine: Thomas
Bird Mosher, 1914. Notes: Hand-cut pages (some uncut). Page 76: In
margin next to Gerard Manly Hopkins "I have desired to go / Where springs not
fail . . ." and a handwritten note: "Lines on a nun taking the veil."
Angeli, Helen Rossetti. Shelley and His Friends in
Italy. London: Methuen and Company, Ltd., 1911. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Pasted-in clipped photo labeled in Una’s hand, "Caetani
Tower - Pontine Marsh." Title page: In Una’s hand under author’s name,
"(daughter of William Rossetti and niece of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)." Page
126: pasted-in clipped reproduction of a miniature captioned "Countess
Teresa Guiccioli. Venice, April, 1819." Opposite Index: Pasted-in clipped
article titled "The Shore of Shelley’s Funeral Pyre" by F. L. Minnigerode, in
which the event is described in imaginative detail. Inside back cover:
Four 4" x 6" photographs, loose, with handwritten notes on backs: (1) tombstone
of Joseph Severn ("Rome by Alfred Sutro"); (2) Keats’ tombstone ("Rome by Alfred
Sutro"); (3) street scene ("where Keats died, Piazza di Spagna, Rome, from
Alfred Sutro"); (4) pyramid surrounded by grass, trees and tombstones ("Rome,
Caius Cetius Pyramid, by Alfred Sutro").
Aristophanes. The Clouds. William Arrowsmith,
Translator. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1962. Notes:
Inside front cover: Inscribed in handwriting neither Una’s nor Robin’s,
"Jeffers." Loose 3" x 5" card with note, "Benjamin Bickley Rogers, best tr. of
Aristophanes. Frere is a standard tr." in pencil. Publication date suggests that
this volume might belong to a younger member of the Jeffers family.
Arnold, T. W., Trans. The Little Flowers of Saint
Francis. London: J. M. Dent and Company, 1901. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed in Jeffers’ hand, "John Robinson Jeffers, Jan 10, 1902." Ribbon
bookmark lies at beginning of Chapter VII, "How Saint Francis passed a Lent in
an island I the lake of Perugia, where he fasted forty days and forty nights,
and ate no more than one half loaf."
Ausgabe, Geordnete, Erste Vollständige and Herausgegeben
von Ernst Kamnitzer. Novalis Fragmente. Dresden: Jess Verlag, 1929.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Brian[?] William[?] for Robinson Jeffers
affectionately" (the latter phrase appears written in Jeffers’ hand). 790 pages
in German, this volume is marked throughout, both in the text (marginal check
marks and lines) and in the index (check marks). The book contains only one
handwritten word (in English; see end of this entry), so it is difficult to
determine whose marks these are, but the method of marking the book is not
consistent with Una’s habitual treatment of a favorite work; it is much tidier
and more terse. The volume contains ten neatly cut paper book marks, all
carefully arranged and lined up along the inner edges of the pages they mark.
This, too, is unlike Una’s habit. It is possible that RJ or Mr. William[?] might
have been the source of these additions. It would take considerable time to
transcribe all of the marked passages, as they occur throughout the book, but
this appears a sufficiently important work to note the book’s chapters (then
leave it to a later researcher who can understand and appreciate the German text
and see a relationship between the material here and Jeffers’ work): Novalis
Als Mythische Gestalt; Fragmente Über Die Fragmente; Geschichte Der
Enzyklopädistik; Geschichte Meines Lebens; Bruchstücke Philosophischer
Enzyklopädistik (includes discussions of the relationship between poetry and
philosophy throughout, along with discussions of German philosophers, Greek
philosophers, logic, pedagogy, cosmology, nature philosophy, and moral
philosophy); Magische Philosophie; Bruchstücke Physikalischer Enzyklopädistik;
Chymie; Magische Chemie, Mechanik und Physik; Mathematiche Fragmente Das Ist
Philsophische Betrachtung Der Mathematischen Begriffe; Magische Mathematik;
Bruchstücke Medizinischer Enzyklopädistik; Magische Medizin; Bruchstücke
Psychologischer Enzyklopädistik (heavily marked in index); Fragmente Uber
Den Menschen, Menschenlehre; Von Zusammengesetzten Menchen, Höhere
Wissenschafslehre; Rechtslehre; Staatslehre; Geschichtslehre; Magische
Menschenlehre; Magische Geschichtslehre; Religiöse Fragmente; Mystizismen;
Kunstfragmente; Magische Kunstfragmente; Romantische Noten; and die Christenheit
Oder Europa. One handwritten word, "Abstract," in relation to the topic
"Goethe ist ganz praktischer Dichter," appears on page 652; the handwriting
could be RJ’s.
Automobile Association Irish Handbook,
1937-38. Dublin: Automobile Association of Ireland, 1937. Notes:
Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, two notes: (1) "Accident July 9; July 24
left Taos." (2) In uncharacteristically untidy hand on flyleaf, "Una Jeffers."
Pages 40-41: Una has checked several A.A. publications: A. A. Road
Book of Ireland; A. A. Road Book of England and Wales; A. A. Touring Map of
Ireland; A. A. Touring Map of England and Wales; Irish Service Map. In
margin, some notes: "Aran Is. / Bookstore Towers / gloves."
Baillie-Grohman, William A. Sport in Art: An
Iconography of Sport, Illustrating the Field Sports of Europe and America from
the Fifteenth to the End of the Eighteenth Century. London: Simpkin,
Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., n.d. Notes: Inside front cover:
Note in Una’s hand, "Unicorn page 98." Page 98: Reproduction of "Frieze
depicting combats with wild animals and griffins" by E. Delaune.
Ball, Wilfrid. Some Sussex Water-Colours. London:
Adam and Charles Black, 1913. Notes: Opposite print of Bodiam Castle:
Clipped sketch of "Inner View and Gate of Bodiam Castle." Back flyleaf: "Bodiam
Castle in Sussex." Inside back cover: Postcard (labeled "Lee") captioned
"La Vierge du Grand Duc" from Pitti, Florence (loose), and clipping of entrance
gateway of Bodiam Castle from interior showing the Barbican (pasted).
Balzac, Honoré de. Père Goriot. Washington:
National Home Library Foundation, 1932. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"To Robinson Jeffers with kindest regards, Sherman Mittell." (Mr. Mittell is
listed as the editor for the series to which this volume belongs--The Jacket
Library.)
Barnes, William. Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset
Dialect. London: C. Kegan Paul and Company, 1879. Notes: Table of
Contents: Poems checked in pencil: "The Spring," "Evenèn, an’ Maïdens out at
Door," "Our Fathers’ Works," "Woak Hill," and "The Turnstile." Page x:
Penciled note, "Goods all a shienen’ / M’long years a handlin’." Page 160:
Two inserted items: (1) Transcription in Una’s hand identified as "Letter from
Sir Edmund Gosse to Hamo Thorrycroft, Shirehall Lane, Dorchester, July 23, 1883.
‘Hardy has taken a house in this town a houses of which a townsman said, "He
have but one window and she do look into Gaol Lane." It is indeed a kind of
mole, for the entrance is almost invisible and its burrow extends to the back of
everything. Dorchester is an enchanting little country town, with several
handsome churches, old fortifications turned into elm avenues and bits of Roman
walls and vallum everywhere--as bright and clean as a pin and full of life: a
cavalry and an infantry regiment are stationed in it and bugling and marching
and the loitering colored military give it quite a foreign air. Hardy and I
walked last afternoon through fields of rye 5 and even 6 ft. high to the village
of Winterbourne-Came of which Mr. Barnes the poet is Rector. We were ushered up
into the choir, behind a delicious old carved screen among 17th cent. marble
monuments of the Earls of Portarlington. The church is a tiny little affair that
you could put in your park. The congregation seemed to fill it pretty well and
yet we were only 45 souls in all. Barnes is a wonderful figure. He is in his
83rd yr. He has long thin silky white hair flowing down and mingling with a full
beard and moustache also as white as milk a grand dome of a forehead over a long
thin pendulous nose, not at all a handsome face but full of intelligence and a
beauty of vigor in extreme old age. He undertook the entire service himself and
preached rather a long sermon. Then he stayed behind to hear the school children
practice their singing and walked to the rectory as he had walked from it,
rather over a mile. We waited in Came Park and he caught up with us. His dress
is interesting, black knee breeches and silk stockings, without gaiters, and
buckled shoes. I hear he is the last person in Dorset to keep up this dress. He
was extremely hospitable and seemed untirable. We stayed four hours with him and
all that time he was hurrying us from place to place to show us his treasures.
His mind runs chiefly on British antiquities and philology! It was difficult to
induce him to talk much about his poems. I was extremely gratified and
interested by my visit. / Gosse to Drinkwater Oct. 21, 1926 / On the 16th of Aug
1875 my wife and I being on our wedding journey drove from Clovelly to Bude. It
was a wild morning of storm. We turned a little aside at Hartland intending to
call and pay our respects to Mr. Hawker, but on approaching the confines of
Morwenstow heard the passing bell and stopping to inquire were told that the
news of the Vicar’s death on the preceding day had just reached the village.’"
(2) Clipped news article, attributing the awakened interest in Barnes to "a
well-known American poet, Mr. Robinson Jeffers," from the front page of the
Dorset County Chronicle and Swanage Times, Thursday, July 15, 1948 (Vol.
CXXVII No. 5326) titled "Crossed Atlantic to Study Barnes," with the following
passages printed in bold: "Not only engineers can earn badly needed dollars for
us. Not only living men can pull their weight to help this country. Out of the
shades of yesterday a poet has returned to Dorset, drawing visitors from America
who have specially come to study his work. . . . [W. T. Levy from City College,
New York] has specially come all the way from his home to study Barnes’ work and
surroundings with the intention of writing a book about the poet." A handwritten
note at the top of the clipping says, "I have some additional copies for you
should you want them. A news bulletin to the same effect went over the BBC and I
may record an interview for the BBC next week! Barnes has ‘news value’! I have
so much to tell you. I saw Lennox and Mr. Seumas O’Sullivan in Dublin and Mr.
O’Sullivan is a great admirer of Robin’s. WTL." Advertisement Section, page 1
(at back of the book): Clipped, pasted-in ad for a mint copy of Hardy’s
1908 Select Poems of William Barnes, Chosen and Edited.
Barwell, Noel. Cambridge. London: Blackie and Son,
Ltd., 1910. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscription reading "A. T. W. W., 8:
7: 1918. R. A. F. Armament School, Oxbridge." Inside front cover:
Pasted-in, two clipped pictures captioned "Christ College, Cambridge; and
"Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Where Marlowe Went to College." Inside
back cover: Pasted-in, clipped picture captioned "Pembroke College,
Cambridge."
Baudelaire, Charles. The Poems of Charles Baudelaire.
Selected and Translated from the French, with an Introductory Study, by
F. P. Sturm. London: The Walter Scott Publishing Company, n.d. Notes:
Inside front cover : In Una’s hand, "Recueillment" / "Sois sage, O ma
Douleur, et tiens-toi plus tranquille / Tu réclaimais la soir, il descend; le
voici: / Une atmosphère obscure enveloppe la villa, / Aux uns portant la paix,
aux autres le souci, / Pendant que des mortels la Multitude vile / Sous le fouet
du Plaisir, ce bourreau sans merci / Va cuellir du remords dans la fête servie /
Ma Douleur, donne-moi la main, viens par ici. / Loins d’eux, vois se pencher les
défuntes amiées / Sur les balcons du Ciel, en robes suramiées / Surgir du fond
des eaux le Regret Souriant. / Ce Soleil moribond s’endormir sous une arche / Et
comme un long linceul traîmant à l’Orient / Entends, ma chère, entends la douce
nuit qui marche. / Que dires-tu ce sois, pauvre âme solitaire / Que diras-tu,
mon coeur, coeur autrefois flètri, / A la très chère / Dont le regard divin t’a
soudain refleuri?" Inside back cover: In Una’s hand,
"Ange plein de gaîté connaissez-vous l’angoisse / La honte, les remords les
sanglots, les ennuis / Et les vagues terreurs de ces affreuses nuits / Qui
compriment le coeur comme / un papier qu’on froisse? / Ange plein de gaîté,
connaissez-vous l’angoisse? / . . . mes yeux consumés ne voient / Que des
souvenirs de soliels."
Bawden, Edward and Noel Carrington. Life in an English
Village: Sixteen Lithographs by Edward Bawden with an Introductory Essay by Noel
Carrington. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1949. Notes:
Front flyleaf: Inscriptions reading "Una dear - This came from Bess
Francis the other day and as I read it it occurred to me that you would enjoy
it!" and "Greetings from London - Bess."
Beard, Charles A. and William C. Bagley. The History of
the American People. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923. Notes:
Inside front cover: Pasted in, a clipped article headed "‘An Insult to the
Flag: The Trent Affair: England on the Verge of War: Lincoln’s Calmness.’ (By
Our Military Correspondent.)." Below, in Una’s hand, "London Observer, Dec.
1931."
Beerbohm, Max. The Poet’s Corner. London: The King
Penguin Books, 1943. Notes: Page containing Rossetti sketch: In
hand (pencil), in the margins around Beerbohm’s sketch titled "Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, in his back garden," the following caricatures are identified:
Meredith, Burne-Jones, Hall Caine, Holman Hunt, Ruskin, William Morris, Mrs.
William Morris, Rossetti, Watts-Dunton, Swinburne, Whistler.
Benét, William Rose, Ed. The Oxford Anthology of
American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1938. Notes:
Pages 1354-83: Nine works by Robinson Jeffers: The Tower Beyond
Tragedy (full text), "Noon," "Night," "Invocation from Tamar," "Ante
Mortem," "Tor House," "The Death of the Eagle from Cawdor," "Love the Wild
Swan," and "Self Criticism in February." Pages 1669-70: A brief critical
biography of Jeffers, in which Jeffers is characterized as "the obverse of Walt
Whitman," and in which Jeffers comments on the origin of The Tower Beyond
Tragedy: "My father gave me a good start in Latin and Greek when I was quite
young, both at school and at college. I took them as they came, and that was
never profoundly. I think most of whatever acquaintance I have with the classic
spirit came from reading English poetry. The origin of The Tower Beyond
Tragedy was probably in the rich voice and Amazon stature of a German-Jewish
actress with whom we were acquainted a few years ago. She recited one of the
more barbaric Scotch ballads magnificently in private, and her voice suggested
Clytemnestra and Cassandra to me, all the more because she rather failed in the
usual sort of play. I had no thought of production when I wrote, and for that
reason began with some lines of narrative. . . . We turn to the classic stories,
I suppose, as to Greek sculpture, for a more ideal and also more normal beauty,
because the myths of our own race were never developed, and have been alienated
from us."
Benson, Robert Hugh, Reginald Balfour, and Charles
Ritchie. An Alphabet of Saints. London: Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd.,
n.d. Notes: Title page: Inscribed "For Una from Ellen, July 1930."
Birmingham, G. A. Our Casualty and Other Stories.
New York: George H, Doran Company, 1918. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Rumsey Campbell."
Blake, William. Poems and Prose of William Blake.
Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Company, n. d. Notes: Little Blue Book
Series Number 677. Inside front cover: Pasted-in clipped picture of
William Blake from a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. Inside back
cover: Pasted-in, "Infant Sorrow," under which Una has written, "Blake."
Bland, Henry Meade, Ed. A Day in the Hills: A Poetical
Competition of the Edwin Markham Chapter of the English Poetry Society Held at
Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, Santa Clara County, California, September 18, 1926;
Including a Short Anthology of California Poems Specially Contributed by Their
Authors. San Francisco: James D. Phelan, 1926. Notes: Because of the
associations here with Phelan family (Noel Sullivan’s family) and Sterling, I
have noted some of the interesting items in this volume. Inside front cover:
Loose photograph of a young woman placing a laurel wreath on a sculpted bust;
written on the photograph in white ink, "Theta Sigma Phi, souvenir of visit,
Helen Wills crowned June 5 ‘27, Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, California." The
introductory note describes the event: "The Edwin Markham Chapter of the English
Poetry Society of the Teachers’ College, San Jose, Santa Clara County,
California, held its second annual out-of-door meeting at Mr. James D. Phelan’s
Country Estate, Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, on September 18, 1926, when the prize
poems were read and book prizes were handed to the winners (previously
determined) by Gertrude Atherton, and laurel wreaths were conferred by Helen
Wills. The Club Members and other invited guests were entertained at luncheon on
the terraces by Senator Phelan, and afterward the company adjourned to the
open-air theater for the literary exercises. . . . It was decided to invite a
few well-known California writers to contribute to the Souvenir Volume, and
their generous response is hereby acknowledged with thanks and an expression of
deep obligation by the English Poetry Society." Facing page 24:
photograph of George Sterling with James D. Phelan and Edwin Markham at Villa
Montalvo, 1915, and a facsimile of Sterling’s manuscript of "At Villa Montalvo"
below. Facing page 56: photograph of Sterling at the Bohemian Grove,
1926, captioned, "In Memoriam George Sterling." Pages 51-52: Three poems
by Sterling: "Abraham Lincoln" (identified in the text as "perhaps his last
poem"); "To Charles Warren Stoddard"; and "Sorrow." Pages 82-84: "Woodrow
Wilson: February, 1924" by Robinson Jeffers.
Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen. My Diaries: Being a Personal
Narrative of Events 1888-1914. (Part One.) New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." "Publisher’s Note"
page: Pasted-in announcement of the availability of 275 numbered copies of
The Celebrated Romance of the Stealing of the Mare, "translated from the
original Arabic by Lady Anne Blunt and done into verse by W. S. Blunt." Page
234: Loose, clipped article from the front page of the September 19, 1925
edition of The Saturday Review of Literature (Vol. II, No. 8): "Uncrowned
King of Sussex" by Cameron Rogers, recalling Blunt’s remarkable life (he died in
1922). Also a brief clipped article (n.d., n.p.) titled "In His Traveling
Carpet" describing the burial wishes of and legacies left by Blunt. Page 312:
Clipped article by Padraic Colum from The Commonweal, October 28, 1931
(page 635), recalling Blunt and making reference to My Diaries. Inside
back cover: 1½" x 1" plate: "MY DIARIES, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Part One,
1888 to 1900." [lre]
Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen. My Diaries: Being a Personal
Narrative of Events 1888-1914, Part Two [1900-1914]. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1921. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Title
page: In Una’s hand under title, "1840-1922." Inside back cover:
Pasted-in 1½" x 1" plate: "MY DIARIES, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Part Two,
1900-1914."
Bogg, Edmund. A Thousand Miles of Wandering in the
Border Country. Newcastle: Mawson, Swan and Morgan, 1898. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed in Una’s hand, "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel, 1930."
Other notes on flyleaf appear those of a previous owner. Inside front cover:
Pasted-in, clipped photo of Barcaldine Castle. It appears that Una came into the
possession of this book after it had been owned by a kindred spirit, for there
are many pasted-in clippings throughout (all meticulously pasted into the inner
edges of the book in a manner uncharacteristic of Una) and handwritten notes (in
a hand other than Una’s).
Bone, Gertrude. Of the Western Isles. London: T. N.
Foulis, 1925. Notes: Front flyleaf: Pasted-in, clipped pictures of
Iona, Shetland, and an account of a pilgrimage to local Masonic lodges in the
Farne Islands off Northumberland, where St. Cuthbert lived (and died in 687).
Half-title page: Pasted-in, clipped photograph of Skye, with Duntulm Castle
in background. Page 52: Loose, clipped photograph of the same scene, but
a wider view.
Borthwick, Norma. Irish Reading Lessons. Book 1.
Dublin: The Irish Book Company, 1902. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers, Dublin, 1929."
Bostick, Daisy. Carmel--Today and Yesterday.
Carmel: the Seven Arts, 1945. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed,
"Sincerely yours, Daisy Bostick, Carmel, Cal." Page 56: "Howard E. Smith
has done many portraits of well-known people, among them Robinson Jeffers and
General J. W. Stilwell" (this is where the books opens most readily). Page
74: "Every summer, from 1910 onward (except for two intermissions) plays
have been produced in the Forest Theater. Outstanding among the premiere
productions were The Toad by Bertha Newberry, Fire by Mary Austin,
Montezuma by Herbert Heron, Junipero Serra by Perry Newberry,
Serra by Garnet Holme and The Tower Beyond Tragedy by Robinson
Jeffers. Page 79: Photograph captioned "Entrance to Carmel
Playhouse--Owned and Operated by Edward G. Kuster." The story of the genesis and
trials of the theater is briefly told. Pages 86-88: An unusual amount of
space and two photographs (Tor House and Hawk Tower by Horace Lyon, and a Weston
portrait of Jeffers) are devoted to Robinson Jeffers: "Robinson Jeffers, said by
one critic to be the greatest poet since Homer, has made his home in Carmel for
three decades. The scenes of many of his poems have been laid on the coast south
of Carmel and in the Carmel valley. Visitors from all over the world come here
just to stop before his home on the rocky shore and to draw inspiration from the
picturesque granite tower which was built by his own hands and where on its
upper level he has spent much time in looking out over the Pacific and in the
creation of his epic poems."
Boswell, James. A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1928. Notes:
Page 167: Loose, clipped review, "The Mystery of Mary Broad Solved: An
Obscure but Benevolent Incident in the Career of a Great Biographer," by William
L. C. Carlton, discussing Boswell and The Girl from Botany Bay by
Frederick A. Pottle. Page 318: In Una’s hand, in left margin, a
translation of Quod petis, hic est; / Est Ulubris; animus si te non deficit
æquus: "What you seek is here, even in Ulubrae, if your mind is firm."
Bourdillon, Francis William, Ed. Aucassin and Nicolette:
An Old French Love Story. London: Macmillan and Company, 1907. Notes:
Page 150: Loose, a typogravure card of Madonna in Adoration by
Lippi (at the Washington Cathedral).
Bradford, Charles Angell. Heart Burial. London:
George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1933. Notes: Inside front cover:
Loose clippings: (1) A fragment of a review of a book about the early beginnings
of the Maryknoll order and of the request, later granted, by one of the order’s
founders, that his heart be buried near the tomb of St. Bernadette. Una
identifies the central figure in this story as "Father Price of Maryknoll, died
in China Sept 1910." (2) Clipped article from Time, November 20, 1944,
titled "The Heart of Santos-Dumont," telling of a "piece of sculpture holding a
preserved human heart [that] was a new feature of Rio de Janeiro." The heart
belonged to "Brazil’s pioneer aviator, Alberto Santo-Dumont, who at Bagatelle,
France in 1906 was the first man to fly a heavier-than-air machine in public
demonstration (two years before the Wright brothers)." (3) Journal article
titled "French Graves of English Kings," by G. L. Merchant (pp. 753-763; no
other publication data), about the graves of William the Conqueror, Henry II,
Richard his son, and James II. Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped photograph
captioned, "A Saint’s Heart: The Chapel of St. Laud in Ch[r]ist Church Cathedral
contains this curious cage wherein, encased in iron, rests the heart of St.
Laurence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin in the twelfth century--eight hundred
years ago." Overleaf: Pasted-in clipped photograph captioned, "Père de
Foucauld once was buried here--Tamanrasset--in the single grave under a wood
cross. Three troopers, who also perished in the assault, lie in the group of
three graves. The monument shelters General Lapperrine’s bones and, now, the
heart of Foucauld, whose body was reburied, in 1929, at El Goléa." Una adds in
hand, "Foucauld ‘a Saharan Crusader,’ Trappist monk, killed Dec. 1, 1916 by
desert fanatics. Gen Laperinne crashed here in airplane 1920 and was buried by
his friend. In 1929 Foucauld’s body was carried to El Goléa but his heart placed
in the tomb of Laperinne. Foucauld was soldier and explorer as well as monk."
Title page: Pasted-in, clipped photograph captioned, "Reiliquaire d’or du
coeur d’Anne de Bretagne, légué par la duchesse à la ville de Nantes."
Opposite title page: Pasted-in clipped article (no title, no source, no
attribution) about a chateau, Augerville-la-Rivière, purchased by Consuelo
Vanderbilt and once owned by Jacques Coeur, "who financed Jeanne d’Arc’s army
[and] gave the chateau as a dowry to his daughter, whose heart was found in the
vault of the quaint church in the village." Introduction page: Pasted in,
three clipped articles (no sources, dates or attributions): (1) The first tells
the story of the mystery of Voltaire’s heart, "secretly and illegally removed
from his remains" and kept by the Comte de Villette until his death. Ultimately,
this treasure was given by Villette’s heirs to the French government. (2) The
second article continues the story, asserting that the heart appears to be
safely at the Bibliothèque Nationale. (Side note: One of these articles has a
hole in the middle, obscuring some letters in two of the words. Una has
meticulously filled in the missing letters.) (3) The third piece is titled
"Death of Livingstone" and appears to be one section in a much longer article.
While primarily a description of the care and love accorded Livingston’s body by
the natives of Ilala on the southwest shore of Lake Bangweolo, the article also
notes that Livingston’s heart was buried "beneath a tree in the village, where
today a monument marks the spot." The rest of the explorer’s body was carefully
embalmed and ultimately returned by the Africans to the British Consul at
Zanzibar. Page 242: Una notes in the margin next to a brief account of
"David Livingstone, Missionary and Explorer" that additional information can be
found at the front of the book. Page 256: Pasted-in clipped photo
captioned "Homage to Pilsudski: Mme. Pilsudski depositing the silver urn
containing the heart of Marshall Pilsudski in the mausoleum which has been built
in the Ors Cemetery at Vilna." A clipped article from another source describes
the ceremonies and deep national mourning accorded the Polish military leader
who "sent Poland to war in 1920." His heart was buried "by his mother’s grave at
Vilna" and "his brain will go to the University of Warsaw." The remainder was
buried at the cathedral of Wawel Castle, "Poland’s Westminster Abbey." Page
257: Pasted-in, detailed pencil drawing identified in Una’s hand as "Silver
urn containing Pilsudski’s heart lying in state." Inside back cover:
Pasted in, four clipped articles: (1) "Patriot’s Heart Travels Home: Bronze Urn
Containing This Token of Kosciuszko, Polish Soldier, Will Be Placed in The
Cathedral at Cracow," with clipped picture pasted with article; (2) "Marie’s
Heart To Be Enshrined" (Queen Marie of Rumania, whose heart was honored because
it "beat, suffered and felt for Rumania."). Una notes that the event was dated
1938, and that the heart was buried at the Stella Maris Chapel at Balcik; (3)
"Hungary Wants Carl’s Heart There From Spain"; (4) "A Tragic Princess. Story of
a Neglected Grave," about the decay of the "family vault, in which lies the body
of Claudine Rhédey, Princess Alexander of Wurtemberg, and grandmother of Her
Majesty, Queen Mary." The Princess’s heart, "kept in a glass case on [her
husband’s] table for forty-four years," was later "placed beside his body in
[his] coffin."
Braeme, Charlotte M. Claribel’s Love Story. New
York: F. M. Lupton, n.d. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Call,
1898, August 25." Pasted-in, clipped paragraph titled, "The Earl of Lucan, who
has just been created a Knight of the Order of St. Patrick by Queen Victoria, is
the head of the popular Irish house of Bingham and son of the commander of the
British Cavalry in the Crimean War to whom belongs the merit or the blame for
the historic Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava."
Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England,
1815-1865. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1936. Notes: Page
156: Loose, four 4" x 5" clipped printings of Currier and Ives paintings:
The Route to California; Central Park, Winter; The
Road - Winter; The Great West.
Brougham, Eleanor M., Ed. Varia: A Miscellany of Verse
and Prose, Ancient and Modern. London: William Heinemann, 1925. Notes:
Inside front cover: (1) Directions on how to prepare a Welsh winter drink
using English wild peppermint, and on how to roast a swan, in verse (gravy,
too); (2) advice for curing "the falling sickness" at the Well of Trevougas; (3)
a poetic puff piece, complete with medical advice, on the success of the Salerno
School in curing the English king (Una notes, "rhymed in Latin at Salerno.
William of Normandy was a patient there."); (4) a verse reading, "What shall I
doe? I know not what to doe, / Where shall I runne, oh runne? I cannot goe /
Where shall I goe, oh goe? I cannot stirre." Flyleaves: The theme of the
clippings here appears to be the mutability of the body and the soul’s purpose:
(1) Donne advises, "Goe and catch a falling starre," and then muses on the "Pedantery"
/ Of being taught by sense, and Fantasie," while (2) St. Catharine is prayed to
(in verse) for a husband, who is "good," "sweet," "handsome," "rich," and
"soon." (3) Hadrian addresses his soul, the "Dear little, roaming, charming
soul, the body’s guest and companion," both in English and Latin. (4) A medieval
poem predicts, among other things, that a child born on a Sunday "A great lord
he shal be." (5) Also included is letter to an editor quoting a snippet of
Herbert -- "There is mirth as well as seemliness in right living. / All things
are big with jest: nothing that’s plain, / But may be wittie, if thou hast the
vein." (6) An unattributed verse says, "One man shall mow my meadow, / Two men
shall gather it together, / Two men, one man and one more, / Shall shear my
lambs and ewes and rams / And gather my gold together." (7) Written in Una’s
hand, "Gay go up and gay go down / to ring the bells in London Town . . . . /
‘You owe me ten shillings!’ / Say the bells of St. Helen’s. / ‘When will you pay
me?’ / Say the bells of old Bailey. / ‘When I shall grow rich?’ / Say the bells
of Shore ditch. / ‘Pray when will that be?’ / Say the bells of Stepney. /
‘I-do-not-know’ / Says the great bell of Bow. (Bow silent after 250 yrs.
1928-1933. Restored by Gordon Selfridge.)" Page ix, (in the "Preface"):
Brougham notes that Varia: A Miscellaney was "the outcome of a wet
summer" during which she did much reading and "noting down of prose and verse
for which we have contracted a fondness. They must be remembered, and, possibly,
shared." At the end of the "Preface" Una has pasted in a clipping, evidently an
excerpt from a letter to an editor, in which the writer discusses four lines of
verse found among the records of the Borough of Rye, dating from c. 1600, and
anticipating Marvell’s "green thought in a green shade": "Grene leaves grene /
Agrene leves greane / My harte is howlde / Thre hundred fowlde / And greene
leves betwene." Back flyleaves: (1) Description of a memorial to "Fair
Rosamond, mistress of Henry II and poisoned by Queen Eleanor in 1173," according
to Una’s note/translation of the Latin inscription on her tomb; (2) a prophecy
about the ruin of Dunnottar; (3) an inscription on a bell looted from a
monastery; (4) three additional inscriptions from bells and/or tombstones (they
are not identified); (5) a bit of wisdom--"God may sende a man good meate, but
the Devyll may sende as evyll cook to dystroye it"; (6) a passage of Donne’s
prose from "The Wonderfull Yeare," reflecting "a world before Puritanism, with
its alteration of the individual conscience and its burden of personal
responsibility: What an unmatchable torment were it for a man to be bard up
every night in a vast silent Charnell-house? hung (to make it more hideous) with
lamps dimly and slowly burning, in holow and glimmering corners; where all the
pavement should in stead of greene rushes, be strewde with blasted Rosemary,
withered Hyacinthes, fatall Cypresse and Ewe, thickly mingled with heapes of
dead mens bones; the bare ribbes of a father that begat him, lying there: here
the Chaples hollow scull of a mother that bore him: round about him a thousand
Coarses, some standing bolt upright in their knotted winding sheetes: others
halfe mouldred in rotten Coffins, that should suddenly yawne wide open, filling
his nostrils with noysome stench, and his eyes with the sight of nothing but
crawling wormes. And to keepe such a poore wretch waking, he should hear no
noise but of Toades croaking. Screeching Owles howling, Mandrakes shrieking. . .
." (7) Clipping from Scots Magazine, March 1778 (citation Una’s), of an
obituary describing the last wishes of the decedent, age 90: "he desired to be
carried to the grave by six men in leather jackets; and that the coffin may be
set down at a place named, for the bearers to drink a bowl of punch upon it;
also ordered a punch-bowl and glasses, and a dog and gun, to be painted
thereon." (8) Pasted-in clipping quotes Pepys (taken from Boswell’s Life of
Johnson) on what he considered a fine dinner: fricasee of rabbits and
chickens, leg of boiled mutton, three carps on a dish, a side of lamb, roasted
pigeons, four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie, a dish of anchovies, and
several wines. (9) Pasted-in clipping describes the terms used for numbers of
game, alongside of which Una has added "gaggle of geese / exaltation of larks /
siege of cranes / yoke of oxen / game of swans / brood of chickens." Back of
last flyleaf: Two epigrams: (1) In Una’s hand, "L’Envoy," from an "Ancient
Book of Songs, E. F. Rirnbault": "Go, Little Booke, to suttle world, / And shew
thy simple face, / And forward passe, and do not turne / Agayne to my disgrace.
/ For thou shalt bring to people’s eares / But truth, that needes not blush; /
And though perchance thou get’st rebuke, / Care not for that a rush: / For evill
tongues do itch so sore, / They must be rubbing still / Against the teeth, that
should hold fast / The clapper of the mill. / Desire those men that likes thee
not, / To lay thee downe againe / Till some sweete nappe and harmless sleepe /
Hath settled troubled brayne." (2) Una attributes to Philip Massinger the
following: "Virtue’s but a word, / Fortune rules all." Also on this page, a
picture of the work of six year-old Elizabeth Clements, who inscribed, "This I
have done, I thank my God, / Without the correction of the rod." Inside back
cover: Epigrams: (1) "From the Life of Alonso de Conteros, 1582-1633 [Una’s
note], He returned to Spain, resolved to become a hermit on a barren hillside in
Aragon. He bought ‘the necessary implements: a hair shirt, and a scourge and
sackcloth to make a frock, a sundial, many penitential books, some seeds, a
death’s head, and a little hoe.’" (2) An epigram summing up the life of one
Phineas Fletcher, which reads in part, "Goe little pipe forever I must leave
thee / My little little pipe but sweetest ever. . . ." (3) Another clipping
quotes two lines inlaid in a marquetry table at Hardwicke Hall: "The redolent
smelle of eglantine / We stagges exalt to the Divine." (4) And the unkindest
poetry of all: "the Kirkcaldy bill for the burning of two witches--they needed
ten loads of coal at £3 Scots for the lot--and the more appropriate poetry is
the cold gleam, against that blaze, of ‘The new fall’n snow to be your smock, /
It becomes your bodie best; / Your heid sal be wrapped wi’ the eastern wind, /
And the cauld rain on your breist.’" (5) From Marvell, "But at my back I always
hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near . . . " and "The grave’s a fine and
private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace." (6) Una attributes to
Richard Corbett the following political verse: "Witness those rings and
roundelays / Of theirs, which yet remain, / Were footed in Queen Mary’s days /
On many a grassy plain; / But since of late, Elizabeth, / And after, James came
in, / They never danced on any heath / As when the time hath been." (7) At the
bottom of the page is a William Cory translation of an epigram written by
Calimachus (Una’s note): "They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
/ They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. / I wept as I
remembered how often you and I / Had tired the sun with talking and sent him
down the sky. / And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, / A
handful of gray ashes, long, long ago at rest, / Still are thy pleasant voices,
thy nightingales, awake, / For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot
take."
Browning, Robert. Selections from the Poetical Works of
Robert Browning. Chicago: Donohue Brothers, 1872. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Call."
Browning, Robert. Selections from the Poetical Works of
Robert Browning. From the Sixth London Edition (First and Second Series).
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, n.d. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Winnie from Mary--Merry Christmas." Page 76 (location of
"Andrea Del Sarto"): Loose, a small commercial envelope stitched, folded and
tucked inside of a hand-made paper envelope. On the face of the commercial
envelope, Una has written, "Florence, Italy" at the top; at the bottom, below
some small, pressed, dried leaves, in Una’s hand, "From [?] B. Browning’s tomb.
I had to brush the snow from the tomb of W. S. Landor to read his name."
Inside back cover: Noted in Una’s hand, "Meeting at Night, 45 / Parting at
Morning, 45 / Porphyria’s Lover, 157 / James Lee’s Wife, 172."
Browning, Robert. The Complete Poetic and Dramatic
Works of Robert Browning. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1895. Notes:
Flyleaves: Inscribed "Una Küster, Sept. 1908." Pasted-in clipped picture
of Browning. Table of Contents: Poems marked: "By the Fireside," "My Last
Duchess," "The Last Ride Together," "A Grammarian’s Funeral," "The Statue and
the Bust," "Porphyria’s Lover," "Pictor Ignotus," "Fra Lippo Lippi," "Andrea Del
Sarto," "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church."
Brusse, Jan. Nights in Paris. London: André Deutsch
and Company, 1958. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed in Jeffers’ hand,
"Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel, Calif."
Bryant, Lorinda Munson. Pictures and Their Painters:
The History of Painting. New York: John Lane Company, 1907. Notes:
Inside front cover: Loose clippings are from periodicals and reproduce the
following works: Madonna and Child with Saints by Francesco Francia;
Virgin and Child by Botticelli; The Nativity by "the So-Called Maitre
de Moulins"; Adoration of the Shepherds by Mantegna; The Nativity
by Hans Memling; St. Agnes by Lippo Memmi; A Madonna by Bonfiglio;
The Nativity, Chartres Cathedral, Thirteenth Century Sculpture; "Pencil
Portrait of Himself by Leonardo da Vinci"; Madonna and Child by Fra
Bartolommeo; Madonna and Child by Gerard David; Portrait of a Lady
by Gelastiane Mainardi; Madonna and Child by Filippino Lippi; The
Mystical Adoration of the Child by Botticelli; Worship of the Child
by Piero della Francesca; Holy Night by Correggio; Birth of Jesus
by Sandro Botticelli; Madonna and Child by Cosimo Tura; Nativity scene by
Mercan Tonio (c. 1470-1530); The "Benson" Madonna by Botticelli; A page
of Botticelli "Madonnas," intended "for comparison with the ‘Benson’ Madonna";
Madonna and Child by Carlo Crivelli; Virgin and Child by Carlo
Crivelli; The Nativity by Fra Angelico; Portrait of a Lady by
Piero Pollaiuolo; The "Cowper" Madonna (Raphael?); Portrait of a Lady
by Bastiano Mainardi; Crucifixion by Fra Angelico; "The Head of the
Angel" detail in a painting by Botticelli; "The Head of the Virgin" detail in a
painting by Botticelli. Facing title page to Chapter III ("Italian
Painting"): Pasted-in advertisement, with pictures, for Sassetta by
Bernard Berenson (this is alongside a small, black and white picture of The
Marriage of St. Francis to Poverty with a brief excerpt from the book
describing the picture’s details). At the Chapter on Dürer (end of
volume): Pasted-in clipping showing the artist’s The Great Cannon. At
the Chapter on Hans Holbein: Loose clipping showing The Cardinal
archbishop Albricht of Mayence as St. Jerome by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
At the Chapter on English Painting: two loose articles about the work of
Gerard David.
Buchan, John. The Massacre of Glencoe. New York: G.
P. Putnam’s Sons, 1933. Notes: Flyleaf: In Una’s hand under John
Buchan’s name, "(Lord Tweedsmuir, 1935)." Below, clipped photo of John Buchan,
"Now Lord Tweedsmuir." Inside front cover: Pasted-in, two clipped photos
showing a panorama of the Glencoe Road beside Loch Tulla and at the crossing of
the Moor of Rannoch on the borders of Argyll. Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel, 1933." Inside front cover: Loose, a
publisher’s broadsheet, 2" x 5", describing The Massacre of Glencoe; on
the back, Una has written, "Putnam, [$] 1.50." Half-title page: Pasted-in
clipped article dated, in hand, "Oct ‘34" and datelined London: "Famous Glencoe
Will Be Sold: There Took Place the Macdonald Massacre"; it details the 1692
event in which 38 were killed by the forces of Captain Robert Campbell of
Glenlyon. Page 13: Clipped sketch of "The Clachan of Carnach in Ghostly
Glencoe." Inside back cover: Pasted in, three clipped photos, captioned:
"The ‘Valley of the Shadow . . . the Burial-Place of a Race of Giants,’ the New
Road Passing Through Glencoe"; (in hand) "Strathfillar between Crianlarich and
Tyndrum"; and "Pass of Glencoe, 1937."
Bunting, Edward. General Collection of the Ancient
Irish Music Containing a variety of Admired Aires never before Published, and
also The Compositions of Conolan and Carolan; Collected from the Harpers &c. in
the different Provinces of Ireland and adapted for the Piano Forte, with a
Prefatory Introduction. London: Preston and Son, n.d. Notes:
Flyleaf: Two inscriptions: "Mrs. Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel, California,
Sept. 1926, (from the Cathedral Bookstore, Belfast, Ireland)," and "Ellen Black
1867." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, a table of contents (not a
feature of the published book), with page numbers.
Burnett, Whit, Ed. This Is My Best: Over 150
Self-Chosen and Complete Masterpieces, Together with Their Reasons for Their
Selections. New York: The Dial Press, 1942. Notes: Robinson Jeffers
is featured beginning on page 631 with "Tamar Dancing." Jeffers is quoted as
saying, "This passage is chosen chiefly for the sake of perspective, because
‘Tamar’ was written twenty years ago. Probably I have done better since then . .
. and worse . . . but the poem seems nearer my mind than many later things.
Carmel, California. May 6, 1942." In the "Biographies and Bibliographies"
section, pages 1141-42, the following: "Robinson Jeffers has said that during
his college years he was ‘not deeply interested in anything but poetry.’ He adds
that poetry runs pretty thin under such a limitation, and he had passed thirty
before he wrote anything worth reading. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
on January 10, 1887, the son of a scholar. His ancestry, he says, was ‘all
pre-Revolutionary American, except paternal grandfather from North Ireland.’ He
went to school in Europe, and on his return to this country was graduated from
Occidental College, Los Angeles, at the age of eighteen. Subsequently he spent
what he calls ‘desultory years’ at the University of Zurich and the University
of Southern California Medical School. Mr. Jeffers married Una Call Kuster in
1913, and settled in Carmel, California, building his own house of sea boulders.
In 1916 he became the father of twin sons, Garth and Donnan. His first volume of
poetry to attract wide attention was Tamar and Other Poems, published in
1924. Through this and his subsequent works he has earned the title of the poet
of tragic terror. His poetry is characterized by emotional violence and an
intense revulsion from society. ‘Cut humanity out of my being,’ he has written,
‘that is the wound that festers.’" A bibliography follows: Flagons and
Apples; Californians; Tamar and Other Poems; Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other
Poems; The Women at Point Sur; Poems (Book Club of California); Cawdor
and Other Poems; Dear Judas and Other Poems; Descent to the Dead; Thurso’s
Landing and Other Poems; Give Your Heart to the Hawks and Other Poems; Solstice
and Other Poems; Such Counsels You Gave to Me and Other Poems; Selected Poetry;
Be Angry at the Sun. The editor notes at the end, "All of Mr. Jeffers’ work
is poetry. A large number of limited editions have been omitted from the
bibliography on his own request."
Burns, Robert. The Merry Muses: A Choice Collection of
Favourite Songs Gathered from Many Sources, to Which are Added Two of His
Letters and a Poem--Hitherto Suppressed--Never Before Printed. Privately Printed
[not for sale] 1827. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Presented to Una
and Robinson Jeffers, knowing that it will be both appreciated and understood --
Please accept it as a small token of our extreme pleasure in numbering you among
our friends. -- May you both live to enjoy another twenty years of happiness.
The Higbees, August 2, 1933, [signed] Walter F. Higbee." Clipping, pasted in,
says that only ninety copies of this book were printed.
Burton, Sir Richard F. The Kasidah. Girard, Kansas:
Haldeman-Julius Company, n.d. Notes: Ten Cent Pocket Series Number 152.
Inside front cover: Pasted in, an advertisement for an edition of The
Kasîdah illustrated with engravings by Wilfred Jones. Inside back cover:
A pasted-in advertising blurb for (presumably) The Kasidah.
Cable, George W. Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole
Life. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Küster, Jan. 1908."
Campbell, Joseph. Irishry. Dublin: Maunsel and
Company, Ltd., c. 1913. Notes: Inside front cover: Pasted-in,
clipped woodcut print by Barbara Latham captioned, "Burning Seaweed."
Flyleaves: Inscribed, "Una Jeffers." Overleaf: In Una’s hand, "I
stretch on this bed / As I shall stretch in the tomb, / A hard confession I make
to thee / O God; absolution I am asking of thee, / For the evil sayings of my
mouth, / For the evil thinkings of my heart, / For the evil actions of my flesh,
/ Everything that I have said that was not true, Everything that I have promised
and have not fulfilled." Second flyleaf: Two clipped poems: (1) "Old
Gaelic Rune of Hospitality recovered by Kenneth McCleod"--"I saw a stranger
yestreen; / I put food in the eating place, / Drink in the drinking place; /
And, in the sacred name of the Triune, / He blessed myself and my house, / My
cattle and my dear ones. / And the lark said in her song, / Often, often, often,
/ Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise." (2) Una identifies the author of
this poem as F. R. Higgins: "Not many miles after in Connacht / The sun slipped
away from the birds, / And I buried that Munster yew berry / In true soil
untrodden by herds; / But its growth in the night-time had opened / A green hand
of hush on my house, / It outgrew the sun on my windows / And hid Nephin Beg in
its boughs." In Una’s hand below, "I save this fire / As Christ once saved all,
/ May Bride care and keep it / On Mary’s high Son I call. / The three angels
most mighty / In heaven’s hall / Protect us this hour / Until day shall dawn.
(Upon covering the coals at night)." Opposite Table of Contents: Clipped
poem attributed to Joseph Campbell: "I am the mountainy singer-- / The voice of
the peasant’s dream, / The cry of the wind on the wooded hill, / The leap of the
fish in the stream. / Quiet and love I sing -- / The cairn on the mountain
crest, / The cailin in her lover’s arms, / The child at its mother’s breast. /
Beauty and peace I sing -- / The fire on the open hearth, / The caill each
spinning at her wheel, / The plough in the broken earth. / No other life I sing,
/ For I am sprung of the stock / That broke the hilly land for bread, / And
build the nest on the rock." Page 44: Loose, small (calling?) card with
colored drawing captioned "beannacca" and inscribed in her hand, "Una Jeffers."
Opposite back flyleaf: Clipped news article announcing "The names of the
[twenty-five] members of the new Irish Academy of Letters who have been
nominated by G. B. Shaw and W. B. Yeats," plus ten associate members. Inside
back cover: Clipped picture of Joseph Campbell (from painting by E. F.
Solomons).
Cantus ad Processiones et Benedictiones, Ssmi Sacramenti:
Juxta Vaticanam Editionem. New York: J. Fischer &
Bro., n.d. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Charles, Elizabeth Rundle. The Draytons and the
Davenants: A Story of the Civil Wars. New York: M. W. Dodd, 1869. Notes:
Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, "An old book found in a trunk at The
Maples. Una Lindsay Call, Jan. 2, 1899. ‘The Draytons and the Davenants’ by Mrs.
Elizabeth Rundle Charles, Pub. in U.S.A. 1869." Opposite title page:
Three children’s signatures in juvenile copperplate: "Rose Merrick," "Mason
____," and "Mary Merrick." Dedication page: Written in a young person’s
handwriting, "Rose Merrick is a good girl."
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Poetical Works of Geoffrey
Chaucer from the Text of Professor Skeat: The Canterbury Tales. Volume 3.
London: Oxford University Press, 1925(?). Notes: Inside front
cover: Loose, wallet-sized photo of two women, one with a military insignia
on her hat (no i.d.); 1944 American Red Cross Certificate of Membership for Una
Jeffers, for a War Fund Contribution of $10.00; pasted-in, two clipped
(newsprint) reproduced medieval pictures--one a woodcut of a battle scene, the
other from The Canterbury Tales. Title page: Pasted in, a clipped
(newsprint), reproduced, medieval manuscript page.
Chesterton, Gilbert K. The Ballad of the White Horse.
New York: John Lane Company, 1911. Notes: Flyleaves: Inscribed"Una
Jeffers, Carmel, Tor House." Pasted in, a clipped poem by Chesterton, beginning,
"The Christ-child lay in Mary’s lap, / His hair was like a light."
Church, Richard. Mary Shelley. London: Gerald Howe
Ltd., 1928. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers from Theron
Cooper of the Walden Book Shops, Chicago."
Ciceronis, M. Tulli. Cato Maior de Senectute Laelius de
Amicitia.. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1892. Notes: Flyleaf: Two
inscriptions: First inscription partially unreadable, but location is Ann Arbor,
Michigan. Second inscription is, perhaps, "Agnes T. Dunton [difficult to make
out], 96 South State Street." Additional faint notes in pencil--appear to be
those of students. Back flyleaf and inside back cover: Handwritten notes,
translations, initials (none Una’s), an address in Detroit; doubtful that the
notes are Una’s.
Cleland, Robert Glass. The History of Occidental
College, 1887-1937. Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1937. Two copies at Tor
House. Copy 1 Notes: Flyleaf: Two inscriptions: (1) "Inscribed to
Mrs. Zena G. Holman by Robert G. Cleland, August 8, 1954"; (2) "Inscribed--the
little bit that I am concerned in it--to Occidental College. Sincerely, Robinson
Jeffers." Notes at the top of the flyleaf page: "7/7/52, Robinson Jeffers Pages
33-38. Poems pages 107-108." Copy 2 Notes: Pages 107-08: "Two
Poems by Robinson Jeffers, Class of 1905. From Solstice, by permission of
the publishers, Random House, New York." Then follows "Shine, Perishing
Republic" and "Rock and Hawk," with a note at the end: "For permission to
publish these two poems, the author is grateful to the publishers; to Mrs. Una
Jeffers for her courtesy and thoughtfulness; and to Robinson Jeffers, whose form
he can still see after the lapse of 30 years leaning against a mighty October
wind on the gray rock summit of Mt. San Gorgonio."
Clemens, Cyril. My Chat with Thomas Hardy. Webster
Groves, Missouri: International Mark Twain Society, 1944. Notes: Cover
(paper): Inscribed, "To Robinson Jeffers with high esteem and cordial Birthday
Greetings. Cyril Clemens. 10th January 1951." Title page:
Inscribed "Cyril Clemens."
Cobbett, William. Rural Rides in Surrey, Kent, and
Other Counties. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1932. Volume 1, Notes:
Illustration page: Clipped advertisement for this edition. Volume 2,
Notes: Page 1: Loose, clipped copy of June 21, 1835, The Observer
obituary for Cobbett, republished (probably in 1935). Back flyleaf:
Duplicate advertisement (see Volume 1) pasted in. Inside back cover:
Loose, a clipped article titled, "An Old Surrey Town," by W. H. Owens; it is
about Farnham, in Surrey, the birthplace and home of William Cobbett (b. 1762;
d. 1835).
Collins, James. Life in Old Dublin: Historical
Associations of Cook Street, Three Centuries of Dublin Painting, Reminiscences
of a Great Tribune. Dublin: James Duffy and Company, 1913. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed, "Albert M. Bender, 1921. For Una, with my very best
wishes, A.M.B. 1937."
Colton, Walter, Rev. Three Years in California. New
York: S. A. Rollo and Company, 1859. Notes: Opposite page 289:
Pasted-in, clipped picture captioned "Walter E. Colton, First Alcalde of
Monterey." Page 457: Pasted-in, clipped paragraph from a review of Border
Wars of the West, which is advertised on this page. Page 459: Loose, a
Book Club of California commemorative reproduction of Don Agustin Vicente
Zamorano’s self-portrait and signature, along with a brief description of his
career and significance in California. Back flyleaf: Pasted in, a clipped
copy captioned, "Sutter’s Fort--New Helvetia: From ‘California in 1846.’"
Inside back cover: Loose, the following four items: (1) Clipping from the
Monterey Herald (1946) titled "Constitution Room Has Been Restored to
Beauty: Reception Center for Honored Guests; Governor’s Office: Colton Hall is
to California what Constitution Hall in Philadelphia is to the nation." (2)
Clipped photo from newspaper dated Monday, October 18, 1948, captioned "Pioneers
and One Unknown," of Jacob B. Leese, Thomas O. Larkin, William D. M. Howard, and
Sam Brannan. One man is unidentified. (3) Clipped article (n.d., n.p.) titled
"First California Newspaper Issued 100 Years Ago Today." (4) Replica of the
"first paper ever published in California," datelined Monterey, Saturday, August
15, 1846, and published by Colton and Semple.
Colum, Padraic. My Irish Year. London: Mills and
Boon, Ltd., n.d. Notes: Frontispiece: In Una’s hand, "‘An Old
Woman of the Roads’ by Padraic Colum [four-line stanzas]: ‘O, to have a little
house! / To own the hearth and stool and all! / The heaped up sods upon the
fire, / The pile of turf against the wall! / To have a clock with weights and
chains / And pendulum swinging up and down! / A dresser filled with shining
delph, / Speckled and white and blue and brown! / I could be busy all the day /
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor / And fixing on their shelf again / My
white and blue and speckled store. / I could be quiet there at night / Beside
the fire and by myself / Sure of a bed and loath to leave / The ticking clock
and shining delph! / And roads where there’s never a house nor bush, / And tired
I am of bog and road, / And the crying wind and the lonesome hush! / And I am
praying to God on high, / And I am praying him night and day, / For a little
house--a house of my own-- / Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.’" Inside
front and back covers: Clippings of scenes from Ireland and a pencil sketch
of Padraic Colum, pasted in.
Colum, Padraic. The Fiddler’s House, a Play in Three
Acts, and the Land, an Agrarian Comedy. Dublin: Maunsel and Company, 1909.
Notes: Inside front cover: Pasted-in clipped copy of the poem "In
a Far Land" by Padraic Colum. Flyleaves: (1) In Una’s hand, "(by
P. C. in old age) / The briars drag me at the knee / The brambles go within /
And often do I feel him turn-- / The old man in my skin. / Killeadean’s my
village and every good’s in it / The rasp and the blackberry to set one’s tooth
/ And if Raferty stood in the midst of his people / Old age would go from him
and he’d step to his youth! / The geese, even they, trudge homeward / That have
their wings and the waste; / Let your thoughts go with night the herder / And be
folded for a space. / Green, greener grows the foreland / Across the slate-dark
sea / And I’ll see faces, places / That have been dreams to me!" (2) Pasted-in,
a clipped photo of a bust of Padraic Colum by Alfeo Faggi. Page 115:
Pasted in, two clippings: (1) In Una’s hand, "by Padraic Colum / ‘Branding the
Foals’ which derives from a Latin epigram, is as fine in its stark and fiery
passion as anything he has done: ‘Why do I look for fire to brand these foals? /
What do I need, when all within is fire? / And lo, she comes, carrying the
lighted coals / And branding-tool--she who is my desire! / What need have I for
what is in her hands, / If I lay hand upon a hide it brands, / And grass, and
trees, and shadows, all are on fire!’" (2) "The Knitters" by Colum. Page 116:
Clipped poem titled, "The Goat of Slieve Donard." In Una’s hand, "By Patrick
Kavanagh: ‘I saw an old white goat on the side of Slieve Donard / Nibbling
daintily at the herb leaves which grow in the crevases, / And I thought of James
Stephens. / He wrote of an old white goat within my remembering. / Seven years
ago I read. / Now it comes back. / Full of the dreaming black beautiful crags. /
I shall drink of the white goat’s milk. / The old white goat of Slieve Donard. /
Slikeve Donard where the herbs of Wisdom grow, / The herbs of the Secret of Life
that the old white goat has nibbled. / And I shall live longer than Methuselah /
Brother to no man.’" Page 117: Clipped copy of "An Old Song Remade" by
Padraic Colum. Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "‘A quiet road! You
would get to know / The briers and stones along the way / A dozen times you’d
see last year’s nest / A peacock’s cry, a pigeon astray / Would be marks enough
to set on a day.’ (Padraic Colum, ‘Old Pastures’)." Loose, a clipped review from
The Commonweal titled "Padraic Colum’s Poetry" discussing Colum’s book
Poems (review written by Katherine Brégy). In the margins, Una has supplied,
in hand, either an additional verse of Colum’s poetry (evidently part of a
collection titled Creatures) or a version of a tribute to "that noble
vision, the old proud deer of Ireland, last of their race: An old man said I saw
/ The chief of the things that are gone; / A stag with a head held high / A doe,
and a fawn. / And they were the deer of Ireland / That scorned to breed within
bound / The last, they left no race, / Tame on a pleasure ground." The verse
quoted in the article to which this section is appended reads, "A stag with his
hide all rough / With the dew, and a doe and a fawn; / Nearby, on their track on
the mountain, / I watched them, two and one, / Down to the Shannon going-- / Did
its waters cease to flow / When they passed, they that carried the swiftness /
And the pride of long ago? / The last of the troop that had heard / Finn’s and
Oscar’s cry; / A doe and a fawn, and before / A stag with head held high!"
Inside back cover: Pasted in, three clipped poems: (1) "The Poor Girl, a
Meditation"; (2) a poem in memory of John Butler Yeats, which begins,
"‘Tonight,’ you said, ‘tonight all Ireland round / The curlews call.’ The
dinner-talk went on. / And I knew what you heard and what you saw, / That left
you for a little while withdrawn-- / The lonely land, the lonely-crying birds!";
and (3) an unidentified poem which begins, "O, the black and roan horses the
street would fill, / Their manes and tails streaming and they standing still. .
. ."
Colvin, Sir Sidney. Memories and Notes of Persons and
Places: 1852-1912. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921. Notes:
The "persons" include, in part, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
John Ruskin, Robert Browning, and Victor Hugo. Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers." Inside front cover: Loose 5" x 7" (folded in half) printed
document titled, "A Letter to the Most Illustrious the Contessina Allagia Dela
Aldobrandeschi Written Christmas Eve Anno Domini 1513." The letter is dated
Christmas Eve, 1513, and it is signed by Fra Giovanni (published by The
Challenge, 24 Great Russell Street, London). Page 178: Loose, clipped
article by Kathleen Woodward from a New York Times book review, August
31, 1924, titled "Lady Colvin, Whose Genius Was for Inspiring Others: For Fifty
Years She Tamed the Literary Lions of England."
Conran, Michael. The National Music of Ireland:
Containing the History of the Irish Bards, The National Melodies, The Harp, and
Other Musical Instruments of Erin. London: John Johnson, 1850. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed by two previous owners: "Joseph Robinson, Manchester,
1850," and "Leslie Stevenson, County Antrim, 1928." Back flyleaf: Pasted
in, a clipped letter to an editor (identified in hand by Una: "London Observer,
Feb. 1938"), which refers to an article about Arnold Dolmetsch’s crusade to
revive ancient music, and which points out that Carl Gilbert Hardebeck, though
blind, had traveled throughout Ireland to record and identify music preserved
among Irish peasants. Inside back cover: Note written by Una, "The vertue
of the harpe, with skyll aryght / Will destrye the fendy’s (fiend’s) might.
--Bishop Grosteste."
Cox, R. Hippisley. Where Green Roads Meet: A Guide to
Avebury and Neighbourhood. Swindon: Swindon Press, Ltd., 1929. Notes:
Cover: In Una’s hand, "Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel. Flyleaf:
"November 15, 1929."
D’Annunzio, Gabriele. The Flame of Life. Boston: L.
C. Page Publishers, 1909. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Kuster."
Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, "Above the door of Duse’s house are
carved D’Annunzio’s words, ‘Eleanora Duse / Figlia ulti mogenita di San Marco
/ Apparizone melodios a / del patimen to creatore / e della sovrana bonta.’
(To Eleanore Duse / Youngest daughter of San Marco / Melodious Impersonator of /
Creative Suffering / And of sovereign goodness." Half-title page: Pasted
in, a clipped passage headed in Una’s hand, "From D’Annunzio’s ‘Notturno’
written at Fiume: ‘I am stretched by the window. The moon is full. There is no
wind-froth about her. . . . In Koré’s house there are now only white peacocks. I
see only the great stone base, and the trees of the hidden garden, and a strip
of luminous water. . . . Mystic and solitary greatness as in a dead Persian or
Indian city. . . . The canal like an holy river where the ashes of pyres are
scattered at sunset. . . . There is no voice heard, no fall of oars, no amour at
all. Life seems to have breathed itself out ages before. . . . And the
insensible moon contemplates a beauty as exanimate as that of Angkor or
Anuradhapura.’" Pages 296-97: The book opens readily at the location of
the following: "‘Oh, Virtue of the Flame!’ thought the Lifegiver, beguiled from
his anxiety by the miraculous beauty of the element that had become familiar to
him as a brother from the day in which he had felt the revealing melody. ‘Ah,
that I might give to the life of the creatures who love me the perfection of the
forms to which I aspire! That I might fuse all their weaknesses in some white
heat, and make of it an obedient matter in which to impress the commandments of
my will, which is heroic, and the images of my poetry, which is pure. Why, why,
my friend, will you not be the divine, mobile statue of my spirit, the work of
faith and of sorrow by which our lives might surpass our art itself? Why are we
on the point of resembling those small lovers who curse and lament? I had truly
thought that you could have given me more than love when I heard from your lips
those admirable words: "One thing I can do, which even love cannot do." You must
ever be able to accomplish those things which love can, and those things which
love cannot do in order to equal my insatiable nature." Meanwhile, the work of
the furnace was proceeding fervently. . . .’"
D’Israeli, I. Curiosities of Literature. London:
George Routledge and Sons, 1867. Notes: No marks distinguish this volume
as having been read by the Jeffers, but the book’s spine and stitching are
broken at the section headed "Poets," by Peter Corneille. It begins, "In all
ages there has existed an anti-poetical party. This faction consists of those
frigid intellects incapable of that glowing expansion so necessary to feel the
charms of an art, which only addresses itself to the imagination. . . . Plato,
among the ancients, is the model of those moderns who profess themselves to be
anti-poetical. . . ." It is not possible to know if the book was frequently
opened at this place by Una or RJ, but it is certain--given the condition of the
book--that if they handled it at all, it would have opened to this page.
Dadmum, Rev. J. W. The Melodean: A Collection of Hymns
and Tunes, Original and Selected, Adapted to All Occasions of Social Worship.
Boston: J. P. Magee, 1863. Notes: Inside front cover: Inscribed
"Frank F. Jewell, Adams." Opposite title page: Pasted in, a clipped
sketch captioned "‘And Fearful Sights and Great Signs shall be there from
Heaven.’-- Luke XXI. 11."
Dalin, Ebba, Ed. The Zephyr Book of American Verse.
Stockholm: The Continental Book Company, 1945. Notes: This volume
contains three poems by Robinson Jeffers: "Apology for Bad Dreams," "I Shall
Laugh Purely," and "The Stars Go Lonely over the Ocean."
Dane, Clemence. Granite: A Tragedy. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1926. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
In Una’s hand next to the list of the author’s works, "The Moon is Feminine,
1938." Title page: In Una’s hand under the author’s name, "(Winifred
Ashton)."
Darien, Peter. Village of Seven Gates. Berkeley
Heights, New Jersey: The Oriole Press, 1958. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "For Robinson Jeffers--with many thanks to America’s Greatest Poet
from one of her least. P. D. (Bill Bassett), Christmas 1958."
Daudet, Alphonse. Tartarin de Tarascon. New York:
Ginn and Company, 1918. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Gracella
Rountree." Appears to have been used as a textbook.
de la Mare, Walter. Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes
and Poems for the Young of All Ages Made by Walter De La Mare and Embellished by
Alec Buckels. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Notes: Flyleaves:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Clipped poem labeled in Una’s hand "The Child Jesus to
Mary the Rose. XIV Cent. by Lydgate. See page[s] 495, 186." Page 41: In
the margin next to "Lines on Receiving His Mother’s Picture," by William Cowper,
in Una’s hand, "I was a striken deer, that left the herd / Long since; with many
an arrow deep infixed / My panting side was charged when I withdrew / To seek a
tranquil death in distant shades. / There was I found by one who had himself /
Been hurt by the archers. . . . And find the total of their hopes and fears /
Dreams, empty dreams. (Wm. Cowper, The Task, Book III)." Page 49: Next to
"The Poplar Field" by Cowper, in Una’s hand, "Time was when settling on thy
leaf, a fly / Could shake thee to the root - and time has been / When tempests
could not. / Time made thee what thou wast, King of the Woods / And time hath
made thee what thou art - a cave / For owls to dwell in. (Yardley Oak by Wm.
Cowper)." Page 186: "Henry Before Agincourt: October 25, 1415," by
Lydgate. Page 254: Marked in the poem "Hark," by John Webster, the line,
"Their life a general mist of error, / Their death a hideous storm of terror."
Page 256: Una corrects the misprint, "Winter is my true-love’s
shroud" to read "Whiter." Page 355: Evidently, "The Churchyard on
the Sands," by Lord de Tabley, is missing two stanzas in this volume.
Accordingly, Una has pasted in a clipped copy of two more stanzas: "Strong and
alone, my love with thee; / And tho’ mine eyes be wet, / There’s nothing in the
world to me / So dear as my regret. / Sleep and forget all things but one, /
Heard in each wave of sea-- / How lonely all the years will run / Until I rest
by thee." Page 416: Una has emended a footnote which gives the meaning of
"richt" as "right" by adding the meaning of "laith": it is "loath," in the line,
"O our Scots noble were richt laith." Page 488: A pasted-in clipping
labeled by Una, "See page 498." Page 498: In the chapter (part of the
section de la Mare characterizes as the book’s "Key") titled, "Joan Strokes a
Sillabub or Twain," a clipped article which criticizes de la Mare’s Sillabub as
a "poor weak thing . . . not . . . the drink for a football hero," and proposes
two other sillabub recipes from an 1800 volume titled The Family Receipt Book
or Universal Repository of Useful Knowledge and Experience in all the various
Branches of Domestic Economy. Pages 495-96: "Cuckoo, Jug, Jug, Pu We,
to Witta Woo!" by Lydgate. Page 671: In Una’s hand, "The fals foxe camme
unto oure croft. / And so oure gese ful fast he sought / With how fox how, with
hey fox hey; / Comme no more to oure house to bere / Our gese awaye. (XV cent.
ballad)." Page 672: A pasted-in typed letter on stationery from Hill
House, Taplow, Buckinghamshire, dated May 8, 1936: "Dear Mrs. Robinson Jeffers,
It was such a pleasure to have your letter about Come Hither this
morning, and it was exceedingly kind of you to write it. It is amusing that you
who hate anagrams should have discovered the absurd pseudonym that Natural
Science secreted itself in, in the Introduction. And now I don’t know how to
apologise for the fact that Kitchen Work is just Kitchen Work! It might of
course - and this would be rather in the nature of things - pan out into
something else, but I rather fancy that two K’s would be a little awkward.
[Handwritten note] I know you will forgive this type at sight of this
[scratching?]! Yours Sincerely, Walter de la Mare." Below, note in Una’s hand,
"See page xxvi." Page xxvi: An "X" next to the passage, "One whole
book-case consisted of what Mr. Nahum appeared to call Kitchen Work. But the one
on a lower shelf which had now taken my attention was new to me--an enormous,
thick, home-made-looking volume covered in a greenish shagreen or sharkskin."
Marginalia at several other junctures in the book’s introduction, "The Story of
This Book": Page xi: De La Mare refers to East Dene; Una writes "Eden
Seat" in the margin. Page xii: Next to the word "Thrae" Una writes
"Earth" and by the word "Taroone" she writes "Nature (oore)." Page xv:
Next to the word "Sure Vine" Una writes "Universe." Page xvi: Una crosses
out some letters in the sentence "She, I had discovered, was called Linnet Sara
Queek or Quek
or Cuec [underline Una’s] or Cueque,"
next to which she writes the words "Natural Science." Page xvii: Next to
"Ten Laps" Una writes "Planets," and next to "East Dene" she writes "Eden Seat."
Page xx: Next to "Nahum" Una writes "Human," and next to "Nahum Taroone,"
she writes "Human Nature." Page xxvi: Una notes "Kitchen Work." Page
xxvii: Una again translates "Nahum Tarune" as "Human Nature." Page 681:
In the Index to this volume, Una notes her addition of the Lydgate poem on the
flyleaf: "also inset front page." Next to index entries for Mary Coleridge and
for Percy Shelley Una has written "536." Page 536 (actually 537): The
explanatory entry titled "It Caught His Image": "And Shelley: ‘. . . I cannot
tell my joy, when o’er a lake / Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined, /
I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward / And shining one bright bunch of
amber berries, / With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay / Those lovely
forms imaged as in the sky. . . .’ Anyone so happy as to be able to remember
Mary Coleridge, as a friend, will agree that to have seen her eyes I to have
seen her own pool and Shelley’s lake, imaging such lovely flitting halcyons."
Back flyleaf: Pasted in, a clipped copy of a periodical article titled, "The
Greatest Love Sonnets of the World," (n.d., n.p.), which features a translation
of "Petrarch to Laura," by Joseph Auslander. Inside back cover: Pasted
in, a clipped excerpt illustrating Beaumont’s "descriptive and elegiac best
effects," and a clipping of "The Silver Swan" from Orlando’s First Set of
Madrigals (1612).
de la Mare, Walter. Ding Dong Bell. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1924. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, "Epitaph written by Shenstone. ‘Vale .
. . Hen quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse!’
(‘Farewell . . . . Ah how much less is intercourse with others than remembrance
of thee!’) The best that was ever written!" Page 20: Loose, a scrap of
stationery on which is Greek and a translation, in Una’s hand: "I am the tomb of
one ship wrecked - ___ sail thou; for even while we perished, the other ships
sailed on over the sea. Also at this page, a cartoon captioned "Mr. Walter de la
Mare gaining inspiration for an errie [sic] and lovely story. A cartoon
by Max Beerbohm"; and a clipped fragment of a review by Horace Gregory of de la
Mare’s The Burning Glass. Page 22: Loose, a clipped review of
Ding Dong Bell, characterizing the book as "epitaphic." Page 79: In
Una’s hand, with an arrow pointing to the epigram she has written below, "This
and seven others herein marked X are set to music by Theodore Chamler ® Here
lies Thomas Logge--a rascally dogge / A poor useless creature--by choice as by
nature; / Who never served God--for kindness or Rod; / Who, for pleasure or
penny, -- never did any / Work in his life--but to marry a Wife, / And live aye
in strife: / And all this he says--at the end of his days / Lest some fine
canting pen / Should be at him again." Of the other seven: "No Voice to scold; /
No face to frown; / No hand to smite / The helpless down: / Ay, Stranger, here /
An Infant lies, / With worms for / Welcome Paradise" (pp. 13-14); "Three sisters
rest beneath / This cypress shade, ‘/ Sprightly Rebecca, Anne, / and Adelaide. /
Gentle their hearts to all / In him, they said, all Grief, / All Wo began. /
Spinsters they lived, and spinsters / Here are laid; / Sprightly Rebecca, Anne,
/ And Adelaide" (p. 18); "Just a span and half a span / From head to heel was
this little man. / Scarcely a capful of small bones / Raised up erect this
Midget once. / Yet not a knuckle was askew; / Inches for feet God made him true;
/ And something handsome put between / His coal-black hair and beardless chin. /
But now, forsooth, with mole and mouse, / He keeps his own small darkened house"
(pp. 30-31); "Here sleep I, / Susannah Fry, / No one near me, / No one nigh: /
Alone, alone / Under my stone, / Dreaming on, / Still dreaming on: / Grass for
my valance / And coverlid, / Dreaming on / As I always did" (pp. 45); "Be very
quiet now: / A child’s asleep / In this small cradle, / In this shadow deep!"
(p. 52); "Here lyeth our infant, Alice Rodd; / She was so small, / Scarce aught
all, / But a mere breath of Sweetness sent from God. / Sore we did weepe; our
heartes on sorrow set. / Till on our knees / God sent us ease; / And now we
weepe no more than we forget" (pp. 67-68); "Stranger, here lies / Ann Poverty; /
Such was her name / And such was she. / May Jesu pity / Poverty" (p. 69).
Page 79: Pasted in, "Here lies a most beautiful lady, / Light of step and
heart was she: / I think she was the most beautiful lady / that ever was in the
West Country. / But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; / However rare, rare it be:
/ And when I crumble, who shall remember / This lady of the West Country?" by
Walter de la Mare. Back flyleaves: In Una’s hand, "The world’s a city
full of crooked streets. / And Death ye marketplace where each man meets / If
life were merchandise yt men could buy / The rich would always live, the poor
would die. (Astley, Worcestershire)"; and "Robert Herrick mentions the ‘little
urn’ in church at Dean Prior, Devon, in which is laid ‘Prewdence Baldwin once my
maid.’" Pasted in are four clipped epitaphs: (1) Mabel Simpson’s "Cry over me O
winter wind, / Trample the blackened crust! / Drive down your iron foot and find
/ My undefeated dust. / Stab still with sleet, rend still with rain / Uproot my
narrow bed! / You cannot awaken me again, / I am dead! I am dead!"; (2) Lord
Latymer’s "A Dead Wife’s Epitaph," "Once I learnt in wilful hour / How to vex
him; still I keep, / Now unwillingly, my power; / Every day he comes to weep";
(3) found at Bideford, "Here lies the body of Mary Sexton, / Who pleased many a
man, but never vex’d one; / Not like the woman who lies under the next stone";
(4) William Harvey’s "Farewell, vain world, I’ve had enough of thee, / And
Valies’t not what thou Can’st say of me; / Thy Smiles I count not, nor they
frowns I fear, / My days are past,, my head lies quiet here. / What faults you
saw in me take / Care to shun. / Look but at home, enough is to be done." In
Una’s hand, the following: "A shipwrecked sailor, buried on this coast, / Bids
you set sail. / Full many a gallant bark, when he was lost, / Weathered the
gale’ (Old Greek inscription); Lady Burne-Jones copied this from a tiny worn
gravestone in an old church at Climping, Sussex, date 1774. ‘This little lamb
that was so small / Did taste of death when Christ did call; As us am so must
you be / Therefore prepare to follow we’ (Church of St. Dubritius, Porlock,
Somerset)." Inside back cover: Epitaphs in Una’s hand: (1) "‘Stay,
passenger, take notice what thou reads, / At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our
heads; / Our right hand stood at Lanark, those we want, Because with them we
signed the Covenant.’ (Epitaph on a tombstone at Hamilton); (2) ‘They cut his
hands ere he was dead, / And after that struck off his head. / His blood under
the altar cries / For vengeance on Christ’s enemies.’ (Epitaph on tomb at
Longcuss of Clermont); (3) ‘Pulus et umbra et nihil’ (On the tomb of a
Cardinal in the Capuccci Church at Rome); (4) ‘Here lie I, Martin Eldinbrode, /
Ha’ mercy on my soul, Lord ode! / As I would do, were I Lord Gode / And thou
wert Marin Elidinbrode’ (from an Aberdeen tombstone); (5) ‘Over Katherine
Mansfield’s grave, Avon near Fontainbleau (from Shakespeare) ‘But I tell you, my
lord, fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower safety’; (6)
Swift’s epitaph, ‘Here he is resting where bitter indignation can no longer tear
his heart’; (7) On a sarcophagus in the catacombs in Rome, ‘Whatsoever impious
man violates this sepulchre, may he die the last of his own people’; (8)
"Italian epitaphs at Ferrara admired by Byron--’Martini Luigi /Implora pace .
. . Lucrez in Picini / Implora eterna quieta’; (9) On a slab in the wall of
one of the cloisters, Westminster Abbey, ‘Jane Lister deare childe’; (10) Over
stone on the bank of the Hudson near Grant’s tomb, ‘The grave of St. Claire
Pollock who died July 1797 aetat 5.’"
de Montmorency-Morres, Colonel . Historical and
Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Primitive Use of the Irish Pillar-Tower.
London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1821. Notes: Inside front cover:
Inscribed by and bookplate for James Whatman. In (presumably) Mr. Whatman’s
19th-century hand, a note reading, "Whether the author published this Tract for
the purpose of making known the particulars relating to the Montmorency Family
mentioned in Page 17, the Reader is not informed. His opinions reflecting the
origin and use of the Irish Pillar tower are stated in p. 33; 39; 43; 53-57;
62-63; 74----. His Hypothesis, like those of preceding Enquirers, has met with
few supporters and such little success had this Tract on its publication, that
nearly all the copies were returned to the author as Unsaleable. Hence it
occurs rarely in Sale Catalogues, and still more rarely in those of Booksellers.
I found this Copy quite by chance: the former possessor of it appears to
have considered it as not worth reading, the Leaves remaining uncut throughout.
-- The best, and most satisfactory theory respecting these singular remains of
Antiquity, is that of W. Henry O’Brien, A. B. of Dublin University who published
a rambling and rather bulking Volume on the subject in 1834." No marks left by a
Jeffers in this volume, but Una was likely interested in the book and in its
former owner’s note.
Deutsch, Babette. This Modern Poetry. New York: W.
W. Norton and Company, 1935. Notes: Pages 193-99: In the chapter
titled, "The Burden of Mystery," Deutsch discusses Jeffers’ work, along with
that of D. H. Lawrence, William Butler Yeats, and Walt Whitman. Page 99:
Jeffers is mentioned in connection with Edna St. Vincent Millay, George
Meredith, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, and Conrad Aiken. Inside front cover:
Loose, clipped article by Mary M. Colum from The Saturday Review of
Literature, November 2, 1935, titled, "Literature and the Social Left," in
which she discusses writing both as a trade--utilitarian, political and
practical--and as an art which is sensitive to artistic form, to the
imagination, to eternal values and ideas. The article begins, "The social left,
it should be remembered, is not the same as the literary left; a large
proportion of the social left belong to the literary right, many of them to the
long outmoded literary right. On the other hand, many of the writers of the
literary left belong to the social right, even to the outmoded social right such
as Royalists. . . ."
Die Bibel, ober die ganze Heilige Schrift bes alten und
nenen Teftaments. New York: Heransgegeben von der
Amerifanifdjen Bibel-Melfellfchaft, 1897. Notes: Title page:
Inscribed "Una Call." Overleaf, in Una’s hand, "April 5, 1902."
Ditchfield, P. H. Old Village Life: Or, Glimpses of
Village Life Through All Ages. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, c. 1921.
Notes: Inside front cover: Pasted in, a clipped woodcut
(attributed to Lyons, 1517) captioned, "Cultivation of Grain by French Peasants
Aid the Manufacture of Barley and Oat Bread." Flyleaf: Pasted in, a
clipped woodcut showing hunting party; artist not identified. Page 254:
Pasted in, a clipped woodcut of armored soldiers at a castle; artist not
identified. Back flyleaves: (1) Pasted-in clipped review of a book by a
Miss Evans, which treats of "the noble figure of St. Louis traveling with the
enthusiastic Crusaders and the merry pilgrims." (2) Pasted-in clipped article
about medieval orchards--their purposes and uses. (3) Pasted-in woodcut
captioned, "Courtyard of a Castle, Fifteenth Century Example of the Passing of
the Exedra."
Ditchfield, P. H. The Manor Houses of England.
London: B. T. Batsford, 1910. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers." Inside front cover: Pasted in, a clipping labeled in Una’s
hand, "Penshurst, Kent," from Mansions of England in the Olden Times by
Joseph Kent and showing a yule celebration in the great hall of an English
castle in the Middle Ages. Flyleaf: Clipping showing sketch of street
scene in Steyning, Sussex. Pasted onto second side of flyleaf, clipping labeled
in Una’s hand, "Sutton Poyntz, Dorset," and showing a village next to a pond.
Half-title page: In (RJ’s?) hand, the following: "A faire yellow freestone
building partly two and partly three storeys: a faire hall and parlour, both
wayscotted; a faire dyning roome and with drawing roome, a kitchen adjoyninge
backwarde to one end of the dwelling-house and a faire passage from it into the
halle, parlour and dyning room and cellars adjoining . . . In the front of the
house a square greene court, and a curious gatehouse with lodgings in it
standing with the front of the house to the south; in a larger outer court,
three stables, a coach house, a large barne and a stable for oxen and kyne . . .
Without the gatehouse paled in, a large square green, in which standeth a faire
chappell by the southeast side of the greene court, toward the river, a large
garden of the south west side of the green court, a large bowling greene with
fower mounted walks about it all walled about with a battled wall and sett with
all sorts of fruit; and out of it into the feildes are large walks under many
tall elms orderly planted. [Here follows mention of orchards and gardens,
servants offices, brewhouse, bake house, dairy, pigeon house and corn mill; the
river and its abundance of fish; the warren, the coppices, the walks.] And all
the country north of the house, open champaign, sandy feilde, very dry and
pleasant for all kindes of recreation, huntinge and hawkinge and profitable for
tillage . . . the house hath a large prospect east, south and west over a very
large and pleasant vale . . . is seated from the good market towns of Sherton
Abbas, three miles and Ibel a mile that plentifully yield all manner of
provision; and within twelve miles of the south sea." Jeffers[?] notes,
"Description of old manor Clyfton Horseleigh from old mss. mentioned in Thomas
Hardy’s Wessex Stories)." Back of half-title page: Clipped
picture, pasted in and labeled in Una’s hand "Mill Pool at Swanage." and
pasted-in, clipped picture captioned, "Stoke Poges Churchyard, Where Gray Lies
Buried." Title page: Pasted in, a clipping describing the buildings and
history of Grace Dieu, an estate in Leicestershire, on the border of Charnwood
Forest, and being offered for lease. Opposite title page: Pasted in, a
clipped picture of view of Chiddingstone, Kent. Page vi: Pasted in, a
clipped picture captioned, "The House from which the Washington Family Came to
the American Colonies: Sulgrave Manor House in Warwickshire, England, the
Ancestral Home of the Washingtons, as It Now Appears." Overleaf from Table of
Contents: Pasted in, clipped sketches of the gatehouse and refectory at
Cleeve Abbey, and a clipping captioned, "‘Trerice,’" a Cornish Manor House."
Page 5: Pasted in, a clipped picture of procession captioned, "A historical
pageant of thirteenth-century life was held recently at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire,
to commemorate its foundation, 700 years ago, by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, in
memory of her husband. She herself was impersonated by the present owner of the
Abbey, Miss Talbot, who is seen in our photograph heading a procession." Page
10: Pasted-in clipped pictures showing Broadhurst Manor, Sussex; Walsingham
Abbey and Poplar Farm, Brettenham, Suffolk. Page 11: Original pencil
sketch, pasted in and labeled, "Window in Tretower Court, Tretower Wales, XV
Cent." Page 17: Pasted-in clipping of photo showing ancient stone wall
and archway. Page 39: Clipped photo, pasted in, of a stone wall, labeled
in Una’s hand, "In Surrey." Page 49: Clipping, pasted in, of a sketch
captioned, "Sulgrave Manor." Page 77: Clipping, pasted in and labeled in
hand, "Steyning Church." Page 83: Photo, pasted in and labeled in hand, "Moreton
Old Hall, Cheshire." Page 111: Small, pasted-in clipping of sketch of
gabled house. Page 139: Pasted-in clipping of sketch captioned "Entrance
of Strawberry Hill." Page 141: Clipping, pasted in, of a photo labeled in
hand, "Gittishaue, Devon. Page 142: Pasted-in clipping of photo of
griffin relief over doorway and labeled in hand, "Dunster Castle, Somersetshire."
Page 143: Clipping, pasted in, of a photo captioned, "Hasting’s
Birthplace at Churchill, in Oxfordshire." Page 176: Clippings, pasted in,
of photos showing two views of a sixteenth-century dovecote, with handwritten
note to see page 187. Page 187: Picture shows the remains of a
twelfth-century building in which hawks were kept in Scotland. Page 185:
Pasted-in clipping of a photo captioned, "The signpost represents the ‘Biddenden
maids,’ twin sisters who, in their will, left money to provide bread and cheese
for the poor of the parish of Biddenden, Kent, where they lived about 1100 A.D.!
This ‘dole’ is distributed on Easter Sunday." Page 202: Pasted-in
clipping of a sketch captioned, "old hospital and Beauchamp chapel in Warwick,
England, built about 1450. In the chapel are the remains of Richard, the
Lion-Hearted." Page 211: Village scene, pasted in and labeled, in hand, "Lingfield
Surrey." Back flyleaves: Clippings, pasted in: (1) several views of
fifteenth and sixteenth century houses; (2) photo labeled "Fittleworth, Sussex";
(3) sketch captioned "St. Martin’s Church Wareham"; (4) two views of house(s)
with Una’s handwritten note, "Sheila Kaye-Smith at her house in Sussex"; (5)
photo of Stokesay Castle, identified as from the thirteenth century, and as "one
of the finest examples of a castellated mansion house"; (6) several views
showing Tudor and Jacobean details; (7) sketches of Penshurst Place, Kent,
Owlpen Manor; and (8) one unidentified house.
Ditchfield, P.H. The Charm of the English Village.
Publication information pasted over. Notes: Inside front cover:
Identified in Una’s hand, "Fairford Church, Gloucestershire, XV century, Gothic
magnificent stained glass." Front flyleaves: Pasted-in clipped pictures
of Wymondham Abbey Church; "A Westmoreland Farm"; Post bridge, Devon; "A
Shropshire Farm"; Charing, Kent; House of the Flemish Weavers, Dedham, Essex.
Title page: A pasted-in clipped sketch of a church, St. Peter at Croft near
Darlington, where "Lewis Carroll" (the Rev. Charles L. Dodson) officiated.
Opposite Table of Contents: Clipped pictures, pasted in, the first captioned
"Lay Brothers’ Entrance, Beaulieu Abbey," and the second showing a thatched
house in Sussex. Opposite opening page of Chapter 1: Clipped pictures,
pasted in, the first identified in Una’s hand, "Bishop of Winchester in the
deanery of Andover near Amport talking to schoolchildren," and the second
showing of a group of riders in village. Page 1: Pasted-in clipped
picture of the Sir Barleycorn Inn at Cadnam in the New Forest. Page 3:
Pasted-in clipped village scene--Selworthy, Somerset. Page 5: Clipped,
pasted-in picture taken at Aynho, Northhamptonshire. Page 22: Clipped,
pasted-in picture of the Water Gate at Beaulieu Abbey. Page 34: Clipped,
pasted-in picture of a village (unidentified) scene. Page 46: Clipped,
pasted-in picture of Bury Farm, Amersham. Page 47: Clipped, pasted-in
picture of a Tudor manor at Ashby St. Ledgers. Page 71: Clipped,
pasted-in pictures of a Sussex village, and of the Chiltern Foothills (‘circa
1640"). Pages 82-83: Clipped, pasted-in photo of topiary depicting
chessmen at Hever Castle, Kent. Page 94: Clipped, pasted-in picture of
Little Milton, Berkshire. Page 110: Clipped, pasted-in picture of an
elderly couple at a well. Page 118: Clipped, pasted-in picture of hounds
and riders on village street. Page 119: Clipped, pasted-in picture taken
at Alston, Cumberland. Page 134: Clipped, pasted-in picture taken at
Pauntley Court, Newent. Page 141: Clipped, pasted-in picture of the
Griffin Inn, Norwich. Page 142: Clipped, pasted-in sketch of a village
(unidentified) church and wall. Page 150: Clipped, pasted-in picture of
the Market Hall, Chipping Camden. Page 151: Clipped, pasted-in sketch of
a village scene. Page 160: Clipped, pasted-in photo captioned, "The
Blencathra Foxhounds moving off at Caldbeck on John Peel’s Day," and a
handwritten note by Una, "These hounds claim unbroken descent from John Peel’s
pack." Page 167: Clipped, pasted-in sketch captioned, "Autumn festival,
Cornwall." Back flyleaves: Clipped, pasted-in pictures of the home of
Mary Arden; an Elizabethan dwelling (also her home?); a view of Settle,
Yorkshire; the interior and exterior of Little Missenden Church, "where
twelfth-century murals were discovered"; a village scene in Devonshire; sketches
of Dunster, Somerset; the manor house and church at Mells, Somerset; the Keats
Seat, Well Walk; the Deanery at Wells, Somerset; Lyte’s Cary Manor House near
Ilchester, Somerset; Abbey Farm, Preston Plucknett, Yeovil; Crowcombe Village,
Somerset; Newark; photos of St. Michael’s, Ilsington (in Una’s hand "On the edge
of Dartmoor. St. Michael’s cottages, date Henry VII."); Mrs Siddon’s house,
Lydbrook; 14th century tithe barn at Tisbury; a Tudor cottage between Winchester
and Basingstoke; a re-enactment of a Tudor hawking party; a village scene
(sketch); Bibury on the Cotswolds; Thomas à Becket’s cottage near Tarring; St.
Just, Cornwall; and Axemouth Smithy.
Donne, John. Complete Poetry and Selected Prose.
New York: The Nonesuch Press, 1929. Notes: Flyleaf: In Una’s hand,
"Death be not proud 283" and "For whom the bell tolls 538." Page 283 is not
marked, but page 538 is marked at the following passage: "No man is an Iland,
intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;
if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a
Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were;
any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." Back flyleaf:
Clipped picture pasted in and captioned "Donne in His Winding Sheet."
Dorchain, Auguste, Ed. Les Cent Meilleurs Poèmes (Lyriques)
de la Langue Française. Paris: A. Perche, 1909. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Merry Christmas to Esther from Sallie C. H., Dec. 25th, 1910."
Table of Contents: Checked is "Nous n’irons plus au bois" by de
Banville. Ivory ribbon bookmark also rests at this page: "Nous n’irons plus
au bois, les lauriers sont coupés. / Les Amours des bassins, les Naïades en
groupe / Voient reluire au soleil en cristaux découpés / Les flots silencieux
qui coulaient de leur coupe. / Les lauriers sont coupés, et le cerf aux abois /
Tressaille au son du cor; nous n’irons plus au bois, / Où des enfants joueurs
riait la folle troupe / Parmi les lys d’argent aux pleurs du ciel trempés, /
Voici l’herbe qu’on fauche et les lauriers qu’on coupe. / Nous n’irons plus au
bois, les lauriers sont coupés." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "Mallarmé /
Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd’hui / Va-t-il nous déchirer avec un coup
d’aile ivre / Celac dur oublié que haute sous le givre / Le transparent glacier
des vols qui n’ont pas fui? // Un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui /
Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre / Pour n’avoir pas chanté la region
où vivre / Quand du stérile hivre a resplendi l’ennui. // Tous son col secourer
a cette blanche agonie / Par l’espace infligée à l’oiseau qui le vie, / Mais non
l’horreur du sol où le plumage est pris. / Fantôme qu’à ce lieu son pur éclat
assigne, / Il s’immobilise au songe froid de mépris / Que vêt parmi l’exil
inutile le Cygne."
Doster, Mrs. Ben Hill. The Doster Genealogy.
Richmond, Virgina: The William Byrd Press, 1945. Notes: Page 55:
Genealogy of the family of Frederic J. Grant, Jr., whose eldest daughter,
Patricia Belle, married (according to rather confusing handwritten notes) Donnan
Call Jeffers 22 Oct 1941, and had a daughter, Candida Call Jeffers, b. 17 Apr
1943.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. New
York: The Modern Library, 1929. Notes: Back flyleaf: Pasted-in,
clipped picture captioned "Dostoyevsky in Siberia."
Doyle, Lynn. The Spirit of Ireland. London: B. T.
Batsford, 1935. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "My Salutations to Her
Majesty of Ireland, Una the First, Albert M. Bender, 1936."
Dublin Delineated in Twenty-Eight Views of the Principal
Public Buildings, accompanied by Descriptions of each, with an Itinerary,
pointing out the Leading Streets, and Principal Objects of Attraction.
Dublin: G. Tyrrell, 1843. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "A bit of auld
Ireland for dear Una from Albert Bender." Inscribed at top of flyleaf, "Tho.
Robinson Bours, Dublin, July 22nd, 1844."
Dunsany, Lord. The King of Elfland’s Daughter. New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1924. Notes: Flyleaf: Clipping with a
photograph of Lord Dunsany and a brief article about his most notable plays and
recent novels. Page 170: Loose, an announcement of sale of a first
edition of Lord Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegana (1905), along with a
(glowing) critical review by James Stephens. Page 236: Loose, a clipped
article (no source) discussing the significance of "the trend of Irish writers."
Dutt, William A. Highways and Byways in East Anglia.
London: Macmillan and Company, 1914. Notes: Inside front cover: In
Una’s hand, "Sir Wm. Paston 1378-1444 & wife Agnes dau of Sir Edmund Berry d.
1479, buried in Our Lady’s Chapel Norwich Cathedral; John Paston, Esq. son of
above 1420-1466, sumptuous burial at Bromholm Prior, Norfolk; wife Margaret
Mauteby, buried at Mauteby 1484 (mother and father of Margery Paston Call); Sir
John Paston, Esq., son of above, died 1503, wife Margery Brews d. 1495 buried in
White Friars Norwich; many Pastons buried in Paston and Oxnead." Flyleaf:
"Norwich, Maid’s Head, an inn where Margery Paston stayed." Page 206:
Section headed "Blicking Ghosts" discusses the possibility that Anne Boleyn was
either born or was buried at Blicking (or both), to which Una adds in the
margin, "Lately (1948) a body was uncovered in the Chapel of the Tower of London
which was identified as Anne Boleyn by the 6th finger on each hand." Page
206: Two loose leaflets: (1) The first titled "The Maydns Hed" is the story
in verse of the place’s history written by Edward Tillett (autographed by the
author), and dated "Norwich, April 1948"; it is inscribed on the cover in Una’s
hand, "At the Maid’s Head - August 25-28, 1948." (2) The second leaflet is
titled, "A Simple Guide for Visitors to Norwich Castle," and inscribed, "Una
Jeffers" on the cover. In it, Una has located on the diagram of the cathedral
the location of the Pastons’ tombs in the Lady Chapel (pp. 15-17 of the
leaflet). Page 211: Reference to "Clement Paston’s vanished hall at
Oxnead" is underlined. Index: Una has emended the Index to include the
reference to Caistor, page 197; Oxnead, page 211; Appleton Hall, page 271;
Paston, page 104; Paston, Edmund, page 211; Mautby, pages 95, 98, 99 (Una also
includes a note that Mautby is 3 miles from Caistor). Back flyleaves: Una
points out, in the flyleaves, that bearded titmice and grubs are mentioned on
page 153, and that Houghton (Hall and village) is mentioned on page 243. She
notes that Caister Castle is "just north of Yarmouth" and that there is "another
Caistor in Norwich." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, a list of places
to visit: Norwich, Caister (and Castle), Paston, Walsingham, Bakton, Framlingham,
Oxnead, Bromholm Priory, Mautby, Blickling Hall. These sites are located on the
book’s map, loose inside the back cover, and a second list of Paston family
genealogy (identical to that already noted here in connection with the volume on
the Pastons) is written on the back of the map.
Earle, Alice Morse. Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday:
Garden Delights Which are Here Displayed in Very Truth and are Moreover Regarded
as Emblems. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1902. Notes: Flyleaf:
Pasted-in clipped review of Sundials: Incised Dials of Mass-clocks, by
Arthur Robert Green and clipped anecdote regarding Lord Bacon and the motto on a
sundial in Temple Gardens, London. Written in pencil in Una’s hand, "I also, am
under authority. Cosi la vita. / Ah fellow mortals let me say / Tis you
who have made time’s little day. / We are all, all in eternity." Facing page
3: Pasted in, in the chapter titled, "The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials,"
clipped photo captioned, "‘Make the most of every hour; old age brings sure
reflection’: The Duchess of York and her mother, the Countess of Strathmore,
beside the famous sundial at Glamis that bears this famous legend." Page 11:
In Una’s hand, same chapter, "Time flies, suns rise, and shadows fall. Let it go
by, so love is over all." Page 51: Pasted-in, in chapter titled,
"Noon-marks, Spot-dials, Window-dials" (and adjacent to mottoes that advise
using one’s time well because "Life is wasting / Death is hasting"), are two
clipped mottoes: "Time passeth away, death draweth on, / Therefore, men do right
and fear God" and (2) "The hours, unless the hours be bright, It is not mine to
mark: / I am the prophet of the light, / Dumb when the hour is dark." Page
55: Loose, a clipped announcement of the death of Katheryn Wolcott Perry (no
source), noting that in her Italian garden was a sundial with the motto, "I mark
for men the sunny hours / Of morning’s youth and daylight’s powers, / But
unrecorded leave the tears / Of clouds and night and gathering years."
Opposite page 59 : In the same chapter ("Noon-marks, etc."), a pasted-in
clipped photo of a house and a sundial, captioned, "Fulwell Park, Twickenham,
the home of the Ex-King of Portugal and his bride, is an unpretentious,
home-like place set in a magnificent estate which lies along the Thames a few
miles from London." Page 60: Pasted in (same chapter), two clipped photos
labeled in Una’s hand, "Wall Dial" and Zodiac Dial." Page 61: Pasted in,
in chapter titled "Classifications of Sun-dials," a clipped article giving
information about how to obtain a general list of medieval sundials. Page 68:
In Una’s hand (same chapter) in the margin above an in-text photograph of a
sundial at the Santa Barbara Mission which says (in translation) "The light of
God showeth the way of life, / But the shadow both telleth the hour and teacheth
the faith, the following note: "Another dial at the Santa Barbara Mission (a
cross-shaped dial against the church wall) says ‘My time is in Thy hands, O
God.’" Opposite page 79: Pasted in (same chapter), a clipped article
describing the old garden at Morven, Princeton, New Jersey (location identified
in Una’s hand). Page 103: Pasted in at the beginning of the chapter
titled "Ingeniose Diallers" (a reference to the quote "In this glorious reign,
as likewise in the century which has passed, there are to the honor and pleasure
of the King and the glory of God in all his works, as seen in the sunne and his
motions, many ingeniose diallers" from Mathematick Rules by I. N. Gentn,
1646), a clipped photo of a sundial and written underneath in Una’s hand, "Vulnerant
omnes! Ultima necat." Page 119: (same chapter) Pasted-in photo of a
solitary sundial of graceful proportions, unidentified. Page 162: Pasted
in, in the chapter titled "Portable Sun-dials," a clipped photo of garden with a
sundial (unidentified) placed atop an even older marble column. Facing page
163: Pasted in, a portion of a clipped article on the proper placement of
sundials. Page 163: In Una’s hand, in the chapter titled "The Sun-dial as
an Emblem," she writes, "For Sundial / La vie est brève. / Un peu
d’espoir, / Un peu de rêve / Et puis bonsoir." Opposite page 173
(same chapter): A pasted-in clipping of a sundial on an urn-shaped pedestal at
the center of a knot garden. Opposite page 195: In the chapter titled,
"Symbolic Designs for Sun-Dials," a pasted-in clipped photo of a sun-dial on a
ram’s-horn base. Page 233: At the beginning of the chapter titled "The
Setting of Sun-dials," Una has written in the motto, "I stand amid ye summer
flowers / To tell ye passing of ye hours; / When winter steals ye flowers away /
I tell ye passing of their day," the following: "O man whose flesh is but as
grasse / Like summer flowere thy life shall passe. / Whiles tyme is thine laye
up in store / And thou shalt live for ever more" (no attribution). Page 252:
At the beginning of the chapter titled "Sun-dial Mottoes," Una has written, "On
a wall sun-dial near Mentone: ‘Nous consumous les années comme une pensée.’"
At the end of the same chapter, Una has written "Le temps s’en va, le temps
s’en va, Madame; Las! Le temps non, mais nous, nous en allons." Pasted below
is a paragraph, evidently taken from a review of Sun-Dials and Roses of
Yesterday, which discusses the "Sun-dial Mottoes" chapter, pointing out some
proofreading errors, some missed "chronograms," and some imprecise dates.
Page 285: (In the chapter titled "The Sun-dial as a Memorial"): Una has
written at the top of the page, "ereunt et imputantur (Martial)."
Opposite page 291: Pasted-in, clipped photo of a memorial "To the Memory of
Adam, The First Man." Una has written underneath, "On the estate of John P.
Brady at Garden of Edenville near Baltimore. Here on the 28th October of each
year Adam’s memory is observed with proper ceremonies." Opposite page 307:
In the chapter treating the use of roses in cooking and housekeeping, titled
"Rosa Solis, Rose Plate, and Rosee," a pasted-in photo captioned, "Berrydown
Court, Overton: The Rose Garden." Una adds its location: "Surry." Page 458:
Loose, a pamphlet from the U. S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Standards
titled, "Sundials," and dated March 27, 1933. Back flyleaves: Pasted in,
(1) a clipped article (n.d., n.p., attributed to R. Leon Hall) illustrated with
several photographs of unusual clocks; (2) a clipped photograph of the Prince of
Wales posing at Burden House, Syosset, leaning against an elaborate iron
timepiece. Inside back cover: In Una’s hand: "Ut Umbra, sic Vita /
Hora fugit, mors venit // Sic vita" and "Go live as long as you can / Love
forever and aye; / Be kind to every man / For life soon passes away." Una lists
several page numbers that are of note: Page 212 recounts the story of the making
of a sundial from an old tomb; on page 213, an "X" marks the motto, "Lux et
umbra vicissim, sed semper amor"; marked on page 221, the motto, "Tempora
præterunt; nunc sol nunc umbra vicissim / Prætereunt; super est ecce perennis
amor"; on page 269, the motto, "Horam sole nolente nego--I tell not
the hour when the sun will not," is marked; and on page 270, "Pulvis et umbra
sumus--We are dust and shadows" is marked; on page 274, "Make the passing
shadow serve thy will" from Tennyson’s "The Ancient Sage" is marked; and on page
277, "Justum et æquum--just and fair" and "lucet omnibus--it
shines fully," both on sundials in the collection of Lewis Evans, Russel Farm,
Watford, England are especially noted.
Eglinton, John. Irish Literary Portraits. London:
Macmillan and Company, 1935. Notes: Inside front cover: Loose
cartoon of George Russell (A. E.) and W. B. Yeats passing, without noticing, one
another--one man’s eyes looking upwards, the other’s downwards. Una writes, "The
story is told in Dublin that W. B. Yeats and George Russell (A. E.) set out
respectively from 82 and 84 Merrion Square to see each other . . . and passed at
83!" Title page: Una has written under John Eglinton’s name "William
Magee." Pages 37-38: (just before the section headed "A. E. and His
Story") In Una’s hand, the following lengthy excerpt(s): "A letter of A. E. to
Weeks Dec. 1932: ‘I think about death in numberless ways for there are
numberless gates for us through death. Body to earth, soul to God, is not enough
for our being compounded out of so many previous lives. One part of me shall go
back to earth, another part to the illusion of heaven, another to its own
being--what you think of as Deity--another part perhaps to faery or elemental
spheres for we have all forms of being in our selves. Our nature which the Vedic
seers called ‘true, own being’ in the prism of nature was dramatically sundered
into many colored lives yet all part of ourselves. The rays spread then gather
again . . . . I believe I shall live hereafter because I have lived before and I
came upon knowledge of past religions, lives and loves in meditation -- found
others who remembered the places where we lived. I went inwards as much as I
went outwards and was not content to think only but made adventure inward by
resolute will and at times I left this world behind me. . . . I believe there is
a deep justice in the nature of things and am at peace, yet in another sense I
am full of awes and fears because there are such mighty and terrible things in
the universe and we must meet and cope with them all . . . I feel that my own
death will be unworthy because I will go out through the falling in of walls of
clay, whereas I should by the will have before this been able to find a secret,
radiant gateway into the spirit and gone out by my own will and not been forced
out. / All our thoughts are throngs of living souls. / As the perfection of the
body is to mirror an external nature in itself, so I think the perfection of the
psyche is to mirror all life itself’ (to Sían O’Faolain). ‘I am rejoicing now in
being a wanderer / The cries of my race no longer touching me / The lights of
live and home behind me / and drowned in hazes of sunken years. I like the
sensation of freedom that none puts a delaying hand on me and I can like the
Indians, after being a householder, retire to the jungle to meditate. / There
are two points in our lives never to be spoken of: the highest which is sacred
and to speak it would turn earthwards the soaring meditative spirit; and there
is the depth in us which we never speak of for pity’s sake--it must never never
be sung. We must pass like smoke.’ --born Apr 10, 1867, Lurgan Co. Arenagh."
Page 56: Loose, a clipped sketch of A. E. in his middle years. Page 61:
In Una’s hand, "A. E. believed firmly that certain ‘magnetic centers’ of the
‘Earth-Being’ were located in Ireland, and in the possibility, especially in
these places of entering into the Earth-Memory: a psychic region in which forms
he beheld seemed to have some kind of objective existence, as though what has
been still is. He said, ‘I have discovered that consciousness can exist outside
the body, that we can sometimes see people who are far away from us, that we can
even speak to them--I have been spoken to myself that way. I know by experience
that disembodied beings may act on us profoundly. Life has been poured into me
by one of them. I seemed to be scourged by electricity. I am convinced that I
remember past lives and I have spoken with friends who remember them equally--we
have even talked together of places where we lived. I have also seen elemental
beings and people with me have seen them at the same time!’" Page 96:
Loose (in the section of the book on George Moore), a clipped fragment of
journal article (pp. 365-66, possibly by Eglinton--n.d., n.p.) discussing
Yeats’s "dæmonic" and romantic qualities.
Ellis, S. M. George Meredith: His Life and Friends in
Relation to His Work. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1920. Notes:
Flyleaves: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Loose, clipped reviews of Rossetti
and His Circle by Max Beerbohm and Pre-Raphaelite and Other Poets by
Lafcadio Hearn (n.d., n.p.). Half-title page: Pasted-in clipped copy of
an etched portrait of Meredith. Opposite page 310: Pasted in, below a
photograph of Meredith as an older man, a very late photograph (clipped) of the
writer in an identical pose. Page 320: In Una’s hand, "George Meredith
was buried in a little cemetery near the downs near Dorking. His ashes were
borne to the grave by his daughter in a casket on which was engraved a quotation
from ‘Vittoria.’ ‘Life is but a little holding, lent to do a mighty labor.’
Contemporaneously with the internment at Dorking a memorial service was held at
Westminster Abbey." Pasted onto inner edge of the page, a clipped article (from
pages 5 and 6; no source identified) by J. M. Barrie describing Meredith’s
burial, May 22, 1909, at Box Hill near Dorking. Page 326: Pasted in, a
brief clipped article ("by E. T. Raymond," in Una’s hand) describing Meredith’s
approach to life: "George Meredith [he says] was impatient of talk about life’s
ironies; he took things as they came, accepted Fate’s decrees with fortitude,
and did not blame Nature for being natural. He liked recognition; he liked also
good and even fat living, old vintages, pleasant lodgment, and ease of mind. He
wrote best about the sunshine when he saw it through a glass of fine claret, and
lark pie was for him the best preparation for an ode to the lark. . . .
Meredith’s genius [he says elsewhere] lay in the direction of making the
simplest things obscure, and the most ordinary things out-of-the-way. The dread
of being commonplace seems to have inclined him especially to verbal contortions
when he was conscious of some thinness or ordinariness of thought." Inside back
cover: In Una’s hand, "From Viscount Morley’s ‘Recollections’ -- speaking of
Meredith . . . ‘his find poetic head bright with crisp brown hair . . . voice
strong, full, resonant, harmonious . . . much of power both of muscle and nerve
. . . his exhortation loud and constant, "Live with the world. No cloister, no
langour. Play your part. Fill the day. Ponder well and loiter not. Let laughter
brace you. Exist in everyday communion with nature." No one has surpassed him in
precision of eye and colour and force of words for landscape. He lived at every
hour of the day and night with all the sounds and shades of nature open to his
sensitive perception . . . what Wordsworth calls ‘the business of the elements’
was an essence of his life. . . . his beloved S. W. wind . . . His aversion to
sentimentalism sometimes drew him near to a certain hardness. He said "The
Egoist (of his novels) came nearest to the proper degree of soundness and
finish." Of Hardy who had been staying with him "I am afflicted by his twilight
view of life." He was impatient of talk of life’s little ironies. In late years
he wrote to Leslie Stephen when they were both of them physically disabled for
the rest of their lives "We who have loved the motion of the legs and the sweep
of the winds, we come to this, But for myself I will own that it is the
Natural Order. There is no irony in nature." He spoke very little of death
ever. Near his end we went to see him at Box Hill, found him very deaf but with
a vigourous tongue and most gallant spirit; "Going quickly down," he said; but
nothing morbid, introspective, pseudo-pathetic; plenty of hearty laughter as in
the days when we were both on a brimming stream "No belief in future existence:
are our dogs and horses immortal? What’s become of all our fathers?" . . . . his
buoyant energy, his sincerity of vision, his spaciousness of mind and outlook,
his brave faith in good, in the rise of good standards, in the triumph of
good, -- a rare and fine moral and intellectual force. A teacher of many. A sane
and wholesome person . . . fire and strength and richness of his genius.’"
Elson, Louis C. Shakespeare in Music: A Collation of
the Chief Musical Allusions in the Plays of Shakespeare, with an Attempt at
Their Explanation and Derivation, Together with Much of the Original Music.
Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1900. Notes: Front flyleaves:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Written in a hand other than Una’s on second flyleaf
and dated "December 4th,1900," are passages having to do with music from
Lamartine (in French) and Shelley. Back flyleaf: In Una’s hand is a list
headed, "Songs referred to in Shakespeares Plays according to Charles Vincent (Ditson,
pub.) / Farewell, dear Love; Peg O’Ramsay; Green sleeves; Heigh-ho! for a
husband; Heart’s ease; Three merry men be we; Light O’ Love; King Caphetua; The
Sick Tune; When Arthur first; Come o’er the bourne, Bessie; Death, rock me
asleep; Hold thy peace, thou knave; There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady; Oh
the twelfth day of December; Logon; What! do we no harm, good man; I loathe that
I did love; Didoes and fadings; Can you not hit it, my good man." Inside back
cover: In Una’s hand, a list of the songs in the book that include musical
accompaniments.
Elson, Louis C. The Theory of Music, as Applied to the
Teaching and Practice of Voice and Instruments. Twentieth Edition. Boston:
New England Conservatory of Music, 1908. Notes: Front flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Küster." Frontispiece: Handwritten notes (Una’s) outlining
and charting simple binary and ternary forms, simple and modified rondo forms,
sonata form, and sonata-rondo form. Back flyleaf: Diagrams of orchestra
formation on stage (one noted as "New York Philharmonic," the other as "Los
Angeles Symphony"), along with an outline of the basic instruments necessary to
perform an orchestral piece. Inside back cover: An outline of the
terminology used to indicate the various rates of speed used in musical
compositions.
Emerson, R. W. Nature: Addresses and Lectures.
Philadelphia: David McKay Publisher, 1892. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Küster, Edward Küster." Note, not in Una’s hand, "Substance of
essay."
Emerson, R. W. Representative Men: Seven Lectures.
Philadelphia: David McKay Publisher, 1892. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Küster, Edward Küster." Handwritten note: "Wed. Dec 9 at 2 p.m."
Emerton, Ephraim. An Introduction to the Study of the
Middle Ages (375-814). New York: Ginn and Company, 1916. Notes:
Inside front cover: Pasted in, two clipped engravings captioned, "A
Monastical School of the Middle Ages" and "A German Alchemist." Appears to have
been a textbook; dates and places are underlined.
Ervine, Sir John. Ulster. Belfast: The Ulster Tourist
Development Association, 1926. Notes: Cover: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel." Inside front cover: Pasted-in clipped
montage of photographs captioned, "Ulster Links with St. Patrick." Page 35:
Passage marked: "[County] Down is the cradle of Irish Christianity, but it
retains many traces of ‘the ould, ancient days’ of paganism. One of the
loveliest views in the whole of the county of Down is obtainable from Killinchy
in the woods as the road rises from the water and you look back to the islands
in Strangford Lough."
Euripides. Hippolytus. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius
Company, n.d. Notes: Little Blue Book, Series Number 502. Front cover:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Euripides. Medea. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius
Company, n.d. Notes: Little Blue Book, Series Number 500. Back and
front covers: Written in faint and scribbled fashion, notes by RJ. Will
require special enhancement and a reader proficient in Jeffers manuscripts to
decipher.
Evans, Augusta J. Beulah. New York: G. W.
Dillingham Company, 1899. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Lindsay
Call, Dec. 1900." Page 313: 1" x 1" piece of cardboard with a colored sketch of
a bird and labeled "Ohio Blue Tip."
Evans, Herbert A. Highways and Byways in Oxford and the
Cotswolds. London: Macmillan and Company, 1927. Notes: All notes are
In Una’s hand. Inside front cover: "Jeffers / ‘Keroy Vor’ /
Brit-well Salome / near Wattington / Oxfordshire England." Flyleaf:
"Bibury - most beautiful village in England says Wm. Mann / Grew Tew prettiest
village in Oxon. / Go along valley of Stroud, Pitchcombe / Aldernth, Soperton,
Danensay / (Uley & Owepen) [spellings may be inaccurate as handwriting is
sketchy], / quaint village of Epwell (Manor Compton Wyngates) / Old deserted
church at Addington tenanted by rooks / Tithe barn at Great Coxwell, one of the
most beautiful buildings in England / In Western Wiltshire see Egington a
dream[?] church of XIV cent." Half-title page: Pasted-in, clipped photo
of the High Street of Chipping Campden. Overleaf, a clipped itinerary map of the
Cotswolds (bordered by Worcester, Cheltenma, Burford and Banbury). Back
flyleaf: "Britwell / Ewelme / Abingdon (400 yr old bridge / old houses,
almshouse, etc) / Wantage (birthplace Alfred the Great, statue etc / Kingston
Lisle - blowing stone, ancient entrenchments visible on downs or along ridge to
White Horse Hill existed over 1000 years / Mile west = Cromlich Wayland Smiths
forge / Leffington (Tom Browne on Ridgeway or Ickleton St) / Kelmscott Manor
(near Lechlade) / Fairford (2 inns! church with famous glass) / Quennington (old
church with 2 finest doorways in Gloucestershire) / Bibury - "most beautiful
village in England. Church terra-cotta color inside! Inside back cover: Burford
(fine church, Norman tower) / Chipping Norton (fine Perf. church) / Banbury /
Sulgrave Manor / Brockley / Crylesbury / Wattington / Britwell / or Bibury /
Northleach / Broadway / Willersey / Mereton-on-Marsh / Stow on Wold / Burford."
Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! New York: The
Modern Library, 1951. Notes: Page 144: Loose, a handwritten note
on stationery from Hollow Hills Farm, Route 2, Carmel, California: "Friday. Dear
Robin, Take my copy on the boat. If it doesn’t capture your interest, leave it
on the boat. I will replace it from the U. C. Coop. book shelves. Yours,
Ben[?]." Slip of paper with a list of numerals: "3/29, 2/29, 1/29, 12/29, 11/29,
10/29, 9/29," possibly in Jeffers’ hand. Printed landing card from
Holland-America Line identifying "J. R. Jeffers, USA, Passenger, 22 Feb 1956."
Fay, W. G. and Catherine Carswell. The Fays of the
Abbey Theatre: An Autobiographical Record. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company, 1935. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Jan 26th 1936. This book
was presented to me today by Georgiana Stevens, reviewer for the San Francisco
Chronicle, and, with her permission, I pass it on for inclusion in the Una
Jeffers Irish Collection. Albert M. Bender." Stamped on page, "Review Copy,
Publication Date, Oct 4, 1935. Price $3.50."
Fea, Allan. Old English Houses: The Record of a Random
Itinerary. London: Martin Secker, 1910. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed in pencil, "Clark E. Creed." Table of Contents page: Pasted in,
a clipped photo captioned, "In the Gardens of Powis Castle."
Fell, Marian, Translator. Plays by Anton Tchekoff.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Una Jeffers." Half-title page: Inscribed "Una Kuster / London / 1912."
Fenn, John and Mrs. Archer-Hind, M.A., Eds. The Paston
Letters. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1938. Volume 1 Notes:
Page vii: Una has marked the passage asserting that the progenitor of the
Paston family was a peasant with a note in the margin, "Completely refuted by
letters and deeds discovered later. The Pastons were gentlemen as far back as
records go." Page viii: Una marks the passage stating that Agnes Paston
was "the mother who beat her grown-up daughter so that her head was broken in
two or three places." Her handwritten note below says, "I am surprised to see
that Everyman’s Library should publish this edition in 1924 and base it
on an edition of 1840, thus lacking more than 500 letters discovered
after 1840 and published in later editions." Page ix: Una notes that "I
bought a set . . . from Wilgress, 1945" (the "set" is The Paston Letters,
1422-1509, A.D., a reprint of the edition of 1872-5, ed. by James Gairdner
in four volumes, published by the Westminster: Archibald Constable and Company,
1900-01). Una also notes that she had borrowed a set from the Library of
Congress, Washington, October 1947, and one from California State Library in
Spring 1946. Another note states that Una read an edition of the "Original
Letters," written during the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III, "by
various persons of rank or consequence," edited by John Fenn (five volumes,
published by Robinson, London, 1787-1823). Pages xvi and xvii: Una adds
the names of sons to the family of Margery Paston and Richard Calle (married
1469) in the Paston family pedigree. Una has marked all references to Richard
Calle in the volume. Inside back cover:
Notes in Una’s hand: "Letters from
Richard Call in Vol. I, pages 50, 170, 179, 206, 232. References to Call in
other letters, pages 51, 152, 154, 160, 170, 210, 213, 226, 230, 234, 236, 237,
254, 255, 258, 259." Volume II: Again, Una has marked all
references to Richard Calle in the volume. Inside back cover: Notes in
Una’s hand: "Letters from Richard Calle in Vol. II, pages 1, 53" and "References
to Calle, pages 3, 4, 5, 23, 26, 31, 39, 42, 46, 47, 48, 51, 57, 58, 60, 70, 72,
77, 95, (119), 138, 166."
Fergusson, James. Rude Stone Monuments in All
Countries; Their Age and Uses. Notes: Inside back cover:
Pasted-in clipping of photo captioned, "The Great Images on Easter Island."
Firor, Ruth A. Folkways in Thomas Hardy.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931. Notes: Page 62:
Una emends the word "death" in the printed text to read "burial" with regard
to a tragic folktale about the suicide of a son and the father’s response.
Page 63: With regard to a phrase reading, "Opening doors and windows at the
hour of death; feeding the bees funeral food and telling them of the death
within the house," Una writes, "See Llewelyn Powys’ description of tiny ‘Soul
Windows’" and "See Precious Bane page 27." Page 95: With regard to
charms to foil the malevolence of witchcraft in the dairy, Una notes in the
margin, "My Irish grandmother, Elizabeth Donnan Lindsay, would have the girl
throw a hot nail into the churn to rout the witch when the butter wouldn’t
come." Page 115: In margin, with regard to a discussion of the
"malignity" of the mandrake Una has written, "cf. my terror and dislike of the
mandrakes which grew at the edge of the abandoned well at the edge of our
place."
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Boston: L. C.
Page and Company, 1906. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "U. C. K. from
E. C. B., wondering if such a ‘Romantic Lady’ can sympathize with Flaubert’s
merciless realism. July 16 ‘09, Los Angeles."
Fletcher, John Gould. Life is My Song: The
Autobiography of John Gould Fletcher. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1937.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To J. Robinson Jeffers -- With
appreciation for his work as a poet -- and for himself, as a human being
and a man. John Moore, Hollywood, Cal., 8/12/39. P. S. How many faces on this
cover-jacket can you identify? I guessed them all except three or four. Mr. F.
told me who all of them are -- or were! JM." Pages
214-15: Text reads, "San Francisco evaded me completely. All that I could
say of it was that here everything stood in sharp contrast; the fierce, external
energy of American effort was completely matched by the somber, fatalistic calm
and inertia of wild nature; the rattling bustle of the skyscraper district was
matched by the remote smolder and silence of great redwood groves and lonely
shores; the braggart energy of the Anglo-Saxon stood cheek by jowl with the
passionless calm of the Chinese. San Francisco presented me with a theme and a
problem of which I could make nothing. Was man or nature chiefly important? The
answer was given, from a standpoint more Californian then mine, ten years after
my visit, in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers."
Flood, William H. Grattan. A History of Irish Music.
Fourth Ed. Dublin: Browne and Nolan Ltd., 1927. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Happy New Year 1931, to Noel. C. C. C."
Forman, H, Buxton, Ed. Letters of Edward John Trelawny.
London: Oxford University Press, 1910. Notes: Inside front cover:
Postcard bearing the following inscription under the photo: "Shelley’s tomb on
his centenary, Aug. 1922. On the right is the tomb of Bertie Bertie Mathew d.
1844." Over, "Dec. 22nd 1924. Such gay cards I seem to send you - did I post 3
others of Shelly - Keats - Severn - I can’t find them. Weather like home and
Rome so full of flowers & we were in luck to have come early & missed the hordes
of tourists that are coming - Bought this at the Keats house by the Spanish
Stairs - Greetings (signature unreadable)." Handwriting similar to Una’s.
Inside front cover and flyleaf: In Una’s hand: "Letter quoted from ‘The
Protestant Burial Ground in Rome - A Historical Sketch’ by H. Nelson Gay & the
Preservation of the Graves of Keats & Shelley by Sir Russel Rodd. Thursday 4
April 1823. Rome ‘Whose master hand is cold, whose silver lye unstrung’ Dear
Severn [Joseph Servern]: Do you think the inscription would be improved by the
line I have quoted from Shelley’s ‘Adonais’--it seems to be applicable--and the
word ‘spoils’ for that is all Death has of a being we trust has written on brass
- and one would like associating two such master spirits as Shelley & Keats and
it would be a tribute to the former’s feelings & affectionate lament of Adonais.
This sympathy of thought is striking & I know how Shelley felt and if others did
so too, he alone of poets has made a fit offering to the shrine of your noble
friend’s memory, one would wish to mingle their great names more closely
together - however it be as you shall best determine. I am going to ride with a
friend around the walls of Rome and will look in at your shop in the evening if
possible to see how you & Gott get on. ‘In the colouring & stone line’ Yours
truly Edward Trelawny." Opposite "Illustrations" page: In Una’s hand,
"From a letter from Lady Blessington to Walter Savage Landor ‘Gore House,
Kensington Gore Nov 14, 1839 . . . . . . I had a letter from Mr. Trelawney who
has taken to lead the life of a recluse in a villa near Putney, never going to
see a single acquaintance or friend, and scarcely ever visiting London. He
charged me with kindest regards to you . . . M. Blessington.’ From W. S. L. to
Lady B. ‘Bath, November 17, 1839. I am not surprised to hear that Trelawney has
retired from society - He possesses a strong and philosophical mind, and we have
only the choice of being quite alone or with scoundrels. He might perhaps have
taken the alternative if those had any genius or even any pleasantry. I could
well be content in solitude as deep as his . . . . . W. S. L.’" Opposite
"Introduction" page: Clipped engraving of Saunders painting of Lord Byron.
Page 16: Loose clipping of a letter to an editor from G. B. J. Athoe,
Secretary, The Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors, responding
to a review of and article about Trelawny: A Man’s Life by a Miss
Armstrong, and describing Trelawny’s later years at his cottage at Sompting near
Worthing. Page 260: Written in Una’s hand on the back of an illustration
captioned, "W. M. Rossetti’s Library. Shows Shelley’s sofa with Helen
Rossetti Angeli: Inscription for the couch on which Shelley passed the last
night of his life by Rossetti, ‘Twixt these twin worlds -- the world of sleep,
which gave / No dreams to warn, --the tidal world of Death, / Which the earth’s
sea, as the earth, replenisheth, -- / Shelly, Songs orient sun, to breast the
wave, / Rise from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave / Only the sea? -- or
did man’s deed of hell / Engulph his bark ‘mid mists impenetrable? . . . / No
eye discerned, nor any power might save. / / When that mist cleared, O Shelley!
What dread veil / Was rent for thee, to whom far-darkling Truth / Reigned
sovereign guide through thy brief ageless youth? / Was the truth, thy
Truth, Shelley? Hush! All -- Hail, / Past doubt, thou gav’st it: and in Truth’s
bright sphere / Art first of praisers, being most praised here." Opposite
page 271: Clipping of poem titled, "Trelawny Lies By Shelley (In the
Protestant Cemetery, Rome)" by Charles L. O’Donnell, Chaplain, 332nd Infantry,
A.E. F., Italy and dated, in Una’s hand, 1919. Below, in Una’s hand, "Severn’s
epitaph: To the memory of Joseph Severn, Devoted friend & deathbed companion of
John Keats, whom he lived to see numbered among the immortal poets of England.
[place name unreadable] 1879 aged 85." Back flyleaf: Written in Una’s
hand, "‘Man is a gregarious animal’--but I remember to have met just one man who
excepted himself from this attribute of the human family. Dining one day with
Mr. Chas. Kemble, the eccentric author of ‘Adventures of a Younger Son,’ chanced
to be of the party. He had just returned from America and in answer to an
inquiry about the packet in which he sailed he said ‘I’m not gregarious, Sir, I
took the cabin of a merchantman to myself.’ (From N. P. Willis’ notes to
Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland 1842.) ‘It is not every traveler / Who
like Trelawny can aver / In every state he left behind / An image the nine
months way find.’ // Considerate, he perceived the need / Of some improvement in
the breed / And set as hearty to work / As when he fought against the Turk’
Unpublished lines by Landor in the possession of Stephen Wheeler." Inside
back cover: Pasted in, a small envelope engraved "White Hart Hotel,
Launceston," cut open and covered with eleven staffs of music and words: ". . .
. thou winter wind thou art not so unkind / thou are not so unkind / as man’s
in-grat-ti-tude. / Thy tooth is not so keen Be-cause thou are not seen / Thy
tooth is not so keen // Be-cause thou art not see / Al-though thy breath be rude
/ Al-though thy breath be rude / Al-though thy breath be rude."
Fothergill, Jessie. The First Violin. New York:
Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, n.d. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Küster, Oct. ‘08."
Fowler, F. Barrett and Henry St. John Cooper. Bulldogs
And All About Them. London: Jarrolds Ltd., 1925. Notes: Inside
front cover: In Una’s hand, "Of all dogs it stands confessed / Your English
bulldogs are the best / I say it, and will set my hand to’t / Camden records it
and I’ll stand to’t."; "A bulldog is not only the most courageous dog but the
most courageous animal (Stonhenge)." Flyleaves: With clipped photos of
bulldogs, in Una’s hand, the following notes: (1) "Registered Haig of Bernerayde,
No. 908057, American Kennel Club Stud Book"; (2) "For Haig Jeffers on his first
birthday, September 26, 1933, Tor House, Carmel, California"; (3) "Darling Haig
died untimely Thursday April 13, 1939 --the truest, most faithful heart that
will ever beat for me: Aged 6 years 6½ months"; (4) clipped newspaper and
magazine photos captioned, "Stewart Erwin, MGM comedian, and his prize bulldog,
Handsome Mugg"; (5) "A fond farewell: ‘General Grant,’ champion English bulldog,
bids goodbye to his children as he boards airplane in Los Angeles for
Washington; He is a gift to President-elect Roosevelt" (in Una’s hand, "Two of
these are Haig and York"); (6) "Morovian Mainlass"; (7) "Seers Babe’s Hennessey,
General Snooper and Seers Babe’s Gypsy." Frontispiece: Under photo
captioned "Lunette of Nork," Una notes, "French bull-dog. page 200." Overleaf
from title page: In Una’s hand, a series of notes: "Winston Churchill
(Winnie) born Aug. 17, 1940, Gerstdale Kennels, S.F.; We got him Nov. 6, 1940.
His registered name has to be Trelawney--for where we registered him the
above W.C. name had been used already. His A.K.C. number is A453492. Inoculation
against distemper Dec. 16 ‘40, Dec. 31 ‘40. But we call him Winnie. My precious
Winnie died Sept 22, 1944. I can never forget him or cease to long for his dear
presence." Page 15: Clipped photo of four bulldog puppies in basket.
Page 16: Clipped photo captioned "Handsome Dan of Yale in the Hands of the
Enemy: Threats of hostilities ceased yesterday with the return of the famous
mascot by his Harvard abductors. He is here shown with Francis Moore, president
of the Harvard Lampoon, and Robert Cummings, business manager of The Lampoon."
Page 38: Clipped photo of bulldog Honey Suckle. Page 81: Clipped
article and photo captioned, "Parade of English Bulldogs Will Be Staged in [San
Francisco] Marina." Page 172: Photo illustrations of Champion "Hefty
Master Grumpy," identified in Una’s hand, "Haig’s great-great grandfather," and
of Champion "Hefty Son O’ Mike," identified as "Haig’s great, great, great
grandfather." In chapter titled "Various Bulldogs in England," many photo
illustrations and paragraphs are "X’d" next to particular dogs’ names. Page
199: Clipped photo of "Ch. Seers Jock’s Jockette." Page 233: Clipping
of "The Legend of St. Roch," the patron saint of dogs. Page 249: Clipping
captioned "Grid Mascot Travels First Class." Advertisment pages: Series
of pasted-in clippings: (1) Brief article on "The Bulldog"; (2) photo of two
bulldogs attending the premiere of the "talkie" Devil Dogs of the Air;
(3) the story of "Argos, the Dog of Odysseus"; (4) photos of champion bulldogs
Morningside Mavis and Kamel White Knight; (5) article about the (human) Haig
family of Scotland’s difficulty in producing a male heir; (6) an article
extolling the gentle qualities of the bulldog; (7) note in Una’s hand, down the
side of page, "Lady Ermentrude of Live Oak A202479 mate Nov. 24-26, 1938"; (8)
clipped photo of champions Rodoco Don Michel and Taringa Solo; (9) clipped
photos with handwritten note, "Just won twelve first prizes at Cruft’s Show,
London. Dinilo of Din and granddaughter Boo Boo of Din"; (10) clipped photo
captioned, "Miss Frances Hayden with Bulldog, Seers Jocks Jockette"; (11)
clipped photo captioned, "Beauty and the Beasts," (with the human cut out).
Inside back cover: Clipped photo of bulldog and cat looking at a giant bone,
with a note written in Una’s hand above: "For fear in dogs [unreadable] Calm
with aspirin 2½ grains for Peke, 10 grains for gt. Dane, repeat after an hour."
Inside back cover: Loose clippings: (1) Photo of baby and bulldog; (2)
two photos of trios of bulldogs; (3) color photo of Boots, mascot of the MP’s at
Randolph Field, Texas; (4) 1946 Mauldin cartoon (showing fierce bulldogs)
captioned "No teeth" lampooning UN; (5) photo of bulldog standing at center of
British flag captioned, "There’ll Always Be an England"; (6) bulldog in show;
(7) article about Oakland Kennel Club show dedicated to clarifying distinctions
between English bull terriers, English bulldogs, Boston terriers and
Staffordshire terriers; (8) photo of bulldog Soda, appearing in Selznick film
Since You Went Away; (9) photos of "bulldog aristocrats" from England; (10)
photo of Marine mascot, bulldog Sergeant Brigs, voted "homeliest dog" in the
entire military service; (11) political cartoon (Shepard) captioned, "A Cupboard
of Contention" showing several breeds of dog; (12) photo of Tardy Lad, bound for
Kentfield Dog Show; (13) article and photos about Cruft’s Show in England, in
which the "decline of the bulldog" is discussed; (14) January 22, 1944,
Saturday Evening Post article titled "No New Deal for Dogs," in which
General Grant, a bulldog who lived at the White House, is mentioned, and with a
handwritten note, "Gen Grant =Haig’s father"; (15) postcard addressed to Lee
Jeffers, and postmarked "Truro, July 18, 1942," with a photo of a bulldog at the
center of the English flag and captioned, "There’ll Always Be An England"
(signed, "Love, Lee"); (16) clipped photo from 1944 newspaper of lioness chewing
on the ear of bulldog Beautiful Joey and a handwritten note to Winnie signed,
"Jacque" Burnham; (17) photo of bulldog "Soda" with Monty Woolley and Shirley
Temple publicizing the movie Since You Went Away; (18) photo from 1947
Call Bulletin of fourteen English bull puppies bound for the "seventh annual
puppy match at Lomita Park estate of Mabel E. Fox"; (19) brief article about the
French bulldog and photo of Jiggs of the Marines with 8-month-old baby; (20)
color photo of two bulldog puppies in basket; (21) photo of six bulldog puppies
bound for show at Fox Ranch in San Mateo County; (22) photo of beribboned dog
with note in Una’s hand, "Champion Kamel White Knight"; (23) article with photos
titled, "The Ugliest Dog in the World"; (24) business card for Mabel E. Fox, San
Bruno, California, bulldog breeder; (25) photograph (not clipped) with note on
back, "Father of our Winnie, "Gerstdale Playboy" and his 5 weeks old son
"Gerstdale Esquire."
François, Victor E. First Latin with Collateral
Reading. Book One. New York: Allyn and Bacon, 1926. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed in Una’s hand, "Garth and Donnan Jeffers, Tor House,
Carmel." Inside back cover: Some page assignments, in Una’s hand.
French, C. N. A Countryman’s Day Book: An Anthology of
Countryside Lore. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1929. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Belfast, Ireland, December 1929." Page
1: Pasted-in ("January" chapter) clipping of woodcut of snow scene. Page
2: In RJ’s hand, "The Ealands of Winter are come. / The heath / Is bare
where it was burnt. The / breath / Of the oxen smokes, the old wait / death. --
Davydd ap Gwilym, Translated by Ernest Rhys." Page 9: Pasted-in clipping
providing "the standard version of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’" In hand with
arrow pointing to the words "until the last verse goes," Una has written, "XIIth
night. January 6." Page 25 (in "February" chapter): In Una’s hand, "Such
a February face / So full of frost, of storm, of cloudiness. --(Much Ado
about Nothing )." Page 26: Pasted-in clipping with excerpts from
Chaucer, Shakespeare and Drayton, all for Valentine’s Day. Page 34:
Pasted-in passages from Gay about Valentine’ day. Page 66: (Chapter on
"March") In Una’s hand, the following: "March borrowed frae Aprile / Three day &
they were ill / The first o’ them was wind & weed / The second o’ them was snaw
& sleet / The third o’ them was sic a freeze / That the birds’ legs stack to the
trees. (Scot’s folklore)." Page 214: ("November" chapter) Pressed leaf.
Page 245: ("December" chapter) In Una’s hand, "Winter fog will kill a
dog." Back flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "The New Moon / Gaelic translation by
Alex. Carmichael / In name of the Holy Spirit of grace, / In name of the Father
of the city of peace, / In name of Jesus who took death of us / O in name of the
three who shild us in every need / If well thou hast found us tonight / Seven
times better mayst thou leave us without harm, / Thou bright white moon of the
seasons / Bright white moon of the seasons. / May they loving luster leave us /
Seven times still more blest / O moon so fair / May it be so / As seasons come /
And seasons go." Inside back cover: Pasted-in clipping of wood cut
captioned "From ‘A Countryman’s Day-Book’"; and note in Una’s hand: "In English
countryside, people nod to the new moon and turn silver in their pockets. In
Scotland they turn the rings on their fingers and wish." Also inserted here, a
series of beautifully colored plates, cut from a larger piece, illustrated on
both sides, and representing the months of the year.
Fry, Roger, Trans. Some Poems of Mallarmé. London:
Chatto and Windus, 1936. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers.
London, October 1937."
Garnett, R. S., Ed. Letters About Shelley, Interchanged
by Three Friends--Edward Dowden, Richard Garnett and Wm. Michael Rossetti.
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1917. Notes: Flyleaf: Pasted-in,
clipped copy of the "Williams" portrait of Shelley. Page 263: Pasted onto
left edge, a short, clipped article by Elinore Wylie, "Shelley’s Grandson and
Some Others"; Wylie recalls living in an English village where she came to know
the grandson, as well as Andrew Lang’s first cousin and Arthur Hugh Clough’s
son.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1900. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Robin to Una Jeffers. August 2, 1918. Our five years have been wonderful and
sweet, dearest. I am rather Keen for the next five, -- ten -- and the rest --
and with little boys in the family!" Page xiii: Pressed "White heather
from Haworth from Connie Bell" (Una’s note). Page 312: Loose, clipped
color picture of 18th century woman gathering flowers and used as a bookmark at
the passage in The Life which reproduces an 1846 letter from the
thirty-year-old Brontë to Ellen Nussey, advising her on the choosing a course in
life, in which she says, in part, "The right path is that which necessitates the
greatest sacrifice of self-interest--which implies the greatest good to others;
and this path, steadily followed, will lead, I believe, in time, to prosperity
and happiness, though it may seem, at the outset, to tend quite in a contrary
direction." Page 374: Loose, a clipped article titled, "The Case for
Branwell Brontë," reviewing the book Patrick Branwell Brontë, by Alice
Lawson. Page 374 also contains, in part, a copy of the letter from Charlotte
Brontë to Mary Taylor describing her first visit as "Currer Bell" to the office
of publishers Smith and Elder. Page 392: Note, in Una’s hand, in the
margin below a letter from Brontë to Ellen Nussey informing her of Emily
Brontë’s death: "Read Maeterlinck tribute to Emily Brontë in ‘Wisdom and
Destiny.’ Section 100." Page 404: Loose, clipped article titled
"Romance in a Parsonage: New Nicholls Letters: Charlotte Brontë’s Marriage," by
the Rev. W. F. France. Back flyleaves: In Una’s hand, "See page 586
this book. Page 586: Una writes, "Letter from Charlotte Brontë to
Ellen Nussey describing her stay at Filey near Scarborough, during which time
she saw to the refacing and relettering of Anne’s headstone. Sir Osbert Sitwell
writes in ‘The Scarlett Tree,’ 1946, about Anne Brontë’s grave, ‘Perhaps the
skeleton of Anne Brontë, lying a mile from us across the bay in its grave in the
churchyard, merging, beyond a broken stone wall, into rough sea meadow, the
headstone at an angle now and the inscription, often indecipherable because of
the black and bulky shadow thrown down by the huge ragged Norman castle on the
rock above: perhaps this skeleton, alone, in the vicinity, had it but been able
to clothe itself in human raiment again after the passage of 50 yrs, could have
explained to us the nature of this difference which was the same as that which
separated her bones from those lying more at their ease round her . . . ‘ (That
is the difference between artists & more normal people. The 3 young Sitwells
were not congenial with their young friends in Scarborough.)" Overleaf, in Una’s
hand, "Haworth 1855. ‘Far northwards from here, / In a churchyard high mid the
moors, / . . . There on its slope is built / The moorland town. But the church /
stands on the crest of the hill, / Lonely and bleak; and at its side / the
parsonage house and the graves. / Thou, O mourned one, today / Enter the house
of the grave! / . . . Round thee they lie -- the grass / Blows from their graves
to thy own! / She whose genius, though not / Puissant like thine, was yet /
Sweet and graceful; -- and she / (How shall I sing her?) whose soul / Knew no
fellow for might / Passion, vehemence, grief, / Daring, since Byron died.’
(Matthew Arnolds memorial poem when Charlotte Bronte died.)" Pasted-in, a
clipped woodcut portrait of Emily Brontë. Inside back cover: In Una’s
hand, "‘The Old Stoic’ by Emily Brontë. ‘Riches I hold in light esteem, / And
love I laugh to scorn; / And lust of fame was but a dream / That vanished with
the morn: / And if I pray, the only prayer / That moves my lips for me / Is
"Leave the heart that now I bear / And give me liberty." / Yes, as my swift days
near their goal, / Tis all that I implore; / In life and death a chainless soul
/ With courage to endure.’ Emily Brontë’s last poem. ‘No coward soul is mine /
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere; / I see Heaven’s glories
shine, / And faith shines egnal[?], arming me from fear. / O God within my
breast, / Almighty - ever - present Deity! Life that in me has rest, / As I --
undying Life have power in thee. / Vain are the thousand creeds / That move
men’s hearts; unutterably vain; / Worthless as withered weeds, / Or idlest froth
amid the boundless main. / To waken doubt in one / Holding so fast by thy
infinity: / So surely anchored on / The steadfast rock of immortality. / With
wide embracing love / Thy spirit animates eternal years, / Pervades and broods
alone, / Changes, sustains, dissolves creates and rears. / Though earth and men
were gone, / And suns and universes cease to be, / And thou wert left alone, /
Every existence would exist in thee. / There is no room for death, / No atom
that his might could render void; / Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath, / And
what thou art may never be destroyed.’"
Gay, Mr. [John]. The Beggar’s Opera: To which is
Prefixed the Musick to each Song. London: William Heinemann, 1921. Notes:
Inside front cover: Bookplate: "Frederick Seymour Clarke." Page
58: Loose, two clipped articles: (1) "Polly Peachum Comes to Town Again" by
Marjorie Mears (New York Herald Tribune, Sunday, April 9, 1933),
describing the new production of The Beggar’s Opera at the Empire
Theatre; and (2) "That Song of Newgate: A History of ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ from
Gay to Cochran-Krimsky" (New York Times, March 1933).
Gayley, Charles Mills. The Classic Myths in English
Literature, Based Chiefly on Bulfinch’s "Age of Fable" (1855), Accompanied by an
Interpretive and Illustrative Commentary. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1893.
Notes: Purchased from Jones’ Bookstore in Los Angeles, this appears to have
been used as a textbook, and to have been read with most interest in the
following sections: "Myths of the Great Divinities of Heaven," with special
attention to (marked with Xs) Arachne, the myths of Apollo, Phaëton, the loves
of Apollo, Daphne, Clytie, the myths of Diana, the flight of Arethusa, the fate
of Actæon, the fortunes and death of Orion, the Pleiads, Endymion, Adonis, Cupid
and Psyche, Atalanta’s Race, Hero and Leander, and Homer’s Hymn to Mercury;
"Myths of the Great Divinities of Earth," with special attention to the
Wanderings of Bacchus, the story of Acetes, and the Choice of King Midas; the
chapter titled "From the Earth to the Underworld," with special attention to the
Rape of Prosperine, the Wanderings of Ceres, Orpheus and Eurydice; the chapter
titled "Myths of Neptune, Ruler of the Waves"; the chapter titled "Myths of the
Lesser Divinities of Heaven," with special attention to Cephalus and Procris,
the story of Phosphor and Halcyone, the Cave of Sleep, the Halcyon Birds, Aurora
and Tithonus, Memnon; the chapter titled "Myths of the Lesser Divinities of
Earth and the Underworld," with special attention to Pan and the Personification
of Nature, Echo and Narcissus, Pan, Lyde, and the Satyr, Pomona and Vertumnus,
the Cranes of Ibycus; the chapter titled "Myths of Lesser Divinities of the
Waters," with special attention to Polyphemus in love; the chapter titled "The
House of Minos"; the chapter titled "Houses Concerned in the Trojan War," with
special attention to Laodamia, Patroclus in the armor of Achilles, the chapter
titled "Adventures of Æneas," with special attention to the Sibyl and the
Elysian Fields; the chapter titled "The War Between Trojans and Latins," with
special attention to Pallas, Camilla and the Final Conflict; the chapter titled
"Myths of the Norse Gods," with special attention to the Creation, Odin and
Valhalla, the Deeds of Thor, the death of Balder. Inside back cover:
Loose, clipped photos of "A masterpiece of Athenian sculpture of the classical
age [bronze head from 4th century B.C.]," and "The same head seen in profile";
"The Cnidian Venus of the Vatican in its original state (save for a missing
forearm)--an undraped figure"; "A child buried with a pet animal in Athens
nearly three thousand years ago"; "A colossal marble statue of Hadrian"; and
"Sculpture akin to the Nereids from Xanthos in the British Museum."
Gilbert, Rudolph. Heloise Answers Abelard. Santa
Barbara: Noel Young, 1948. Notes: Number Two of sixty-seven copies.
Dedication page: Inscribed "To Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers. You are all I’d
hoped you’d be. Louise and Rudolph."
Glaspell, Susan. The Road to the Temple. New York:
Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1927. Notes: This is a biography and memoir
of George Cram Cook. Inside front cover: Pasted-in, clipped colored
drawing of Greek temple. Flyleaf: Inscribed, "Una Jeffers, Tor House."
Page 331: Pasted onto back of illustration, a clipped photo of the
Parthenon. Inside back cover: Pasted-in clipped photo captioned, "Nilla
Cram Cook, Daughter of the Late George Cram Cook, Dances in the Theatre of
Dionysos in Athens Before Going to Delphi to Take Part in the Festival Organized
by Angelo and Ev Sikelianos."
Godkin, James and John A. Walker. The New Hand-Book of
Ireland: An Illustrated Guide for Tourists and Travellers. Dublin: Dublin
Steam Printing Company, n.d. Notes: Title page: In Una’s hand, "Wingst
1885." Inside front cover: Clipped photograph captioned, "Visitor to the
Famous Rock of Cashel, Tipperary, Tries to Span the Wishing Stone, a Feat Which
Is Said to Prevent the Toothache." Page 141: Loose, clipped article
titled, "The Beauty of Galway. A Touch of Spain in Ireland. The Coloured
County," by Pamela Hinkson," and an "X" beside the section describing Clondalkin,
the site of a round tower 84 feet high and 15 feet in diameter. Page 370:
A section describing Newcastle, the site of "an exceedingly pretty village . . .
considered the most fashionable in the County Down," is marked.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust. New York: A. L.
Burt, n.d. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Lindsay Call, Dec.
1900."
Gogarty, Oliver St. John. Perennial. Baltimore:
Contemporary Poetry, 1944. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers from Ellen [unreadable], 12 Jan 46."
Goldsmith, Oliver. Poems, Plays and Essays of Oliver
Goldsmith. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, n.d. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Call." Page xii: (introductory essay), an "X"
beside "Rural life has never found a sweeter eulogist. To countless memories
have his village landscapes risen pleasantly when the ‘murmur’ rose at eventide.
Where do we not meet with a kind-hearted philosopher delighting in some
speculative hobby, equally dear as the good Vicar’s theory of Monogamy?" Page
xxi: An "X" marks "It is curious, with the intense sentiment and finished
pictures of fashionable life with which the fictions of our day abound, fresh in
the memory, to open the Vicar of Wakefield. We seem to be reading the memoirs of
an earlier era instead of a different sphere of life." Page xxiv: An "X"
marks "Mere talent would scarcely have sufficed to interpret and display so
enchantingly the humble characters and scenes to which his most brilliant
efforts were devoted. It was his sincere and ready sympathy with man, his
sensibility to suffering in every form, his strong social sentiment and his
amiable interest in all around, which brightened to his mind’s eye what to the
less susceptible is unheeded and obscure." Page 18: In "Memoirs of Oliver
Goldsmith, M.B., by Dr. Aikin," an "X" marks an anecdote about Dr. Johnson
rescuing Goldsmith from his landlady, his bottle of Madeira and his financial
embarrassment by taking the manuscript of The Vicar of Wakefield to
Newbery (though the publisher did nothing with it for another three years).
Page 39: In "On the Poetry of Dr. Goldsmith by Dr. Aikin," an "X" marks, "In
his language will be found few of those figures which are supposed of
themselves to constitute poetry;--no violent transpositions; no uncommon
meanings and constructions; no epithets drawn from abstract and remote ideas; no
coinage of new words by the ready mode of turning nouns into verbs; no bold
prosopoeia, or audacious metaphor:--it scarcely contains an expression which
might not be used in eloquent and descriptive prose. It is replete with imagery;
but that imagery is drawn from obvious sources, and rather enforces the simple
idea, than dazzles by new and unexpected ones. It rejects not common words and
phrases; and, like the language of Dryden and Otway, is thereby rendered the
more forcible and pathetic. It is eminently nervous and concise; and hence
affords numerous passages which dwell on the memory. With respect to his matter,
it is taken from human life, and the objects of nature. It does not body forth
things unknown, and create new beings. Its humbler purpose is to represent
manners and characters as they really exist; to impress strongly on the heart
moral and political sentiments; and to fill the imagination with a variety of
pleasing and affecting objects selected from the stores of nature."
Goodwin, William W. A Greek Grammar. Boston: Ginn
and Company, 1899. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Lindsay Call."
Gordon, Dudley Chadwick, et. al., Eds. Today’s
Literature: An Omnibus of Short Stories, Novelettes, Poems, Plays, Profiles, and
Essays. New York: American Book Company, 1935. Notes: Jeffers is
represented in this college anthology by "Hands," "The Stone Axe," "The Place
for No Story," "Fire on the Hills, "An Irish Headland," "Night," "Hooded Night,"
"Clouds of Evening," "Woodrow Wilson (February, 1924)," and "The Bed by the
Window."
Grahame, Kenneth. The Golden Age. New York: John
Lane Company, 1921. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una from Ellen."
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). Irish Folk-History Plays.
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912. Second series. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Opposite title page: Pasted-in, clipped
portrait captioned, "Lady Gregory. The famous Irish playwright and poet, and a
director of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. Died May 22; aged 73."
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). Irish Folk-History Plays:
First Series, the Tragedies: Grania, Kincora, Dervorgilla. New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1912. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Page 48: Loose picture postcard of thatched cottage near water and Christmas
note from Mary Ellen Boland. Inside back cover: Pasted-in obituary (dated
in Una’s hand "June 1932") of Lady Gregory.
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). Our Irish Theatre: A Chapter
of Autobiography. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1914. Notes: Page
158: Loose, clipped article (likely from an Irish literary journal) by
Lennox Robinson titled "Lady Gregory," a personal reminiscence. Inside back
cover: Library sticker, stamped "purged from the library."
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). Seven Short Plays by Lady
Gregory. Dublin: Maunsel and Company, Ltd., 1909. Notes: Pages
33-78: Several passages marked in the play Hyacinth Halvey. Page
152: Loose, clipped reviews from unidentified journal (pages 570-73), one by
Edward Sapir, reviewing The Image and Other Plays by Lady Gregory, and
one by Padraic Colum, reviewing The Eighteen Nineties by Holbrook Jackson
and The Undertaker’s Garland by John Peale Bishop and Edmund Wilson, Jr.
Pages 196-97: In Una’s hand, opposite "Music for the Songs in the Plays:
The Red-Haired Man’s Wife": "‘They are saying it, that thou art the quiet little
heel in a shoe. They are saying it, that thou art the thin little mouth of
kisses, Thousand loves that thou hast turned thy back on me. Though a man may be
had. / There grows a tree in the garden / With blossoms that tremble and shake /
I lay my hand on its bark / And I feel that my heart must break / On one wish
alone / My soul through the long months ran / One little kiss / From the wife of
the red-haired man. / But the Day of Doom shall come / And hills and harbours be
rent / A mist shall fall on the sun / From dark clouds heavily sent / The sea
shall run dry / And earth under mourning and ban / Then loud shall he cry / For
the wife of the red-haired man.’ Translations from Gaelic of fragments by
Douglas Hyde." Inside back cover: Clipped news article announcing Lady
Gregory’s death, describing her as "picturesque," and recounting her theatre
career.
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). The Kiltartan Poetry Book:
Prose Translations from the Irish. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919.
Notes: Page 106: Loose, clipped pieces from a New York newspaper
(probably from late 1940’s--New York Review of Books?): "The Scribe
(Ninth Century)," "The Student and His White Cat (Late Eighth Century )," and
"Lament of the Old Woman of Beare (Late Tenth Century)," all evidently taken
from 1,000 Years of Irish Poetry, edited by Kathleen Hoagland, as part of
a review of that book. Back flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "Long are the clouds
this night above me / The last was a long night to me / This day although I find
it long / Yesterday was longer still." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand,
"A Bed Dawn: I stretch on this bed / As I shall stretch in the Tomb / A hard
conversion I make to Thee / For the evil sayings of my mouth / for the evil
thinkings of my head / For the actions of my flesh / Everything that I have said
that was not true / everything that I have promised and have not fulfilled."
Inside back cover: Probably in Una’s hand, "‘Sore suffering and O suffering
sore is the hero’s death, his death who used to lie begone[?] -- Sore suffering
to me is Cael & O Cael is suffering sore that by my side he is in dead man’s
form that the wave should have swept over his white body; that is what hath
distracted me so great was his delightfulness. A dismal roar & O a dismal roar
is that the shore’s wave wakes upon the Northward beach, beating as it does
against the polished rock lamenting for Cael now that he is gone. O woeful fight
& O fight of woe is that the wave wager with the Southern shore. O woeful melody
& O, a melody of woe is that which the heavy surge of Tullacleish emits. As for
me the calamity which has fallen upon me having shattered me, for me prosperity
exists no more.’ Crede’s lament for her husband Cael. Dr. Douglas Hyde’s
translation from the Gaelic."
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). Visions and Beliefs in the
West of Ireland Collected and Arranged by Lady Gregory: With Two Essays and
Notes by W. B. Yeats. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1920. Second Series.
Notes: Front flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped picture captioned "A Road in
Connemara."
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). Poets and Dreamers: Studies
and Translations from the Irish by Lady Gregory. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis and
Company, Ltd., 1903. Notes: Bookplate with name "Bryan Jones." Inside
back cover: Page 73 is noted (translation of a song in which a king is
calling to Ireland), as is page 100 (a lament of those sailing away from
Ireland).
Gregory, Lady (Augusta). The Kiltartan History Book.
London: Maunsel and Company, Ltd., 1909. Notes: Flyleaf: In
Una’s hand, "Raftery--’James was the worst man for habits. He laid chains on our
bogs and mountains -- The father was not worse than the son Charles that left
sharp scourges on Ireland. When God and the people thought it time the story to
be put down, he lost his head. The next James--sharp blame to him--gives his
daughter to William as woman and wife, made the Irish English and the English
Irish, like wheat and oats in the month of harvest. It was at Aughrim on a
Monday many a son of Ireland found sorrow without speaking of all that died.’"
Guerber, H. A. Myths of Greece and Rome, Narrated with
Special Reference to Literature and Art. New York: American Book Company,
n.d. Notes: Flyleaves: Inscribed "Una Lindsay Call, 1900."
Inside front cover: Pasted in, three clipped photographs: (1) "The Path of
Rome in a Distant Province, Statue of Venus"; (2) "Alexander Called Great"; (3)
"Meleager, an example of Greek sculpture of the 4th Century B. C., in the Fogg
Art Museum." Also pasted in are two clipped photographs: "A Noble Etruscan Type
of the Third or Second Century B. C.: The Head of Larth Sentinate Caesa" and "Homer
-- François Gérard." Page 4: One clipped photograph captioned "Showing
Detail of the Snake-Like Head-Band and Tunic-Border, with the ‘Tonsure’ Effect
of the Hair: A Profile View of the Same Head [Larth Sentinate Caesa]." Una adds
the note, "Etruscan." Inside back cover: Two clipped photographs:
"Demeter of Cuidus" and "The Goddess of the Sea over Which Rome Ruled."
Gummere, Francis B. A Handbook of Poetics for Students
of English Verse. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1898. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Lindsay Call, April 1901."
Gummere, Francis B. Old English Ballads. Boston:
Ginn and Company, 1897. Notes: Flyleaves: Inscribed "To dear
hospitable Mr. Jeffers wife fond wishes for a very happy New Year from Gledwiga
Reicher. January 1st 1924." Overleaf, in Una’s hand, lyrics titled "Clerk
Saunders," which tells the sad (and lengthy) story of true love between a knight
and his lady who were separated by the swords of her seven protective brothers.
Following title page: In Una’s hand, lyrics for "The Bonny Hynd," another
lengthy piece telling the sad tale of incest between a brother and sister who
discovered, too late, their true relationship. After the sister took her life,
the awful truth was then revealed to their father. Una writes, "The Bonny
Hynd is from Herd’s mss. where there is this note: ‘copied from the mouth of
a milkmaid 1771 by W. L.’" Below, Una quotes, in hand, Sir Walter Scott’s notes
to ballads in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: "The above . . . a fair
sample of a certain class of songs and tales, turning upon incidents the most
horrible and unnatural, with which the vulgar of Scotland are greatly delighted,
and of which they have current among them an ample store. Such indeed are the
subjects of composition in most nations during the early period of society; when
the feelings rude and callous can only be affected by the strongest stimuli and
where the mind does not as in a more refined age recoil disgusted from the means
by which interest has been excited. Hence parricide, incest--crimes in fine the
most foul and enormous, were the early themes of the Greeks. Whether that
delicacy which precludes the modern bard from the choice of such impressive and
dreadful themes, be favorable to the higher classes of poetic composition, may
perhaps be questioned, but the more important cause of virtue and morality is
advanced by this exclusion. The knowledge that enormities are not without
precedent may promote and even suggest them." Table of Contents page: Una
writes at the top, "Read and Outline," then marks the following pieces: "A gest
of Robyn Hode," "The Hunting of the Cheviot," "Sir Andrew Barton," "Sir Patrick
Spens," to which Una adds, "learn by rote," "Mary Hamilton," "Bonnie George
Campbell," "Bessie Bell and Mary Gray," "Lord Randall," "Edward," "The Wife of
Usher’s Well," "Sweet William’s Ghost," "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet," "Child
Waters," "St. Stephen and Herod." Introduction (93 pages): At the
top, Una writes, "Read." Page 159: Una marks a seventeen-stanza version
of "Mary Hamilton," and she directs attention to the inside back cover, where
there is a twenty-five stanza version, written by hand, and titled "The Queen’s
Marie." Una has provided a reciprocal guide to the page numbers for the lyrics
and the notes to the lyrics (printed at the end of the volume), for easier
reference.
Gwynn, Denis. Edward Martyn and the Irish Revival.
London: Jonathan Cape, 1930. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To
Robinson and Una Jeffers, with fraternal greetings, Denis Gwynn, Aug. 1931."
Title page: Above the heading "Edward Martyn," Una has written "1859-1924."
Gwynn, Stephen, Ed. Scattering Branches: Tributes to
the Memory of W. B. Yeats. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel." Inside front
cover: Loose, a clipped article (from the periodical Tomorrow, pages
38-43) by Mary Colum, titled, "The Yeats I Knew"; this was excerpted from
Colum’s "forthcoming" book, Life and the Dream. Page 210: Loose, a
fragment of an article discussing a "new full-length study of Yeats" by a Dr.
Jeffares, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh.
Gwynn, Stephen. Highways and Byways in Donegal and
Antrim. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1928. Notes: Inside
front cover: Pasted in, a clipped poem of two stanzas, "Lift Up Thy Voice,"
identified by Una as being "by Lyle Donaghy, November 1931." The opening lines
read, "Lift up thy voice in Ossian’s land. / on those wide moors the passing bee
makes quiet or a bird’s sobbing wing, / which welcomed Naisi and Deirdre home; /
in glens whose beauty was the only bond Diamuid and Grania knew. . . ."
Flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "Swans in Galway by Sister Madelwa": "The air is
white and winds are crying / I think of swans in Galway flying. / Winds are
wings; snow is a rover / Swans of Galway are flying over. / Winds are birds;
snow is a feather; / Wild white swans are wind and weather. / Wings drift
downwards; snow is falling; / Swans are wild winds crying, calling. / Winds are
white with snow but alway / Mine are white with swans from Galway." Inside
front cover: Loose, clipped article (from a British newspaper), with photo
and map, titled "Car and Country. Cross-Country Runs. Norwich to Bournemouth."
Opposite copyright page: Pasted in, a clipped photo captioned "Ballygally
Castle, beautifully situated on the Antrim Coast Road between Larne and
Glenarin." Title page: Loose, a clipped article (from a British
newspaper), with map, titled "Car and Country. On the Road to Wales."
Opposite Index: Pasted in, a clipped photo captioned, "On St. Patrick’s Own
Ground. The New Church of St. Patrick at Saul, County Down, on the Actual Site
of the First Christian Church in Ireland. Founded by Ireland’s Own Saint,
Himself, Fifteen Centuries Ago. At the Right Are the Ruins of a Ten-Century-Old
Monastery." Page 318: To the Index Una has added in hand, "Galboly: See
inside back cover." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "Galboly Village
lies hidden on a plateau above Garron Pt. It is reached by the only road in
Antrim that has never known a wheeled cart, a road so steep that only slide-cars
(known as slipes) are used. Galboly means either ‘the English dairy
place’ or ‘the bright dairy.’" Pasted-in, a clipped article titled, "When World
Was Young. Volcanos of Antrim. The Traces That Remain. Where Lava Flows May be
Seen."
Gwynn, Stephen. Ireland: Its Places of Beauty,
Entertainment, Sport, and Historic Association. New York: Doubleday and
Company, 1928. Notes: Flyleaves: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor
House, Carmel, California"; a list, in Una’s hand: "Monasterboice, Glendalough,
Cashel, Kells, Malahide, Trim, Tera, Dowth"; pasted-in clipped photo showing St.
Laurence Gate, Drogheda; in Una’s hand, this verse: "When the shadows on wet
grass are heavier / Than hay, beside dim wells the women gossip / And by the
paler bushes tell the daylight / But from what bay uneasy with a shipping /
Breeze have you come?’ I said ‘O you cross / The blue thread with the crimson on
the framework / At dark fall in a house where nobles throng / And the low oil
climbs up into the flaure?’ Austin Clarke, ‘Pilgrimage’"; on facing flyleaf, in
Una’s hand, another verse: "Gray holdings of grain / Had grown less with the
fields / As we came to that blessed place / Where hail and honey meet. / O
Cloumanoise was crossed / With light; those cloistered scholars / Whose
knowledge of the gospel / Is cast as metal in pure voices / Were all rejoicing
daily / And cunning hands with god and jewels / Wrought chalices to flame."
Page iv: Handwritten notes: "Round Towers: Kilkenney, Kells, Kilree nr.
Kilkenney, Ardmore (nr. Waterford), Cashel, Clondalkin, Kildare (nr. Dublin),
Glendalough, Cloyne (nr. Cork), Aghadoe (nr. Kilkenney), Ardfert (fell 1771, of
marble)." Page v (at "Foreward"): In Una’s hand, "Augusta Bender
Room of Far Eastern Art, Nat. Museum, Kildare St. Entrance." Page vi:
Pasted-in, clipped letter to the editor from a Belfast gentleman making the
point that "cursing stones still exist in Ireland." Page 153: Pasted-in,
clipped photograph of a replica of an ancient Irish round tower erected on the
college green at Dublin near the Bank of Ireland. Page 324: Pasted in, a
clipped photograph showing a squat round tower in Limerick.
Gwynn, Stephen. Irish Literature and Drama in the
English Language: A Short History. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1936.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To dear Una--to wish her continued
marital happiness on her wedding anniversary, August 2, 1936. Affectionately,
Melba Bennett."
H. D. Collected Poems of H.D. New York: Boni and
Liveright, 1925. Notes: Dust jacket: Front flap advertises Roan
Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems by Robinson Jeffers, with blurbs by George
Sterling, Edwin Arlington Robinson, James Daly, and others. Back flyleaf:
Pasted in, a paragraph from a clipped review of Hippolytus Temporizio
(identified in Una’s handwritten note), with play’s opening and closing speech
by Artemis, which begins, "I have heard the intolerable rhythm / and sound of
prayer, / so I have hidden / where no mortals are." Inside back cover:
Loose, clipped review, by Lola Ridge, of Poems of Pursuit by H.D.
Hall, A. D., Translator. Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff.
Part 1. Chicago: Rand, McNally and Company, 1908. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Küster, San Francisco, Jan 1909." Frontispiece: Pasted
onto back, a clipped picture (from a self-portrait in the Musee des Beaux Arts,
Nice) of Marie Bashkirtseff. Page 22: Loose, clipped article (New York
Times, February 4, 1922) headed "New Bashkirtseff Diary Discovered: Young
Russian Girl Whose Memoirs Were a Literary Sensation Left Other Work. Found in
Old Casket. Recent Death of Her mother at Nice. Will Probably Lead to the
Publication of the Document."
Hall, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. A Week at Killarney.
London: J. S. Virtue, 1858. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Peter
Marie, Cork, May 26, 1865." Below, "Dear Una, This will recall and maybe bring
forth the pen. Love, Remsen."
Hall, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Ireland: Its Scenery,
Character, &c. Volume 2. London: Virtue and Company, n.d. Notes:
Flyleaf: "Selskar Abbey, Wexford p. 137,173." Page 137: Begins the
chapter on Wexford; at the top of the page is a pasted-in photo of Selskar
Abbey. Page 183: An engraving of the old abbey of Selskar, plus a brief
history. Back flyleaves: Two clipped pictures: "A Peaceful Scene on the
Sixmilewater at Antrim Castle" and "Charming View at Montalto House,
Ballynahinch, the Residence of the Earl and Countess of Clanwilliam."
Hand-Me-Down: The Student Guide of Europe.
New York: The Holland-America Line, 1937. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una with love and many happy gambols on the Irish Green.
Barbara." Page 304: Una notes "Arncliffe, Yorkshire." Page 308:
Scribbled notes re. Mt. Shannon Co. Uare, Derg Hotel, expense for breakfast
(2/6), and free boat. Page 309: "Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare
currunt." Page 310: A list, in Una’s hand: "Shere (Surry); Sevensoaks (Kent)
for Knowle; Stoney Cross (Hants); Tribuwith, Cornwall; Two Bridges, Devon;
Saunton-Braunton, Devon; Knowle (Somersetshire! Manor house!!); Arundel (page
138), Sussex; Hartland Quay, Devon!!!!! (137); Harbertoford, Devon; Chagford,
Devon; Camelford, Cornwall (129)." Inside back cover, "Ha says, New Forest,
Stony Cross. Royal Guest House. Unprepossessing but perfect. Nr.
Bath--Croft House beyond High Bridge (turn off left on way to B.). Bideford -
High Torridge Inn nr. Torridge Hill. Boscastle - Welltown Manor!!!! Beaulieu.
For long stay in Devon, page 137! Thame - Spread Eagle Restaurant. Sark. P.
Beauregard, farmhouse nr windmill- pension 8/. Knowle/Somerset. Cornwall.
Liskender."
Hannagan, Margaret and Seamus Clandillon, Eds. Songs of
the Irish Gaels: In Staff and Sol-Fa, with English Metrical Translations.
London: Oxford University Press, 1927. Notes: Inside front cover:
Loose papers: On half-sheet of staff paper, handwritten notations for "Irish
Keen." On double sheet of staff paper, handwritten notations for "The Pigeons
[Irish folk tune], words by Padraic Colum, arr. by John Edmunds, 1945."
Flyleaf: Pasted in, printed sheet music for "The Londonderry Air." Una notes
below, "Jane Rose collected this air in Limawaddy, 1851, from an itinerant
fiddler named McCormick." Page iii: Loose papers: (1) clipped,
illustrated feature article titled "Ancient Music for Modern Ears: Arnold
Dolmetsch, Providing an Annual Festival of Compositions Written as Early as the
Fifth Century, and Played on Instruments of the Times, Has Contributed New
Understanding of the Art," written by Joyce Michell, Head of the Department of
Musicology, Louisiana State University. (2) Notations for "Lily Marleen" clipped
from Time, May 3, 1943. (3) Notations, German lyrics and English
translation of "Die Moorsoldaten," ballad of the Soldiers of the Marsh, clipped
from Time and Tide, July 22, 1939. (4) Handwritten staffs and notations,
on typewriter paper, for "Ned of the Hill" by Eamoun O’Ryan. Una notes that he
was "born before 1690 in Tipperary" and that the "Text 1700, melody much older."
Hardy, Florence Emily. The Later Years of Thomas Hardy:
1892-1928. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. Notes: Inside
back cover: Three penciled notes: "Fanny Hurd 223; living still in
the past 231; free will versus--- 269-70."
Hardy, Thomas. Human Shows, Far Phantasies: Songs and
Trifles. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1925. Notes: Inside
front cover: Pasted-in, clipped reproduction of Augustus John portrait of
Thomas Hardy. Title page: In hand, under Hardy’s name, "(1840-Jan 11,
1928)." Inside back cover: Pasted-in clippings of Hardy’s poems: "I Look
Into My Glass," "In the Time of the Breaking of Nations," "He Resolves to Say No
More," "The New Dawn’s Business," "The Puzzled Came Birds," "The Dynasts."
Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. New York: The
Modern Library, 1927. Notes: Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped photo of
profile captioned, "Thomas Hardy: June, 1840 - January, 1928." Half-title
page: Inscribed "Garth, Donnan, 1927, Aunt Ruth." Page 276: Loose
article (from Books of the Month, a British publication) titled, "Thomas
Hardy and His Dorset Home," by R. Thurston Hopkins. Back flyleaves:
Pasted-in, clipping headed, "A letter from Mrs. Hardy to the editors of a
"Biographical Dictionary of Rationalists," in which she writes on behalf of her
husband to say that he considers himself to be "rather an irrationalist than a
rationalist, on account of his inconsistencies." In Una’s hand on facing
flyleaf, "‘Since I discovered several years ago that I was living in a world
where nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently, I have
troubled myself very little about theories . . . where development according to
perfect reason is limited to the narrow region of pure mathematics. I am content
with tentativeness from day to day. An object or mark raised or made by man on a
scene is worth ten times any such formed by unconscious Nature. Hence clouds,
mists and mountains are unimportant beside the wear on a threshold or the print
of a hand.’ From Hardy’s diary."
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman
Faithfully Presented. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1893. Notes:
Back flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "The singular name Angel occurs on a fine mural
monument in Stinsford Church, Dorset, where Hardy’s parents and his own heart
are buried in the churchyard. The monument commemorates the sons of Angel
Audelay. Erected in 1723." Inside back cover: Pasted-in, cartoonish
sketch of Hardy and his "muse," captioned, "The Muse of Bucolic Poetry: ‘I was
your first love, Thomas.’ The Wessix [sic] Novel (in the background).
‘Time now[?] he devoted himself to me!’"
Hardy, Thomas. The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of
Cornwall at Tantagel in Lyonnesse: A New Version of an Old Story, Arranged as a
Play for Mummers, in One Act, Requiring No Theatre or Scenery. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1923. Notes: Limited edition: 48/1000. Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Dedication page: Pasted in, a clipped portrait
of Hardy as an old man.
Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. New York:
The Modern Library, n.d. Notes: Flyleaf: Pasted-in, clipped
newspaper article from London titled "Vault Prepared At Westminster Abbey for
Hardy" and describing the several ceremonies and burials for the writer.
Hardy, Thomas. The Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy, in
Two Volumes. Volume I. Collected Poems, Lyrical, Narratory, and
Reflective. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1923. Notes:
Title page: Written in RJ’s hand under Hardy’s name: June 2, 1840 - Jan 11,
1928. Inside front cover: Pasted inside, a newspaper photo captioned
"Hardy Ms. for Cambridge." Photo shows manuscript copy of first ten lines of
"Christmas in the Elgin Room." Page 653: Next to the line in "Drawing
Details in an Old Church" that reads "I ask not whom it tolls for," Jeffers
notes "cf. Donne for whom the bell tolls." Back flyleaves: Page 653 is
also noted here, along with page 498 and the phrase "not unvision." This phrase
appears in the Hardy poem "The Shadow on the Stone": "I went by the Druid stone
/ That broods in the garden white and lone, / And I stopped and looked at the
shifting shadows / That at some moments fall thereon / From the tree hard by
with a rhythmic swing, / And they shaped in my imagining / To the shade that a
well-known head and shoulders / Threw there when she was gardening. / I thought
her behind my back, / Yea, her I long had learned to lack, / And I said: ‘I am
sure you are standing behind me, / Though how do you get into this old track?’ /
And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf / As a sad response; and to keep
down grief / I would not turn my head to discover / That there was nothing in my
belief. / Yet I wanted to look and see / That nobody stood at the back of me; /
But I thought once more: ‘Nay, I’ll not unvision / A shape which, somehow, there
may be.’ / So I went on softly from the glade, / And left her behind me throwing
her shade, / As she were indeed an apparition--My head unturned lest my dream
should fade." Note reads, "Begun 1913: finished 1916." Inside back cover:
Jeffers notes several phrases: (1) "‘Stretching eyes west over the sea, 420’
from ‘The Riddle’: ‘I. Stretching eyes west / Over the sea, / Wind foul or fair,
/ Always stood she / Prospect-impressed; / Solely out there / Did her gaze rest,
/ Never elsewhere seemed charm to be. II. Always eyes east / Ponders she now-- /
As in devotion-- / Hills of blank brow / Where no waves plough. / Never the
least / Room for emotion / Drawn from the ocean / Does she allow.’" (2)
"‘Portion of this yew’ 443 from ‘Transformations’: ‘Portion of this yew / Is a
man my grandsire knew, / Bosomed here at its foot: / This branch may be his
wife, / A ruddy human life / Now turned to a green shoot. / These grasses must
be made / Of her who often prayed, / Last century for repose; / And the fair
girl long ago / Whom I often tried to know / May be entering this rose. / So,
they are not underground, / But as nerves and veins abound / In the growths of
upper air, / And they feel the sun and rain, / And the energy again / That made
them what they were!’" Jeffers notes in hand, "cf ‘Voices--’ p. 590." The
line "Voices from things growing in a country churchyard" is bracketed along
with "Portion of this yew" inside the back cover; and on page 590, Jeffers
writes "cf ‘Transformations’ p. 443. / ‘Voices from Things Growing in a
Churchyard: These flowers are I, poor Fanny Hurd, / Sir or Madam, / A little
girl here sepultured. / Once I flit-fluttered like a bird / Above the grass, as
now I wave / In daisy shapes above my grave, / All day cheerily, / All night
eerily! / --I am one Bachelor Bowring, "Gent," / Sir or Madam; / In shingled oak
my bones were pent; / Hence more than a hundred years I spent / In my feat of
change from a coffin-thrall / To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall, / All
day cheerily, / All night eerily!’" Five similar stanzas follow.
Hardy, Thomas. The Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy, in
Two Volumes. Volume II. The Dynasts, An Epic Drama of the War with
Napoleon, in Three Parts, Nineteen Acts, and One Hundred and Thirty Scenes .
London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1923. Notes: Inside front cover:
Loose clipping from January 14, 1939, Time and Tide, "Men and Books"
by Malcolm Muggeridge in which the writer discusses "Three books on Hardy"--Thomas
Hardy: A Study of His Writings and their Background by William R. Rutland
(Blackwell); Thomas Hardy by William R. Rutland (Blackie); and The
Dynasts and the Post-War Age in Poetry by Amiya Chakravarty (Oxford). The
final paragraphs of Muggeridge’s article are worth noting: "Mr. Chakravarty
shows, correctly I think, that this hope of progress from unconsciousness to
consciousness which is the closing note of The Dynasts, may be connected
without any break with the spirit infusing much contemporary poetry. It was a
kind of dialectical materialism, presupposing a finality in mankind’s troubled
history, a moment when the curtain would be rung down, the play over. Instead of
all our yesterdays lighting fools the way to dusty death, they light
intelligence the way to ordered life; instead of each individual existence, each
generation of men, each phase of history, unfolding a pattern whose key lies
beyond the reach of mortal minds, to them senseless, the pattern is in process
of becoming comprehensible and therefore definitive. . . .Hardy’s
stage-directions after the crowning of Napoleon at Milan are: ‘The scene assumes
the preternatural transparency before mentioned, and there is again beheld as it
were the interior of a brain which seems to manifest the volitions of a
Universal Will, of whose tissues the personages of the action form a portion.’
History might be resolved into the workings of ‘a Brain whose whole connotes the
Everywhere.’ . . . This Brain, with human beings streaming hither and thither
for grey matter, had thought Napoleon, but that was a mistake. Its thoughts,
henceforth, Hardy hoped, were to be more serene. He based his hopes on
consciousness creeping further and further back upon unconsciousness, like light
illuminating darkness, but neglected to take into account the possibility, most
present now, of the reverse process--unconsciousness creeping further and
further back upon consciousness, darkness swallowing up light."
Hardy, Thomas. The Return of the Native. New York:
The Modern Library, 1926. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers,
Tor House, Carmel." Page 8: Clipped etching captioned, "He Musingly
Surveyed the Scene, as If Considering the Next Step He Should Take" (numbered in
pencil "13"). Page 283: Clipped etching captioned "They Took No Heed of
Anything but the Pigmy Object Immediately Beneath Their Eyes" (numbered in
pencil "281"). Page 316: Clipped etching captioned "The Proud Fair Woman
Bowed Her Head and Wept in Sick Despair" (numbered in pencil "313"). Back
flyleaf: In RJ’s hand, "This book was sent to Cpl. Lloyd Tevis Dec. 1944 (at
his request) to England. He was stationed in a Gen’l Hospital at Blandford
Dorset. Returned to U.J. June 1945." Inscribed below, "Lloyd Tevis, Jr., Camp
Blandford, Dorset."
Hardy, Thomas. The Well-Beloved. New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1897. Notes: Page 3: Loose, clipped article, "Thomas
Hardy," by Dorothy Hawkin (n.d., n.p.).
Hardy, Thomas. Under the Greenwood Tree. London:
The London Book Co., Ltd., n.d. Notes: Inside front cover:
Inscribed "Jeffers. Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland July 1929."
Hare, Augustus J. C. Memorials of a Quiet Life.
Volume 2. New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1873. Notes:
Inside back and front covers: Inscribed by Mrs. Peter M. Call, 2012 W.
Lancey Place, Philadelphia, Jan. 1875 and Edith M. Call, Sunny Side, Montgomery
County, June 1875. Also in library is the Supplementary Volume (London: Daldy,
Isbister and Company, 1876).
Hare, Augustus J. C. The Story of My Life. Volumes
1-4. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1901. Notes: Flyleaf, Volume 3:
Inscribed in RJ’s hand, "Una Jeffers."
Hare, Augustus J. C. Walks in London. New York:
George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., c. 1890. Notes: Inside front cover:
Pasted in, a clipped copy of engraving of Waterloo Bridge. Flyleaves:
Pasted in: clipped copies of engraving of London Bridge; sketch of interior of
Temple Church; engraving of Allhallows Church (after Wren); and brief account of
a legend about a ghost at Westminster Abbey.
Harland, Marion. Sunnybank. New York: G. W.
Dillingham, 1885. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Kuster, 1907."
Harper, Charles G. Historic and Picturesque Inns of Old
England. London: Ed. J. Burrow and Company, Ltd., 1927. Notes:
Inside front cover and on flyleaves: List of inns, in Una’s hand: "Half Moon
nr. York; Traveller’s Rest; The Welcome Stranger; Baldfaced Stag; Old Cork Inn;
White Blackbird; Old White Horse; Floral Arms; The Dumbbell (Maidenhead); The
Rat’s Castle, The Brewery Tap - St. Albans; The Jolly Farmer - Rumsford; The
Roaring Donkey - Holland-on-Sea, Essex; The Cat and Custard Pat -
Gloucestershire; The Jolly Caulkers - Rotherhithe; The Lilliput Hall -
Bermondsey; The Shoulder of Mutton and Cucumbers - Sussex; The Phantom Coach;
The Man with the Load of Mischief - Norwich; 3 Horseshoes (Burroughbridge);
Byron’s Rest (Hucknall Torchard); Sun and Whalebone (Harlow); The Boyshead;
Farmers Glory; Blackamoor’s Head; The Good Intent (Epping Forest); Dun Cow (nr.
Durham); Malt and Shovel." Frontispiece (back): In Una’s hand: "Pope’s
Grotto Hotel (Twickenham); Shoulder of Mutton; Hoops Inn; Lamb and Flag; Honest
Lawyer (King’s Lynn); The Trip to Jerusalem (Nottingham); The Barking Dickey,
Norwich; The Brazen Doors, Norwich; The Whip and Egg (mistake for NAG), Norwich;
The First and Last (on sign was a cradle and a coffin), Norwich; The Popinjay,
Norwich; The Two necked Swan, Norwich; The Hog in Armour (commonly called The
Pig in Misery), Norwich; Pease and Beans, Norwich; Three Washerwomen, Norwich;
Abraham Offering His Son, Norwich; Wax Candle, Norwich; Three Hot Pressers,
Norwich; Goose and Gridiron, Norwich." Page 33: Una writes in margin
above a sketch of "The Bull," Rochester, "This hotel is called ‘The Royal
Victoria and Bull.’ Stayed there 1937." Page 52: In margin, Una notes,
"Four Jeffers here 1929" next to the passage, "Winchester has some fine old inns
[several named]. . . . Nor, while there, should the visitor forget the ancient
‘God-begot’ [Una’s underline] house at the corner of the High Street and
St. Peter Street." Page 73: Una adds in the margin next to the underlined
"Tregenna Castle Hotel" in St. Ives, "X - Una 1912." Page 86: Passage
marked: ". . . we come to the famous Wansford Bridge, spanning the river Nene.
On the hither side of it, in the village of Stibbington, used to be another
extremely fine inn, the ‘Haycock.’ For generations the Percival family had the
‘Haycock,’ and horsed coaches on the next stages. When the railways came and the
coaches ceased, this fine old inn became a private residence. It was long
occupied by the late Lord Chesham as a hunting-box. Page 106: In a
section about Oxford, two inn names are marked by Una: "Clarendon; Una 1929" and
"Mitre; Una 1912." Page 121: Una notes, "Una stayed at Fleur de-Lis 1912
when returning from France" above the passage that reads, "Hopeless would it be
now to seek in Canterbury any of the ancient pilgrim’s hostels; but of the
city’s hotels and inns there are some which are of ancient date and still
preserve traces of that antiquity. The ‘Fleur-de-Lis’ is one of them." Page
130: Una notes in the margin, "Una stayed at the Maid’s Head, 1948, when
exploring Paston Country." The passage reads, "Now we come to Norwich, the
metropolis of East Anglia, where the ‘Maid’s Head’ in Tombland, near the
Cathedral, is the old, historic house, its antiquities duly preserved, while its
appointments have been brought up to date." Pages 155-69: Checked (by
Una) in "Index of Inns Referred to in the Text": The Reindeer, Banbury,
Oxon.; The Royal Oak, Bettws-y-Coed, Carnavon; The Swan, Bibury,
Gloucestershire; The Cat and Fiddle, Buxton, Derby; The George, Charmouth,
Dorset; The King’s Head, Dickleburgh, Norfolk; The Lord Warden, Dover, Kent; The
George, Glastonbury, Somerset; The Feathers, Ludlow, Salop; The George,
Salisbury, Wiltshire. Page 167: In margin, Una writes, "Inn named ‘Hark!
the Lasher!’" Page A98: In Una’s hand, in margin next to Winchcombe
advertisements, "Diogenes on one side of sign, a staggering drunk on the other
and the distich, ‘Now Diogenes is dead and laid in his tomb / Tumbledown Dick is
come in his room.’" Back flyleaf: Pasted in, a clipped photograph
captioned, "Up This Chimney, Many a Smuggler Escaped the Law," showing the
fireplace at the 400 year-old Mermaid at Rye. Inside back cover: Pasted
in, a clipped review of the book The English Inn by Thomas Burke,
detailing the vintage of some of England’s oldest inns and discussing some of
the singular signs in front of them (one example: The Fighting Cocks at St.
Albans dates from 795). Note in Una’s hand, "Inn sign the Goat and Compasses is
a corruption of ‘God encompasses us’ and The Elephant and Castle is from the
‘Infanta of Castile,’ wife of Edward I."
Harper, Charles G. The Hardy Country. Third
Edition. London: A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1925. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel." Half-title page: Inscribed
"For Una Jeffers from Harvey Taylor and Miss Edith Griffin." Inside back
cover: Una notes "Pimperne 41; Blandford 41." Page 41: Una has marked
the passage, "So, with a sigh for the decay of belief, we will e’en on through
Pimperne down to Blandford, which good town, of fine dignified classic
architectural presence, the coachroad enters in a timid back-doors manner, down
a narrow byway."
Harris, Frank. Contemporary Poets. Girard, Kansas:
Haldeman-Julius Company, n.d. Ten Cent Pocket Series Number 269 (Volume I);
Number 270 (Volume II); Number 271 (Volume III); Number 272 (Volume IV).
Volume I Notes: Front cover: In Una’s hand, a "table of contents,"
with page numbers: Essays on George Bernard Shaw, Rudyard Kipling, Ernest
Dowson, Theodore Dreiser, James Thomson are included. Volume II Notes:
Front cover: In Una’s hand, a table of contents, with page numbers, to
the essays inside: George Moore, Lord Dunsany, Sydney Sime, Lionel Johnson,
Hubert Crackanthorpe, Pierre Loti, Walter Pater, Herbert Spencer, W. L. George.
Volume III Notes: Front cover: In Una’s hand, a list: "Arthur
Balfour, page 5; Lloyd George, page 19; Viscount Grey, page 39; Georges
Clemenceau, page 53; Shaw’s Portrait - by Shaw, page 67; H. G. Wells, page 97;
Upton Sinclair, page 111." Volume IV Notes: Front cover: In Una’s
hand, a list: "John Galsworthy, page 5; Cunninghame Graham, page 21; Gilbert K.
Chesterton, page 39; Arthur Symons, page 49; Winston Churchill, page 65; Alfred
Russel Wallace, page 83; Thomas Huxley, page 97; Louis Wilkinson, page 113."
Hartshorne, Emily Sophia. Enshrined Hearts of Warriors
and Illustrious People. London: Robert Hardwicke, 1871. Notes:
Inside front cover: Bookplate for Christopher Alexander Markham, FSH.
Flyleaf: Inscribed "S. J. Akroyd." Overleaf, in two hands: "And in his
heart, my heart is locked / And in his life, my life. / Una -- Robin / August 2,
1938 -- twenty-five years!" Below, "No, dearest, mine in yours. --Forever,
Robin." Page 58: Drawing of the inscription on the silver casket in which
the heart of Richard I was buried, and a note from Una, "See opposite page 63."
Page 63: Pasted in, a clipped photograph of the casket, along with a
sketch of its outer case. The casket is on display at the Cathedral if Rouen.
Page 95: Reference in the text to the "Abbey of Sweet Heart or New Abbey" in
Galloway is emended in the margin by Una with the note, "Dolce Cor." At the
bottom of the page she notes, "Arms of Sweetheart Abbey / In chief a heart over
two / pastoral staffs." Page 102: Carefully glued onto the inner edge, a
clipped article from The Times of London, 1 September 1920, recounting
the story of the murder of Prince Henry d’Almayne by Guy de Montfort in 1271,
later alluded to in the Divine Comedy (Inf. XII 119020). The story
is told in the text on pp. 102-04, ending, "[Henry’s] bones were buried at
Hayles, in the monastery his father had founded, and his Heart, honourably
placed in a gilt cup, near the coffin of St. Edward, in Westminster Abbey."
Page 170: The story of Prince Edward’s deathbed instruction to his son that
his bones be carried "at the head of his army" and that his heart "be deposited
at Jerusalem, with thirty-two thousand pounds sterling . . . for the support of
the Holy Sepulchre." Una notes at the bottom of the page, "He trusted ‘that God
would accept this fulfillment of his vow . . . and eternal damnation fall on any
who should expend this money for any other purpose.’ But his son did not obey
his command." Page 178: Following the section on Robert Bruce (his heart
was interred at Melrose Abbey in Scotland), Una writes, "See Lockhart’s ‘Life of
Sir Walter Scott’ Vol. 1, p. 83. In the Douglas crypt of the Church of St.
Bride, Douglass Mill, Lanarkshire, visited by them in 1831, was the silver case
that once held the heart of the good Lord James Douglas." Page 179:
Clipped article from The Times of London, March 7, 1921, titled "Robert
Bruce’s Heart? A Casket Dug up at Melrose." Overleaf, Una writes, "An old ballad
quoted in the note to Scott’s "Marmion": "I will ye charge after yet I depart /
To holy grave and thair bury my hart. / Let it remain ever both tyme and hour /
To ye last day I see my Saviour." Further on the page, "The bloody heart blazed
in the van / Announcing Douglas’ dreaded name." To the sentence in the text on
page 179 which sums up the story of Robert Bruce’s heart, and which reads, "Sir
Simon Lockhard changed his name into Lockheart, and afterwards bore upon his
shield a man’s heart with a padlock upon it, in remembrance of the royal Heart
he had charge of to its native country," Una adds, "with the motto ‘Corda
serrata pando.’" To the information that "The Douglas family have since
carried upon their shield a bloody heart with a crown upon it, in memory of the
monarch whom their ancestor had the honour to serve" Una adds, "And own a sword
emblazoned with two hands holding a heart and dated 1329." At the bottom of the
page, possibly in Una’s hand, "See Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, 1839, Vol.
VI, p. 322. Page 214: Pasted in, a hand-drawn sketch of "A mother’s
tombstone of great antiquity at Noda, Lithuania, with sun-rays radiating from an
engraved heart and votive stone hearts (only found on mothers’ graves)." Also
pasted at this location, clipped page from Herold and Genealogist, August
1872, describing the Parish of Egloshayle, its singular bridge, and a family
crest which originated in that community. To the text on Sir Robert Peckham’s
burial (and the burial of his heart) Una adds, "His son was buried in the family
vault at Denham, Bucks in 1586 ‘on the same day was the heart of Sir Robert
Peckham, Knight, buried in the vault under the chapell. Parish Register of
Burials.’" Page 251: Una adds to the section on the fate of the heart of
Edward Earl of Windsor, "Case containing heart has on it a long inscription. Was
seen in 1848 when Isaac d’Israeli was buried in the same vault." Una also notes
that Edward’s heart was buried "in chapel at Bradenham." Page 254: Pasted
in, a photograph of an urn with a note: "This little urn is now in the British
Museum." In the section on Edward Lord Bruce, Una adds that his "heart was found
2 ft. below pavement under old projection in the wall. Two flatstones were
strongly clasped together with iron, inside these the silver heart containing
the [actual] heart and brown liquid. In another cavity was a lead case which it
was conjectured had contained the bowels." Page 364: Pasted in, a page
with a handwritten note: "Madam la Duchesse de Berry died on the 21st July 1719,
at La Muette, near Paris. On the 22nd July her heart was taken to the
Val-de-Grace, and the following day her body was carried in an eight-horse coach
to Saint Denis; there was very little display, and only about forty torches were
carried by pages and guards. --Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon, 1880 Vol. III
p. 219." Page 381: Sections about Napoleon (note in Una’s hand to "see
page 382a") and Shelley: "Shelley’s heart is buried in his son’s grave in
Bownemouth. Ingham’s ‘Shelley in England’ Vol. II p. 543." At the end of the
passage describing Shelley’s cremation ("His Heart was found entire amongst his
ashes, after his body was consumed"), Una adds, "Queer. Over Shelley’s
ashes in Rome on the tablet, cor cordium." Page 382A
(pasted in and numbered by Una): Three brief clipped articles about the search
for Byron’s and Napoleon’s hearts. Page 417: Pasted in, a clipped article
from The Times of London, 13 April 1906, about the "successful
identification of the heart of Rameses II." Page 419: An article from the
Northampton Herald 27 Oct 1900 describing several heart burials, and from
the same newspaper on 24 Aug 1901, another describing more such burials. Back
flyleaf: Handwritten note, "Purchased from W. Thorpe, Reading, April 1901."
Below, "Purchased from T. Thorpe, Guildford, June 1938. I have had an order in
for this book for sixteen years. Una Jeffers." Inside back cover: Loose,
three typewritten pages relating folklore and religious traditions attaching to
the hearts of the deceased, along with two hand-drawn diagrams of heart symbols.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Tanglewood Tales. London:
Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., n.d. Notes: Inside front cover:
Library card pocket: "Bishop King School Library." I.D. is crossed out, and in
its place is printed, in pencil (and a juvenile hand), "Una Jeffers."
Flyleaf: Inscribed, in a young person’s handwriting, "Phil Arnold." Since
the book appears to be of too recent a vintage to have been a childhood book of
Una’s, it is possible that it was purchased as a textbook for the twins, and
that one of them inscribed his mother’s name. Marginalia consists of what might
have been unfamiliar words to a young person underlined in pencil and given
identification codes: X-29 and X-13 and X-51, for example. This practice is
abandoned in the second half of the book.
Heath, Frank R. Wiltshire. London: Methuen and
Company, Ltd., n.d. Notes: Inside front cover: Una writes,
"London, October 1937. Una Jeffers from Percy Peacock." Additional notes in
Una’s hand: "Chilton Foliat / Savernake Forest / 105; 1789 - National Hist and
Antiquity; Coombe Bissett toward Blanford, on hill gate on top great plain, dark
woods, on left a path to old yew gate; 1800, Montagn Harrier."
Hencken, H. O’Neill. Cahercommaun: A Stone Fort in
County Clare. Dublin: Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 1938.
Notes: Inside front cover: Inscribed "Albert M. Bender, 1938."
Historical pamphlets about several locations in Ireland:
"Bunnamairge Friary," by Robert M’Cahan; the text has been copiously marked with
vertical lines in the margins. "Knocklayd Mountain and Valley of Glentow," by
Robert M’Cahan; marked in margins, and a few notes in Una’s hand. "Ballintoy,
Carrick-a-Rede and Whitepark Bay," by Robert M’Cahan; vertical lines in margins.
"Kenbann Castle," by Robert M’Cahan; vertical lines in margins.
Hogg, Thomas Jefferson. The Life of Percy Bysshe
Shelley. London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1906. Notes:
Flyleaf: Pasted-in, clipped reproduction of a portrait of Shelley by William
E. West. Page 585: Pasted-in announcement of the availability of The
Letters of Thomas J. Hogg to Jane Williams, ed. by Sylva Norman (Mrs. Edmund
Blunden).
Holzwarth, C. H. GruÞ aus Deutfchland: A Reader for
Beginners in High School and College. New York: D. C. Heath and Company,
1913. Notes: This volume appears to have been studied intensively at some
juncture. It features a rather clever home-made indexing system added to the
Glossary, involving hole protectors used as alphabetical guides along the outer
edges of the pages. The handwriting in the book appears to be Una’s, but the
date and the appearance of the book suggest that it was more likely used by the
Jeffers children.
Hone, J. M. William Butler Yeats: The Poet in
Contemporary Ireland. Dublin: Maunsel and Company, Ltd., n.d. Notes:
Title page: Inscribed "When the bones of Christopher Columbus were being
disinterred near a tobacco plantation in the Caribbean, the Oytalians present
were confounded on finding a smaller skeleton. The Oirish grave digger solved
the question with this answer - ‘This is Columbus the boy.’ Hone promises a
larger book on Wm. Butler Yeats. This is Willie ‘the boy.’ For Una with
affection, John. In the year of (the big wind) The World War, 1942."
Hone, Joseph. J. B. Yeats: Letters to His Son W. B.
Yeats and Others, 1869-1922. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1946.
Notes: Pages 296-97: Una edits the text, pointing out that two
section headings, "The Delcartanists" and "Maud Gonne," are misplaced.
Hone, Joseph. The Life of George Moore, with an Account
of His Last Years by His Cook and Housekeeper, Clara Warville. London:
Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1936. Copy 1 Notes: Half-title page:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel." Page 10: An "X" next to the
line in which Mrs. Robinson Jeffers is acknowledged as one of "Moore’s American
correspondents and friends." The others so acknowledged are the Marquise Clara
Lanza, Viola Rodgers, Honor Wolfe, Vincent O’Sullivan, and the Messrs.
Liveright. Page 382: An "X" next to the passage in which a letter from
Moore to Una is quoted in reference to the burning of his home: Hone writes,
"Moore’s writings had animated the shores of Lough Carra with his presence and
Moore Hall was become in recent years a place of pilgrimage for literary
wayfarers in the West of Ireland. We have his letter to Mrs. Robinson Jeffers,
the wife of the American poet, written a month or two before the burning; she
had been ‘near to visiting Moore Hall,’ and her story drew his mind back, he
said, to ‘years long past over. . . . A number of pictures rose up before me:
your carriage driving through the gates, the winding avenue and myself on the
steps waiting to receive you.’" Page 510: In the Index, Una adds the page
number "10" to the entry which identifies her name as appearing only on page
382. Copy 2 Notes: While the content of this volume is identical to Copy
1, the binding, marginalia and other additions are not. Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Dearest Una from Robin -- At last you and I have found the wedding
anniversary present for you, only three or four months late. Here it is with all
my love, and with proper jealousy of this great rival in your affections.
November 22, 1936. For August 2, 1936. Title page: In hand above the
title, "born Feb. 24, 1852. Moore Hall. Co. Mayo / died Jan 21, 1933, London."
Illustrations page: Una adds to the list of illustrations, "Moore Hall
from the shore of Lough Carra, 42." This plate, while bound in, appears to have
been an afterthought or to have presented some kind of problem sufficient to
have led the editor to omit it from the list of illustrations. (This
illustration is not bound into Copy 1.) Page 9: Una adds a note to Hone’s
acknowledgment of Senator Colonel Maurice Moore, "died Oct 1939, aged 86," and
to the acknowledgment of Professor Henry Tonks, "Tonks died Jan 8, 1937, aged
74." At the bottom of the page she writes, "Walter Sickert died Jan. 1942, age
81." Page 10: An "X" marks the acknowledgment line where "Mrs. Robinson
Jeffers" appears. Page 122: An "X" marks a passage describing Moore’s
considerable, though often hidden, regard for Edward Martyn. Page 124:
Three "Xs" mark the passage reading, "But the better complexion of his affairs
did not induce him to alter the frugal habits of life to which he had accustomed
himself; he wore ill-made clothes, ‘and yet,’ says Sir William Geary, ‘when I
have seen him in the theatre lounge at a first night, as he stood in evening
dress, though his opera hat was battered, somehow or other he gave the
impression of being the most distinguished person present.’ He was ripening
slowly; but that famous devastating simplicity of his, that character of being
utterly himself, would sometimes give way to an affectation of aestheticism, an
unwonted touch of Bunthorne. Madame Duclaux recalls an arrival at Earl’s
Terrace. Moore entered, shook hands with his hostess, Madame Duclaux’s mother:
looking round him, he said, ‘I like this room,’ and then spoilt everything by
adding: ‘the wall paper sets off my yellow hair.’ The beautiful Mrs. Stillman,
the muse of the pre-Raphaelites, was talking to Mrs. Robinson. She slowly turned
her head, Madame Duclaux continues, pour foudroyer Moore d’un regard de
Minerve courroucée. But Moore, who had come to talk about Pater, was
conscious neither of Mrs. Stillman’s beauty nor of her disdain. He was
enveloped, like a silk worm, in an isolating dream, his dream of literary
perfection." Page 142: An "X" marks the passage, "Disillusionment and
indifference were, [Moore] told a woman friend, a state of mind from which he
seldom suffered. ‘Needless to say I know that nothing lasts, but what does it
matter? The need of the moment is the greatest of all.’" Page 157: An "X"
marks the passage reading, "The year (1889) was full of tumult, Moore fell out
with Quilter, the editor of the Universal Review, and with Robert
Buchanan; and his methods of negotiation with Brentano, the American publisher
of Confessions, resembled a series of explosions. Page 177: An "X"
marks the passage, "In later life, especially, carried away by his [Moore’s] own
experience, he held that a man is self-taught, and that what he wants to know he
can find out for himself. He was very quick at recognizing the man whom he
thought likeliest to tell him what he wanted to know." Page 179: An "X"
marks the passage, "Though at all times the strangest character I had ever met,
and utterly unlike anybody else, Moore when I first knew him was most agreeable
company, much readier than he afterwards became to listen to the views of
others, and always pleased to find a painter who seemed to him to have something
to say." Page 180: An "X" marks the passage, "With all [Moore’s] interest
in painting he never went to Italy, and as there are Italian painters whom it is
impossible to see at their best anywhere else, he missed a great opportunity."
Page 187: An "X" marks the passage, "But Moore often ran things together
in his autobiographical recitals, setting his scene backwards or forwards in
time without respect for the facts, moving events of his love life from their
real into a fictitious place, as the need of the literary design and perhaps
prudence might dictate." Page 193: An "X" marks the passage, "Mr. Osbert
Burdett has said in his essay on the Beardsley Period, that the author of the
Confessions of a Young Man had been a true precursor, having formulated much
of the aesthetic ideal of this significant periodical [the Yellow Book].
D. S. MacColl had suggested the foundation of a magazine which should give young
writers and young artists a chance." Page 206: An "X" marks the passage,
"Esther Waters stood on its own ground as a work of art, but Moore would
remark with some pride that this book had actually alleviated more material
suffering than any novel of its generation." (Then follows a discussion of the
ironies of Moore’s various viewpoints on the social utility of art.) Page
208: An "X" marks the passage, "And [Moore] complained bitterly of the
people who persisted in associating his name with Zola. ‘Nobody who knows
anything would say such a thing. They would know that if I have a master it is
Flaubert. Open Esther Waters and read that scene where she meet her son
after a long separation. What an embrace! That, my dear friend, is pure
Flaubert.’" Page 209: An "X" marks the passage reading, "‘I remember my
surprise,’ Vincent O’Sullivan writes, ‘when [Moore] asked me to recommend a
tailor for hunting clothes.’ O’Sullivan’s surprise is interesting, because it
shows how little Moore was disposed to supply his acquaintances with useless
information [i.e., he did not mention to friends that he hunted, and was
evidently an accomplished--though temperamental--horseman]." Page 211: An
"X" marks the passage, "A note to Mrs. Hunter from ‘Boodles,’ written in the
spring of 1896 when [Moore] was about to make a change, shows the agony of doubt
and confusion into which he was thrown by the details of practical life." In
part, Moore’s letter says, "I have had a horrid day, no place to wash my hands,
horrible disorder. . . ." Page 226: An "X" marks the passage, "It was in
vain that he tried to fix his thoughts on the composition of Sister Teresa.
England seemed to rise up before him [during tense times between Ireland and
England], the embodiment of a vulgar and shameful materialism from which he
turned in horror, and this passionate revolt was only aggravated by memories of
his former love [of England]." Page 229: An "X" marks the passage in
which Moore writes to his brother, Colonel Moore, "I don’t want to marry, and
nothing will induce me to marry except the desire that a Moore shall be born,
whose natural language shall be Irish . . . I am jealous of your knowledge of
Irish--you will always know the language better than I. I suppose you speak it
with the soldiers. There must be many in the regiment who know Irish." Moore
then wrote a second letter in which he declared his intention to disinherit
Colonel Moore’s children because they were not being taught Irish. Page 287:
An "X" marks the passage, "‘Max Beerbohm,’ [Moore] wrote to Eglinton, ‘has
caricatured everybody ferociously; his representation of me hardly resembles a
human being; I have never complained. Is this care for personal appearance
confined to Dublin? Well, I shall add five or six lines about my own personal
appearance which shall be savage enough.’" Page 292: An "X" marks the
passage in which Moore writes to a cousin, a Carmelite nun who "had implored him
to burn his books and make his peace with the church," the following: "We are
the two dreamers of a family little given to dreams; the two who have known how
to make sacrifices--you for God, I for art. You tell me in your letter that you
are perfectly happy, and that there is no greater happiness than to live with
God and his Sacraments. I also can say that I am perfectly happy with my art; it
fills my life from one end to the other." Page 306: An "X" marks the
passage in which Moore writes to his brother, "Manet in the opinion of many
people made me look like a figure of fun but I published his portrait of me in
Modern Painting." Page 307: In a letter to his brother, an "X" marks the
passage quoting Moore, "Max and others have caricatured me out of all human
resemblance but I never objected; and passing from pictorial caricature to
literary I cannot help reminding you that Yeats did not object to my portrait of
him." Page 309: An "X" marks the passage quoting Moore, "A man can only
have one sort of conscience . . . and mine is a literary one." Page 368:
An "X" marks the passage in which Hone describes Moore’s "extraordinary
character, both affectionate and self-centered, a disposition, he used to say,
that did not render one’s friends happy, but explained in some degree the
admirable results which Moore reached in old age, his paradoxical progress in
writing." Page 382: n "X" marks the passage quoting Una Jeffers on page
382 (see Copy 1 notes). Page 402: An "X" marks the passage, "On the other
hand, he [Moore] never spared expenses over his books; his endless proof
corrections must have cost him a small fortune, and he was very conscientious in
persuading his less opulent friends who helped him in his writing to accept
generous payment for their trouble." Page 414: An "X" marks the passage,
"The general habit of authors is naturally to give a new thought a new sentence;
Moore would insinuate a fresh idea in the last clause of a sentence, restate it
after the full stop, and so bind it close to the next movement of his thought."
Page 417: An "X" marks a passage quoting Sir John Thomson-Walker, a
physician consulted by Moore upon learning that he was gravely ill [he had been
told by another physician that he had "only fourteen days to live"], and that he
was in immediate need of surgery: "Then began an argument that I was later to
recognise as the preliminary to any arrangements that ran contrary to his views.
He was no worse than he had been for months past except for the effect of the
knowledge I had imparted [that Moore required lengthy treatment in a nursing
home] and the shock that the previous surgeon had given him; he had a book in
his mind that must be written whatever the risk, and, moreover, if he had the
book in skeleton he could work at it during the long days of convalescence which
I had led him to expect. He would require two months to do it." Page 421:
An "X" marks the passage describing Moore, "pitifully shrunk beneath the red
dressing-gown," but "whose voice, however, bore no trace of sickness when he
spoke of his work." Page 424: An "X" marks the passage in which Moore
writes to his friend Nancy Cunard, ". . . personal literature . . . is the only
literature for the age [during which] it is written and for the age that
follows." Page 428: An "X" marks the passage quoting Sir William Geary
who visited Moore when he was ill and nearly eighty: "I told him the story of
the Venus Callipyge and it entered his great book. His was no hasty writing. I
have regarded his type-script, and its continuous correction; his aim was to
attain, not perfection, for he was modest withal, but his very best." Page
429: An "X" marks the passage, " . . . there may have been a paradox at the
core of [Moore’s] being: this man, who saw everything in relation to literature,
never gave his friends, or perhaps even himself, the impression of being
inescapably a man of letters, and from time to time he might say things that
revealed not only the unscholarly man but the country squire amused at the
eccentricities of men of genius." Page 432: An "X" marks the passage, ".
. . Sir John [Moore’s physician] came to know Moore very well. He was attracted
by the wonderful fighting spirit of the man and by his ‘curious simplicity,’
while Moore ‘adored’ (the word is Tonks’s) his new friend for his sympathy and
reliability." Pages 434-35: "X’s" mark the passages, "But he made a few
new friends in these last years, and they often found him an entrancing
companion. . . . owing to his secretive and inveigling habit of not mixing
people he often gave the impression of complete isolation." Page 437: In
a tribute published in The Times of London, addressed to Moore by some of
his literary friends, an "X" marks the passage, "The uses of that language
[English] have been changed by your influence, as though in an ancient music you
had discovered new melodies and rhythms that shall be in the air when young men
in future times have stories to tell. You have taught narrative to flow again
and anecdote to illumine it as the sun a stream. You have persuaded words and
invention to sing new songs together that would have been heard, as those of an
equal, by the masters upon whom the tradition of our literature relies." Page
448: Una writes "see insert back page" next to a paragraph discussing
Moore’s will. Page 516 (back page): Pasted in, a clipped newspaper
article titled "Extensive Will List: Late Mr. George Moore: Works Left to
Friend. Writing of His Biography." The article states that Charles Douglas
Medley was the chief recipient of Moore’s estate. Page 454: Passage
written by A.E., "to be spoken over [Moore’s] urn: If his ashes have any
sentience they will feel at home here, for the colours of Carra Lake remained in
his memory when many of his other affections had passed. It is possible the
artist’s love of earth, rock, water and sky is an act of worship. It is possible
that faithfulness to art is an acceptable service. That worship, that service
were his. If any would condemn him for creed of theirs he had assailed, let them
be certain first that they labored for their ideals as faithfully as he did for
his." Una adds, "See page 246 & 252." These pages describe long-distance
"flirtations" between Moore and admiring Frenchwomen. Una writes, "Ann Dare’s
friend Madam Lélia, disense, chansons dites ‘Cette artiste, qui est d’origine
franco-écossaise a eu connue ancêtres l’héroine ecossaise Flora Macdonald du
temps des Stuarts et le Marèchal Canrobert. A fait des études à la Comédie
Française possède une voix charmante et un art délicat. . . . interpréter
admirablement les chansons à diction et les adaptations musicales (Playbill
from Munich, 1912)." Inside back cover: in Una’s hand, "‘Oh, ah! I was
forgetting the funeral of George Moore, who was buried on Castle Island on that
lake of brilliant water which is coloured like amber, for its bottom is white
limestone, and there is no peat around Moore Hall. His sister sat in the end of
the boat and held his handful of grey ashes in an urn of brown clay fashioned
after the fashion of the ancient Gaels. In the clear air the island looked
nearer than it was, and I, as one of the three outside the family who was
invited to attend, volunteered to row and, which is so like myself, without
taking thought. First off came my silk hat, the frock-coat and . . . "I presume
you will retain your braces" his sister said. Never again, I had vowed, will I
be stroke and bow together.’ (Oliver St. John Gogarty in ‘I Follow St.
Patrick.’). See p. 454." Page 454: Description of the funeral at the
lake.
Hone, Joseph. The Moores of Moore Hall. London:
Jonathan Cape, 1939. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor
House, Carmel, January 1940." Page 12: Following a brief biographical
sketch of Maurice Moore, George Moore’s brother, which concludes with the words
"Still living," Una writes, "died Oct. (20?) 1939." Page 108: Loose,
small advertising circular (2½" x 6") for The Moores of Moore Hall, and
4" x 6" note paper blindstamped "Valkenburg Hotel, Ballinrobe," much wrinkled,
with a penciled map, and a note in upper left-hand corner in Una’s hand, "The
Reefer of the inn at Ballinrobe made us this map to Moore Hall, 1929." Page
216: Quotation marks around the following passage and note in the margin
reading, "U. J. [Una Jeffers] diary; see also pp. 274, 277." This passage reads,
"When Reilly, the new steward, used to bring up the accounts to him in Dublin,
[Moore] would lay down the figures and say, ‘I wonder is it dim over the Lake
to-day, or does the sun light up the green water.’" Page 274: Quotation
marks around the following passage and a note in the margin reading, "U. J. [Una
Jeffers] diary; see also pp. 277, 216" The passage reads, ". . . all kinds of
wild rumours went through the countryside about the urn [which contained George
Moore’s ashes]--that it hadn’t arrived at all, etc., but as a matter of fact,
there had been no trouble about it and the railway took no more notice of the
crate than if it had been a crate of eggs. No priest was expected to attend, but
one friendly one came out several times as the grave was being prepared; he
dared not come to the funeral for fear of offending his parish. Reilly put two
new pennies under the urn for luck he said, but one wonders whether he had a
vague memory of passage-money for the dead to be given Charon." Page 277:
Una’s note in the margin, "See also pp. 216-274." Here Una Jeffers is credited
by Joseph Hone, then quoted at length: "Admirers of George Moore’s works when
they travel in these parts, look in at Moore Hall to drop a tear over the woods
which are fast falling under the axe. Reilly, who has brought up an
Irish-speaking family on his holding by the gatehouse, shows them round. These
extracts--with which I conclude my story of the Moores of Mayo--are from the
diary of Una Jeffers, who was in Ireland in the summer of 1937. ‘July 23,
1937. On to Ballinrobe, then Moore Hall. Colonel Maurice Moore has
instructed me to ask for James Reilly at gate house, former steward of the
estate who would get a boat to take us out to Castle Island in Lough Carra. Two
men were standing in the road. One was Reilly and the other Mr. O’Hare, present
owner of Moore Hall. Mr. O’Hare, a ruddy, burly Scotsman, with a steady blue eye
joined in the conversation. When Reilly said he could not get a boat, even given
time, O’Hare said he expected his own boat to arrive on Saturday and if we would
return Sunday at 2 p.m. he would see that we got out there. If his boat hadn’t
come he would manage to borrow one. So we left on these terms. On to Westport
and decided to climb Croaghpatrick the holy mountain some miles away . . .
July 25, 1937. Then on to Moore Hall, met Mr. O’Hare in the road. He said
his boat hadn’t come but he had arranged with Colonel Blake for his. Told us to
meet him at Blake boat-house. Met James Reilly in front of his house in Sunday
best. He though no boat was available. We walked along lake shore one half mile
to Blake boat-house. I picked a little nosegay of the flowers along the meadowy
shore. Reilly told me the names--clover, a spray of hazel leaves, fairy flax,
blue bells, white meadow-sweet and wild yellow meadow-sweet. Botanists find a
very large number of flowers here of different varieties. Much fuss and got boat
out, oars, etc. Reilly and Donnan rowed. They had to take the boat out and pull
in for us at a point farther on where the water was not so shallow and the land
sloped away steeply. we stood on a stone out a few feet and so into boat. The
water was rippling. The wind blew up little flurries of waves. Toward Castle
Island, he steered a crooked course as there are many big stones which come
close to surface and would easily tip the boat over. Pale clear green water. On
shores and on bottom a white soapy deposit of lime. Irregular shore line. The
boat was none too steady, oars cracked and oarlocks were just whittled out of
wood. All the way across he talked about Moore and Moore Hall. He told how much
the lake meant to Moore and developed the theme much as I did at the end of the
talk I gave on George Moore in Carmel--the lake the theme (and symbol) that ran
through his life (and books). Moore told him once he wanted to be cremated and
Reilly must cast his ashes in the lake, but "mind the wind that it doesn’t blow
the ashes back into the boat." Moore had a violent temper but he helped his
family and friends constantly. . . . Moore told him not to let Colonel Moore
into the Hall after he left in 1911 but Reilly said the Colonel came several
times and he never told George. R. said "That wasn’t right for Mr. George to
expect me, a worker on the place to tell the Colonel not to come in." Said all
the Moores had fine faces. We passed Kiltoom where Moore’s father and mother and
grandparents are buried. The last fifty yards we rowed through tall dry, sparse
reeds which murmured huskily as we pushed through. Reilly pointed out a big
stone he though should have been hollowed out to receive the urn but Colonel
Moore had thought the stone too near water. The urn is placed in a cavity two
feet by two feet cut in the solid rock (a solid one embedded in the ground fifty
feet from water’s edge). A pile of stones form a cairn five or six feet high
above the cavity whose opening over the urn was cemented over. A granite cross
two feet high is over a square granite plaque, cross has ivy leaves cut on it
and the inscription, "George Moore born 1852 Moore Hall, died London 1933."
Reilly complained that this did not balance. It should finish: "died 1933 in
[Una crossed out "in" in the text] London." He also objected to A. E.’s
inscription that Moore had deserted his country and friends for his art. "He
never deserted his friends." Said it was a spiteful inscription. After taking
several pictures in very dim light we each placed a stone on the cairn and then
went into a dense thicket one hundred feet away to inspect Castle Carra ruins,
just a broken tower and much foundation thickly covered with vines: ivy and
hazel growths. A man in gov’t survey office in Dublin looked up this ruin for
Reilly in records. In 1200 Castle Carra was already spoken of as complete ruins.
Then our row back (Garth and Reilly at oars) through the reeds, always the racy
speech with a Westport drawl from Reilly. Across the dim green water, the wind
with us. He would look toward shore and say "we must just toil a bit longer."
Talked of flowers, he was once a professional gardener. Said Moore spoke seldom
of flowers in his writings. When Moore asked the name of a flower hated to have
anyone give the Latin name . . . Spoke of Moore’s great-grandfather, who had
made his money in Alicante, as of one long well known. The first day, Friday, we
were here we went at O’Hare’s invitation to the Hall again and spent more than
an hour inspecting it. It was a grand place. Reilly said they used bombs as well
as fire to destroy it. It had three good stories as well as a cellar story whose
windows are well above ground. The cellars had many vaulted rooms; in one a
cooking range half intact, many wine cellars with brick compartments (many
broken bottles here) rooms with fireplaces in them and the corridor with signs
still intact beside the bell-pulls. "Dining-room, library, drawing-room,
summer-room, morning-room, 2nd library, lower hall, etc." Incidentally the queer
copper loops on a staple (I took one home in 1929) were used to guide the wires
along the walls. On the wall by main gate of Moore Hall is the date 1821. Either
the wall or iron gate is thus much older [here Una has crossed out "older" in
the text and written "later" in the margin] than the house. Many of the grates
are still intact in the walls and one had a queer feeling looking up at them to
see them look as if a fire were laid in them just ready for lighting--the work
of the rooks who had brought in sticks, bits of moss and paper and arranged
their nests in them secure and high out of reach. A fine brass shoe scraper is
intact on the top step of the portico--how I wish I could have it. Reilly spoke
of Yeats, Hone, Eglinton, Lady Gregory, Martyn, and other friends of Moore. (I
promised to give Reilly Yeats’s Dramatis Personae, was amused to find a
few days later that not a copy of that or any other of his writings was to be
found in his home town of Sligo.) September 2, 1937 in Dublin. At Colonel
Moore’s, he was most hospitable . . . Talked of Moore Hall, George, his youth,
service in India, Edward Martyn, Ballintubber Abbey, his son in Wyoming,
politics, legends of County Mayo and neighbourhood of Moore Hall. Said George
Moore told him long ago that he wished to be cremated and in the end it seemed a
good solution of the difficulty of his burial. Not being a Catholic he could not
be put in Kiltoom. Mrs. Moore said it was a great pity that the estate was sold,
probably cattle would be turned into the grave yard. . . . Colonel Moore showed
us an old drawing of Moore Hall made one hundred years ago, pencil drawing used
in his An Irish Gentleman. Also heavy iron chest from Spain (about three
by two feet) saved from the fire at Moore Hall. He had a key made to open it and
found it full of deeds and family papers so badly charred that they could not be
deciphered. I spoke of the many tiny iron doors (eight by ten inches) we saw up
the outside walls of Moore Hall near the chimneys. He said he had put them there
handy for cleaning flues. He spoke with horror of the abuses he had seen as a
boy--little naked boys used as chimney sweeps--forced up these narrow twisty
flues and if they didn’t or couldn’t force their way up to the top and stick a
broom up, their masters would build a fire below to speed them up (like
Kingsley’s story Water Babies). . . .’" And here ends Hone’s book.
Page 286: Index: Una writes, "Jeffers, Una, 277." In the margin, Una has
written, "See also pp. 26, 217." Una has also corrected the entry for W. B.
Yeats by adding a fourth page number ("281") to the three in the text. This
refers to Una’s reference to Yeats’s Dramatis
Personae.
Hone, Joseph. W. B. Yeats: 1865-1939. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1943. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed, "Darling--for
our twenty-ninth anniversary. Many months late as usual, but that is not my
fault but the postponing publisher’s. Love forever -- Robin. Tor House --
February 5, 1943." Inside front cover: Folded, loose, a letter from
Joseph Hone, evidently in response to a letter from Una, in which she inquired
about the final resting place for Yeats’s body and about the condition of Moore
Hall: "Dear Mrs. Jeffers, How nice to recognize your handwriting and to find
that you are again in Scotland. I hope you will be in Dublin and will come to
see us. Our address now is Ballgoing House, Ennis Kerry, Co. Dublin, Tel: G
Enniskerry--we are about 12 miles from Dublin, but a good bus service. I have
not heard about Yeats body being brought back to Ireland, and would be shy of
asking Mrs. W. B. Yeats; but if the Duchess of Wellington is now engaged in the
matter, it is likely something will be done. If I hear anything within the next
few days I will send you a telegram. You should write a letter to the Irish
Times describing the condition of Moore Hall and Castle, and put some shame into
the people. Do Do So -- or your husband, a representative of American
poets . . but better not mention Ballylee, as this still belongs to Wm. Yeats.
Please write again, Yours ever, Joseph Hone, 23 June 1948." Loose at page 90,
article titled "A.E. and W.B." by Sean O’Faolain from The Virginia Quarterly
Review, pp. 42-57 (n.d.) and a clipped review (written by Cecil French
Salkeld) of A Vision, by W. B. Yeats. Page 148: Loose, a clipped
review from Time, October 27, 1947, covering Jack Yeats’ exhibition in
Dublin. Page 340: Clipped trio of photos of Maude Gonne, George Yeats and
Lady Gregory. Inside back cover: Penciled note reads, "See page 291 [a
reference to a discussion of Ezra Pound]. With the carved reliquary of
Pentelican marble (by Gaudier-Brzeska). These words are inscribed below a
recumbent female figure (by Ezra Pound). To Wilfred Blunt Because you
have gone your individual gait, / Written fine verses, made mock of the world, /
Swung the grand style, not made a trade of art, / Upheld Mazzini and detested
institutions, / We, who are little given to respect, / Respect you, and having
no better way to show it, / Bring you this stone to be some record of it."
Hope, Laurence. India’s Love Lyrics. New York: John
Lane Company, 1909. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Küster, June
‘09." Page 126: Loose, clipped article (and photograph) mourning the
untimely passing of Laurence Hope (a young woman, she committed suicide
following the death of her husband). Page 126: A copy of the poem "Till I
Wake," which reads, "When I am dying, lean over me tenderly, softly, / Stoop, as
the yellow roses droop in the wind from the South. / So I may, when I wake, if
there be an Awakening, / Keep, what lulled me to sleep, the touch of your lips
on my mouth." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "‘Talk not my lord, of
unrequited love, / Since love requites itself most royally / Do we not live but
by the sun above, / And takes he any heed of thee and me? / Though in my
firmament thou wilt not shine, / Thy glory as a star is none the less. / Oh,
Rose, though all unplucked by hand of mine / Still am I debtor to thy
loveliness. / Small joy was I to thee; before we met / Sorrow had left thee all
too sad to save. / Useless my love--as vain as this regret / That pours my
helpless life across thy grave.’ Laurence Hope."
Housman, A. E. Last Poems. New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1922. Notes: Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, "(These
copied poems from ‘More Poems’ 1936 pub posthumously): XXI: ‘The world goes none
the lamer, / For ought that I can see, / Because this cursed trouble, / Has
struck my days and me. / The stars of heaven are steady, / The founded hills
remain, / Though I to earth and darkness / Return in blood and pain. / Farewell
to all belongings / I won or bought or stole; / Farewell my lusty carcase, /
Farewell my airy soul. / O worse remains for others, / And worse to fear had I /
Than here at four and twenty / To lay me down to die’; XXIII: ‘Crossing alone
the nighted ferry / With the one coin for fee, / Whom, on the wharf of Lethe
waiting, / Count you to find? Not me. / The brisk fond lackey to fetch and
carry, / The true, sick-hearted slave, / Expect him not in the just city / And
free land of the grave’; XXIV: ‘Stone, steel, dominions pass, / Faith, too, no
wonder: So leave alone the grass / That I am under. / All knots that lovers tie
/ Are tied to sever; / Here shall your sweet heart lie, / Untrue for ever’;
XXII: ‘Ho, everyone that thirsteth / And hath the price to give, / Come to the
stolen waters, / Drink and your soul shall live. / Come to the stolen waters, /
And leap the guarded pale, / And pull the flower in season / Before desire shall
fail. / It shall not last forever, / No more than earth and skies; / But he that
drinks in season / Shall live before he dies. / June suns, you cannot store them
/ To warm the winter’s cold, / The lad that hopes for heaven / Shall fill his
mouth with mould’; XX: ‘Like mine the veins of these that slumber / Leapt once
with dancing fires divine; / The blood of all this noteless number / Ran red
like mine. / How still with every pulse in station, / Frost in the founts that
used to leap, / The put-to-death, the perished nation / How sound they sleep! /
These, too, these veins which life convulses, / Wait but a while, shall cease to
bound; / I with the ice in all my pulses, / Shall sleep as sound.’" On back
flyleaves, more: "‘XVIII: Bells in tower at evening toll, / And the day forsakes
the soul; / Soon will evening’s self be gone / And the whispering night come on.
/ Blame not thou the blinded light / Nor the whisper of the night: / Though the
whispering night were still / Yet the heart would counsel ill. // The farms of
home lie lost in even, / I see far off the steeple stand; / West and away from
here to heaven / Still is the land. / There if I go no girl will greet me / No
comrade hollo from the hill / No dog run down the yard to meet me / The land is
still. / The land is still by farm and steeple / And still for me the land may
stay; There I was friends with perished people / And there lie they. VII Stars,
I have seen them fall / But when they drop and die / No star is lost at all /
From all the star-sown sky. / The toil of old that he / Helps not the primal
fault; / It rains into the sea, / And still the sea is salt’; XII: ‘I promise
nothing: friends will part; / All things may end, for all began; / And truth and
singleness of heart / Are mortal even as is man. / But this unlucky love should
last / When answered passions thin to air; / Eternal fate so deep has cast / Its
sure foundations of despair’; XLVIII ‘(A.E. died April 30, 1936) Alta Quies
/ Good-night. Ensured release / Imperishable peace / Have these for yours. While
earth’s foundations stand / And sky and sea and land / And heaven endures. /
When earth’s foundations flee / Nor sky nor land nor sea / At all is found /
Content you; let them burn, / It is not your concern; / Sleep on, sleep sound’;
XXVII: ‘To stand up straight and tread the turning mill / To lie flat and know
nothing and be still, / Are the two trades of man; and which is worse / I know
not, but I know that both are ill.’"
Howells, W. D. Literary Friends and Acquaintance: A
Personal Retrospect of American Authorship. New York: Harper and Brothers,
1901. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Call."
Hudson, Thomas Jay. The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A
Working Hypothesis for the Systematic Study of Hypnotism, Spiritism, Mental
Therapeutics, Etc. Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Company, 1908. Notes:
Contains marginalia and an inscription, but the book appears to have been marked
by its original owner, and not Una or Robinson Jeffers.
Hudson, W. H. A Shepherd’s Life: Impressions of the
South Wiltshire Downs. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1921. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, 1923." Title page:
In Una’s hand, next to Hudson’s name, "(died August 18, 1922)."
Hudson, W. H. Adventures Among the Birds. New York:
E. P. Dutton and Company, 1920. Notes: Inside front cover: Clipped
pictures of "The Blackcap" and "The Bob-White." Flyleaf: Pasted in, a
clipped picture captioned "Black-Necked Swans in the Gardens of the Zoological
Society." Dedication page: Pasted in, a clipped excerpt (taken from a
periodical--probably a newspaper) from Hudson’s Nature in Devon-land
describing the swallow’s remarkable "additional sense" when it encounters
"deceptive surroundings." Pages x-xii: Pasted in, three clipped pictures
captioned "The Long Eared Owl," "The Puffin" and "The Heron," with a note in
Una’s hand: "These three inserts are from ‘Woodcuts of British Birds’ by E.
Fitch Daglish." Page 262: Pasted-in, clipped picture captioned "Storm
Petrel, Wilson’s Petrel and Leach’s Fork-Tailed Petrel." Page 265: Loose,
clipped review by Ernest Rhys of a posthumous edition of Far Away and Long
Ago: A History of My Early Life by W. H. Hudson, taken from a British
publication (probably a newspaper). Pages 320-21: Six clipped pictures,
about which Una writes, "These six pictures from drawings in color by Audubon."
They are captioned "The Tropic Bird," "The Blue-Headed Pigeon," "Cormorants,"
"Purple Herons," Cock of the Plains," "Eider Ducks." On the back flyleaves,
additional clipped pictures captioned: "Great Black-Backed Gull," "Snowy Heron,
or White Egret," "Social Weaver Bird, With Nest," "African Ground Hornbill," "In
the Fall the Loon Came," and "Whooper Swan."
Hudson, W. H. Afoot in England. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1922. Notes: Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped paragraph from a
news article, describing several proposals for memorials to Hudson, as well as a
clipped picture and brief article describing the details of a proposed W. H.
Hudson Bird Sanctuary in Hyde Park, London.
Hudson, W. H. Hampshire Days. London: Gerald
Duckworth and Company, Ltd., 1928. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "For
the Jeffers family from Percy -- August 1929 / Dromore Cottage, Knocknacarry,
Co. Antrim, Ireland." In Una’s hand, "Glens of Antrim." Back
flyleaves: In hand, "‘Hunters of the impossible, like men / Who go by night
into the woods with nets / To snare the shadow of the moon in pools?’ / Arthur
Symons, ‘The Lovers of the Wind.’" / "‘Tales of history moonraking villages
should be investigated as interesting feature of English Country Life’ (‘A
Farmer’s Life’ by Geo. Bourne / border of Surrey and Hampshire) -- What is this?
The dictionary says ‘Moonraking - woolgathering, moon-raker=wool-gatherer from
story of rustics mistaking moon’s reflection in water for a cheese and
attempting to rake it out.’ / ‘smugglers,’ -- ‘moonrakers’ they called them in
Wiltshire, because many of the smuggled goods were concealed in the ponds, and
when the excise man caught the smugglers extracting them at night, and demanded
what they were doing, they answered, ‘Oh, we are raking out the moon.’ (Augustus
Hare)." Inside back cover: Clipped sketch captioned, "Near the mouth of
the Hamble River."
Hudson, W. H. The Land’s End: A Naturalist’s
Impressions in West Cornwall. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927. Notes:
Back flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped picture of W. H. Hudson from "The
Portrait Drawings of William Rothenstein."
Hughes, Langston. Fine Clothes to the Jew. New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers." (While I was working at Tor House, Lee Jeffers told me of Hughes’
visit, and of what a gracious and delightful guest he was. Some time after his
visit, knowing that the family would soon be traveling to Europe, he sent gifts
to the three youngest children--a giant case of Legos for Donnan and Robin and
an elegant traveling case for Una, then about four or five, which she treasured
more than the treasures she kept inside.
Huneker, James. Egoists: A Book of Supermen (Stendhal,
Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Barrès, Nietzche, Blake, Ibsen,
Stirner, and Ernest Hello). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Küster, June ‘09." Inside back
cover: In pencil, "Ataraxia."
Huneker, James. Iconoclasts: A Book of Dramatists
(Ibsen, Strindberg, Becque, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Hervieu, Gorky, Duse and
D’Annunzio, Maeterlinck and Bernard Shaw). New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1909. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Küster, September ‘09."
Page 6: In chapter on Ibsen, a check marks the passage that reads,
"Ibsen’s symbolism is that of Baudelaire, ‘All nature is a temple filled with
living pillars, and the pillars have tongues and speak in confused words, and
man walks as through a forest of countless symbols.’ The dramatist does not
merely label our appetites and record our manners, but he breaks down the
barrier of flesh, shows the skeleton that upholds it, and makes a sign by which
we recognize, not alone the poet in the dramatist, but also the god within us."
Page 7: A check marks the passage, "Thus the tower in The Master Builder,
the open door in A Doll’s House, the ocean in The Lady from the Sea, give a
homogeneity which the otherwise loose structure of the drama demands. The Ibsen
play is always an organic whole. Page 368: In chapter on Maeterlinck, in
a section discussing his debt to Whitman and Les Illuminations by
Rimbaud, a check marks the passage that reads, "Take, for example, the following
specimen of Maeterlinck’s âme in Serres Chaudes:-- ‘One day there was a
poor little festival in the suburbs of my soul. They mowed the hemlock there one
Sunday morning, and all the convent virgins saw the ships pass by on the canal
one sunny fast day, while the swans suffered under a poisonous bridge. The trees
were lopped about the prison; medicines were brought one afternoon in June and
meals for the patients were spread over the whole horizon.’" Page 371: In
a discussion of Maeterlinck’s Princess Maleine, a check marks,
"Maeterlinck’s hero, too, is oppressed by the mystery of life. Throughout the
drama the Fate of ancient tragedy marches remorselessly through the doomed
palace of the king. Thanks to Maeterlinck, this Fate takes on a new countenance.
A disquieting attack is made upon the nerves by the repercussive repetitions,
the dense pall of melancholy hanging over the place. A madhouse is a cheerful
place by comparison." Page 372: A check marks, "The dénouement is
horrible. Maleine is strangled by the Queen, who also loves Hjalmar, and to the
accompaniment of a lunar eclipse, thunderbolts, a cyclone, meteors that explode,
wounded swans that fall from stormy skies, this night of strange portents comes
to an end after the prince avenges Maleine by stabbing the queen and killing
himself." Pages 373-74: A penciled check and underlines mark,
"Maeterlinck has defined his aesthetic in his prose essays. He played queer
pranks upon the nerves with these shadows, these spiritual marionettes,
which are pure abstractions typifying various qualities of the temperament. The
iteration of his speech is like the dripping of water upon the heads of
the condemned. It finally stuns the consciousness, and then, like a performer
upon some fantastic instrument with one string, this virtuoso executes
variations boasting a solitary theme--the fear of Fear." Page 378: A
penciled check and underline mark, "‘To every man there comes noble thoughts
that pass his heart like great white birds.’ Then is recalled Browning and his
similitude of the meanest soul that has its better side to show its love. ‘In
life there is no creature so degraded but knows full well which is the noble and
beautiful thing he must do.’ A life perceived is a life transformed. To love
one’s self is to love thy neighbor in thyself! Maeterlinck’s attitude toward
woman--the true touchstone of the philosopher, poet, priest, and artist--is
beautiful. ‘I have never met a single woman who did not bring to me something
that was great.’ The spiritual renascence may be at hand. It is the theatre that
last feels its approach. Poetry, painting, sculpture, music, all have met it
halfway; only the stage lags in the rear. Plot, action, trickeries, cheap
illusions, must be swept away into the limbo of things used up. Atmosphere, the
atmosphere of unuttered emotions, arrested attitudes, ideas of the
spiritual subconscious, are to usurp the mechanical formulas of to-day. the
ideal is music--music, the archetype of the arts. (Walter Pater preached this
platonic doctrine.) ‘It is only the words that at first sight seem useless that
really count in a work.’ But to realize, to exteriorize the mystery, the
significance of the soul life, what a strange and symbolic web must be woven by
the poet-dramatist! He must break with the conventions of the past and create
something that is not quite painting, not quite drama, something that is more
than poetry, less than music--full of ecstasies, silent joys, luminous pauses,
and the burning fever of the soul that sometimes slays." Page 382: A
check marks, "Before he ventured into the maze of plotting, Maeterlinck was
content with simple types of construction. The lyric musician in this poet, the
lover of beauty, led him to make his formula a musical one. If there is not
rhyme there is rhythm, interior rhythm, and an alluring assonance. Hence we get
pages burdened with repetitions and also the ‘crossing fire’ of jewelled words."
Huneker, James. Promenades of an Impressionist. New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Una Jeffers."
Husband, M.F.A. A Dictionary of the Characters in the
Waverly Novels of Sir Walter Scott. London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd.,
1910. Notes: Inside front cover: Loose pages from a lined notepad
containing lists of Scott novels and the names of their principal characters;
also a list of Hardy’s books. This is evidently a reworking of the information
in the dictionary in order to sort characters by novel, rather than simply by
name, as they are listed in the dictionary.
Huxley, Aldous, Ed. The Letters of D. H. Lawrence.
New York: The Viking Press, 1932. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed in
Una’s hand, "Una Jeffers from Hans Barkan." Pasted below, clipped picture of the
Phoenix, captioned, "Seated upon its nest of flames, the Phoenix signified the
undying spirit of man, which is reborn perpetually out of the nature of itself.
This bird is called the symbol of loneliness, for it is without a mate and is
the only one of its kind in existence. Dwelling in the solitude of the Arabian
Desert, building its dwelling of frankincense and myrrh, the Phoenix well
represents the aloofness of wisdom."
Inge, William Ralph. Christian Mysticism: Considered in
Eight Lectures Delivered Before the University of Oxford. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1899. Notes: This volume appears to be the copy used for
(and cited in the bibliography of) Una’s master’s thesis. Marks in margins may
correspond with citations in thesis. Copious markings, but no notes or
underlines.
Ingpen, Roger. Shelley in England: New Facts and
Letters from the Shelley Whitton Papers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1917. Volume II. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Illustrations page: Pasted opposite, a clipped article titled "Publications
of the Shelley Society," in which Walter Peck (College of Wooster, Ohio)
provides a bibliography of the publications of the Shelley Society of London.
Pages 542-43: The text on page 543 concludes with the story of Shelley’s
heart, "snatched by Trelawny from the burning embers and given to Hunt, who
afterwards resigned it to Mary Shelley. After Mary’s death Shelley’s heart was
found, wrapped in a silken shroud, between the leaves of her copy of the Pisa
edition of Adonais, and the relic was afterwards enclosed in a silver case. When
sir Percy Shelley was buried, on December 10, 1889, in his mother’s grave at St.
Peter’s, Bournemouth, the poet’s heart was interred with him." Page 543:
Pasted in is a clipped paragraph titled, "The Heart of Louis XIV," which reads,
"The heart of Louis XIV, stolen from a casket, resembled a small piece of
shriveled leather, and came into possession of the Harcourt family. Years later
a certain dean of Westminster visited the Harcourts and suddenly popped it into
his mouth and, whether by accident or design, swallowed it." Under the clipping
Una writes, "It was kept in a silver case at the Harcourts place, Nuneham.
Page 542: Written in the margins in Una’s hand: "Dr. Buckland was an
eminent zoologist. One version of the Louis XIV heart story is that Buckland was
conversing with great animation with a brother-scientist when the heart was
passed to him on a little salver -- and he ate it thinking it was a fig! This
dean [the dean of Westminster] was Dr. Buckland. He said, as he gobbled it up,
‘I have eaten many strange things but never the heart of a king before.’ Dr.
Buckland told Lady Lyndhurst that he had eaten his way straight through the
animal kingdom and the worst thing was a mole -- that was utterly
horrible--afterwards he said he discovered something even worse -- a blue bottle
fly.’ (from Augustus Hare’s ‘Story of My Life.’) Vol IV p. 27." Opposite page
625: Overleaf from the portrait of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, in Una’s
hand: "(From W. H. Mallek’s ‘Memoirs of Life and Literature’) ‘Sir Percy and
Lady Shelley, the poet’s son and daughter-in-law were near neighbors of Lord
Wentworth (2nd Baron Lovelace, author of Astarte -- son of Ada Byron --
therefore Byron’s grandson) though they had never met. Lady Shelley had been an
old friend of my mother’s and I took Went north one day to tea with her. To the
wife of Shelley’s son I introduced Byron’s grandson. What even could seem more
thrilling . . . . . What really happened was this: Lady Shelley said to me some
pleasant things about my mother, we all of us lamented the prevalence of the
east wind . . . . Then the drawing room door opened and the son of the author of
"Prometheus Unbound" entered. He was a fresh-looking country gentleman whose
passion was private theatricals. Close to his own house he had built a little
private theatre and the conversation turned thenceforward on the question of
whether a license would be necessary if the public were admitted by payment to
witness the performance of a farce in the interest of some deserving charity.’"
Page 627: In Una’s hand at the bottom of the page, with an arrow to the
passage that describes "the discolored little Sophocles that was found on
Shelley’s body and the eleven companion volumes bound in white vellum close by
it, which offered a striking contrast," she writes, "‘Second only to Milton’s
gifts in interest (at the Bodleian Library, Oxford) are the relics of Shelley
which were bequeathed quite recently by Lady Shelley: his autograph M.S.S. of
"Prometheus Unbound" and of other poems, are now in view, with his protrait[sic]
and the copy of Sophocles which after his drowning was found by Trelawney in his
pocket.’ (From ‘Oxford and its Colleges’ by T. Wells.)" Inside back cover:
Loose, (1) pages from a published, unidentified literary journal (Vol.
LXXII--6, pp. 69-88, contiguous), which includes "Ode to Shelley" by George
Sterling and "Books and Autograph Letters of Shelley" by Harry B. Smith; and (2)
pages 122-133 (Part 1), and pages 166-177 (Part 2), from "Shelley’s Lost Letters
to Harriet," by Leslie Hotson, serialized in the Atlantic in 1929.
Irving, Washington. Sketch Book. New York: H. M.
Caldwell Company, n.d. Notes: Inside front cover: Fragment of
handwritten copy of "Churchyard at Tarrytown," by Longfellow (could have been
copied by Una when she was young). Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped picture of
Washington Irving. Fragment of a date written above, "March 12, 189_." Title
page: Inscribed "Una Call." "Advertisements to first editions" page:
Written in hand, "Sir Brian de Bois Guilburt" (perhaps Una’s writing). Page
7: In (Una’s?) hand, "Jan 19 ‘98." Page 9: In hand (possibly Una’s),
"W. Irving, 1783-1859, New York." Page 11: In hand, "Jan 20, 98." This
volume appears to have been read with greatest interest in the section titled
"Stratford-on-Avon." Page 205: The passage describing the church where
Shakespeare is buried is marked, along with passages describing the flora and
fauna around the church yard. Page 207: The description of Shakespeare’s
tomb is marked. Page 210: A passage which reads, "sparrow twittering
about the thatched eaves and budding hedges" and a lark "pouring forth torrents
of melody" comes in for special attention, as does a nearby passage on page 212
describing the "noble avenues of oaks and elms." Page 213: Irving’s first
view of Shakespeare’s birthplace is noted.
Jekyll, Gertrude. Old English Household Life: Some
account of Cottage objects and Country Folk. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1925. Notes: Clippings of magazine photographs pasted into book.
Inside front cover: Written in Una’s hand, "Old Mills, ‘Jack’ and ‘Jill’ on
Clayton Down (South Downs)." Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped pictures
captioned, "The Great Bed of Ware--for Twelve!--a Piece of Furniture Referred to
by Shakespeare (in ‘Twelfth Night’) and by Many Less Famous Writers"; "The Great
Bed of Ware Bought for the Nation: The Ornate Head-board of the Bed--Perhaps the
Most Famous Piece of English Furniture." Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped photo
of large hearth, table and bench in timbered room. First title page:
Pasted-in clipped photo of farm scene with conical structures attached to barn
(labeled "in Kent" by Una). Second flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped picture of
bridge and pond before thatched cottage. Page 65: Pasted-in clipped photo
of thatchers repairing a cottage roof. Page 79: Pasted-in clipped photo
captioned, "The Priest’s House: Muchelney Abbey." Page 90: Pasted-in
clipped photo captioned, "The old house in All Saints’ Square restored: the
upper floor of the sixteenth-century portion; Showing how ceilings and
partitions were cleared to leave one long room roofed with oaken timbers."
Page 147: Pasted-in clipped picture (identified in Una’s hand) "A Surrey
Shepherd." Page 222: Pasted-in article titled, "Old Weathervanes Over
London." Inside back cover: Pasted-in article titled, "Queer Feudal Rents
that Survive: Payments in Kind and Services Once Asked Exacted in Britain"; and
a pasted-in pencil sketch of small wooden stool.
Jewitt, Llewellynn and S. C. Hall. The Stately Homes of
England. New York: R. Worthington, Importer, n.d. Notes: Two volumes
bound as one. Pasted inside front cover: Clipped pictures captioned,
"Early Print of Florence" (in Una’s hand); "Ponte Solarino" (in Una’s hand);
"Entrance and Drawbridge. The Front Tower is Called ‘Torre della Calatora’
(Tower of the Drawbridge) and Was Built by Borgia"; "Beauchamp Tower From Across
the Moat" (written in hand: "Tower of London"); "Windsor" (in Una’s hand);
"Weston Hall, Shropshire, England, Country Place of the Earl and Countess of
Bradford"; "Clifford’s Tower" (in Una’s hand "York"). Flyleaves:
Pasted-in, clipped pictures captioned, "Easton Lodge, Dunmow, Essex"; "The
Prior’s Door, Ely Cathedral, 1081-93"; "Scarborough Castle" (in Una’s hand,
"York"); "Walmgate Bar" (in Una’s hand, "York"); "Micklegate Bar" (in Una’s
hand, "York"). Half-title page: Clipped photographs captioned "Rushen
Castle, Castletown, Isle of Man"; "Church and Rectory at Eversley, Charles
Kingsley’s Parish" (in Una’s hand). Opposite title page: Clipped picture
captioned "Nonsuch Palace." Overleaf: Clipped photographs captioned,
"Ethie Castle (Earl of Northesk), Arbroath, Forfarshire" (in Una’s hand); and,
with descriptive paragraphs, a picture of Byeward Tower. Volume 1 Notes:
Contents of the First Series, page vii: Pasted over the page’s original
content, a clipped photograph captioned in hand, "Snowdon Wales." Page xii:
Pasted-in, clipped picture captioned, "Holyrood. From an Old Print." Page
14: Underlined, line 4 from the poem which accompanies the family motto
("Prest d’Accomplir") painted over the Picture-Gallery doorway at Alton
Towers--"The dede is done." The first stanza of the poem reads, "The redie minde
regardeth never toyle, / But still is Prest t’accomplish heartes intent; /
Abrode, at home, in every coste or soyle, / The dede is done, that
inwardly is meante." (n.b. These lines are painted on the bathroom door, leading
from the Book Room, at Tor House.) Page 124: In the chapter on Hardwick
Hall, Una notes a particular interest in the daughter of William Spencer
Cavendish, Georgiana, who married the Earl of Carlisle, and in The Lady Blanche
Georgiana Howard, fourth daughter of George, sixth Earl of Carlisle and the Lady
Georgiana Dorothy Cavendish. Page 126: Loose, an original child’s drawing
with the legend "Tor Castle, Lindsay, age 6." Page 136: Una marks the
paragraph which reads, "As we said at the commencement of this chapter, there is
no place so likely as Hardwick to carry the mind back to those times which we
have indicated and to which it belongs. One is unresistingly and forcibly
carried by the imagination back to the time of Elizabeth, and while pacing along
through these rooms, we are led, ‘in the mind’s eye,’ to people them with the
forms of those who lived and moved and had their being within its walls."
Page 146: Underlined is the name of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Page
153: Pasted in at the beginning of the chapter on Arundel Castle, a clipped
picture captioned "Arundel Castle--The Tilt Yard and Keep From the North."
Loose, a clipped article by Kathleen Woodward titled "Arundel Castle is to Let;
Famous Feudal Stronghold. Visitor Describes Beauty of England’s Noblest Country
Seat, Home of the Dukes of Norfolk Since Magna Charta Days." Page 172:
The opening page of the chapter on Penshurst, where Una has pasted a clipped
picture, presumably of Penshurst. Page 192: The opening page of the
chapter on Warwick Castle, a picture captioned "Ancient Caesar’s Tower." Page
220: Clipped photograph captioned, "Warwick Castle." Page 222: In the
chapter on Haddon Hall, though not marked, a noteworthy passage reads, "The
poet, the novelist, the traveller, the naturalist, the sportsman, and the
antiquary have found appropriate themes in Derbyshire, in its massive
rocks--’Tors’--and deep dells. . . ." Page 234: Passage marked: "The door
[at Haddon Hall] through which the heiress eloped is always pointed out to
visitors as ‘Dorothy Vernon’s Door.’ Thus the Derbyshire estates of Sir George
Vernon passed to John Manners, and thus it was the noble house of Rutland became
connected with Haddon and the county of Derby." Pages 261-65: Several
passages are marked evincing further interest in the story of Dorothy Vernon’s
elopement and marriage to John Manners, as well as a special interest in the
state bedroom at Haddon Hall. Page 270: A description of the Winter
Garden at Haddon Hall is marked: ". . . planted with yew-trees, many centuries
old, whose gnarled and knotted roots may be seen curiously intertwining and
displacing the stone edgings of the parterres. It is altogether one of the most
charming out-door ‘bits’ which even the most romantic and vivid imagination can
conceive." Passages also marked include a brief stop in the stable--the site of
some "fine carved furniture" and yew trees "cut into the form of a peacock and a
boar’s head--the crests of Manners and of Vernon"--and a further iteration of
the romantic story of John Manners and Dorothy Vernon. The final marked prose
passage in this section begins, "Haddon has been a prolific theme for writers,
and an endless source of inspiration for poets and artists, and long will it
continue so, for no ‘olden’ place can be more picturesque or romantic;" then
follows a list of artists so inspired. Page 291: An inscription from a
Haddon Hall gravestone is marked: "Know, posterity, that on the 8th of April, in
the year of grace 1757, the rambling remains of the above-said John Dale were,
in the 86th year of his pilgrimage, laid upon his two wives. ‘This thing in life
might raise some jealousy, / Here all three lie together lovingly, / But from
embraces here no pleasure flows, / Alike are here all human joys and woes; /
Here Sarah’s chiding John no longer hears, / And old John’s ramblings Sarah no
more fears; / A period’s come to all their toilsome lives, / The good man’s
quiet; still are both his wives.’" Page 291: Loose, two drawings: "Ford
Castle by Donnan, age 6," on the back of an envelope postmarked May 11, 1923,
and "Ford Castle by Donnan," dated on the back February 1934. Volume 2 Notes:
Page 241: Pasted-in clipped picture captioned, "The 14th Century
Chapel of St. Thomas of Canterbury, on Old London Bridge." Page 270:
Loose, in the chapter on Cliefden, a clipped article titled, "A French Chateau
in England," about Highcliffe Castle (no date, no source, no attribution).
Page 356: Pasted-in clipped picture captioned, "The East View of Tattershall
Castle in the County of Lincolnshire." Page 360: Pasted-in clipped
pictures captioned, "The Tower of the Winds" and Chepstow Castle, in the Valley
of Wye." An unidentified crest is also pasted onto this page. Page 361:
Pasted-in clipped picture captioned, "Thirteenth Century Castle at Carnarvon."
Page 362: Pasted-in clipped pictures captioned in hand, "Craig-y-Nos,
Wales"; Kennilworth Abbey, Warwickshire"; "Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight";
and "Chirk Castle, Llangollen, Wales, XIII Cent."; plus one picture (ruins) not
captioned and one picture captioned in print, "Doria Prison, Rapallo." Inside
back cover: Eight clipped, pasted-in pictures: "Carnarvon Castle," "Bodiam
Castle, Tunbridge Wells" (identified in hand); "Warwick Castle--Guy’s Tower and
the Clock Tower"; "King Charles I Tower, Chester"; "The Jewel House by the
Martin Tower, 1815"; and three unidentified pictures of castles and/or towers.
Johnson, James. The Scots Musical Museum, Humbly
Dedicated to the Catch Club, Instituted at Edin: June 1771. Vol. 3.
Edinburgh: Johnson and Company, 1790. Notes: Inside back cover: In
hand (probably Una’s), song lyrics (ends of lines are worn away by age):
"Hushaby birdie, croon, croon / Hushaby birdie, croon, croon / The sheep are
gone to the silver _____ The cow are gone to the broom _______ / Its bra’
milking the kye, kye / It’s bra’ milking the kye, kye / The birds are singing
the bells are ______ / The wild deer come galloping ______." A second brief
verse is faded to the point of unreadability.
Joint Committee of Hopewell Friends, Hopewell Friends
History, 1734-1934, Frederick County Virginia: Record of Hopewell Monthly
Meetings and Meetings Reporting to Hopewell (Two Hundred Years of History and
Genealogy). Strasburg, Virginia: Shenandoah Publishing House, Inc., 1936.
Notes: Inside front cover: Handwritten note, loose: "The Family of
Hoge compiled by James Hoge Tyler, edited and published by James Fulton Hoge,
1927. M______ abt Wiliam’s sons John and James. Of William -- ‘Moved to Luednen
Co., In., and m. a Quaker. He had a large number of descendants. William Jr.’s
children: Solomon, James, William, Joseph, George, Zebelon, Nancy. William 1st
Quaker in Hoge family came to In[diana] in 1754 from PA (1690-1700)."
Jones, Sydney R. Touring England by Road and Byway.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927. Notes: Inside front cover:
Pasted-in clipped photo and handwritten note, "Little Marlow - Bucks."
Flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "Una Jeffers / "Kerry Vor" / Britwell Salome / Near
Wattlington Oxfordshire England / October 1929." Overleaf: In Una’s hand,
"Odd names in England (villages) / Over Peover / Helion Bumpstead /
Snoreham-in-Ruins / Skuttershelf / Hannah with Haghaby / Ryrne Intrinsica /
Hissel-with-Hill-Top / Ribby-with-Wrea / Hoon / Quither / Spital-in-the-Street /
Nasty (also=Munden Furnival) / Maggot’s End / Shellow Bowells /
Larks-n-the-Wood." Opposite flyleaf: Pasted-in: a clipped review, titled
"In Praise of England," of The Yeoman’s England by Sir William Beach
Thomas; a clipped article dated in hand, "Spring 1935," and titled, "4150
‘Ancient Monuments’ to be Preserved," giving the names and locations of
representative monumets. Title page: In Una’s hand, "Yew forest at Kingly
Bottom / West Stake / 5 mi. from Chichester / West Sussex." Opposite
"Preface": Clipped article (partial) identifying sites of interest around
Hereford. Page 140: Pasted-in clipped letter to the editor (evidently to
The Observer, July (n.d.), regarding the origin of the name of the inn
Swan with Two Necks. Back flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped photo of the Roman
Wall in Northumberland; review of Enchanted Ways Through England and Scotland
by John Prioleau. Inside back cover: Taped-in, clipped article titled, "A
Day in West Sussex." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "Roman Roads in
Britain / Jessie Mothersole (Pvt. John Lane) / Wem in Shropshire) ‘Time
is most very still in Wem, / The men and women are old and sage; / The little
children do not age. / There is a spell cast over them.’"
Joyce, James. Dubliners. New York: The Modern
Library, 1926. Notes: Back flyleaf: Pasted-in photo captioned,
"Two More Expatriates--James Joyce and James Stephens." Inside back cover:
Loose, a clipped review, by Horace Gregory, of Collected Poems by
James Joyce, with accompanying 1930 Augustus John sketch of Joyce (clipped).
Joyce, P. W. A Child’s History of Ireland. Part 1.
Dublin: M. H. Gill, 1910. Notes: Inside back cover: In Una’s hand,
"‘Fenian era followed the return of Irish veterans from the American Civil War
and is strictly defined within the sixties and seventies until the coming of
Davitt and Parnell whose Land Leaguers filled the Irish canvas through Eighties
and Nineties until the coming of the Gaelic Leaguers and Sinn Feiners of the
last troubles.’ (Shane Leslie)."
Joyce, P. W. Atlas and Geography of Ireland.
Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, n.d. Notes: Page 48: Loose clippings:
portion of an article titled "Eire"; photo of Sketterick Castle, Strangford
Lough; "The First Men in Ireland: Remarkable Discoveries by Archeologists About
the Earliest People in Erin--and Its Rich Civilization When Europe Was Plunged
in the Darkness of the Roman Empire’s Collapse." Photographs captioned, "The
Rock of Doon, Coronation Place of the O’Donels, Princes of Tyrconnel";
Killybegs, Co. Donegal; inscribed on back, "A very pretty inlet on Lough Erne,
Ely Lodge Pier"; "Market Day in Clonbur"; "Moner Old Castle, Co. Fernanagh."
Joyce, P. W. Irish Local Names Explained. Dublin:
The Educational Company of Ireland, Ltd., 1923. Notes: Title page:
In Una’s hand on title page, above and below the author’s name, she notes that
the initials "P. W." are more properly "Patrick W.," and that he was "born in
Ballyorgan 1827, died Dublin 1914."
Joyce, P. W. Old Irish Folk Music and Songs: A
Collection of 842 Irish Airs and Songs Hitherto Unpublished. Dublin: Hodges,
Figgis and Company, 1909. Notes: Inside back cover: Numbers 94,
"The Queen’s Country Lasses"; 395, "Castlehyde"; 328, "My Lovely Irish Boy";
319, "As We Sailed from the Downs"; 259, "Keen: Lament"; 338 "Waterloo" are
noted, in Una’s hand. Page 53: Loose sheet, with musical notations, dated
1970; perhaps a grandchild’s?
Kennedy-Fraser, Marjory and Kenneth Macleod. Songs of
the Hebrides for Schools. London: Boosey and Company, 1917. Notes:
Cover: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Fort Williams, Scotland."
Kurtz, Benjamin P. The Pursuit of Death: A Study of
Shelley’s Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1933. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers from Hans Barkan."
Kurtz, Benjamin P. and Carrie C. Autrey, Eds. Four New
Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft and Helen M. Williams. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1937. Notes: This volume is a collection of three
letters from Wollstonecraft and one from Williams which were written to Ruth
Barlow, an American friend of the women; they were found among the possessions
of Joel Barlow. Flyleaf: Inscribed "For Una Jeffers, in friendship, from
Benjamin P. Kurtz. Nov. 1943."
Laighton, Oscar. Ninety Years at the Isles of Shoals.
Boston: The Beacon Press, Inc., 1930. Notes: Flyleaves: Loose,
small clipping (no identification) relating an anecdote about the author (Oscar
Laighton): " . . . whereas I have never seen either a ghost or a sea serpent,
yet if I do run across one of them I shall accept its actual existence as the
simplest explanation. In my boyhood, when Uncle Oscar Leighton [sic] was
visiting at our house, I listened with keenest interest to his narrative of an
experience which he had as a lighthouse-keeper off the Maine coast. He said to
my father, ‘William, I am going to tell y ou something which I would not dare to
tell anyone else for fear they would make fun of it, but I know you are
broad-minded enough to look at a thing fairly. One morning just at sunrise I was
turning off the light, when this thing came swimming by. The sea was flat with
only little whitecaps and the thing, whatever it was, showed up clear not half a
gunshot off the ledge. It was fifty or sixty feet long with fins along its back
and a long thin neck and a head like a horse sticking five feet up out of the
water.’ From that time down to the present I have fully believed in the
existence of sea serpents as a very rare and almost extinct species of primeval
marine life. . . ." Opposite Preface: Pasted in, a clipped anecdote (no
identification): "‘Uncle Oscar’ --his light blue eyes, white patriarchal beard
and friendly smile--he is as much a part of the Isles of Shoals as the little
stone meeting house that tops Star Island! Almost as old as the little stone
meeting house, he has surely been just as intimately a part of the island
history. What a vivid and unusual life his has been! Brought to White Island as
a three months’ old baby, he has spent four score and ten years upon these
barren ledges, ten miles out at sea, watching them become a place of importance
as one of the leading summer resorts along the Atlantic Coast and later a place
of even greater significance as a shrine of the spiritual life. In his simple
and vivid way, Uncle Oscar has told the tale of all these years; of his
distinguished father; of Celia Thaxter, his poet sister; of the noted men and
women who have found through al these years recreation and inspiration at the
Shoals; of the lives of the simple fisher folk who dare the hazards of the sea
and love its every mood. For the growing legion of those who love the Shoals,
the book is like an old family album full of pictures of those in whose descent
the present Shoalers find themselves to be; for all others the book is the
engrossing tale of a life that has few, if any, parallels in history." Page
21: Pasted-in, clipped poem by Celia Thaxter: "Faith // Fain would I hold my
lamp of life aloft, / Like yonder tower built high above the reef; / Steadfast,
though tempests rave or winds blow soft, / Clear though the sky dissolves in
tears of grief. / For darkness passes, storms shall not abide; / A little
patience and the fog is past. / After the sorrow of the ebbing tide / The
singing flood returns in joy at last. / The night is long and pain weighs
heavily, / But God will hold His world above despair. / Look to the East, where
up the lucid sky / The morning climbs! The day shall yet be fair." Back
flyleaf: Pasted-in, clipped picture captioned, "The Henlope Light as It Was
in 1820."
Lamb, Charles and Mary Lamb. Tales from Shakespeare.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, 1878. Notes: Inside front
cover: Inscribed in copperplate, "To Una from Edith, April 5/00."
Lang, A. Theocritus, Bion and Moschus: Rendered into
English Prose. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1913. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Robin and Una Jeffers." Page 41: Underlined, the
opening in The Song of Lycidas: "Fair voyaging befell Ageanax to
Mytilene, both when the Kids are westering, and the south wind the wet
waves chases, and when Orion holds his feet above the Ocean! . . . The halcyons
will lull the waves, and lull the deep, and the south wind, and the east, that
stirs the sea-weeds on the farthest shores. . . ."
Larin-Kyosti. A Short Story and a Poem. Tr. C. D.
Lockock. Webster Groves, Missouri: International Mark Twain Society, 1932.
Notes: (Translated from the Finnish; author termed "The Finnish Dunsany" on
the title page). Flyleaf: Inscribed "To Robinson Jeffers with Editor’s
cordial friendship. Cyril Clemens. January 1951."
Lawrence, D. H. Sons and Lovers. New York: Boni and
Liveright, 1922. Notes: Half-title page: Clipped, pasted-in
photograph of an especially gaunt Lawrence.
Lawrence, D. H. St. Mawr. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1925. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed in Una’s hand, "Una
Jeffers, Tor House (from Mabel, Taos, New Mexico, 1930)." Inside back cover:
Notes in Una’s hand: "dying D. H. L. wrote in ‘Apocalypse’: ‘For man, the
vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower & beast & bird, the supreme
triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn & the
dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the
flesh. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive & in the flesh &
part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of
me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly & my blood is part of the
sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part
of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. As a citizen, as a
collective being, man has his fulfillment in the gratification of his
power-sense[?]. ‘We cannot bear connection. This is our malady. We must break
away and be isolate. We call this being free, being individual. Beyond a certain
point which we have reached, it is suicide. We must give up our false position
as individuals & find some conception of ourselves that will allow us to be
peaceful & happy instead of tormented. What man wants most desperately is his
living wholeness & and his living unison not his own isolate salvation of his
‘soul.’ We must get back fact to face, breast to breast, with the cosmos. There
is nothing of me that is alone & absolute except my mind & we shall find that
mind has no existence by itself; it is only the glitter of the sun on the
surface of the waters.’"
Lawrence, D. H. The Rainbow. New York: The Modern
Library, 1927. Notes: Flyleaf: Pasted-in, a clipped, colored
picture, under which Una has written, "D. H. L. - Portrait by Dorothy Brett."
Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "Frieda Lawrence said of D. H. L.," below
which is a clipped quote: "He was not like most literary men. He didn’t think
his writing so important. He thought living more important. Perhaps that’s why
his writing was so important after all." Below that, in Una’s hand, "Xmas 1923
Lawrence gave to Middleton Murray a seal depicting a raven-like bird rising like
a phoenix from flames, with the inscription, ‘Will the bird perish, / Shall the
bird rise!’ To the old raven, in the act of becoming a young phoenix. D. H. L."
Lawrence, D. H. Women in Love. New York: Thomas
Seltzer, 1922. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Inside
front cover: In Una’s hand, "Lawrencia unfinished ‘Flying Fish,’ pub. 1936
in ‘Phoenix’ (posthumous papers etc.) is one of the most beautiful things he
ever wrote. Remember Githin Day & his ancestral A Book of Days -- about
the greater Day. The sketch begins ‘Come home, else no Day in Daybrook / No Day
in Daybrook / For the Vale / A Bad Outlook.’" Flyleaf: Pasted-in, clipped
copy of painting of Lawrence by Jan C. Juta. Inside back cover:
Pasted-in, clipped copy of photo of Lawrence (source not identified). Back
flyleaf: In hand, "Fire-Flies in the Corn -- D. H. Lawrence / She Speaks
-- Look at the little darlings in the Corn! / The rye is taller than you, who
think yourself / So high and mighty: look how the heads are borne / Dark and
proud on the sky, like a number of knights / Passing with spears and permants
and knightly scorn. / Knights indeed! Much knights I know will ride / With his
head held high, serene against the sky! / Limping and following rather at my
side, / Moaning for me to follow him! O darling rye / How I adore you for your
simple pride! / And the dear, dear fireflies wafting in between / And over the
swaying cornstalks, just above / All the dark-feathered helmets, like little
green / Stars come out and wandering here for love / Of these dark knights,
shedding their delicate sheen! / I thank you I do, you happy creatures, you
dears / Riding the air, and carrying all the time / Your little lanterns behind
you! Ah, it cheers / My soul to see you settling and trying to climb / The
cornstalks, tipping with fire the spears / All over the dim corn’s motion,
against the blue / Dark sky of night, a wandering glitter, a swarm / of questing
brilliant souls giving out their true / Proud knights to battle! Sweet, how I
warm / My poor, perished soul with the sight of you.’"
Lazarus, Andrew. Axes and Songs: Verse. Helsinki:
Sanoma, 1951. Notes: Title page: Loose, a typed letter from the
author on onion skin addressed "Robinson Jeffers," with a return address of
American Legation, Helsinki, Finland, and dated January 10, 1952: "The attached
volume of verse was recently printed here in Helsinki and is being distributed
to friends and others who may find it of interest." Mr. Lazarus indicates that
he would "be most pleased" to have Jeffers’ comments on the book.
Le Moyne, Louis Valcoulon. Country Residences in Europe
and America. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921. Notes: Inside
back cover: Full-page clipping of article and sketches of Braboeuf Manor,
near Guildford, Surrey. The article says that the ancient (from AD 1200) house
was to be sold. It boasted a visit from Queen Elizabeth, a Tudor bowling green,
and a mention by Pepys.
Lee, Vernon. Hortus Vitae: Essays on the Gardening of
Life. London: John Lane: The Bodley Head, 1904. Notes: Inside back
cover: Very fragile post card printed in Milan with colored reproduction of
Beatrice d’Este by da Vinci.
Levy, William Turner. William Barnes: The Man and the
Poems. Dorchester: Longmans, 1960. Notes: Inside front cover:
Printed card reading, "With the Compliments of the Author. 3103 Fairfield
Avenue, New York 63." Page xi: In the Preface, the author acknowledges
the Jefferses: "[Barnes] had honor, as it were, in his own country, and among
fellow-citizens as unlike each other as Tennyson and Gerard Manley Hopkins; and
he has honor, for it was from Robinson Jeffers and the late Una Jeffers--both
good friends to me--that I first heard of the Dorset poet."
Lewis, D. B. Wyndham. Ronsard. New York:
Coward-McCann, 1944. Notes: Inside back cover: In Una’s hand:
"These people are a little jaded, 24; Sodom and Gomorrah and Lesbos, 221; A
Mignon de Cour - Henri III. Anima vagula blandula, 301." Page 24: An "X"
marks the following passage: "‘These people are a little jaded,’ observes Pater
accurately of certain great French lords temporarily exhausted by splendid and
complicated debauchery. So our modern pagans are a little jaded, but rather with
lack of blood than excess of it, and the deplorable lack of scholarship with
which they pursue their dismal pleasures is notorious. Few leading pathics of
to-day can cite Anacreon or Catullus in support of their vagaries, few saphists
Sappho. Their only apologist with any tincture of letters seems to be André
Gide, that curious example of Attic perversity grafted on a Calvinist stem.
Otherwise the upheaval and staggering world of 1943 bears not a few
resemblances, in a bewildered, grubby way, to the age of Ronsard. It has seen
the Second German Reformation deriving with humdrum fidelity from the first,
from the apotheosis of the God-State down to the Great Justifiable Lie of which
Luther was so proud. It sees the spiritual force which brought about the
religious disruption of the sixteenth century itself disrupted, as logic
requires, broken of its own volition into smaller and smaller conflicting
fragments and no longer accorded respect by intellectuals or esteemed a
world-power, while the spiritual force it was to have destroyed stands still
vigorous, commanding the loyalties of every type of mind, armed point-device as
ever for the age-long unending quarrel with Caesars of every calibre. And it
sees to-day, as then, vanity and hubris and confusion swelling the pagan
tide--but with a simple and significant difference, which the briefest
consideration of the nature of Ronsard’s paganism will swiftly bring to light."
Page 221: An "X" marks the following passage: "Among the Corps
Diplomatique at Henri III’s court the presence of the Ambassadors of Sodom and
Gomorrah and the Envoy-Plenipotentiary of Lesbos would not have seemed bizarre.
The enigmatic King, at whose complex nature we have already glanced, and his
effeminate, brawling mignons were a target for innumerable satires,
lampoons, and protests from Catholics and Calvinists alike. The Paris mob hurled
hearty abuse at these fops, the clergy denounced them from the pulpit. The monk
Maurice Poncet, curé of St. Pierre-dec-Arcis, made such an issue of this during
a course of Lentin sermons at Notre-Dame, causing his congregation to rock with
laughter at his bitter humour, that he was summoned to the Louvre and violently
reprimanded by Henri III in person. ‘You think fit, then, Sir,’ said the Duc
d’Espernon sternly when the King had finished, ‘ to preach jesting sermons and
make the people laugh?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the monk, ‘whatever pains I take to that
end, I shall never make as many laugh as you make weep.’ And in 1583 Marguerite
de Valois and two of her friends were dismissed from court, because, as Henri
furiously alleged, they were responsible for the scandalous gossip circulating
in Paris. Greatly as Ronsard loved the culture of ancient Greece he drew the
line, like any other normal man, at its morals, which had now been introduced
into the Court of France and were before long to make the court of the
slobbering pedant James I of England a European byword." Page 301: An "X"
marks the following passage: ". . . a flash of his old dancing rhythms and
love-inspired diminutives returns to Ronsard, and he composes an odelette
inspired by the emperor Hadrian’s famous dying address to his soul: Anima
vagula blandula / Hospes comesque corporis, / Quae nunc abibi in loca /
Pallidula rigida nudula, / Nex ut soles dabis iocos! Ronsard murmurs his
version next morning for Galland or Binet to write down: ‘Amelette
Ronsardelette, / Mignonnelette, doucelette, / Tres chere hostesse de mon corps,
/ Tu descend là-bas foiblelette, / Pasle, maigrelette, seulette, / Dans le froid
Royaume des morts: / Toutefois simple, sans remors / De meutre, poison, ou
rancune, / Meprisant faveurs et tresors / Tant envier par la commune. / Passant
j’ay dit; suy ta fortune, / Ne trouble mon repos, je dors.’"
Lindsay, Lord. Lives of the Lindsays: A Memoir of the
Houses of Crawford and Balcarres. Three Volumes. London: John Murray, 1849.
Notes: No marks identify these volumes as belonging either to Una or her
family, but it is likely that these are either family heirlooms or purchased by
Una for their significance to her family’s history, and are noted for that
reason.
Lockhart, J. G. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter
Scott, Bart. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1862. Volume 6 Notes:
Page 320: Loose, clipped magazine photos showing "One of the Chain of
Beacons Lighted in Memory of Sir Walter Scott: The Fire at Hume Castle" and
"Edinburgh Castle Celebrates the Centenary of Scott’s Death: The Castle and the
Scott Memorial Flood-Lit." Volume 7 Notes: Back flyleaf:
Pasted-in, clipped paragraphs recounting the friendship between Maria Edgeworth
and Sir Walter Scott, describing the "friendly intimacy" between them and ending
with the observation that "The picture of little Miss Edgeworth stamping around
with the whole Walter Scott family and bawling out Gaelic songs is not bad at
all." Volume 10 Notes: Back flyleaf: Pasted-in, clipped
etching captioned, "Abbotsford." Inside back cover: Loose, clipped
article labeled in Una’s hand "London Observer, Sept. 18, 1932," titled,
"Centenary of Sir Walter Scott: Edinburgh Celebrations."
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Song of Hiawatha.
New York: The Mershon Company, n.d. Notes: First page: Inscribed
in margin, "Una Call, Jan 6, 1899. From Leanis."
Lovell, Ingraham. Margarita’s Soul: The Romantic
Recollections of a Man of Fifty. New York: John Lane Company, 1909.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Kuster, September ‘09."
Lowry, David E. Norsemen and Danes of Strangford Lough.
Reprinted from the Proceedings, Session 1925-26 of Belfast Natural History
and Philosophical Society. Notes: Title page: Inscribed "With D.
E. Lowry’s compliments. Christmas 1931." Page 5: Card loose, with
impression "Oakley, Strandtown, Belfast" and the handwritten note, "‘All things
come to those who wait’--wishing you a very Happy Christmas. From D. E. Lowry."
Lucas, St. John, Ed. The Oxford Book of French Verse:
xiiith Century--xixth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, n.d.
Notes: Page 450: Loose photogravure card, with note on back in Una’s
hand: "Renowned Ladies / French Ms. formerly owned / by Louise de Savoie /
Mother of François I / (end of XV Cent.) / Bibliothèque Nationale. Page 318:
Opposite "Sagesse" by Paul Verlaine, in Una’s hand: "The sky above the high
roof-tree / So blue, so calm, / The pine above the high roof tree / waves like a
palm. / The bell up in the sky you see / So pretty rings / The bird up in the
tree you see / So sweetly sings. / O God! O God! a life is here / Of simple
quiet / that gentle murmur all I hear / Of the town’s riot. / What hast thou
done, then, lying here / In ceaseless tears? / What hast thou done, joy, thou
lying here, / With thy young years? T. Y. P." Back flyleaf: In Una’s
hand, "(by Jean Richpin) / ‘Comme il courait il tombe / Et lon, lon la--- /
Comme il courait il tombe / Et ar terre le coeur roule. // Et pendant que le
coeur roulait, / Et lon, lon laire, / Et lon, lon la, Et pendant que le coeur
roulait, / Entendit le coeur qui parlait. // Et le coeur disait en pleurant / Et
lon, lon laire / Et lon, lon la--- / et le coeur disait en pleurant, / Tés-tu
fait mal, mon enfant.!’" Inside back cover: Notes in Una’s hand: "Les
lauries sont confés; de Banville, p. 450." ( Refers to the poem, "Nous
n’irons plus au bois," by Théodore de Banville.)
Luhan, Mabel Dodge. European Experiences. Volume 2,
Intimate Memories. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Inside front cover: Bookstore
plate pasted in: "Los Gallos, Taos, New Mexico." Page 117: Marked with an
"X," the passage, "[Pen] lived in a beautiful old house that bridged the narrow,
hilly street, and Ginevra stayed with him and kept house until a handsome young
avocate came along and married her. Then Pen gave her a dowry and a house
down in the valley and became godfather to her first baby. With light blue and
yellow macaws standing on as many perches in the garden and a huge number of
little brown dachshunds, soft and shiny as silk, Pen lived on in Asolo--a small,
good-natured man, unpoetic, unimaginative, and perfectly inexpressive, with
something of the little boy about him, and nothing of the terrible. Sometimes he
would hear of the stories that his restless wife, rambling over Europe, was
circulating about him. He always looked deprecating and a little more puzzled
than usual when these stories came to his ears--but he refrained from denial,
even with us whom he came to know so well. Copper pots and kettles in the
red-tiled kitchen; blue and gold macaws in the garden; the servants Annita and
Nina lisping and laughing all day long in the sunny house; and the love letters
of his father and mother in a carved, oaken marriage chest in the
guest-room--that was the house at Asolo." Page 152: Marked with an "X,"
this paragraph: "The way the light came in past the full golden red curtains,
the way the logs burning behind the grill threw golden light on the dark oak
floor, the glimpses of the Italian hills one caught from outside the loggia,
framed between the pale stone columns . . . like the backgrounds in early
Florentine paintings . . . firelight flickerings on silver and bronze, somnolent
great masses of flowers from the garden, the green dying eastern sky from the
high east windows, the crimson glow from the western sky over towards Pisa--and
then, in a while, Domenico coming in with a waxen taper to light the oil wicks
of the six tall Florentine lamps whose lighted flames brought the whole place
into one crimson dusk, with little, flashing flames at regular intervals . . .
there was a soothing magic in all this." Page 158: Marked with an "X,"
the following: "Then it’s rather delicious to lie in the center of that blue
damask floor, against three or four big pillows, and smell the smell of one’s
life: jasmine, coffee, cigarette smoke, powder (Houbigant). Lie flaccid for a
while, letting it be. Not for long. Edwin’s step overhead; into the room,
stepping facetiously. How Bostonian! ("She is very Renaissance!") Page
185: Marked with an "X," the following: "But above all I felt a fatigue from
straining myself to fill an empty form that could be blown into a fullness for a
while, but that would always collapse when one ceased to blow it up. There was
always that to be done over again. Life did not stay created. However, there
came, very faintly, to my tired mind, a little satisfaction at the presence of
those figures who had animated the rooms for an hour; at the friendship of Lady
Paget, the head of the English society in Florence (because of her marriage to
Sir Augustus, greatly her inferior as a human being) and at those atoms named
Princess de Rohan, the Count and Countess Pourtales, and all the others nearly
forgotten now, who had by some chemistry been summoned to my side. ‘I have
them,’ I thought, ‘if I want them.’ But I never really did because I could not
really want them. We were too dissimilar." Page 197: Marked with an "X,"
Luhan is writing of her newly constructed villa: "I had not carried out this
design consciously but from deep within, and Edwin had helped me. I think no one
could have entered that place without feeling it was spread for life, a
sumptuous and protecting preparation for romance. It had a noble luxury, deep,
deep and subtle, made poignant and precious by its exclusion of banality. Ah,
yes! A house for Love." Inside back cover: Una’s note, "Podesta banners
from Siena."
Luhan, Mabel Dodge. Intimate Memories. Volume 3.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Inside front cover: Pasted-in logo from Los
Gallos, Taos, New Mexico. First title page: Pasted-in, a clipped
photograph of Mabel Dodge Luhan. Neither of the Jeffers is mentioned in this
volume.
MacAlister, R. A. Cluaìn Maccu Noìs (Clonmacnois).
Dublin: Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, n.d. Notes: Front cover:
In Una’s hand, "Saturday, July 13,1929." Also on the cover is a photograph
captioned "Round Tower, St. Finghin’s Church." Page 8: An "X" and
underline in Una’s characteristic ink and manner under the word "Donnàn." This
comes in the midst of a narration about the wanderings of Ciarán, an Irish saint
of the first century A.D., who ultimately settled at Clonmacnois. In the
anecdote narrated on pages 8 and 9, Ciarán had stopped at Inis Aingen (Hare
Island): "Here he stayed three years and three months. Then there came a certain
Donnán, ‘seeking a place wherein he might abide and serve God,’ and Ciarán, in
the same spirit in which he had given up his gospel to his needy fellow-student,
resigned to the new-comer his island retreat, and once more became a wanderer.’"
MacAlister, R. A. S. Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times.
Dublin: Maunsel and Roberts, Ltd., 1921. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"R. Radcliffe Whitehead."
Macaulay, T. Babington. Essays, Critical and
Miscellaneous. Volume I, The Modern British Essayists. Philadelphia:
Cary and Hart, 1856. Notes: Frontispiece: Two inscriptions: (1) in
faint pencil, "Harrison O. Call, Taken from a Rebel Surgeon’s Library near
[?]Petersburg, Va. April 12, 1865; and (2) in ink, "Robt. M. Anderson M.D. July
4th 1849." Inside front cover: Pasted in, a printed typeset line,
"Harrison O. Call."
Macaulay, Thomas Babbington. The History of England
from the Accession of James II. Volumes 1-5. New York: Richard Worthington,
n.d. Notes: The only note in the five volumes is in Volume 5, on the
first flyleaf, in Una’s hand, "Page 452." This page tells the sad story of young
Conway "Beau" Seymour, who died from a wound incurred in a drunken duel. There
appears to be a check mark following the passage, "On the last day of his life,
[Seymour] saw Kirke. Kirke implored forgiveness; and the dying man declared that
he forgave as he hoped to be forgiven."
Macaulay, Thomas Babington. Lays of Ancient Rome.
Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Company, n.d. Ten Cent Pocket Series Number 281.
Notes: Inside front cover: Pasted-in clipped picture captioned,
"The Finding of Romulus and Remus from the title page of Plutarch’s Lives."
Mackenzie, Compton. Carnival. New York: D. Appleton
and Company, 1912. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Back flyleaf: Pasted in, a published review (no source) dated in Una’s hand
"Apr 1925," discusses Compton Mackenzie’s subsequent novel, Coral,
published in 1925.
MacLeod, Fiona (William Sharp). Pharais and the
Mountain Lovers. New York: Duffield and Company, 1910. Notes: Like
several volumes by this author, this one carries the motto, "It is Loveliness I
seek, not lovely things." Flyleaf: Shamrock pressed between flyleaf and
first illustration page. Inside back cover: Pasted in, two clipped
articles debating the pronunciation of the Gaelic name, popular at the time with
Scots dramatists, "Morag."
MacLeod, Fiona (William Sharp). Poems and Dramas.
New York: Duffield and Company, 1911. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed in
his hand, in pencil, "Robinson Jeffers." Inside front cover: In Jeffers’
hand, "From her who is beauty / to him who is the [dime? dino?] of beauty."
Back flyleaf: Pasted-in, a clipped poem by "Fiona MacLeod": "O years with
tears, and tears through weary years, / How weary I, who in your arms have lain;
/ Now I am tired; the sound of slipping spears / Moves soft, and tears fall in a
bloody rain. / And the chill footless years go over me, whom am slain. / I hear
as in a wood dim with old light, the rain / Slow falling: old, old weary human
tears, / And in the deepening dusk my comfort is my pain / Sole comfort left of
all my hopes and fears, / Pain that alone survives, gaunt hound of the shadowy
years."
MacLeod, Fiona (William Sharp). The Divine Adventure
Iona: Studies in Spiritual History. New York: Duffield and Company, 1910.
Notes: Inside front cover: In Una’s hand: "The Soul Leading / Be this
soul on thine arm, O Christ / Thou King of the City of Heaven. / Amen. / Since
thou, O Christ, it was who broughtst this soul / Be its peace on Thine own
keeping. / Amen. / And may the strong Michael, high King of the Angels / Be
preparing the path before this soul, O God. / Amen. / Oh the strong Michael in
peace with thee, soul, / And preparing for thee the way to the Kingdom of the
Son of God. / Amen. / This soul peace is intoned over the dying by some special
friend called the "soul-friend." When the soul has departed they say--The poor
soul is now set free / Outside the soul-shrine / O Kindly Christ of the free
blessings / Encompass Thou my love in thine." Front flyleaf: Starting at
top of the page, "Carmina Gadelica / Hymns and Incantations / Collected in the
Highlands and the Hebrides by Alexander Carmichael. / Invocation - Gaelic /
Bless, O Chief of generous chiefs, / Myself and everything near me, / Bless me
in all my actions / Make thou me safe forever / Make thou me safe forever. /
From every brownie and ban-shee / From every evil wish and sorrow / From every
fairy-mouse and grass-mouse / From every fairy-mouse and grass-mouse. / From
every troll among the hills / From every siren hard pressing me / From every
ghoul within the glens / Oh! Save me till the end of my day / Oh! Save me till
the end of my day. / God help me and encompass me / From now till the hour of my
death." Back flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "Gaelic Invocation (Harris in
Hebrides) / God with me lying down. God with me lying down / God with me
rising up / God with me in each ray of light / Nor I a ray of joy without Him. /
Nor one ray without Him. / Christ with me sleeping / Christ with me waking /
Christ with me watching / Every day and night / Each day and night. / God with
me protecting / The Lord with me directing / The Spirit with me strengthening /
Forever and forevermore./ Ever and evermore. Amen / Chief of Chiefs, Amen."
Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "Hayshis Life of Saint Columbo -
‘The saint and his followers always thought the roar of the sea and mists
sweeping across desolate moorland, incitements to devotion.’"
MacLeod, Fiona (William Sharp). The Silence of Amor /
Where the Forest Murmurs. New York: Duffield and Company, 1911. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Kuster, 1911, Los Angeles."
Maeterlinck, Maurice. Aglavaine and Selysette: A Drama
in Five Acts. London: George Allen and Sons, 1909. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Küster, December 1909." Inside back cover: Pasted-in,
an unidentified clipped picture (from a painting) of a stone tower atop a hill,
with a couple sitting below, regarding it in a dreamy way.
Maeterlinck, Maurice. The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck,
Second Series: Alladien and Palomides, Pélléas and Mélisande, Home, The Death of
Tintagiles. Richard Hovey, Tr. New York: Duffield and Company, 1906.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Küster, May 1908."
Maeterlinck, Maurice. The Plays of Maurice Maeterlinck:
Princess Maleine, The Intruder, The Blind, The Seven Princesses. Richard
Hovey, Tr. New York: Duffield and Company, 1906. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Küster, June 1908."
Mahaffy, Rev. J. P. A History of Classical Greek
Literature. Volume 1. London: Macmillan and Company, 1891. Notes:
Inside back cover: Loose, a Christmas card from Connie and Martin Flavin,
with pressed flower identified as "Flowers of Mycenae."
Malan, A. H., Ed. Famous Homes of Great Britain and
Their Stories. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899. Notes: No
inscription, but all notes appear to be in Una’s hand. Inside front cover:
Clippings, pasted in: East Barsham Manor, Norfolk; Montacute House,
Somerset, Blackmore Vale; four additional views not identified. Flyleaves:
"70 miles from London, XIV century, old tithe barn"; Summingdale, Elizabethan
house; "Tudor manor house, Cotswold, Gloucestershire, XVI and XII"; "XII century
manor, Sussex"; Forforthshire; "Suffolk XV century"; other views not labeled or
label unreadable. Dartmouth Castle; Dunrobin Castle, Southerland. Chequers;
Terrace, Haddon Hall. Page 368: Inverlochy; Pevensy Castle. Back
flyleaves: Tudor mansion, Lanchestershire; mansion at Yorkshire; Leweston
Manor, Dorset; "Rockingham Castle, Northamptonshire (mentioned in Domesday Book,
once a hunting lodge of the early kings)"; three additional views of
castles/mamors not labeled. Addington Park, Tudor mansion, Kent; historic
priory, Berkshire; Tudor mansion, "A D. 1578 E. R. over portal, yew hedges and
rosary famous"; Essex, near Audley End, Elizabethan mansion; Stoke Court, Stoke
Pogis, Buckinghamshire; "Surrey, XVII century"; Blackladies, no location given;
one unidentified view. Three additional unidentified views. Inside back
cover: Two photos of Mme. Emma Calvé and her music students at her 12th
century chateau at Cabrières, near Nîmes.
Malet, Lucas. The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A
Romance. New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1901. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Kuster, Sept ‘07."
Manly, John Matthews, Ed. English Poetry (1170-1892).
Boston: The Athenium Press, Ginn and Company, n.d. Notes:
Frontispiece: Inscribed "Una Küster June 1908." Frontispiece: In
Una’s hand, begun on frontispiece and continued inside front cover: "(from Wm
Morris Earthly Paradise) [1] Across the gap made by our English hinds / Amidst
the Roman’s handiwork, behold / Far off the long-roofed church; the shepherd
binds The withy round the hurdles of his fold / down in the foss the river fed
of old / That through long lapse of time has grown to be / The little grassy
valley that you see / Rest here awhile, not yet the eve is still, / The bees are
wandering yet and you may hear / barley mowers on the trenched hill, / The
sheep-bells and the restless changing weir / All little sounds made musical and
clear / Beneath the sky that burning August gives, / While yet the thought of
glorious summer lives.’" [2] "Death have we hated, knowing not what it meant /
Life have we loved, through greenleaf and through sere / Though still the less
we knew of its intent: / The Earth and Heaven through countless year on year /
Slow-changing were to us but curtains fair / Hung round about a little room,
where play / Weeping and laughter of man’s empty day." Inside front cover:
Clippings, (many not identified) pasted in, with the notation in Una’s hand,
"These from W. S. [Walter Savage] Landor. See also page 368." Pages 368-69
comprise the section of the book dedicated to Landor’s work, specifically an
excerpt from Acon and Rhodope; or, Inconstancy, "Rose Aylmer, and "A
Fiesolan Idyl." / Una copies the following verses in hand: [1] "Ternissa, you
are fled! / I say not to the dead, / But to the happy ones who rest below: / For
surely, surely, where / our voice and graces are, / Nothing of death can any
feel or know. / Girls who delight to dwell / Where grows most asphodel, / Gather
to their calm breasts each word you speak: / The mild Persephone / Places you on
her knee, / And your cool palm smoothes down stern Pluto’s cheek." [2] "We are
on earth to learn what can be learn upon earth, and not to speculate on what can
never be . . . Let men learn what benefits men; above all things to contract
their wishes, to calm their passions, and, more especially, to dispel their
fears. Now these are to be dispelled, not by collecting clouds, but by piercing
and scattering them . . . Much of what we call sublime is only the residue of
infancy, and the worst of it." [3] "The ending of ‘Coythos I’: ‘"What open brows
/ The brave and beauteous ever have!" said she, / "But even the hardiest, when
above their heads / Death is impending, shudder at the sight / Of barrows on the
sands and bones exposed / And whitening in the wind, an cypresses / From Ida
waiting for disserver’d friends.’" [4] "Swinburne thought ‘the very brightest of
all the jewels in Landon’s crown of song’ the lines:--’Stand close around, ye
Stygian set, / With Dirce in one boat conveyed! / Or Charon, seeing, may forget
/ That he is old, and she a shade.’ / Take the famous piece from ‘Æsop and
Rhodope’:-- ‘Laodamacia died; Helen died; Leda, the beloved of Jupiter, went
before. It is better to repose in the earth betimes than to sit up late; better,
than to cling pertinaciously to what we feel crumbling under us, and to protract
an inevitable fall. We may enjoy the present while we are insensible of
infirmity and decay; but the present, like a note in music, is nothing but as it
appertains to what is past and what is to come. There are no fields of amaranth
on this side of the grave; there are no voices, O Rhodopè, that are not soon
mute, however tuneful; there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate
love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last.’" [5] "But I have sinuous
shells of pearly hue . . . . / Shake one, and it awakens, then apply / Its
polished lips to your attentive ear, / And it remembers its august abodes / And
murmurs as the ocean murmurs there." [6] ". . . a speech of Sidney’s to
Brooke:--’Greville! Greville! It is better to suffer than to lose the power of
suffering. The perception of beauty, grace, and virtue is not granted to all
alike. There are more who are contented with an ignoble union on the flat beaten
earth before us, than there are who, equally disregarding both unfavourable and
favourable clamours, make for themselves room to stand on an elevated and
sharp-pointed summit, and thence to watch the motions and scintillations, and
occasional overcloudings of some bright distant star.’" Second flyleaf:
Clipping containing the poem "Willy Drowned in Yarrow," which reads: "Down in
yon garden sweet and gay / Where bonnie grows the lily, / I heard a fair maid
sighing say / ‘My wish be wi’ sweet Willie! / Willie’s rare, and Willie’s fair,
/ And Willie’s wondrous bonny; / And Willie hecht to marry me / Gin e’er he
married ony. / O gentle wind, that bloweth south, / From where my Love
repaireth, / Convey a kiss frae his dear mouth / And tell me how he fareth! / O,
tell sweet Willie to come doun / And hear the mavis singing, / And see the birds
on ilka bush / And leaves around them hinging. / The lav’rock there, wi’ her
white breast / And gentle throat sae narrow; / There’s sport enough for
gentlemen / On Leader haughs and Yarrow. / O, Leader haughs are wide and braid,
/ And Yarrow haughs are bonny; / There Willie hecht to marry me / If e’re he
married ony. / But Willie’s gone, whom I thought on / And does not hear me
weeping; / Draws many a tear frae true love’s e’e / When other maids are
sleeping. / Yestreen I made my bed fu’ braid, / The night I’ll mak’ it narrow, /
For a’ the livelang winter night / I lie twined o’ my marrow. / O, came ye by
yon water-side? / Pou’d you the rose or lily? / Or came you by on meadow green,
/ Or saw you my sweet Willie? / She sought him up, she sought him down, / She
sought him braid and narrow; / Syne, in the cleaving of a craig, / She found him
drowned in Yarrow! / --Anonymous." Page ii: Pasted in, the following
poem: / "‘Retirement’ / Beneath this stony roof reclined, / I soothe to peace my
pensive mind; / And while, to shade my lowly cave, / Embowering elms their
umbrage wave, / And while the maple dish is mine,-- / The beechen cup, unstained
with wine,-- / I scorn the gay licentious crowd, / Nor heed the toys that deck
the proud. / Within my limits, lone and still, / The blackbird pipes in artless
trill; / Fast by my couch, congenial guest, / The wren has wove her mossy nest;
/ From busy scenes and brighter skies, / To lurk with innocence, she flies, /
Here hopes in safe repose to dwell, / Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell. / At
morn I take my customed round, / To mark how buds yon shrubby mound, / And every
opening primrose count, / That trimly paints my blooming mount; / Or o’er the
sculptures, quaint and rude, / That grace my gloomy solitude, / I teach in
winding wreaths to stray / Fantastic ivy’s gadding spray. / At eve, within yon
studious nook, / I ope my bras-embossèd book, / Portrayed with many a holy deed
/ Of martyrs, crowned with heavenly meed. / Then, as my taper waxes dim, /
Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn, / And, at the close, the gleams behold /
Of parting wings, be-dropt with gold. / While such pure joys my bliss create, /
Who but would smile at guilty state? / Who but would wish his holy lot / In calm
oblivion’s humble grot? / Who but would cast his pomp away, / To take my staff,
and amice gray; / And to the world’s tumultuous stage / Prefer the blameless
hermitage?’ [by] Thomas Warton." Page 565: Evidently clipped from a
newspaper and pasted in, the following: ". . . of all Blake’s poems, what more
haunting than the one from which this lovely phrase is taken?:-- / Till the
little ones, weary, / No more can be merry; / The sun does descend, / And our
sports have an end. / Round the laps of their mothers / Many sisters and
brothers, / Like birds in their nest, / Are ready for rest, / And sport no more
seen / On the darkening Green." Page 566: In hand, the following: [1] "Mirage
- Christina Rossetti (see page 543) [location of section in book devoted to
Rosetti’s poetry]: ‘The hope I dreamed of was a dream / Was but a dream; and now
I wake / Exceeding comfortless, and worn and old / For a dream’s sake. / I hang
my harp upon a willow tree / A weeping willow in a lake; / I hang my silent harp
there wrung & snapped / For a dream’s sake. / Lie still, lie still my breaking
heart / My silent heart lie still & break / Life and the world and mine own self
/ are changed / For a dream’s sake." [2] "Twice." / "I took my heart in my hand
/ (O my love, O my love), / I said: Let me fall or stand, / Let me live or die,
/ But this once hear me speak / (O my love, O my love)-- / Yet a woman’s words
are weak; / You should speak, not I. / You took my heart in your hand / With a
friendly smile, / With a critical eye you scann’d, / Then set it down, / And
said, "It is still unripe, / Better wait awhile; / Wait while the skylarks pipe,
/ Till the corn grows brown. / As you set it down it broke-- / Broke, but I did
not wince; / I smiled at the speech you spoke, / At your judgment I heard: / But
I have not often smiled / Since then, nor question’d since, / Nor cared for
cornflowers will, / Nor sung with the singing bird. / I take my heart in my
hand, / O my God, O my God, / My broken heart in my hand: / Thou hast seen,
judge Thou. / My hope was written on sand, / O my God, O my God: / Now let thy
judgment stand-- / Yea, judge me now. / This contemn’d of a man, / This marr’d
one heedless day, / This heart take thou to scan / Both within and without: /
Refine with fire its gold, / Purge Thou its dross away-- / Yea, hold it in Thy
hold, / Whence none can pluck it out. / I take my heart in my hand-- / I shall
not die, but live— / Before Thy face I stand; / I, for Thou callest such: / All
that I have I bring, / All that I am I give, / Smile Thou and I shall sing, /
But shall not question much.’ --Christina Georgina Rossetti." Page 580:
In Una’s hand, "All these [lines on pages 580-81 and inside back cover] from the
Life & Death of Jason by Wm Morris": (Paris arming song - to Helen) / ‘Love,
within the hawthorn brake / Pray you be merry for my sake, / While I last, for
who knoweth / How near I may be my death? / Sweet, be long in growing old! /
Life and love in age grow cold; / Hold fast to life, for who knoweth / What
thing cometh after death? / Trouble must be kept afar, / Therefore go I to the
war; / Less trouble is there among spears / Than with hard words about your
ears. / Love me then, my sweet and fair, / And curse the folk that drive me
there / Kiss me sweet for who knoweth / What thing cometh after death?’" /
Overleaf: "(Helen singing near the wooden horse in the rainy windless night)
/ ‘O my merchants, whence come ye / Landing laden from the sea? / --Behold we
come from Sicily: / Corn and wine and oil have we, / Blue cloths and cloths of
red. / --Merry merchants, when you are dead / We shall gain that you have Corn!
/ Out-merchants from the sea, / Your graves area not in Sicily / The corn for
me, the wine for thee, / The blue and red for our ladies free. / (Helen looks
out the window sleepless and thrusts out her bare arm into the cool wet
blackness) / Three hours before midnight I should think, / And I hear nothing
but the quiet rain / The Greeks are gone, think now the Greeks are gone /
Henceforward a new life of quiet days / In this old town of Troy now for me, /
And I shall note it as it goeth past / Eld creeping on me. Shall I live
sometimes / In these old days whereof this is the last? / Yet shall I live
sometimes with sweet Paris / In that old happiness twixt mirth and tears? / The
fitting on of arms and going forth, / The dreadful quiet setting while they
fought, / The kissing when he came back to my arms, / And all that I remember
like a tale! / Yea, in the merry days of old / The sailors all grew overbold /
Whereof should days remembered be / That brought bitter ill to me? / Days agone
I wore but gold / Like a light lawn across the wold / Seen by the stars, I shone
out bright; / Many a slave was mine if right. / Oh, but in the days of old / The
sea-kings were waxen bold; / The yellow sands ran red with blood / The towns
burned up both brick and wood; / In their long ship they carried me / And set me
down by a strange sea / None of the gods remembered me. / Ah, in the merry days
of old / My garments were all made of gold! / Now have I but one poor gown, /
Woven of black wool and brown. / I draw water from the well; / I bind wood that
the men fell; / whose willeth smitheth me / An old woman by the sea." / "Within
the cedar presses, the gold fades / Upon the garment they wont to wear; / Red
poppies grow now where their apple trees / Began to redden in late summer days.
/ What grows upon their water meadows now, / And wains pass over where the water
ran." / "Lo, when we wade the tangled wood, / In haste and hurry to be there, /
Nought seem its leaves and blossoms good / For all that they be fashioned fair.
/ But looking up at last we see / The glimmer of the open light, / From o’er the
place where we would be; / Then grow the very brambles bright. / So now, amidst
our day of strife, / With many a matter glad we play, / when once we see the
light of life / Gleam through the tangle of today.’--William Morris."
Marshall, Mrs. Julian. The Life and Letters of Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1889. Volume I
Notes: Back of title page: Inscribed "Robin Jeffers to Una Jeffers,
with love to the fifth year’s and, and the five hundredth’s." Below, signed
"U.J.," is the following note: "I happened on an old copy of this "Life and
Letters" in the Public Library in Los Angeles in June 1914--the first one I read
when I strayed into my Shelley studies. It had been out of print for many years
and I could not obtain a copy of my own in the usual way. Mr. Parker has been
advertizing for over two years for a new or second hand copy and just recently
located this in an old book shop in London. Now it has come safe to my hands
through all the perils of submarine-infested waters and all the other mischances
to travellers in this warring time. It is very dear to me for several reasons.
U. J. August 2, 1918, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Monterey Co. California---." Page
viii: Pasted in, a clipped copy of an etching of what appears to be a
portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley’s mother. No identification.
Page 370: Pasted in, a clipped cartoon of William Godwin. Page 372:
Pasted in, a clipped news article about an exhibition at the Grolier Club
commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the death of Shelley. Volume
II Notes: Half-title page: Pasted in, a clipped reproduction of a
pencil sketch of Shelley drawn by his widow, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley in
1829, seven years after his death. It served as the model for the Wedgwood
engraving of Shelley, in which Mrs. Shelley was "much disappointed." Reverse
side of Frontispiece: In Una’s hand, "see page 54 / From a letter of Mary
Shelley to Mrs. Gisborne / Alben near Genoa. Nov. 22, 1822. . . . The Hunts are
getting on well. Marianne is not better but she is not worse. We often see
Trelawney of any evening. Hunt likes him very much; and for me I feel so deep a
gratitude to him that my heart is full but to name him. He supported us in our
miseries -- my poor Jane and me. But for him menials would have performed the
most sacred of offices: and when I shake his hand, I feel to the depth of my
soul that these hands collected those ashes. Yes for I saw them burned and
scorched from the office. No fatigue, -- no sun or nervous horrors deterred him
as one or the other of these causes deterred the others. He stood on the burning
sand for many hours beside the pyre: if he had been permitted by the soldiers,
he would have placed him there in his arms. I never, never can forget this and
now he talks of little else save my Shelley and Edward. Page 54: Una has
written in the margin a note for the space following a November 11, 1822,
journal entry in which Mary Shelley reflects upon her life ("I no longer enjoy,
but I love. Death cannot deprive me of that living spark which feeds on all
given it, and which is now triumphant in sorrow. I love, and shall enjoy
happiness again. I do not doubt that; but when?"), the following: "See back of
portrait of Trelawny (frontispiece) for fragment of letter to Mrs. Gisborne date
Nov. 22, 1822 from Albena near Genoa." Following this note is a letter from Mary
Shelley to Clare Clairmont dated December 20, 1822 in which she writes of her
despair over the lack of resolution of her affairs in England and the "bitterly
cold" weather of Genoa. After describing how she spends her days ("I am obliged
to pass the greater part of my time in Hunt’s sitting-room, which is, as you may
guess, the annihilation of study, and even of pleasure, to a great degree."),
Shelley describes her "sorrow and memory and imagination, despair, and hope in
despair . . . .I am alone, and myself. . . . I have nothing else except my
nothingless self to talk about." Page 80: Loose, a clipped review of
The Letters of Mary W. Shelley (Frederick L. Jones, Ed.) by Emery Neff
(n.d., n.p.). Pages 100-01: Written in the top margins, in Una’s hand:
"Nov. 26, 1823. Took tea and supped at Godwins. The Lambs were there and some
young men. We played whist etc. Mrs. Shelley there. She is unaltered, yet I did
not know her at first. She looks elegant and sickly and young. One would not
suppose she was the author of ‘Frankenstein.’ From Henry Crabb Robinson’s
Diary." The text on page 101 is a letter from Mary Shelley to Mrs. Hunt dated
November 27, 1823, in which she describes her life in London, mentioning the
Lambs and Mrs. Godwin. Page 118: Clipped article by Florence Boystone
Pelo from The North American Review, pp. 727-740 (n.d.), titled "Some
Unpublished Letters of Mary Shelley," in which she reveals and discusses
twenty-three previously unpublished letters written by Shelley to Mr. and Mrs.
Leigh Hunt. The article notes, in its concluding paragraph, that "we know of the
deep-rooted affection that Shelley and his wife had for Hunt," and acknowledges
Mrs. Hunt only to say that she was "always frail and ailing." Page 326:
In Una’s hand, "There are many private theatres in London - among the most
interesting is that of Sir Percy Shelley son of the poet, who has one on the
town house at Chelsea and another in his country place at Bournemouth. This
theatre is the passion of his life. -- We spent a week at his country place, a
manor facing the sea containing a room entirely devoted to relics of Shelley.
Sir Percy writes plays, paints the scenery, composes the incidental music and
produces them at great pains and expense in his private theatre. He is a lovely
old man and Lady Shelley is the loveliest, sweetest woman in the world who
renders the Shelley traditions most charmingly.’ (From notes by Mrs. Edmund
Russell later Mrs. Richard Hovey)." In Una’s hand overleaf from "Postscript":
"‘The remains of Shelley were deposited near those of his friend Keats in the
cemetery at the base of the pyramidal tomb of Caius Cestius in Rome. In his
preface to his lament for Keats, Shelley says "He was buried in the romantic and
holy cemetery of the Protestants, under the pyramid which is the tomb of
Cestius, and the massy walls and towers now mouldering and desolate, which
formed the circuit of ancient Rome. It is an open space among the ruins, covered
in the winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death to
think that one should be buried in so sweet a place!" The inscription on the
tomb of Keats who died in Rome in 1821 briefly tells the sad story of the short
career of the young English poet, the friend of Shelley: This grave contains all
that was mortal of a young English poet, who on his death bed in the bitterness
of his heart at the malicious power of his enemies, desired these words to be
engraved on his tomb: "Here lies one whose name was written in water." I have
been here today to see the graves of Keats and Shelley. With a cloudless sky,
and the most delicious air ever breathed we sat down upon the marble slab laid
over the ashes of poor Shelley to read his own lament over Keats who sleeps just
below at the foot of the hill. The cemetery is rudely formed into three terraces
with walks between: and Shelley’s grave occupies a small nook above made by the
projections of a mouldering wall-tower and crowned with ivy and shrubs and a
peculiarly fragrant yellow flower which perfumes the air around for several
feet. The avenue by which you ascend from the gate is lined with high bushes of
the marsh rose in the most luxuriant bloom and all over the cemetery the grass
is thickly mingled with flower of every dye.’ Willis’s[?] ‘Pencilings by the
Way.’ (1835)." "Errata" page: In Una’s hand: "Insert p. 248. Letter from
Mary Shelley to Mrs. Frances Hare then at Baths of Lucca. ‘ . . . . . You do
indeed understand a Paradisiaical life. Well do I remember the Lucca baths where
we spent morning and evening in riding about the country -- the most prolific
place in the world for all manner of reptiles. Choose Naples for your winter
residence. Naples with its climate, its scenery, its opera, its galleries ------
surpasses every other place in the world. Go thither and live on the Chiaja.
Happy one, how I envy you. Percy is in brilliant health and promises better and
better. Have you plenty of storms at dear beautiful Lucca? Almost every day when
I was there vast clouds peeped out from above the hills -- rising higher and
higher until they overshadowed us and spent themselves in rain and tempest, the
thunder reechoed again and again by the hills is indescribably terrific. ---
Love me and return to us - Ah! return to us! for it is all very stupid and
unamiable without you. For are not you "That cordial drop Heaven in our cup hath
thrown / To make the nauseous draught of life go down."’" Advertisment page:
Pasted-in, clipped reproduction of an 1820 portrait of Washington Irving, to
whom Mary Shelley was introduced in 1824 by John Howard Payne The brief article
accompanying the portrait suggests that Shelley was romantically interested in
Irving, but that he did not reciprocate her feelings.
Mary, Countess of Lovelace. Ralph, Earl of Lovelace: A
Memoir. London: Christophers, 1920. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Una Jeffers. October 1929. London." Page 128: Loose, a typed
letter, no date, no signature, which begins "Dear Mother, The answers to your
questions:" Then follows a detailed description of the lineage of individuals
who figure in the life of the Byron/Lovelace family drama: Anne Blunt (Baroness
Wentworth), Judith Blunt-Lytton (Baroness Wentworth after her mother, Anne),
Neville Lytton, and William, Earl of Lovelace and his issue. Also explained is
the term "dormant and in abeyance," this having to do with the inheritance of a
title when there is no male heir."
Masefield, John. The Collected Poems of John Masefield.
London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1927. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "To Robin, with every good wish, from Albert 1928."
Mason, Redfern. Rebel Ireland. San Francisco:
Redfern Mason, 1923. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To Mrs. Robinson
Jeffers with kind regards from Redfern Mason, 1927."
Mason, Thomas H. The Islands of Ireland: Their Scenery,
People, Life and Antiquities. London: B. T. Batsford, 1936. Notes:
Half-title page: Inscribed "Dr. Albert M. Bender. With the kindest
greetings and thanks for much kindness. O. and M. Mahr. Christmas 1936, Dublin."
Below, "Dearest Una: I think you are entitled to this charming book. -- I am
sure Dr. Mahr would approve the change of ownership. I’ll take a chance. Best to
you and Robin, Albert. Feb. 1937." Inside back cover: Loose, several
items: Picture card of St. Patrick; Advertising brochure for Pomona Tile; Two
articles clipped from the same publication--"St. Finbar’s Cathedral, Cork," by
A. D. O’Brien and an article on the most remarkable features of Irish
monasteries written by R. Wyse Jackson; Announcement of and order form for
Across Hebridean Seas by Iain F. Anderson.
Masters, Edgar Lee. Mitch Miller. New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1921. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To Garth and
Donnan Jeffers with hopes that they will find fun in this book. Edgar Lee
Masters, July 6, 1926."
Mathers, S. L. MacGregor. The Tarot: Its Occult
Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play, Etc. Second
Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Company, Ltd., 1909. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House."
Mathews, F. Schuyler. Field Book of American Wild
Flowers: Being a Short Description of Their Character and Habits, a Concise
Definition of Their Colors, and Incidental References to the Insects Which
Assist in Their Fertilization. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907.
Notes: Flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "Great-Aunt-Mary McCord’s book."
Inside front cover: Pasted in, several clipped representations of figures
harvesting mandrakes, with caption: "Gathering a Mandrake. According to the
Legend, the Mandrake Shrieked When Pulled From the Earth, and Anyone Hearing it
Went Mad. The Hunter Tied a Dog to the Mandrake Root, Plugged His Ears, and Blew
a Horn to Drown Out the Shrieking. Then the Dog Went Mad. Also, a Quaint
Conception of a Pair of Mandrakes. All From an Old Wood Cut. The Mandrake Was
Used Largely as an Ingredient for Sleep-Producing Potions. Ecru Page 518,
ff.: Ribbon bookmark loose here: text discusses Wormwood or Absinth; Arnica;
Golden Ragwort; and Fireweed. Sketches on facing page represent Golden Ragwort
and Senecio Aureus. Back of advertisement page: In Una’s hand, "‘Herbs
and the Earth’ by Harry Beston, Doubleday $2." Facing, in Una’s hand: "‘Costmary
that so likes the cup / and with it penny royal.’ Used to be tied up with
lavender. They would ‘lye upon the toppes of beds, presses, etc. for sweet
scents and savours.’ Grown in the shade, costmary goes strongly to leaf and will
not flower (white flower)." Inside back cover: In Una’s hand, "Perennial
Herbs: Sweet Mary of my grandmother’s garden / Alecost (costmary) - pyrethrum
tanacetum (Balsamita Vulgaris) / very old fashioned, used as ingredient of beer
and negus and as a stewing herb / also called mint geranium, Sage O’Bedlam,
Goose Tongue, Bible Leaf. / Chrysanthemum Balsamita." Two lists of herbs follow:
(1) Balm; Bergamot; Fennel; Hyssop; Marjoram; Mints; Pennyroyal; Rue; Rosemary;
Saffron; Sage; Sautolina, French Lavender, Lavender Cotton -- for strewing;
Southernwood -- Artemisia Abrotanum, used in cordial (Old Man) or Garde-Robe;
Tansy; Thyme; Sweet Cicely; Vervain; Wormwood; (2) Basil; Coriander; Caraway;
Anise; Lemon Verbena; Catnip; Calamus; Angelica; Lovage; Dittany; Apple Mint;
Monks Herb; Woundwart." At the bottom of the lists, Una writes, "Herbs have
charm and the power to move the mind."
Maurois, André. Ariel: The Life of Shelley. Ella
D’Arcy, Tr. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1924. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Page 158: Pasted-in clipped reprint of an
illustration (part of a series) for Ariel, captioned "Shelley, Mary and
Claire crossing France on foot, accompanied by a small donkey." The series of
illustrations was on exhibition at the Redfern Gallery in London. Page 184:
Loose, two unsigned picture postcards from Rome, showing photographs of the
tombs of Shelley and Keats. On the card with Keats’s tomb the sender writes,
"Rome, Jan. 1926. Thought of you today beside the graves of Keats and Shelley.
They are not far apart but Keats’ grave overhung with lovely green bay trees and
pines is apart from all other graves down in a corner with everything you’d want
near it--even the sunlight today shone on it alone. This bas relief is not the
tomb--it is on the wall beside. On the card showing Shelley’s tomb, the sender
writes, "Shelley’s tomb is on the ground with Leigh Hunt’s close beside, as
Severn is next to Keats(a single railing surrounds them). Shelley’s is by the
ancient Auralian Wall which you see in the rear. Violets and roses area
plentiful and I send you a leaf from each grave. You, not I, should be here."
Mayne, E. C. (Ethel Colburn). Byron. New York:
Scribner’s, 1914. Two volumes. Volume I Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Una Jeffers." Half-title page: Clipping of short newspaper article
pasted in: "English to Honor Byron: Italy and Greece to Join in 100th
Anniversary Celebrations." Page 150: Clipped picture of Byron in Albanian
dress. Inside back cover: Two clippings, pasted in, the first captioned,
"Viscountess Melbourne and Her Eldest Son, Peniston Lamb," and the second
captioned, "Cause of the ‘Scandalum Magatum’: Lady Caroline Lamb." Inside
back cover: Loose, a review (clipped from the Sunday Observer,
February ____) of The Young Melbourne by David Cecil; review of Lady
Caroline Lamb by Elizabeth Jenkins. Volume II: Table of Contents
(overleaf): Clipped picture of sketch of Byron drawn in Venice by George
Henry Harlow. Flyleaf: Handwritten by Una: "From Mrs. Stirlings Life of
Wm de Morgan & his wife) Lady Noel Byron widow of the poet, a woman whose
personality aroused among those who knew her intimately something akin to
worship, while she remains for others a tragic figure in the glare of the
publicity to which her husbands stormy genius exposed her. --She attended
lessons in phrenology for which there was then a craze (given by Mr. Holmes)
with Sophia Morgan. In 1842 she lent her house Fordhook (once the home of Henry
Fielding) on the Uxbridge Road near Acton to the de Morgans. Says Wm de Morgan
‘I remember her vividly a half century after, an almost ethereally delicate,
painfully serious, disconcertingly precise lady. The word stoical suggests
itself to my mind with Lady Noel Byron not implying severity or grimness but the
tragedy of her life had left its mark on her.’ She usually brought with her
grandson Ralph 2nd Lord Lovelace a child just 4 mo. older than Wm de Morgan and
afterwards his life-long friend." Inside back cover, in (Una’s?) hand: "Crabb
Robinson’s Diary Sept. 13, 1853. Brighton. ‘Called on Lady Byron - - from all I
have heard of her I consider her one of the best women of the day. "She lives to
do good," says Dr. King and I believe this to be true.’ ---- Dr. King to C. R.
Brighton Feb 2, 1854. Lady B is now quite recovered. She is always feeble and
obliged to husband her strength and calculate her powers but her mind is ever
intact, pure and lofty. It seems to pour forth its streams of benevolence and
judgment even from the sickbed, a perennial fountain. Yet her power of bearing
fatigue occasionally, a during the illness and death of her daughter is as
wonderful . . . . Lady Byron to Crabb Robinson, Brighton March 5, 1855 " . . . .
. . .not merely from casual impression but from the whole tenor of Lord Byron’s
feelings, I could not but conclude . . . . he was of the gloomiest Calvinistic
tenets. To that unhappy view of the relation of the Creature to his Creator I
have always ascribed the misery of his life. Could he have been once assured of
pardon his living faith in a moral duty and love of virtue (‘I love the virtues
I cannot claim’) would have conquered every temptation. My own impressions --
just the reverse . . . it was in vain to try to turn his thoughts for long from
that idée fixe with which he connected his physical peculiarity as a stamp. He
felt convinced that every blessing would be ‘turned to a curse’ to him. I like
all connected with him was broken against the rock of Predestination. I may be
pardoned for referring to his frequent expression that I was only sent to show
him the happiness he was forbidden to enjoy. You will now better understand why
‘The Deformed Transformed’ is too powerful to me for discussion . . . I will not
mix up less serious matters with these, which forty years have not made less
than present still to me." Page 98: Pasted-in, clipped picture of drawing
of the Mocenigo Palaces in Venice, the center of which was occupied by Byron.
Page 178: Pasted-in clipping of photo of house in Ravenna where Byron lived
in 1819. Page 237: Pasted-in clipping of silhouette of Lord Byron inn
1823 (by Mrs. Leigh Hunt). Page 266: Pasted-in clipped picture of the
Acropolis in Athens at the time of the Turkish occupation (from the drawing by
J. M. W. Turner). Page 316: Clipped picture of drawing captioned "Sunium
From the Sea." Page 334: Pasted-in note, handwritten by Una: "St. Loe
Strachey says the aunt of his great-aunt Miss Sykes married Admiral Byron, the
seaman uncle of the poet. ‘It happened that Miss Sykes was on a visit to the
Byrons when the poets body, consigned to the Admiral arrived in London. The
Admiral who lived near Windsor posted up to receive the barrel of spirits in
which the remains were preserved. When he returned from his gruesome visit, he
was asked what the remains of the most-talked-of-man in Europe looked like. ‘He
looked like an alligator,’ said the Admiral, who did not mince his words."
Page 344: Pasted-in letter to the editor of The Spectator headlined
"A Link with Byron," recounting an episode in which Byron posed with his hands
displayed on a red silk handkerchief so that they could be admired by his Greek
neighbors at Missolonghi.
Mayne, Ethel Colburn. The Life and Letters of Anne
Isabella, Lady Noel Byron: From Unpublished Papers on the Possession of the Late
Ralph, Earl of Lovelace. London: Constable and Company, 1929. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers London November 1929 from Ellen O’S."
Inside back cover: Loose, clipped magazine article "Lady Byron Vindicated: A
Century-Old Controversy," by Harriet Beecher Stowe (magazine name and date not
available).
McMaster, John Bach. A Brief History of the United
States. Sacramento: California State Series, 1909. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed in a child’s script, "Lenora Packard." Page numbers are assigned
to several "Topics" and "Projects" in Una’s hand on the flyleaf. The book is
filled with children’s notes, sketches, and doodles.
Meredith, George. The Tragic Comedians: A Study in a
Well-Known Story. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906. Notes:
Flyleaf: Ornately inscribed, "Una Küster, San Francisco, January 26, 1909."
Milbanke, Ralph (Earl of Lovelace). Astarte: A Fragment
of Truth Concerning George Gordon Byron, Sixth Lord Byron. "New"Edition, with
Many Additional Letters Edited by Mary Countess of Lovelace. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers 1921." Inside front cover: Pasted in, two clippings from the
London Observer, November 2, 1834: (1) an item about Medora Byron, "a
natural daughter of the noble poet"; and (2) a collection of three "A Hundred
Years Ago" items about various family members of Coleridge, Burns and Byron from
the July 12, 1935 Observer. Opposite page 1: clipping of Westall portrait
of Lord Byron. Inside back cover: In (RJ’s?) hand: "From André Maurois’
‘I remember, I remember’ -- ‘Lady Lovelace allowed me access to Lady Byron’s
Journal in 1928. At her manor house Ockham Park, straight through the night by
the light of two candles I passionately deciphered this extraordinary document,
the memoirs of a puritan who had been bold to the point of brazoness [sic];
they were so filled with life that I believed that I could see Byron walking
with jerking steps & crying aloud between those walls of gray stone. After
reading this it was no longer possible to doubt the incest.’"
Mitchell, John Ames. The Villa Claudia. New York:
Life Publishing Company, 1904. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Küster, Jan. 1908."
Monroe, Harriet and Dawen Morton, Eds. A Book of Poems
for Every Mood. Racine, Whitman Publishing Company, 1933. Notes: This
volume features 39 poets: Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Pope, Shelley, Wordsworth,
Dickinson, Eliot, Pound, Joyce, Frost, etc., and Jeffers, who is represented
here with "Contrast" and "Ocean."
Moore, Colonel Maurice George. An Irish Gentleman,
George Henry Moore: His Travel, His Racing, His Politics. Notes:
London: T. Werner Laurie Ltd., n.d. Page xii: Two loose newspaper
obituaries: (1) Possibly from the Manchester Guardian, October 1939, and
headed, "Senator M. Moore"; Maurice Moore’s passing at 85 is noted in a review
of his life as a military man, a politician, and as a member of a notable
family. (2) Another clipped obituary (from The Times of London?) is
titled, "Famous Mayo Man Passes: Death of Col. Maurice Moore," and is dated in
hand "10/23/39." Page 142: Inserted, a sprig of a plant. Page 802:
Inserted, two clipped newspaper reviews: The first is a review of The Moores
of Moore Hall by Joseph Hone, and titled, "George Moore the Fourth: A Writer
and His Heritage" (review written by Humbert Wolfe); the second review, titled
"Great Georges," is from The Manchester Guardian, and was written by Ivor
Brown" (dated in Una’s hand "Oct 27 ‘39").
Moore, George, Ed. An Anthology of Pure Poetry. New
York: Boni and Liveright, 1925. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers fr. Byrd [? ]. 1934."
Moore, George. "Hail and Farewell": Ave. London:
William Heinemann, 1911. Notes: Flyleaves: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers." Pasted onto second flyleaf, two small news articles about the death of
Edward Martyn, "the well known Irish littérateur and dramatist" and a "founder
of the Abbey Theatre, with Senator Yeats and Lady Gregory." One article, labeled
"London Times, Jan. 17, 1924," by Una, discusses Martyn’s bequests (two to
George Moore) and the other describes his directive for "a pauper’s grave, with
a pauper’s coffin," though he was "possessed of many thousands sterling"
(International News Service, Dublin, Feb. 15, [1924]). Page 8: Loose, a
clipped "Correspondence" column from The Times of London with a lengthy
letter from George Moore regarding a critical article about The Letters of
Abelard and Heloise, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, in which the
critic takes issue with a statement by Moore about the spurious nature of "a
certain passage in the first or introductory letter." A clipped copy of
Moncrieff’s reply to Moore’s December 10 letter, along with a copy of the
original review and a further response from George Moore, are inserted loose at
page 10. Page 49: Lavender ribbon. Page 253: Red ribbon. Inside
back cover: Pasted in, a clipped copy of a sketch of Moore by J. B. Yeats.
Moore, George. "Hail and Farewell": Salve. London:
William Heinemann, 1912. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers,
Seattle." Page 1: Una has made corrections to the text, by hand, as
indicated on an Errata card inserted loose here. Back flyleaf:
Pasted in, a clipped copy of a sketch titled "George Moore" and attributed as
follows: "From a Pencil Sketch by J. B. Yeats on an Abbey Theatre Program." In
(Una’s?) hand, "John Eglinton (William McGee)."
Moore, George. "Hail and Farewell": Vale. London:
William Heinemann, 1914. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed in RJ’s hand,
"Una Jeffers and Robin Jeffers, their book. Pasadena, April, 1914." Pasted in, a
clipped cartoon sketch captioned "George Moore and Orpen Watching the Waves."
Title page: Pasted in, an announcement of the sale of the"Hail and
Farewell" series, first editions, and noting that "Vale is the scarce first
issue with the original passage on page 127-8." Back flyleaf: Pasted in,
a clipped photograph captioned, "Moore Hall, County Mayo, Ireland: George
Moore’s Ancestral Home," and below it a clipped paragraph, evidently from a
longer article about a work of Moore’s (likely Vale): "No modern poet is
quoted, and indeed Moore has little truck with the moderns. He says that it is
the eighteenth century he most loves, and it is the painters and the writers of
the nineteenth century that he knows and of whom he writes. Nothing of the
turmoil and confusion of to-day enters his pages. The only approach is the
allusion to the burning of Moore Hall in the Irish revolution, and this hangs on
the past; it is what is gone forever that is inspiration, not the present-time
causes leading to disaster. There is great beauty to these pages, the concluding
ones of the volume, a sense of the irreparable loss that comes to human
possessions. Nothing was saved except a portrait of his grandfather, which hangs
now in the house at Ebury Street "and catches my eye as I come down-stairs, a
sort of fetch-light or corpse-candle, reminding me that my race is over,
betrayed, scattered and in exile. . . ."
Moore, George. A Mummer’s Wife. New York:
Brentano’s, 1908. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Moore, George. A Story-Teller’s Holiday. New York:
Cumann-Sean-eola_y na h-E_peann. Notes: Limited edition. This copy is #
36 out of 1250. Flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "blackthorn 70; Irish wolfhound
100. These stories are all about what the Florentines call the conflict of
amor and castitas. ‘De toutes les perversions sexuelle, la
chastité est la plus étormante.’" Page 70: The word "Blackthorn" is
written in the margin, and an "X" marks a passage in which Moore discusses the
special responsibility of caring for a plant cutting. Page 100: Moore
begins a long folk story about the wolfhound.
Moore, George. Aphrodite in Aulis. London: William
Heinemann Ltd., 1930. Notes: Edition limited to 1825; this copy is number
1762, and is inscribed by the author. Page 128: An "X" marks the
beginning of Chapter 10, which tells the complex and mysterious story of the
pyramid of Cheops (a stone from which is in a Tor House wall). Page 136:
Three loose clippings: (1) A letter to the editor of the London Observer
from John Eglington, dated in Una’s hand "September 20 [1929]," in which
Eglington attempts to clarify "the point" of Aphrodite in Aulis, missed
by "most of the reviews" of the book; (2) a review of Aphrodite in Aulis
from Time (n.d.), focusing more on the author than the book ("written in
approved Moore style, marmoreal-mellifluous"), terming him "an aging silkworm,
spinning his gossamer but careful lines"; and (3) a review by Herbert L.
Matthews of Aprhodite in Aulis, applauding its "restraint," and "a limpid
quality that is the essence of refinement and simplicity"; Matthews acknowledges
the book’s limited appeal, but praises it as "a skillful evocation of the past"
and its place in "the essential unity that runs through George Moore’s life and
works." Page 142: A faint "X" marks the passage, "A careless word, and
the wound will open again, he [Rhesos] said to himself; better to say only:
Mother, we must not part in anger. At these words she rose and would have thrown
herself into his arms if Timotheus had not come to ask Rhesos if he had any
instructions to give about Ajax. The interruption relieved the strain, and
Rhesos was able to beg his mother to look after Ajax in his absence."
Moore, George. Avowals. New York: Boni and
Liveright, 1919. Notes: Privately printed for subscribers only; copy 99
out of 1250. Flyleaf: Pasted in, a clipped sketch of George Moore by Jack
Yeats for an Abbey Theatre program. Back flyleaf: Pasted in, two clipped
newspaper articles: "Dogs and the Food Question: A Protest by Mr. George Moore,"
a letter to the editor (dated June 11, 1915) of The Observer expressing
outrage at the number of dogs in England who consume necessary foodstuffs and
despoil the streets; and a copy of a November 15, 1921 letter, (published in an
unidentified newspaper) from George Moore to the Lord Chancellor of England
turning down an invitation to a testimonial dinner for Sir Leslie Ward because
"I have heard all this kind of aristocratic patter before, and really cannot
bring myself to listen to it again."
Moore, George. Celibates: Mildred Lawson; John Norton;
Agnes Lahens. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1895. Notes: This volume
is #3068 in the Collection of British Authors, Tauchnitz Edition. Cover:
In Una’s hand, "Una Küster, Menaggio on Lake, Como, September 1912."
Moore, George. Confessions of a Young Man. New
York: Brentano’s, 1907. Notes: Title page: Written in Una’s hand
under Moore’s name, "1886." Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, "Notes
from Brentano’s new edition - Preface - edited and annotated by George Moore,
1916: ‘These confessions most original - but incomplete, - gaiety, liveliness -
had not then read Jean Jacques Rousseau - His book written at the end of his
life between sixty and sixty-five - his life seen in long mysterious
perspectives, whereas mine is merely the evanescent haze by the edge of the
wood, the enchantment of a May morning. Youth goes for it singing! The song is
often crude and superficial, youth cannot be other than superficial but the
brook babbles spontaneously and truthfully and this is why Pater liked it.
Brasenose College, Mar 4. My dear audacious Moore -- Many thanks for the
"Confessions" which I have read with great interest and admiration for your
originality, -- your delightful criticisms, your Aristophanic joy, or at least
enjoyment in life-- . . . many things I don’t agree with but then in the case of
so satiric a book I suppose one is hardly expected to agree or disagree. ‘Thou
can’st in such a questionable shape!’ I feel inclined to say, "shape" morally? I
mean . . . . I wonder how much you may be losing both for yourself and for your
writings, by what, in spite of its gaiety and good nature and genuine sense of
the beauty of many things I must still call a cynical and therefore exclusive
way of looking at the world. You call it "realistic." Still! . . . Very
sincerely yours, Walter Pater.’ Delightful - reveals Pater - always at
composition. Most courteous of men and as he would not have us think he was
composing in our midst; he trained his face to wear a formal impassive
expression behind which he could pursue his rhythms undisturbed. Pater’s mask
was the subject of many a debate as we turned out of Earl’s terrace into the
High . . . . . . . This book a declaration of ideas and tastes, my love of the
best things in modern literature and my love of the best things in modern
painting and my [______? looks like "Whilom"] weakness for subtle passionate
women. The first eulogies written in English, I might almost say in any language
of Manet, Degas, Whistler, Monet, Pissaro are in this book and time has
splendidly vindicated all of them.’" Overleaf from title page: In Una’s
hand, "À Jacques Blanche. L’âme de l’ancien
Égyptian s’éveillait en moi quand mourut ma jeunesse et j’ai en l’idée de
conserver mon passée son esprit, et sa forme, dans l’art. b Alors trempant le
pinceau dans ma mémoire, j’ai point ses joues pour qu’elle prissent l’exacte
ressemblance de la vie, et j’ai enveloppé la mort dans les pous, fins Cinceuls.
Rhamesès le second n’a pas reçus des soins plus pieux! Que ce livre soit aussi
durable que sa pyramide! Votre nom, cher amî, voudrais l’inscrire ici comme
épitaphe, car vous êtes mon plus jeune et mon plus cher ami; et il se trouve en
vous tout ce qui est gracieux et subtil dans ces mornes aimeés qui s’égouttent
dans le vase du vingtième siècle. G. M." Page 41:
Moore says, he "still read and spoke of Shelley with a rapture of joy--he was
still my soul." Una underlines "soul" and writes in the margin, "pirmance[?]."
Page 42: Moore recalls Shelley’s words, "My dreams were of naked youths
riding white horses through mountain passes; there were no clouds in my dreams,
or if there were any, they were clouds that had been cut out as if in cardboard
with a pair of scissors." Una writes in margin to insert at this point, "They
were cut with the chisel from blocks fallen from the statue of Jupiter." Page
44: Moore writes that "The study of Baudelaire aggravated the course of the
disease [his taste for "mad and morbid literature"]. Una writes in margin to
insert at this point, "1916 edition--Surely the phrase is ill-considered:
hurried. ‘My convalescence’ would express the author’s meaning better." Page
48: At the top of the page, where Moore discusses French writers (Hugo, de
Lisle, de Banville), Una writes in the margin, "Villiers condensed many poems
into single lines, ‘O pasteur, Hespérus à l’accident s’allume!.’" To
clarify an allusion to Coppée’s "Le Lys," in which Moore says "a room is
decorated with daggers, armor, jewelry, and china is beautifully described, and
it is only in the last line that the lily which animates and gives life to the
whole is introduced," Una adds in the margin, "Noble et pur un grand lys / se
meurt dans une coupe." Page 84: This page begins with Moore’s
assertion, "Two dominant notes in my character--an original hatred of my native
country and a brutal loathing of the religion I was brought up in," and in which
he goes on to identify those elements in his character--"an instinctive"
aversion to his "own countrymen" contrasted with "a sense of nearness" and "a
keen and penetrating sense of intimacy" with the French--inspires Una’s marginal
comments, "The country of my instinctive aspiration would be Sussex, the most
Saxon of all. Its very aspect awakens anti-natal sympathies in me. The villages
clustered round the greens with spires of the churches pointing between the elms
were never new to me. / I am by ancestry a South Saxon." Page 86: Moore
writes, "You must have rules in poetry, if it is only for the pleasure of
breaking them, just as you must have women dressed, if it is only for the
pleasure of imagining them as Venuses," and Una adds in hand, "of undressing
them." Page 142: Una corrects what appears to be a misprint, adding the
word "not" to the phrase "I have read nothing of Henry James’s that did [Ù ]
suggest the manner of a scholar." Page 171: Una writes into Moore’s
discussion of "Forgotten Pages," prose poems of Mallarmé’s published in La
Vogue, "See end of volume for translation III from Mallarmé (typewritten
addenda)." Page 194: Pasted in, two typed paragraphs headed "Translated
from Mallarmé, by George Moore. / III. The pale sky that lies above a world
ending in decrepitude will perhaps pass away with the clouds: the tattered
purple of the sunset is fading in a river sleeping on the horizon submerged in
sunlight and in water. The trees are tired; and beneath their whitened leaves
(whitened by the dust of time rather than by that of the roads) rises the canvas
house of the Interpreter of Past Things: many a lamp awaits the twilight and
lightens up the faces of an unhappy crowd, conquered by the immortal malady and
the sin of the centuries, of men standing by their wretched accomplices quick
with the miserable fruit with which the world shall perish. In the unquiet
silence of every eye supplicating yonder sun, which, beneath the water, sinks
with the despair of a cry, listen to the simple patter of the showman: ‘No sign
regales you of the spectacle within, for there is not now a painter capable of
presenting any sad shadow of it. I bring alive (and preserved through the years
by sovereign science) a woman of old time. Some folly, original and simple, an
ecstacy of gold, I know not what she names it, her hair, falls with the grace of
rich stuffs about her face and contrasts with the blood-like nudity of her lips.
In place of the vain gown she has a body; and the eyes, though like rare stones,
are not worth the look that leaps from the happy flesh; the breasts, raised as
if filled with an eternal milk, are pointed to the sky, and the smooth limbs
still keep the salt of the primal sea.’ Remembering their poor wives, bald,
morbid, and full of horror, the husbands press forward: and the wives, too,
impelled by melancholy curiosity, wish to see. When all have looked upon the
noble creature, vestige of an epoch already accursed, some, indifferent, have
not the power to comprehend, but others, whelmed in grief and their eyelids wet
with tears of resignation, gaze at each other; whilst the poets of these times,
feeling their dead eyes brighten, drag themselves to their lamps, their brains
drunk for a moment with a vague glory, haunted with rhythm, and forgetful that
they live in an age that has outlived beauty." Page 173: In the margin,
Una writes, "In youth the genius of Shelley astonished me, but now I find the
stupidity of the ordinary person infinitely more surprising." This apparently in
response to Moore’s assessment of late nineteenth century novelists: "the
successors of Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot have no ideal, and
consequently no language; what can be more pudding than the language of Mr.
Hardy, and he is typical of a dozen other writers, Mr. Besant, Mr. Murray, Mr.
Crawford? The reason of this heaviness of thought and expression is that the
avenues are closed, no new subject-matter is introduced; the language of English
fiction has therefore run stagnant." Una adds at the bottom of the page, "St.
Augustine’s Confessions are the story of a god-tortured mime of an art-tortured
soul. Which subject is most living? The first, for man is stupid and still loves
his conscience as a child loves a toy." Page 180: At the conclusion of a
section on the "enviable" status of young men in the nineteenth century, Moore
summarizes the attitude of his emblematic character, "Lovelace": "In manner
Lovelace is facile and easy; he never says no, it is always yes, ask him what
you will, but he only does what he has made up his mind it is his advantage to
do. Apparently he is an embodiment of all that is unselfish, for he knows that
after he has helped himself, it is advisable to help someone else, and thereby
make a friend who, on a future occasion, will be useful to him. Put a violinist
into a room filled with violins, and he will try every one. Lovelace will put
each woman aside so quietly that she is often only half aware that she has been
put aside. Her life is broken; she is content that it should be broken. The real
genius for love lies not in getting into, but getting out of love." In Una’s
hand beginning just below, "Conscience would have me pull down the black flag
and turn myself into an honest merchantman with children in the hold and a wife
at the helm . . . would remind me that grey hairs begin to show, that health
falls into rags, that high spirits split like canvas and that in the end the
bright buccaneer drifts, an old derelict, tossed by the waves of ill fortune,
and buffeted by the winds into those dismal bays and dangerous offings -
housekeepers, nurses and uncomfortable chambers. Such will be my fate and since
none may avert his fate, none can do better than to run pluckily the course he
must pursue." Page 181: At the opening of Chapter 12, Moore writes, "And
now, hypocritical reader, I will answer the questions which have been agitating
you this long while, which you have asked at every stage of this long narrative
of a sinful life." Una adds in the margin, "The use of the word sinful here
seems liable to misinterpretation. The phrase should run ‘of a virtuous life,
for remember that my virtues are your vices.’" Inside back cover: Pasted
in, a clipped sketch captioned "George Moore. From ‘The Portrait Drawings of
William Rothenstein.’"
Moore, George. Conversations in Ebury Street. New
York: Boni and Liveright, 1924. Notes: Inside front cover:
Pasted-in clipped line drawing of Moore in his later years. Half-title page:
Pasted in, a clipped portrait of Moore, 1½" x 1½". Page 35: At the
end of the book (where Moore has been describing his memories of and love for
Moore Hall, recently destroyed by fire), in Una’s hand, two notes: "We made two
pilgrimages to Moore Hall, near Castlebar, County Mayo - in July and August
1929." "Over the portico at Moore Hall there is a carved stone: ‘1795 /
Fortis cadere / cedere / non potest.’" Page 36: Pasted in, a cartoon
depicting three men sitting before a fire and conversing; the caption reads,
"George Moore Jots Down a New Book: His Recent ‘Conversations on Ebury Street’
is Largely Composed of the Critical Opinions of His Visitors."
Moore, George. Esther Waters. New York: Duffield
and Company, 1906. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Moore, George. Euphorian in Texas. Girard, Kansas:
Haldeman-Julius Company, n.d. Ten Cent Pocket Series Number 285. Notes:
Front cover: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Moore, George. Evelyn Innes. London: T. Fisher
Unwin, 1898. Notes: Page 62: Passage marked in pencil: "He had
told her of the author, a Persian poet who had lived in a rose-garden a thousand
years ago. He had compared life to a rose, an exquisite flower to be caught in
the hand and enjoyed for a passionate moment, and had recited many of the
verses, and she had listened, enchanted by the rapid interchange of sorrow, and
gladness, and lofty resignation before the inevitable. Often it seemed as if her
own soul were speaking in the verses. ‘So do not refuse to accept the flowers
and fruit that hangs in the reach of your hands, for to-morrow you may be where
there are none. . . . The caravan will have reached the nothing it set out from.
. . . Page 71: Passage marked in pencil: "They had taken with them Omar’s
verses, and Evelyn hoped that he would talk to her about them, for the garden of
the Persian poet she felt to be separated only by a wicket from theirs." Page
77: Passage marked in pencil: "His footsteps echoed through the chill
twilight, and seeing a thin moon afloat like a feather in the sky, she thought
of Omar’s moon, that used to seek the lovers in their garden, and that one
evening sought one of them in vain." Page 91: Passage marked in pencil:
"That afternoon she was going to have tea with some friends, and as she paused
to pin her hat before the glass, she remembered that if Owen were right, and
that there was no future life, the only life that she was sure of would be
wasted. Then she would endure the burden of life for naught; she would not have
attained its recompense; the calamity would be irreparable; it would be just as
if she had not lived at all. . . . No, her life would not be wasted, it would be
an example to others, it was in renunciation that we rose above the animal and
attained spiritual existence. At that moment it seemed to her that he could
renounce everything but love. Could she renounce her art? But her art was not a
merely personal sacrifice. In the renunciation of her art she was denying a
great gift that had been given to her by Nature, that had come she know not
whence nor how, but clearly for exercise and for the admiration of the world. It
therefore could not have been given to her to hide or to waste; she would be
held responsible for it. Her voice was one of the responsibilities; not to
cultivate her voice would be a sort of suicide. This seemed quite clear to her,
and she reflected, and with some personal satisfaction, that she had incurred
duties toward herself. Right and wrong, as Owen had said, was a question of time
and place. What was right here was wrong there, but oneself was the one certain
thing, and to remain with her father meant the abandonment of herself. . . . She
wanted herself! Ah, she wanted to live, and how well she knew that she was not
living, and could never live, in Dulwich. The nuns! Strange were their
renunciations! For they yielded the present moment, which Owen and a Persian
poet called our one possession. She seemed to see them fading in a pathetic
decadence, falling like etiolated flowers, and their holy simplicities seemed
merely pathetic [underline in pencil]." Page 94: Passage marked in
the margin: "Our actions obey an unknown law, implicit in ourselves, but which
does not conform to our logic. So we very often succeed in proving to ourselves
that a certain course is the proper one for us to follow, in preference to
another course, but, when it comes for us to act, we do not act as we intended,
and we ascribe the discrepancy between what we think and what we do to a
deficiency of will power. Man dares not admit that he acts according to his
instincts, that his instincts are his destiny." Page 173: Passage marked
in the margin: "All of this they had argued a hundred times, but their points of
view were so different. Once, however, she thought she had made him understand.
She had said, ‘If you don’t understand religion, you understand art. Well, then,
imagine a man who wants to paint pictures; give him a palace to live in; place
every pleasure at his call, imposing only one condition--that he is not to
paint. His appetites may detain him in the palace for a while, but sooner or
later he will cry out, "All these pleasures are nothing to me; what I want is to
paint pictures."’" Page 127: Passage marked in the margin: "The practice
of singing in church proceeds from the idea that, in the exaltation of prayer,
the soul, having reached the last limit obtainable by mere words, demands an
extended expression and finds it in song." Page 268: Passage marked in
the margin: "A moment approaches; it is ours, and no sooner is it ours than it
has slipped behind us, even in the space of the indrawing of a breath. No
wonder, then, that men had come to seek reality beyond this life; it was natural
to believe that this life must be the shadow of another life lying beyond it. .
. ." Page 271: Passage marked in the margin: "They were tired of
materialism; they had trudged that bleak road till they were weary, and now they
desired Blake, submission to Blake, and were therefore disappointed when Ulick
explained that Blake’s doctrine was not subordination to Blake, but the very
opposite, the development of self, the cultivation of personal will." Page
326: Passage marked in the margin: "It is true that man is a moral animal,
but it is not true that there is but one morality; there are a thousand, the
morality of each race is different, the morality of every individual differs.
The origin of each sect is the desire to affirm certain moral ideas which
particularly appeal to it; every change of faith is determined by the moral
temperament of the individual; we prefer this religion to that religion because
our moral ideas are more implicit in these affirmations than in those." Page
327: Passage marked in the margin: "A sense which eludes all the other
senses, and which is not apprehensible to reason governs the world, all the rest
is circumstantial, ephemeral. Were man stripped one by one of all his
attributes, his intelligence, his knowledge, his industry, as each of these
shunks was broken up and thrown aside, the kernel about which they had gathered
would be a moral sense."
Moore, George. Héloise and Abélard. Volume 2. New
York: Boni and Liveright, 1921. Notes: Privately printed for subscribers,
this volume is 624 out of 1250. Flyleaf: In Una’s hand, and identified as
"Abelard to Heloïse," are stanzas in Latin, with their English translations: "Vel
confossue pariter / Morirer feliciter / Quum, quod amor faciat / Majus hoc non
habeat (Low in thy grave with thee / Happy to lie / Since there’s no greater
thing / Left, Love, to do); Et me post te vivere / Mori sit assidue / Nec ad
vitam anima / Satis est dimidia (And to live after thee / Is but to die /
For with but half a soul / What can life do?); Triumphi participem / Vel
ruinae comitem / Ut te vel eriperem / Vel tecum occumberem (So share thy
victory / Or else thy grave / Either to rescue thee / Or with thee lie);
Vitam pro te finiens / Quam salvsti totiens / Ut tet mors nos jungeret / Magis
quam disjungeret (Ending that life for thee / That thou didst save / So
Death that sundereth / Might bring more nigh); Do quietem fidibus / Vellem ut
et planctibus / Sic possem et fletibus (Peace O my stricken Lute! / Thy
strings are sleeping / Would that my heart could still / Its bitter weeping!);
Suscipe Flos florem / Quia flos designat amorem / Illo de flore / Nimio sum
captus amore (Take thou this rose, O rose, / Since love’s own flower it is /
And by that rose / Thy lover captive is); Aware crucior, moriar / Vulnere,
quo glorior / Eia si me sanare / Mio vellet osculo / Gaudet vulnerare (I
suffer / Yea, I die / But this mine agony / I count all bliss / Since death is
life again / Upon thy lips)." Page 1 (following page 18) of
corrections and additions to the American edition: Una has corrected "page
19" to read "23." Page 23: Una notes that the "corrections and additions"
pages are to be inserted at that point.
Moore, George. In Single Strictness. New York: Boni
and Liveright, 1922. Notes: Privately printed for subscribers only, this
volume is number 625 out of 1050, and is signed on the Copyright page by George
Moore. Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Inside front cover:
Loose, a two-color broadside on rag paper advertising "The Carra Edition of the
Works of George Moore, the first unexpurgated and uniform collection of all his
work which the author considers worthy of perpetuation in a definitive edition.
In twenty-one volumes. The first volume in each set is signed by the author."
Moore, George. Letters from George Moore to Ed.
Dujardin, 1886-1922. New York: Crosby Gaige, 1929. Notes:
Half-title page: Inscribed "George Moore." Page 84: Loose, clipped
catalog announcement of the availability of three Moore letters: (1) To Francis
Vielé-Griffin re. possible collaboration and translation; (2) to Aristide Marie
re. The Brook Kerith; and (3) to Aristide Marie re. a chocolate service
in the Directoire style. Inside back cover: Note in Una’s hand: "The
monologue intérieur was used by Edouard Dujardin in his novel ‘Les
Lauries sont coupés’ pub. in the eighties, thirty years before Joyce’s
"Ulysses."
Moore, George. Memoirs of My Dead Life. London:
William Heinemann, 1906. Notes: Flyleaves: Inscribed "Una Küster,
July 1908." Pasted onto second flyleaf, a clipped announcement of the 1921
edition of this book, a limited edition that had gone out of print. According to
the announcement, that edition was titled Memories of My Dead Life of
Galanteries, Meditations, and Remembrances, Solioquies, or Advice to Lovers,
with Many Miscellaneous Reflexions on Virtue and Merit. Page 78:
Pressed onto the page, a sprig from a plant with a small flower; the sprig lies
opposite a passage that recounts a visit to the boudoir and garden of the
Countess Nino de Calvador. Page 95: Pressed onto the page, a scrap of
blue ribbon, just opposite a passage that reads, "Had I a palette, I could match
the blue of the peignoir with the faint grey sky. I could make a picture
out of that dusky suburb. Had I a pen I could write verses about these people of
old time, but the picture would be a shrivelled thing compared with the dream,
the verses would limp. The moment I sought a pen the pleasure of the meditation,
which is still with me, which still endures, would vanish. Better to sit by my
window and enjoy what remains of the mood and the memory." Page 334:
Written in Una’s hand at the bottom of the page, at the end of a section in
which Moore imagines the details of his own funeral and burial, "‘ . . . . . . .
When all my works wherein I prove my worth, / Being present still to mock me in
men’s mouths, / Alive still in the praise of such as thou, / I, I, the feeling,
thinking, acting man, / The man who loved his life so over-much, / Sleep in my
urn. It is so horrible . . . . . . . .’ Browning’s Cleon."
Moore, George. Memoirs of My Dead Life. London:
William Heinemann, Ltd., 1928. Notes: Inscription on flyleaf, "To Una
from someone who has never attempted to imitate George Moore, realizing how
futile that would be --- Myron Brinig, June 5 - ‘36, Feos."
Moore, George. Modern Painting. London: The Walter
Scott Publishing Company, Ltd., 1908. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Una Küster, June 1910." Page 129: Loose (at the beginning of a chapter
titled "The Organisation of Art," in which Moore argues against the effort to
democratize art and literature), a small black and white reproduction (may have
been clipped) of Boucher’s Winter; and a page (p. 55) from the Chaucer
Head Bookshop, Inc. sales catalog, on which a rare and expensive copy of Moore’s
Flowers of Passion is offered for sale. Page 288: Loose, a
clipped journal article, "Reminiscences of the Impressionist Painters," by
George Moore. Dated in Una’s hand above title, "Feb. 22, ‘12." Listed in the
section advertising Charles Scribner’s Sons Contemporary Science Series, ed. by
Havelock Ellis, are several books checked in pencil: The Man of Genius by
Prof. Lombroso; Apparitions and Thought Transference by Frank Podmore;
and The Psychology of the Emotions by Th. Ribot.
Moore, George. Spring Days. New York: Brentano’s,
n.d. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Half-title page:
Pasted in, two small (miniature-size), green cut-out portraits of George
Moore.
Moore, George. The Brook Kerith: A Syrian Story.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916. Notes: Back flyleaf: Pasted
in, a clipped news article headlined "Says Bernard Shaw Lacks Aestheticism:
George Moore Thinks He Escapes Own Complexities by ‘Vulgar Claptrap’ Jokes," in
which Moore is quoted as comparing Brook Kerith unfavorably with
Heloise and Abelard, and Shaw unfavorably with more "aesthetic" writers who
can synthesize and "pursue a train of thought for more than a few lines."
Moore, George. The Coming of Gabrielle: A Comedy.
New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921. Notes: Edition limited to 895 copies,
this volume is numbered 580. Page 47: Loose, a clipped article titled
"Mr. Moore and His Play," composed mostly of a letter from Moore "to the London
papers" regarding his "trouble in connection with his play, ‘The Coming of
Gabrielle.’" Moore attributes the problems to a "lack of appreciation of my play
and [the actors’] talents on the part of the producer, Nigel Playfair."
Moore, George. The Lake. New York: D. Appleton and
Company, 1906. Notes: Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, "Dr.
Oliver Gogarty of Dublin was here at Tor House early in March 1933. I asked him
how Moore happened to use his name for the hero in "The Lake" and he said that’s
what his mother asked Moore and Moore replied because he wanted a name composed
of dactyls!" Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel." Page
253: Corner turned down; phrases which may have attracted especial interest:
"We can sacrifice ourselves for a time, but we cannot sacrifice ourselves all
our life long, unless we begin to take pleasure in the immolation of self, and
then it is no longer sacrifice. . . . I think the places in which we have
suffered become distasteful to us, and the instinct to wander takes us. A
migratory bird goes, or dies of homesickness; home is not always where we are
born--it is among ideas that are dear to us: and it is exile to live among
people who do not share our ideas."
Moore, George. The Untilled Field. Philadelphia: J.
B. Lippincott Company, 1903. Notes: Page 98: Pencil marks beside
the statement by the book’s character Biddy, "I shall have great joy," she said,
"seeing the blessed women standing about our Divine Lord, singing hymns in His
praise and the sight of sinners broiling will make me sorrowful." Inside back
cover: A note, "The Wild Goose Music, 354." Page 354: The notes (but
not the words) for "The Wild Goose," with a note by Una, "This song is called
also ‘Ned of the Hill.’" Ned is a character in the book.
Moore, George. Ulick and Soracha. New York: Boni
and Liveright, 1926. Notes: This volume is numbered 50 out of 1250, and
signed by George Moore. Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers." Half-title
page: In Una’s hand, "p. 77, harp makers." At this point in the story, the
narrator meets a family of Irish harp makers and learns of their traditions and
lore.
Morgan, Charles. Epitaph on George Moore. London:
Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1935. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel." Page 3: In Una’s hand, a note in the margin
identifying Lady Cunard as the "most valuable existing source" of material for
George Moore’s autobiographical writings. Back flyleaf: Pasted in, a
clipped gossip column article detailing the names of the guests invited to "a
formal dinner given by Edward VIII in his rooms in St. James’s Palace: Mrs.
Ernest Simpson ("the former Wallis Warfield of Baltimore, Md., known to the
world press as King Edward’s favorite dancing partner, his companion on numerous
holiday excursions"), Mr. Simpson, Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Lady Diana Duff
Cooper ("Lady Diana Manners"), Alfred Duff Cooper, Colonel and Mrs. Charles
Lindbergh, Lord Wigram, and Lady Cunard (her name underlined in red), the latter
described as a "birdlike blonde widow of fox-hunting Sir Bache Cunard. The
daughter of the late E. F. Burke of New York and known to Mayfair as ‘Emerald,’
Lady Cunard is the mother of exotic Nancy Cunard, whose fondness for Negroes as
dancing partners has caused many a raised eyebrow in London and New York." Next
to this description, Una has written, "She refused the use of Moore’s letters.
cf. page 4." Page 4: The text recounts Morgan’s difficulties obtaining
letters from Moore’s mystery correspondent (Lady Cunard) in preparation for a
full biography of Moore, and tells of the subsequent "death" of that proposed
work.
Morley, F. V. Dora Wordsworth: Her Book. New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925. Notes: Flyleaves: Loose, a cutout
of a woman’s silhouette, approx. 2" x 3". Dedication page: Pasted in, the
obituary (n.d., n.p.) of Gordon Graham Wordsworth, "the last surviving
grandchild of the poet." Inside back cover: Loose, three clipped
articles: (1) A review by Richard Le Gallienne, titled "Wordsworth’s Wild Oat
and Annette Vallon," of William Wordsworth and Annette Vallon by Emile
Legouis from The New York Times Book Review, April 29, 1923; (2) a
clipped review, by Arthur Ransome, of the Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of
Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton edited by Mrs. G. H. Bell, from The
Observer, October 14, 1930; and (3) a clipped article by John B. Duffey from
Arthur’s Illustrated Home Magazine (Vol. XLVI, No. 1, January 1878, pp.
5-10), titled "The ‘Lake Country’ of England."
Morris, William. The Defence of Guenevere. London:
John Lane, 1905. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Morris, William. The Sundering Flood. Volumes I and
II. Pocket Edition. London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1914. Volume I
Notes: Inside front cover: Pasted in, (1) a copy of etching of
Kelmscott Manor (identified in Una’s handwriting); (2) a photograph of William
Morris with a penciled note in the upper margin: "Watermark Unicorn / 1834-1934
Centenary celebration"; (3) a picture of a woodcut, with an acanthus design down
the left margin, titled "The Arts of Life," and which reads, "What other
blessings are there in life save these two, fearless rest & hopeful work?
Troublous as life is, it has surely given to each one of us here some times and
seasons when, surrounded by simple and beautiful things, we have really felt at
rest; when the earth and all its plenteous growth, and the tokens of the varied
life of men, and the very sky and waste of air above us, have seemed all to
conspire together to make us calm & happy, not slothful but restful. Still
oftener belike it has given us those other times, when at last, after many a
struggle with incongruous hindrances, our own chosen work has lain before us
disentangled from all encumbrances & unrealities, and we have felt that nothing
could withhold us not even ourselves, from doing the work we were born to do,
and that we were men and worthy of life. Such rest, and such work, I earnestly
wish for myself and for you, and for all men; to have space and freedom to gain
such rest & such work is the end of politics; to learn how best to gain it is
the end of education; to learn its inmost meaning is the end of religion."
Volume II Notes: Inside front cover: Loose, a broadside describing
the fund raising campaign to build a Morris Memorial Hall at Kelmscott,
Oxfordshire. Among those named on the General Committee are Walter De La Mare,
Thomas Hardy, David Lloyd George, G. Bernard Shaw, and Senator W. B. Yeats.
Frontispiece: Pasted-in map of a Morris landscape, which includes The Great
Mountains, Desert Wafte, The Woods Masterless, and City of the Sundering Flood.
Morris, William. The Wood Beyond the World. London:
Longman Green and Company, 1913. Pocket Edition. Notes: Inside front
cover: Pasted in, a clipped reproduction of a portrait of Morris by G. F.
Watts; loose, a clipping with a reproduction of a Burne-Jones woodcut
illustration for the Kelmscott Chaucer, along with a description of the book and
its genesis.
Morton, H. V. In Scotland Again. New York: Dodd,
Mead and Company, 1933. Notes: Flyleaf: Pasted in, a clipped photo
of H. V. Morton. Page 286: Loose, a collection of clippings from The
Scots Magazine: (1) article titled "The Centre of Scotland: Queen Mary’s
Harp and Hunting," by Alan Graeme, pp. 321-328, New Series Vol. XIII, No. 5,
August 1930; (2) illustration panel captioned "The Centre of Scotland" and
showing pictures of the "Queen Mary" harp and Tigh-Nateud, "the house of the
strings"; (3) article titled "The Secret of Glamis," by Norval Scrymgeour, pp.
7-14 (n.d.), with two photographs of the place; (4) a panel of pictures of Fort
George at Inverness, the ruins of Bernera Barracks in Glenelg, "An Early Black
Watch Uniform, and a ruined castle atop what appears to be an ancient barrow
(Una has written in the margin, "ruins of Ruthven Barracks in Badenoch"); (5) a
photograph of a cluster of buildings on the seacoast; (6) two panels, each of
four photographs of dovecotes; (7) a panel of pictures of the railway viaduct at
Newbridge, the "Cat Stane," and the village of Cramond; (8) clipped article, "I
Went by Motor-Bike to Climb Croagh Patrick" by John C. Boyne (n.d.); (9) clipped
photos of Loch Seaforth and Loch Boisdale.
Morton, H. V. In Search of England. London: Methuen
and Company, 1931. Notes: Flyleaf: In Una’s hand, "‘The Exiles.
Are you not weary in your distant places / Far, far from Scotland of the mist
and storm, / In drowsy airs, the sun smite on your faces / The days so long and
warm? // We tread the miry roads, the rain-drenched heather / We are the men, we
battle, we endure! / God’s pity for you people in your weather / Of swooning
winds, calm seas and skies demure!’ ‘Lord we pray thee to send us a wind: no a
rantin’, tantin, tearin, wind but a . . . . (I meant to write this in the
‘Search of Scotland’ vol. U. J.)." Page 1: Pasted in, a clipped photo of
a tor in Dartmoor "Forest." Page 64: Pasted in, a clipped photo of
Clovelly. Page 80: Loose, a souvenir card, written in Una’s hand on back,
"Stake Church, etching by Norman Hepple." Page 106: Loose, four clipped
color photographs of alabaster carvings produced in the 14th and 15th centuries
at Nottingham; an admission ticket for the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity
at Stratford-Upon-Avon; and a sheet of letterhead from Ye Olde Hostel of
God-Begot, Winchester. Page 236: Loose, a clipped photo of Dale Abbey
Mill (according to Una’s note). Page 286: Notes in Una’s hand: "Balmoral
rhymes with ‘floral’; Fowey = Foy; Bodiam + Bedgem; Alnurick = Annick." Pages
288-89: Pasted in, a clipped, fragmented article about the construction of
ancient farm buildings in England. Page 289: In Una’s hand, "On All
Soul’s Day Shropshire children used to visit farmhouses during the dinner hour
and sing ‘A-Souling: Soul, Soul, for an apple or two / Got no apples: a pear
will do / A ha’ penny or a penny, a plum or a cherry / Or anything else to make
us all merry.’" Page 290: Two clipped reviews of The Villages of
England by A. K. Wickham. Pages 292-93: A clipped article about the
custom of "swan-upping," the annual practice of marking young birds in order to
track their progress and welfare. Page 294: A clipped article titled,
"The Last of a Family of Bowl-Makers: Craftsman on the Downs: Artistry is Wood
Work." Below, Una notes, "See page 9, where Morton describes a visit with a bowl
maker." Page 295: In Una’s hand, "‘Born in America, in Europe bred, In
Africa traveled and in Asia wed. Much good, some ill he did, so hope all’s even,
And that his soul thro’ mercey’s gone to Heaven!’ Wrexham epitaph of Elihu
Yale." Page 296: A clipped picture of the Old London Bridge. Inside
back cover: Clipped photos: A fifteenth or sixteenth-century grinding stone,
and the pre-Elizabethan well from which the grindstone was excavated.
Morton, H. V. In Search of Ireland. New York: Dodd
Mead and Company, 1931. Notes: Inside front and back covers:
Pasted-in clippings of (1) scenes from Ireland (Luccan, "a lonely road in
Connemara"; (2) "Key to places of interest at Glendalough"; (3) a scene "between
Bunbeg and the Bloody Foreland"; (4) a souvenir admission ticket to St. Michan’s
Church and Vaults (A. D. 1096 "in which Bodies may be seen in a wonderful state
of preservation, though not embalmed)"; (5) and a clipped photo of a
horseshoe-shaped entrance to a blacksmith’s forge in County Antrim.
Morton, H. V. In Search of Scotland. London:
Methuen and Company, 1929. Notes: Half-title page: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers, Scotland, 1929, 1937." Pasted in, a motor car ticket for the Kylesku
Ferry and an admission ticket for John Knox’s House, "The only Pre-Reformation
Dwelling-House in Edinburgh now preserving its original architectural features."
Dedication page: Pasted in, a printed list from L. Hampton, "The Scottish
Book Shop," listing "Souvenir Books of Scotland." Table of Contents: Red
"X" to mark Chapter 9 title, which reads, "I go by sea to Skye, walk through a
gorge, meet an eagle, see the Fairy Flag of Dunvegan, and try to keep an
appointment with Prince Charlie." Page 83: Pasted-in clipped photograph
captioned "A Fine View of Braemar Castle." Page 93: Pasted-in clipped
photograph of Kilmuir in Skye. Page 105: Pasted-in clipped pictures of
"The Fair Maid’s House, Perth," and "Flodden Field." Page 218: Pasted-in
clipped photo of Glamis Castle. Page 234: Pasted-in clipped picture of
The Brig of Balgownie, reputed to be the oldest bridge in Scotland. Page 247:
Pasted-in clipped photo of the graveyard of St. Kilda. Back flyleaves:
Pasted in, the following: clipped recipe for Haggis; clipped woodcut of
Cawdor Castle; clipped woodcut captioned "Mary Queen of Scots Before Her
Execution." Inside back cover: Pasted in, the following: (1) clipped
photographs of the Manor Lodge, Sheffield, "the only place of imprisonment of
Mary, Queen of Scots, which is intact"; (2) "The Opening of the Castle of Eilean
Donan, Ross-Shire"; (3) "Clan Macrae Memorial"; and "Dunvegan Castle, Skye, and
Blair Castle (Duke of Atholl)." In Una’s hand: "What ails ye at the mist, sir?
It weets the sod, it slackens the yowes (ewes) and - it’s God’s will."
Mullen, Pat. Man of Aran (with sixteen characteristic
scenes from the film). New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1935.
Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, September 1935.
(We saw the film with Ellen and Mollie Sept. 25th ‘35.)" Half-title page:
Pasted-in clipped photograph of bronze bust of "Tiger" King ("Man of Aran").
Table of Contents page: Una has identified, in hand, the page numbers for
all of the illustrations in the book.
Myers, F. W. H. Wordsworth. In English Men of
Letters. Ed. John Morley. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1902.
Notes: Inside front cover: Pasted in, a clipped photo captioned
"Rydal Mount, the Home of the Poet Wordsworth, in the Lake District."
Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped review (author and source unidentified) of
William Wordsworth and Annette Vallon by Emile Legouis. Half-title page:
Inscribed "Jeffers. Tor House - Carmel." Opposite Table of Contents:
Pasted-in clipped sketch of William Wordsworth, 1805, from pencil drawing by
Henry Edridge. Page 74: pasted-in clipped portrait of William Wordsworth.
Page 153: Pasted-in clipped sketch of Dora Wordsworth. Page 180:
Loose, clipped "Men and Books" column by Malcolm Muggeridge from Time and
Tide, February 18, 1939, reviewing The Letters of William and Dorothy
Wordsworth: The Later Years. Back flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped review (author
and source unidentified) of Wordsworth’s French Daughter: The Story of Her
Birth, with the Certificates of Her Baptism and Marriage," by George Mc Lean
Harper. In Una’s hand, "‘These are among the pieces that make Wordsworth a poet
to live with: he repairs the daily wear and tear, puts what the fret of the day
has rubbed thru or rubbed off, sends us forth in the morning whole.’ (Viscount
Morley’s ‘Recollections.’)" Inside back cover: Pasted-in clipped photo of
the portrait of William Wordsworth which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery,
London.
Nelson, John Herbert. Contemporary Trends: American
Literature Since 1914. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1933. Notes:
Inside front cover: Inscribed "Frances Pattee" and "K.K.T." This book, in
which Jeffers is represented by four poems, appears to have been closely
studied--almost as if it were a textbook and the student studying for
examinations. While the marks in the book do not in most cases distinguish
themselves as having been made by Una or Robinson Jeffers, I have noted a couple
of clues characteristic of Una--a handwritten definition between the lines in
one passage, and a marked-off paragraph which contains commentary likely to be
of interest to both Una and Robin. Since the book is heavily marked, it would be
necessary to transcribe nearly all of its 500 pages in order to point out topics
which seem to have been of interest. Instead, I will point out what seems of
particular interest to the book’s reader, and to Jeffers scholars. The Preface
claims this volume as representing "the first attempt to treat as a distinct
period American literary history since 1914" and it goes on to report that six
or eight authors whose work was chosen for inclusion--"Randolph Bourne and John
Dewey, for example--were included because they symbolize forces in the age or
have decidedly influenced its thoughts." Page 9: Double-marked is the
paragraph in the book’s introduction, titled "Contemporary Trends," which
discusses the "two large general classes" of "American poetry written since
1914." The first type, "concerned chiefly with physical or abstract beauty and
with the individual artist’s impressions of the myriad phenomena of life. . . .
"The second class, represented in much of the work of Robinson, Masters, Eliot,
Aiken, MacLeish, and Jeffers was of a more robust order. Frequently dramatic or
narrative in form and usually speculative in temper whatever the form, it dealt
with the vast theme of human nature, seen against the complex background of
twentieth century conditions. Not a little of it might with propriety be called
‘problem poetry.’ . . . Unquestionably its spirit was in harmony with the spirit
of the times, upon which it was a revealing commentary." (Much of what is quoted
is underlined--by Una?) Pages 318-23: Jeffers’ "Ode on Human Destinies,"
"Boats in a Fog," "Gale in April," and "To the Stone-Cutters." Page 490:
Jeffers’ biography and bibliography are not marked--unlike those surrounding.
Following the usual brief summary of his early life the editor says of Jeffers,
"His early volumes of poetry made little impression, but upon the publication of
Tamar, 1924, attention was drawn to him, and he acquired a reputation
which has been strengthened by the books which followed. He apparently cares
little for fame, however, and continues his way unmoved by the opinions of
critics and the reading public. Since 1925 his work has exerted a direct and
strong influence on the field of poetry. He is a poet of deep and elemental
human passions, as well as a reverent worshiper of beauty, aware of the terrible
irony in the fact that the loveliness of the world is at once so enduring and,
from the point of view of the individual, so fleeting. His sternly tragic mood
emanates from the realization of the great void left in the modern world by the
dissipation of man’s religious and philosophical illusions." The list of
criticism includes Sterling, Robinson Jeffers; de Casseres, Bookman
LXVI; Van Doren, Nation CXXX; Deutsch, New Republic LI;
Davis, Poetry XXXI; Winters, Poetry XXXV; Seaver, Saturday
Review II; Gorman, Saturday Review IV.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to
a Philosophy of the Future. Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis, 1909. Second Edition,
Number 1782/2000. Notes: Page 94: Marked, "The more abstract the
truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it." Page 11:
Corner turned down, the page begins with the following: "Indeed, to
understand how the abstruse metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been
arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself: ‘What morality do
they (or does he) aim at?’ Accordingly, I do not believe that an ‘impulse to
knowledge’ is the father of philosophy; but that another impulse, here as
elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an
instrument. . . ."
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book
for All and None. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908. Notes:
Page 198: Loose, a handbill advertizing The Antichrist of Nietzsche
from The Fanerolico Press, London. The handbill quotes (in caps) from the book:
"WITH THIS I COMPLETE MY INDICTMENT AND PRONOUNCE MY JUDGEMENT: I CONDEMN
CHRISTIANITY! I BRING AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH THE MOST TERRIBLE ACCUSATION
THAT HAS EVER BEEN UTTERED. I SAY THAT IT IS THE WORST OF POSSIBLE CORRUPTIONS,
THAT IT SEEKS TO EFFECT THE ULTIMATE CORRUPTION, THE MOST DREADFUL CORRUPTION. .
. . " In Una’s hand at bottom, "Nietsche ‘Anti-Christ.’"
Norway, Arthur. Highways and Byways in Devon and
Cornwall. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1919. Notes: Back
flyleaf: Pasted in, a clipped photograph of St. Buryan, location of a
fifteenth century granite tower.
Nutting, Wallace. Ireland Beautiful. Framingham,
Massachusetts: Old America Company, 1925. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "From your Irish Ellen" and "Una Jeffers." Inside front cover:
Pasted in, two clipped photos captioned in Una’s hand: "Ballintoy, near
Ballycastle, Co. Antrim" and "Cushendun Glendun river Co. Antrim Slievanona
hills." Half-title page: Pasted in, three clipped photos: Ancient Tablet,
Galway; Ardfert Abbey, Co. Kerry; and Clifden, Co. Galway. Page 7: Pasted
in, a photo captioned in hand, "Co. Antrim." Page 303: Pasted in, a
clipped picture captioned "St. Kevin’s Kitchen, Glendalough." Inside back
cover: Pasted in, five clipped photos: (1) Selokar Abbey, Wexford; (2) "The
Kitchen of Miss Jenny M. Neill’s Cottage, County Antrim"; (3) French Church,
Waterford; (4) Holy Cross Abbey, Co. Tipperary; (5) Lough Corrib, Co. Galway.
O’Faolain, Sean. An Irish Journey. London:
Longmans, Green and Company, 1940. Notes: Title page: Una writes
next author’s name, "John Whelan."
O’Flaherty, Liam. Red Barbara and Other Stories: The
Mountain Tavern, Prey, the Oar. New York: Crosby Gaige, 1928. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed by the author.
O’Flaherty, Tom. Aranmen All. Dublin: At the Sign
of the Three Candles, 1934. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To Una and
Robin with my love and Irish devotion. Albert M. Bender, 1936. ‘How’s poor old
Ireland, and how does she stand?’"
O’Grady, Standish. The Bog of Stars and Other Stories
and Sketches of Elizabethan Ireland. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1923.
Notes: Inside front cover: Loose, a typescript copy of "Excerpt from
Good-Bye to All That, by Robert Graves, Blue Ribbon Books, New York, p.
10." The excerpt reads, "When Cromwell came to Ireland and ravaged the country,
Moira O’Brien, the last surviving member of the great Clan O’Brien, who were the
paramount chiefs of the country round Limerick, came to him one day and said:
"General, you have killed my father and my uncles, my husband and brothers. I am
left as the sole heiress of these lands. Do you intend to confiscate them?"
Cromwell is said to have been struck by her magnificent presence and to have
answered that that certainly had been his intention. But that she could keep her
lands, or a part of them, on condition that she married one of his officers. And
so the officers of the regiment which had taken a leading part in hunting down
the O’Briens were invited to take a pack of cards and cut for the privilege of
marrying Moira and succeeding to the estate. The winner was one Ensign Cooper.
Moira, a few weeks after her marriage, found herself pregnant. Convinced that it
was a male heir, as indeed it proved, she kicked her husband to death. It is
said that she kicked him in the pit of the stomach after making him drunk. The
Coopers have always been a haunted family and Hibernicis ipsis Hibernicores
. . . ."
O’Neill, Eugene G. Beyond the Horizon: A Play in Three
Acts. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1920. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscription "To Una Jeffers who (in the clearest vision) has followed the call,
ever beyond the horizon. May she always hear it -- and be happy! And forgive the
mixing of my metaphors. E. C. B. B. Sept 7, 1920, San Francisco." Inside back
cover: Pasted in, a clipped photograph of O’Neill.
O’Neill, Eugene. Desire Under the Elms: A Play in Three
Parts. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1925. Notes: This volume is part
of the Provincetown-Greenwich Plays series. Flyleaf: In hand, "Una
Jeffers." Inside front cover: Loose, two clipped articles: (1) a review
from The Fortnightly (Fall 1932, pp. 16-18)-- titled "O’Neill’s Finest
Play"--of Mourning Becomes Electra; and an article from The New
Republic (March 16, 1927, pp. 91-95) by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant titled
"O’Neill: the Man with a Mask, in which O’Neill is characterized as an
"Irish-American mystic," a "tortured dreamer," and a grown-up "sensitive
thirteen-year-old boy." Flyleaf: A clipped letter to an editor from
O’Neill: "But where I feel myself most neglected is just where I set most store
by myself--as a bit of a poet who has labored with the spoken word to evolve
original rhythms where beauty apparently isn’t--"Jones," "Ape," "God’s Chillun,"
"Desire," &c.--and to see the transfiguring nobility of tragedy, in as near the
Greek sense as one can grasp it, in seemingly the most ignoble, debased lives.
And just here is where I am a most confirmed mystic, too, for I’m always, always
trying to interpret Life in terms of lives, never just lives in terms of
character. I’m always acutely conscious of the Force behind (Fate, God, our
biological past creating our present, whatever one calls it--Mystery, certainly)
and of the one eternal tragedy of Man in his glorious, self-destructive struggle
to make the Force express him instead of being, as an animal is, an
infinitesimal incident in its expression. And my profound conviction is that
this is the only subject worth writing about and that it is possible--or can
be--to develop a tragic expression in terms of transfigured modern values and
symbols in the theatre which may to some degree bring home to members of a
modern audience their ennobling identity with the tragic figures on the stage.
Of course this is very much the dream, and the Greek dream in tragedy is the
noblest ever."
O’Neill, Moira. Songs of the Glens of Antrim.
Edinburgh, William Blackwood and Sons, 1910. Notes: Back flyleaf:
Pasted in, a clipped photo captioned "Glenarm Agricultural Show--Sheep Dog
Trials in Progress--Mr. John McKeown’s (Glens of Antrim) dog performing."
Inside back cover: Pasted in, a clipped photo labeled in Una’s hand "Ruins
of Dunaney Castle. Ballycastle."
Ó Crohan, Tomás. The Islandman. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1935. Notes: Half-title page: Inscribed "To Robin
and Una from Albert." Page 96: Loose, a review of Twenty Years
A-growing, by Maurice O’Sullivan--the story of the relationship between
Tomás O’Crohan and Maurice O’Sullivan, which resulted in the publication of two
books by O’Crohan, a fisherman who was well past his middle years before he
learned to read and write. The book’s jacket quotes O’Crohan: "I remember the
bloom of my vigour. . . . I have known famine and plenty. . . . One day there
will be none left of all I have mentioned in this book. . . . When I am gone men
will know what life was like in my time."
Ó Òuirinne, Séamus and Páðraig Ó Òálaig, The
Educational Pronouncing Dictionary of the Irish Language. Dublin: Fred Hanna
Ltd., n.d. Notes: Inside back cover: In Una’s hand: "Each letter
of Gaelic alphabet is called by the name of a tree (with four exceptions):
ailm - elm; beite - birch; coll - hazel; dur - oak;
eagh - aspen; feara - alder; gath - ivy; huath - white
thorn; iogh - yew; luis - rowan or quicken; muin - vine;
nuin - ash; oiv - spindle tree; peith - pine; ruis -
elder; suil - sally; teine - furze; ur - heather."
Oesterle, Louis. The Golden Treasury of Piano-Music: A
Collection of Pieces written for the Virginal, Spinet, Harpsichord and
Clavichord by Composers of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.
New York: G. Schirmer, 1904. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "To Una
Jeffers and Her Tower. Helen Augur Vinton, March, 1928." Inside back cover:
Clipped photograph of Arnold Dolmetsch, under which Una has written, "Who
first revealed to us the loveliness of Wm. Byrd and early English music as he
played upon his lute, harpsichord and viola d’amour."
Page, T. E. Q. Horatii Flacci: Carminum: Liber 1.
Edited for Use in the Schools. London: Macmillan Company, 1884. Notes:
Inside front cover: Inscribed "E. D. Palmer, Hillsdale 1889." In
Una’s hand below, a translation of an ode by Horace addressed to Phyllis.
Flyleaf: A translation, which reads, "Venus asleep with her cheek pillowed
on her rounded arm and violets withering in her hair." Back flyleaf: A
translation, which reads, "I have been in the woods alone / I have loved hidden
places / Tumult of men I shun / And the crowding faces. / Now the snow vanishes
/ Out the leaves start / The nightingale’s singing / Love’s in the heart."
Page, Thomas Nelson. In Ole Virginia or Marse Chan and
Other Stories. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Küster, Feb. 1909."
Palgrave, Francis Turner. The Golden Treasury of the
Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language. New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell and Company, c. 1883. Notes: Front cover: In Una’s hand,
"And in his heart my heart is locked / And in his life my life. Ch. Rossetti."
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Küster, Jan. ‘08." Page 180: Loose, an
illustrated prayer card with Nativity scene and poem. Page 254: Loose, a
clipped reproduction of print of Robert Herrick’s bust on pedestal. Page 318:
Loose, clipped from Sonnet Sequences (Vol. 1, No. 8, January 1929), a
brief biography of Sir Philip Sidney and "Ten Sonnets from Stella by
Sidney."
Parkinson, James and E. A. Ould. Old Cottages, Farm
Houses, and Other Half-Timber Buildings in Shropshire, Herefordshire, and
Cheshire. London: B. T. Batsford, 1904. Notes: Inside front cover:
Inscription "to Gerald Poynton Mander, from his mother, Xmas 1904" and price
in pencil--£2-10-0. Loose, four items: (1) a 4" x 4" paper with a pencil sketch
of a farm house, tower and barn, and in Una’s hand, the following note:
"Donnan’s idea of Tor House and later buildings"; (2) envelope from
ANTA-Monterey Drama Festival containing two tickets to a performance of
Oedipus Rex and Dr. Willy Nilly; (3) clippings of photos of peacocks
at Isola Bella in the Borromean Islands, Italy; (4) announcement in German of
1952 season for Das Nachtstudio.
Parry, William. The Last Days of Lord Byron: with His
Lordship’s Opinions on Various Subjects, Particularly on the State and Prospects
of Greece. London: Knight and Lacey, 1825. Notes: Inside front
cover: Pasted in, a clipped advertisement which reads "659. Parry’s Last
Days of Lord Byron, with his Lordship’s Opinions on various subjects,
particularly on the State and Prospects of Greece, Illustrated With Coloured
Plates By Robert Seymour, 8vo, hf. morocco, 10s 6d, Scarce. 1825."
Pater, Walter. Marius the Epicurean: His Sensations and
Ideas. Volume I. London: Macmillan and Company, Ltd., 1920. Notes:
Page 115: Loose, small (2½" x 3½") etching with the following penciled
identifications: "1-50"; "Hill Farm near Poutsdsra"; "Huntsman-Front 35."
Page 123: In reference to the Latin "Animula Vagula": "Animula, Vagula,
Blandula / Hospes comesque corporis, / Quae nunc abibis in loca? / Pallidula,
rigida, nudula. / The Emperor Hadrian to his Soul." / In hand below:
"Nec ut soles dabis iacos" in the text, Una writes the English
translation in hand: "Little pleasant wavering soul / Guest and companion of my
body / Where are you going away to now? / Pale, naked, stiff, little thing, /
And you won’t be making jokes as you used to."
Pater, Walter. The Renaissance: Studies in Art and
Poetry. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1909. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers."
Payne, John. Stories of Boccaccio (The Decameron): With
all the Poems (Many of Which are Omitted in Other Editions); and with Notes to
Each Story, Giving Valuable Historical Data and Showing the Influence of The
Decameron on the Literature of Europe in Ancient and Modern Times--Forming,
in Many Instances, a Key to the Personages of the Story. Included Also Ye Merry
Tale, Now First Done in English. n.p.: The Bibliophilist Library (Edward
Hugele), 1903. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Küster, 1910
January."
Petrie, George. The Ecclesiastical Architecture of
Ireland, Anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion; Comprising an Essay on the
Origin and Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, Which Obtained the Gold Medal
and Prize of the Royal Irish Academy. Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1845.
Notes: Back flyleaf: Written in RJ’s hand: "Round towers we have
visited in Ireland. 1. Armoy; 2. Antrim; 3. Ballydooley? [question mark his]; 4.
Clones; 5. Cashel; 7. Cloyne; 8-9. Clonmacnoise; 10. Drumbo; 11. Drumcliffe; 12.
Donaughenore; 13. Devenish; 14-15. Glendolough; 16. Kells; 17. Kilkenny; 18.
Kilmacduagh (biggest stones); 19. Monasterboice; 20. Melic; 21. Lendrum; 22.
Swords; 23. Turlough; 24. Waterloo? [question mark his]." Written in Una’s hand:
"In Scotland Brechin." Inside back cover: Written in another hand,
perhaps RJ’s: "Scotland, Kilmacduagh in Galway, Brechin, Kùlela, Abernathy,
Antrim, Trummery in Co. Antrim, Rattou in Kerry, Clondalkin, Ardmore in
Waterford, Drumbo in Down, Glendolough in Wicklow, Onghterard in Kildara, Tory
Ireland, Dinaghmore in Mobth, Tullcherin in Kilkenny, Cashol Roscrea, Timahre -
Queen’s County, Monasterboice in Louth, Ram Island in Antrim, Cloyne, Kinneh in
Cork, Maghera, Dysert. Scots: Abernathy Brechin in County of Angus."
Petrie, W. M. Flinders. The Revolutions of
Civilisation. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1922. Notes: Flyleaf:
In pencil, the note "page 9." Page 9: Under the heading "The Great
Year," the author describes the ancient concept of a "great year" coming at the
end of a millennium (in this case the Etruscans’ great year, which occurred in
87 B. C.), "when the sky was serene and clear there was heard in it the sound of
a trumpet, so shrill and mournful that it frightened and astonished the whole
city." Una’s note in the margin reads, "Plutarch’s Lives." Chapter titled
"The National View of Civilisation": Several sections are marked in this
chapter, whose purpose it is to catalog and compare a variety of civilizations
in terms of their cycles of development and collapse. Following a chart
comparing the 1520-year "defined periods" in the East with the 1320-year periods
in the West, a line in the margin highlights the following: "Thus the Eastern
phase, on the whole, keeps about 3½ centuries in advance of the Mediterranean,
varying from 2 to 5½ centuries. These results give some insight into the general
meaning of historical conditions. The impression that civilisation always comes
from the East is due to the East being a few centuries ahead of the West in its
phase. Thus on the rise of a wave the East is more civilised; while on the fall
of a wave--which does not attract attention--it is less civilised." Pages
110-14: Underlined in pencil, following a chart comparing "periods of
civilization" in the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, India and Mexico, is the
sentence, "It is evident, therefore, that the length of period is practically
alike in different parts of the globe, suggesting that it is due to the
human constitution rather than to external causes." Some subsequent passages in
a brief discussion of the Arabs in Spain are underlined--one noting the
elaborate gardens, the literary academies--in honor of which new poems were
recited--and a "fund for the endowment of learned men [all underlines
shown are added to the text in pencil]"; a passage describing the great library
of Al Hakem at Cordova which held 600,000 volumes (page 112); and a passage
arguing that the final denouement for this great era came with the
institution of "a democratic system," in which rulers were set up and overthrown
"with great frequency by the power of the vox populi. This regular
feature of a decaying civilisation ["!" in margin] shows that it had
certainly passed all its stages of growth and glory" (page 113). On page 114,
the following passage has been marked: "In short, every civilisation of a
settled population tends to incessant decay from its maximum condition;
and this decay continues until it is too weak to initiate anything, when a fresh
race comes in, and utlises the old stock to graft on, both in blood and
culture."
Philipon, M., O. P. The Eternal Purpose.
Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1952. Notes: Flyleaf:
Stamped "Carmelite Monastery, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Box 17, California." Behind
flyleaf: Loose, a picture postcard from the Carmelite Monastery showing the
sanctuary bathed in golden light. On the back, a note: "Dear Mr. Jeffers -- Here
is where you and Donnan and his family are remembered each morning as we assist
at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. With loving prayers for your welfare -- Sr.
Francisca." Page 7: Loose, a carefully cut return address label from Box
7, Carmel. On page 7 the text reads in part, "By his body man is bound to this
visible world, but by his soul he breaks his fetters and looks to the invisible
world of pure spirits, and there he is admitted, through grace, to the innermost
life of the Trinity, so that he lives by the same life and the same love as the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. . . ." Page 14: Small picture of Jesus on a
card. On page 14 the text reads in part, "Thus his divine destiny is the cause
both of man’s grandeur and, from another point of view, of his misery. If he is
faithful to the inspirations of the Spirit, ever stirring deep in his soul, he
will find God in each of his actions. . . ." Page 77: A bookmark with a
quotation from St. Thérèse: "Sanctity lies not in saying beautiful things, nor
even in thinking or feeling them: it lies in being truly willing to suffer." The
text on page 77 introduces the chapter that deals with suffering. Inside back
cover: A picture postcard of the Carmelite Monastery taken from a distance,
with the sea in the foreground.
Phillpotts, Eden. The Secret Woman: A Drama.
London: Duckworth and Company, 1912. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"Una Kuster, London. August 1912." Pasted below, clipped photo of Eden
Phillpotts.
Porter, Arthur Kingsley. The Crosses and Culture of
Ireland. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Most will be known to you-- But for that reason, perhaps, the
timlier, this token of the affection of Tim and Maud, For Robin and Una and the
Gemini. Xmas, 1931." Fig. 29-31: Loose at Figures 29 (Kells, Market
Cross), 30 (Anhenny, North Cross), and 31 (Dromiskin, Cross), a clipped photo of
large stone cross, with only "M. Praeger" written on the back. Inside back
cover: A note says, "Drumcliffe, Fig 76." Fig. 76: Note in Una’s
hand: "Yeats asked to be buried here ® and was re-interred here in 1948. He died
1939 in France."
Power, Eileen. Medieval People. London: Methuen and
Company, 1924. Notes: Inside front cover: Clipped photo of a
two-thousandth birthday celebration tournament at Carcassone. Illustration
page: On back, a pasted-in clipped sketch captioned, "An Anglo-Norman
Physician at His Patient’s Bedside." Inside back cover: Clipped sketches
captioned "The Thirteenth Century Physician Receiving and Visiting Patients,"
and seven loose pages of medieval illuminations.
Power, Rev. Richard E., Translator. The Gift of Life.
Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, 1943.
Notes: Inside front cover: Form, filled in by Una: "Maeve Carola
Jeffers born December 28, 1947, was reborn of water and the Holy Ghost in the
sacred font of Baptism on April 17, 1948, in the Church of Mission San Carlos
del Rio Carmel, Carmel, California. Sponsors were Ellen O’ Sullivan and Noël
Sullivan. Father Kelly, Pastor."
Powys, John Cowper. A Philosophy of Solitude. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1933. Notes: Front cover: Inscribed "Una
Jeffers, Tor House." Table of Contents: Pasted in, a glossy,
postcard-size photo of Powys, which accompanies an advertisment for this book.
Page 23: In discussing the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Powys
observes, "He accepts the whole grim Stoic Philosophy without a qualm . . . the
universal, unsympathetic, inhuman Reason, sweeping everything before it . . .
the eternal recurrence of all things . . . the soul only briefly surviving the
death of the body . . . the necessity of making oneself indifferent to both pain
and pleasure." Page 28: Penciled underlines as shown: "We learn from
Rousseau the art of enjoying a certain romantic life-illusion; in other
words a certain dramatic sense of the cosmic situation, a feeling of life
as something consciously and artfully simplified, with an imaginative
after-thought of its poetic value as thus simplified." Page 46: "We are
surrounded by things that are staggering; by things that are so miraculously
lovely that you feel they might dissolve at a touch; and by things so unbearably
atrocious that you feel you would go mad if you thought of them for more than
the flicker of a second." Page 47: "But the truth is that these
art-desperations, whether in imitation of life’s atrocities or of her glamour,
can never take the place of a real life lived from the depths of a person’s
individual soul." Page 48: "For this is the nature of our life upon earth
that we can only live by forgetting the intolerable. The transmutations of art
serve us but little in our struggle to enjoy and forget; and few artists, in our
time, appeal to all." There is an intellectual art for the few--too often
obscure and recondite--and there is a popular art, if art it can be called, that
ravishes the many. One or two great geniuses alone are left whose work hits the
imagination of universal humanity." Page 49: "The isolation of the self.
. . . gives a dignity, a beauty, a high and tragic significance to every
phenomenon of mortal life. Everywhere it destroys dullness. Everywhere it slays
the commonplace. Everywhere it touches with a natural, poetic poignance the
ultimate conditions of our existence on earth . . . it is only in solitude that
men and women can come to know the happiness that is like the delight of
children in nothing at all." Page 50: "It is . . . only the cultivation
of interior solitude, among crowded lives, that makes society endurable."
Powys, John Cowper. Autobiography. New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1934. Notes: Flyleaf: Pasted in, a clipped photo of
Powys (no caption). Page 474: Loose, a clipped fragment of the
publisher’s evaluation of the Powys book. Page 536: Loose, a clipped copy
(to accompany fragment at page 474) of a letter from Powys to the publisher,
explaining the rationale for this book.
Powys, John Cowper. Essays on De Maupassant, Anatole
France, William Blake. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Company, n.d.
Notes: Pocket Series Number 450. Inside back cover: Pasted in, a
picture captioned "Blake at Hampstead. From a Pencil Drawing by John Linnell."
Powys, Llewelyn. Earth Memories. New York: W. W.
Norton and Company, 1938. Notes: Page 142: Loose, a clipped
review, by "M. G,." of The Powys Brothers: A Study by Richard Heron Ward with
Three Portraits by Gertrude M. Powys; the review is most favorable to an
essay in the volume about Llewelyn Powys, and which criticizes Heron Ward’s
"panegyric, for the writer is completely under the spell of the Wizard of
Glastonbury [John Cowper Powys]." Page 267: Loose, at the first page of a
chapter titled "Gay Leopards," two letters: (1) letter dated March 6, 1936 and
signed by Llewelyn Powys. The handwriting is extremely difficult to read, but I
shall attempt to make sense of it here: "Chaldon Kenny, Dorchester, Dorset. Dear
Mrs. Robinson Jeffers, I very much appreciated your kindness in sending me such
a long and interesting letter. ______ and good of you. I am so __________ you
are fond of Dorset and ________ you liked my essays -- _______ _______ _______
________ _________ ________ gives me peculiar[?] pleasure. Yes I was sorry to
hear of W. Whitehead’s death. We were fond of him the _______ ________ _____
______ ______ _______ of selflessness-- He [was very?] good to us when we were
in Woodstock. It was kind of you to send me wood from "The ____" I have always
been fond of ______ of ______ -- Its flame-like spirit of ______ and the giant
oak spirit _____ old _______ -- I hope he lives as long as Hobl___ who wrote a
[long life working without any apology *_____ _______ finally ______ old. I wish
we didn’t live so far from each other --would dearly love to meet you both and
have you live not far away in some Calkin[?] ______ of Dorset. I do believe I am
[getting better?] slowly -- Perhaps I shall one day come to California -- I
always like to think of this beautiful land. Yours in ________, Llewelyn Powys."
Letter #2 is dated March 1930 and signed by Philippa Powys: "Chy____, East
Chaldon, Dorchester, Dorset. Dear Mr. Jeffers, The gift of your latest poems was
a wonderful surprise to me - and I send you great gratitude for the thought and
the possession of it. It was indeed an irony of fate that you should have been
so near us as Dorchester last November, the month which I love best of all on
these bare chalk cliffs. May there still come a day when I shall see you. ‘Dear
Judas’ has given me much to enjoy and much to reflect on. Thank you! And again I
thank you. As always I love and admire your work. Yours forever, Phillipa
Powys." Page 268: Loose, a clipped letter from Chas. A. Mac I. Thyne,
R.L.S. Club, Glasgow, to the editor of a periodical responding to an article (in
the "July 28 issue") by Llewelyn Powys, which was titled "R.L.S. in the Alps";
in it, the writer claims that Powys was not quite "fair" to Stevenson, whom
Powys evidently characterized as being critical of the Swiss peasantry at Davos,
a health resort. The clipping is pasted to a slip from Durrant’s Press Cuttings,
which specifies John O’London’s Weekly as the source. Inside back
cover: Una’s handwritten note reads, "churchbells 47." Pages 47-48:
Pasted in, two clipped paragraphs about the three pairs of "phantoms" that the
bells evoke: the knight and his lady; the rook boy and the goose girl; and the
hen wife and the swineherd.
Powys, Llewelyn. Love and Death: An Imaginary
Autobiography. London: John Lane the Bodley Head, 1939. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel." Jacket flap: Una
notes three references to the unicorn: Page 91-- "I have seen the young at play
in their secret garden, / Where the tall white unicorns come, and the phoenix
flies. / I have seen the scarlet mouth that was curled for singing, / And the
proud bright head, and the careless beautiful eyes"; page 178--"A unicorn, she
told me, had been grazing on the smooth lawn. . . . the damp grass was
everywhere marked with the indents of his sharp hoofs different entirely from
the abatures of a stag, and that there were little heaps of grass-smelling dung
like goat’s dung, but dropped in pyramidic piles"; and page 228--"How untold is
the misery that has resulted from so frenzied an attempt to break the proud
spirit of the unicorn with horsewhip and crooked curb!"
Praeger, Robert Lloyd. Official Guide to County Down
and the Mourne Mountains. Belfast: M’Caw, Stevenson and Orr, Ltd., 1900.
Notes: Half-title page: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel."
Inside front cover: Pasted in, a clipped newspaper article (c. 1926)
titled "Ulster Monuments. Preserving Ancient Relics. Committee Issues List.
Links with Past to be Taken Over." A lengthy list follows.
Procter, Adelaide A. The Poems of Adelaide A. Procter.
New York: John W. Lovell, 1858. Notes: Introduction by Charles
Dickens. Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Call." Una notes two poems inside the
back cover: 148, "A Doubting Heart" and 315, "The Wind."
Prokosch, Frederic. Sunburned Ulysses. Lisboa,
1941. Notes: Number 20 of 22 copies printed and signed by Frederic
Prokosch. Flyleaf: Inscribed "For Una and Robinson Jeffers, with best
wishes. May 20[?], 1941." Inside back cover: Loose, a sheet of note paper
with Yale Club letterhead, with handwritten message from Prokosch: "Dear Mr.
Jeffers: Harpers told me they had an extra set of proofs of my poems, ‘The
Carnival,’ so I asked them to send it on to you. I sent you some poems of mine a
few years ago, but probably you don’t remember. I am sincere, though, when I say
that you are the only poet in America whose praise (or blame) would mean very
much to me! Very sincerely, Frederic Prokosch." Also loose, a postcard,
postmarked December 19, 1942, with reproduction in black and white of Cézanne’s
Chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan from the Frick Collection, New York and
inscription on correspondence side: "A merry Christmas from Frederic Prokosch."
Pulleyn, William. Church-Yard Gleanings and
Epigrammatic Scraps: Being a Collection of Remarkable Epitaphs and Epigrams,
Compiled from the Most Ancient as Well as Modern Sources, Foreign and Domestic,
Serious and Facetious: To Which are Annexed, Some Observations on Churches,
Church-Yards, Rites of Sepulture, Tombs, and Mausoleums; with Instructions for
Ascertaining the Dates of Ancient Monuments. London: Samuel Maunder, n.d.
Notes: Inside front cover: In Una’s hand, the following epitaphs:
"Here lies the body of Elizabeth Guerney / She fell out of a train and broke her
journey / (A Norfolk Churchyard)"; and "Her life was turning, turning / In mazes
of heat and sound, / But for peace her soul was yearning / And now peace laps
her round. (Matthew Arnold’s lines on Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish’s tombstone)."
Front flyleaves: In Una’s hand, "Go, tell the Spartans, thou that passest by
/ That here obedient to their laws we lie. (Epitaph on monument at
Thermopylae)"; and "The dissection and distribution of Giles Handcox / Who Earth
Bequeathed to Earth, to Heaven his soule / To friends his love, to the Poore a
five pound dole / To remain forever and be employed / For their best advantage
and releefe. In Daaglingworth, April the 9, 1638." Back flyleaf: Pasted
in, a clipped paragraph titled "Tombstone Reticence," which recalls the epitaph
on the tomb of the Marquis of Hastings, "Judge not, that ye be judged," as "a
notable instance of reticence in this field of literature." Below it is a small
clipping headed "Queen Elizabeth’s Gift: A Thackeray Quarrel," which includes an
epitaph on the tomb of Margaret Radcliffe: "Here lies, Lord have mercy upon her!
/ One of Elizabeth’s Maids of Honour, / Margaret Radcliffe; fair and witty, /
She died a maid--the more’s the pity." Inside back cover: In hand,
probably all copied or clipped by Una, several epigrams and clippings: (1) "A
Beaste, a mightie Fish, a Bird / Brocht men ye tidings of God’s word: / So to
Hys Servant in this place / A Kirk of Beastes brocht god Hys grace. (Graveyard
in Fairhope / John Laauriston’s grave)"; (2) "Fytton to wear a heavenly diadem"
(Epitaph on tomb of Fytton family at Gawsworth Cheshire)"; (3) "Here lies
Kildare / who killed Kildare? / Who dared Kildare to kill? / death killed
Kildare / And dare kill whom he will. (Limerick Cathedral)"; (4) "Thorpe’s
Corpse"; (5) "Louis Bonjour / 1841-1896 / Au Revoir / Vevey, Switzerland"; (6)
"‘Build they who list or they who wist, for he can build no more.’-- over tomb
of famous builder John Abel in Sarnesfield"; clippings headed (7) "An Eccentric’
Burial" about a man who was buried head down and (8) "Traffic Perils of 1827:
Coachman Was Killed by Hearse" containing the words from his tombstone,
"Passengers of every age, / I safely drove from stage to stage, / Till death
came by in a hearse unseen, / And stopped the course of my machine. / In love I
lived, in peace I died." Notes in Una’s hand also call attention to epigrams on
page 55 ("Medical Men"), page 60 ("Epitaphum Chemicum"), page 94 ("Man’s life is
like a winter’s day"), page 116 ("Fuller’s Earth"), page 163 ("gold"), page 166
("Cheltenham Airs"), and page 201 ("The Cook’s Drawer").
Quiller-Couch, A. T. Historical Tales from Shakespeare.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900. Notes: Inside front
cover: Inscribed in copperplate, "To Una from Edith, April 5th, 1900."
Quiller-Couch, Arthur. The Oxford Book of English
Verse: 1250-1900. New York: Oxford University Press, n.d. Notes:
Back flyleaf: Copied in Una’s hand, lines by William Watson, "Pass, thou
wild light, / Wild light on peaks that so / Grieve to let go / The day. / Lovely
thy tarrying, lovely too is night: / Pass thou away. / Pass, thou wild heart, /
Wild heart of youth that still / Hast half a will / To stay. / I grow too old a
comrade, let us part / Pass thou away." Inside back cover: Written in
pencil, a list of first lines and poem numbers: "38 - To his lute; 55 - Adieu
love, untrue love; 77 - My scallop shell of quiet; 101 - Fair and fair; 102 -
Farewell to Arms (helmet - hive for bees); 136 - Blow blow thou winter wind; 140
- Fear no more the heat; 152 - That time of year thou may’st in me behold [Una
has identified this in more than one place as a poem she is especially
interested in]; 158 - My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming; I
love not less, though less the show appear [marked passage: "Not that the
summer is less pleasant now / Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, /
But that wild music burthens every bough, / And sweet grown common lose their
dear delight."]; 167 - Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss; 170 - Follow thy fair
sun, unhappy shadow; 175 - The man of life upright, / Whose guiltless heart is
free / From all dishonest deeds, / Or thought of vanity; 204 - Art thou poor,
yet hast thou golden slumbers? / O sweet content!; 205 - Pack, clouds, away! and
welcome, day!; 280 - Exequy on his Wife (‘Accept, thou shrine of my dead saint,
/ Instead of dirges this complaint’); 575 - Late Leaves; 741 - Say not the
struggle naught availeth; 759 - They told me Heraclitus, they told me you were
dead; 765 - O Keith of Ravelston; 772 - Love in the Valley. Marked passage: from
Sonnet 7, which begins, "Being your slave, what should I do but tend / Upon the
hours and times of your desire?", the line "But, like a sad slave, stay and
think of nought / Save, where you are how happy you make those!" Page 489:
Loose, in the section on William Blake, a small, handmade book titled
Songs (Second Series) by William Blake (Los Angeles, 1941), printed by Janet
and Ward Ritchie "for Duncan Ward Ritchie born May 16, 1941." Una lists
additional titles: "Dirges: 134 - Dirge [Shakespeare]; Dirge of the Three Queens
[Shakespeare]; 209 - Aspatia’s Song [Fletcher]; 220 - Vanitas Vanitatum
[Webster]: "Vain the ambitions of kings / Who seek by trophies and dead things /
To leave a living name behind, / And weave but nets to catch the wind."].
Raswan, Carl R. Black Tents of Arabia (My Life Among
the Bedouins). Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1935. Notes:
Fontispiece: In hand, "Una Jeffers (Note: In the English edition of this
book is a long and minute account of breeding and training of Arabian horses.
Quotes from Lady Anne Blunt etc. and traced pedigrees etc." Dedication page:
Clipped picture of author.
Ravenhill, T. H. The Rollright Stones and the Men Who
Erected Them: Printed for the benefit of Parish activities in Little
Rollright. Little Rollright, Oxon, 1926. Notes: Front cover:
In Una’s hand, "September 1929, Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel."
Ridge, George Ross. Under the Georgia Sun. Coral
Gables: Wake-Brook House, 1961. Notes: First edition, number 143.
Flyleaf: Inscribed "For Robinson Jeffers. Yours with deepest admiration,
George Ross Ridge, 20 November 1961, Atlanta, Georgia." Inside back cover:
Loose, a printed broadside describing this book.
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Sonnets to Orpheus. London:
Hogarth Press, 1936. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor
House, Carmel." Inside front cover: Loose, a clipped review of
Medieval Latin Lyrics by Helen Waddell (review from The Commonweal,
September 17, 1937, written by Marie Shields Halvey). Halvey characterizes the
book as opening "a door into a world forgotten by most readers of English
literature; a door closed by the Reformation and the development of the
Protestant tradition in English letters on a world of wandering scholars and
lyric-voiced poets who sang of life and death; of bird and flower, dawn and
starlight, even as our minor poets sing today. In the history of the poets there
seem to have been no ‘dark ages.’" Page 30: Loose, two clipped articles:
(1) "Rilke and His Age" by Louise Bogan, pp. 34-42, from Poetry: A Magazine
of Verse; and (2) "Poets in the Modern World" by Eugene Davidson, pp.
171-175, from New Books in Review, in which Davidson duscusses two Rilke
books and one by Edna St. Vincent Millay: "Miss Millay and Rainer Maria Rilke
represent opposite strains of poetry. Miss Millay sings of immediately
recognizable heartaches, points of view, human relationships. . . . Rilke was of
a different kind--the poet as creator of a new thing, something that never
existed until he looked at it and transformed it into another plane of
perception." The book opens readily at pages 98-99, the location of the
following: "Ever-opening anemone, / does that meadow-morning lap of yours / mean
to catch the whole polyphony / that the singing light of heaven pours / on your
starry flower, so distended / to receive as much as heaven gives, / that
sometimes (such a fullness has descended), sunset, with it mild imperatives, /
almost fails to bend the too-retorted / edges of your petals back again? / What
a world of power unreported! / We, with our shows of violence, deceive. / Our
lives are longer, but on, O, what plane / shall we at last grow open and
receive?" Pages 110-11: (where the book also opens readily) a clipped
review (late spring 1939?), written by Basil de Selincourt, of The Duino
Elegies of Rainer Maria Rilke, with translation, introduction and commentary by
J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender (published by Hogarth Press). Selincourt
characterizes Rilke as "more difficult than Mr. [T. S.] Eliot ever was," a man
who "is embarked upon that most difficult of all adventures--the attempt to
convince himself that the eternal is inherent in the present; that the worth of
a man’s life depends on his capacity to see and realise eternal values." Text on
pages 110-111 reads, "Many a rule of death arose with deliberate rightness, /
all-subduing man, during your hunting past; / better than trap and net I know
you, quivering whiteness, / hanging down into the caves of the Karst. / They
gently let you in, as though you were only a token / to celebrate peace. And
then: a lad would twitch at your thong-- / and night would cast from the caves a
pitiful handful of broken- / flighted doves to the light. . . / But not even
that was wrong. / Let every breath of regret be far from the clarified seer,
/ not from the hunter alone, who, when seasons mature, / acts without failure or
fuss. / Killing is only a form of the sorrow we wander in here. . . / The
serener spirit finds pure / all that can happen to us." Back flyleaf: In
Una’s hand, "Rilke: ‘Genius is always a terror to its epoch.’"
Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Book of Hours: "Das
Stundenbuch." Norfolk Connecticut: New Directions, 1941. Notes:
Inside front cover: Loose, an excerpt from an unidentified journal article:
"Rainer Maria Rilke: Some War-Time Letters," translated by M.. D. Herter Norton
(pp. 11-36).
Rilke, Rainer Maria. The Journal of My Other Self.
New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1930. Notes: Flyleaf:
Inscribed "Una Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel, 1931." Written below the inscription,
"Descriptions of tapestries at the Cluny, ‘La Dame à la Licorice,’ p. 119;
Erik 108; The terrible death of old Chamberlain Brigge, 10; Piercing
of the heart, 149." All denote sections too long for this document. Inside
front cover: Loose, a typescript copy of an excerpt from Wartime Letters
of Rainer Maria Rilke with a handwritten note on the first page:
"Noël--Please return this excerpt from Rilke. Yrs, U.J." Content of the excerpt
is as follows: "Dr. Rudich will have told you that I cannot bring myself to read
books and articles that deal with my work; I long held it for a weakness that I
could not prevail upon myself to do so, and in part it may actually be nothing
else. Meanwhile I have had since about 1907, through an imperfect example (which
I shall mention presently), a growing conviction that seems after all singularly
to justify this consistent attitude or refusal. For I believe that as soon as an
artist has found the living center of his activity, nothing is so important for
him as to remain in it and never to go further away from it (for it is also the
center of his personality, his world) than up to the inside wall of what he is
quietly and steadily giving forth; his place is never, not even for an
instant, alongside the observer or judge. (At least not any more in an
environment in which the visible everywhere degenerates into the ambiguous and
temporary, into an expedient, into a scaffolding for anything whatever)[?]. And
indeed, it requires an almost acrobatic skill to leap from that observation-post
back into the inner center again, neatly and unharmed (the distances are too
great, the places themselves all too shaky for such an eminently inquisitive
feat). Most artists today use up their strength in this going back and forth,
and not only do they expend themselves in it, they get themselves hopelessly
entangled and lose a part of their essential innocence in the sin of having
surprised their work from the outside, tasted of it, shared in the enjoyment of
it! The infinitely grand and moving thing about Cézanne (and I have now come to
the ‘example’ mentioned above) is that during almost forty years he remained
uninterruptedly within his work, in the inmost center of it -- and I hope to
show some day how the incredible freshness and purity of his pictures is due to
this obstination[?]; their surface is actually like the flesh of a fruit just
broken open -- While most painters already stand facing their own pictures
enjoying and relishing them, violating them in the very process of the work as
onlookers and recipients . . . [?](I hope, as I say, some day convincingly to
point this out, this to me absolutely definitive attitude of Cézanne’s; it might
act as advice and warning for anyone deviously determined to be an artist.
--Wartime Letters Of Rainer Maria Rilke."
Rilke, Rainer Maria. Das Grunden-Buch: Enthltend die
drei Bucher. Leipzig: Intel-Verlag, 1931. Notes: Page 46:
Loose, a ticket for Car No. 8 on the Lucky Rail Terminal, Munich, Germany (in
English); and a "St. Teresa’s Bookmark" with the words, "Let nothing trouble
thee. / Let nothing frighten thee. / All things pass away. / God never changes.
/ Patience obtains all things. / Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God. /
God alone suffices." Page 78: Loose, two typed poems: (1) "Aber wer
hat das Dunkel begriffen? / Wer kann seine Nächte bestehn? / Erst wenn uns
Schmerzen zerissen, / lässt sich der Tod verstehn. // Nächtens kommt er ins
Haus, / ich kann die Angst nicht mehr heben. / Leichter ist alles am Tag / aber
der Tag löscht aus wie das Leben." and "Geleit zum ‘Stundenbuch’";
and (2) "Keiner ist näher an Gott als Du, / wir sind Ihm alle weit, / uns
schlossen sich die Wege zu, / Dir wurden alle Strassen breit. / Du spanntest
Deine Schwingen aus, / wir mussten im Schatten gehn, / Dein Sinnen wurde des
Schweigenden Haus, / uns aber liess Er im Leeren stehn." Below the second
poem, the handwritten initials, "H. v. M."
Rives, Amélie. Barbara Dering. Philadelphia: J. B.
Lippincott Company, 1900. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed "March 16,
1906, Una Küster." Flyleaf: Pasted-in clipped poems: "Before the Rain" by
Amélie Troubetzkoy and "Surrender" by Amélie Rives Chanler. The first stanza (of
three) of "Before the Rain" reads, "The blackcaps pipe among the reeds, / And
there’ll be rain to follow; / There is a murmur as of wind / In every coign and
hollow; / The wren do chatter of their fears / While swinging on the barley
ears." "Surrender" reads, "Take all of me--I am thine [o]wn, heart, soul, /
Brain, / body -- all; all that I am or dream / Is thine forever; yea, though
space should teem / With thy conditions, I’d fulfill the whole-- / Were to
fulfill them to be loved of thee. / Oh, love me! -- were to love me but a way /
To kill me -- love me; so to die would be / To live forever. Let me hear thee
say / Once only ‘Dear, I love thee’ -- then all life / Would be one sweet
remembrance, thou its king; / Nay, thou are that already, and the strife / Of
twenty worlds could not uncrown thee, / Bring, / O Time! my monarch to possess
his throne, / Which is to my heart and for himself alone."
Rives, Amélie. The Quick or the Dead? A Study.
Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1901. Notes: Flyleaf: Inscribed
"October 21, 1904 Una Küster." Preface page: Pasted onto left edge, a
handwritten inscription on linen stationery: "With best wishes, Yours very
sincerely, Amélie Troubetzkey 16th April 1906 Castle Hill, Cobham,
Virginia."
Road Book of Ireland.
London: Automobile Association, 1932. Inside front cover: Inscribed in
Una’s hand, "Robinson Jeffers, Tor House, Carmel, California, USA."
Flyleaves: A list in Una’s hand of 78 locations, presumably towers, which
includes "height and state" taken from the "Old List (c. 1842)." Sample entry:
"Kells ---- Meath ---- 99 --- I" and "Balla ---- Mayo ---- 50 -- I." Title
page: Notes indicate that red X’s next to entries signify locations seen in
1929 and 1937. The locations so identified are: Aghagower, Mayo; Antrim, Antrim;
Ardmore, Waterford; Armoy, Antrim; Balla, Mayo; Cashel, Tipperary; Castledermot,
Kildare; Clondalkin, Dublin; Clonmacnoise, Kings; Clones, Monaghan; Cloyne,
Cork; Devenish, Ferenanagh; Donoughmore, Meath; Doronpatrick, Down; Drumbo,
Down; Rumcliffe, Sligo; Dysert O’Dea, Clare; Iniscaltra, Clare; Kells, Meath;
Old Kilcullen, Kildare; Kildare, Kildare; Kilkenny (St. Canice), Kilkenny;
Killala, Mayo; Kilbammon, Galway; Killnaboy, Clare; Kilmacduagh, Galway; Kilree,
nr. Kells, Kilkenny; Kinneagh, Cork; Lusk, Dublin; Maghera, Down; Meelick, Mayo;
Monasterboice, Louth; Oran, Roscommon; Ram Island, Antrim; Rattoo, Kerry;
Roscrea, Tipperary; Scattery, Clare; Swords, Dublin; Taghadoe, Kildare; Timahoe,
Queens; Turlough, Mayo; Nendrum, Down; Ardrahen; Tory Island. Blue and penciled
X’s signify those seen in 1948: Carrigeen, Limerick, Dromiskin, Louth;
Glendalough, Wicklow; Iniskeen, Monaghan; Kilmallock, Limerick; Rathmichael,
Dublin; Timahoe, Queens; Trummery, Antrim. Some locations have pencilled check
marks; perhaps these are equivalent to X’s: Ballyvowiney, Cork; Brigoon (nr.
Mitchelstown), Cork; Downpatrick, Down; Killiskin, Queens; Moat, Sligo,
(Ballymoat); Raphoe, Donegal. A few names have the numeral two next to
them--perhaps signifying that the Jeffers had been there twice: Clonmacnoise,
Kings; Glendalough, Wicklow; Sligo, Sligo. Those locations listed but not marked
include: Aghadue, Kerry; Aghaviller, Kilkenny; Ardfert, Kerry; Ardpatrick,
Limerick; Ballygady, Galway; Boyle, Roscommon; Cork, Cork; Drumkleeve, Clare;
Dungiven, Londonderry; Fertagh, Kilkenny; Kellystown, Carlow; Killossy, Kildare;
Londonderry, Londonderry; Louth, Louth; Oughterard, Kildare; Roscom or Murrough,
Galway; Roscommon, Roscommon; Rosenallis, Queens; Sier Kieran, Kings;
Tulloherin, Kilkenny. Opposite Table of Contents, another list: Ballymore;
Creslough; Letterkenny; Stranarlar; Barnesmore Gap; Donegal; Peltigo; Lough
Derg; Bundoran; Sligo; Carrowmore (3 m. s. w. Sligo); Tobercuny; Ballyhaums;
Tuam (ask for Kilbammon° ½ mile); Kinvarru; Lisdoowarna; Cliffs of Moher (ask
for Kilnaboy° and Disert O’Dea°); Kilnesh (Scattery°); Ennis; Tulla; Mt. Shannon
(Iniscottra°), Limerick; Killmallock°; Ardpatrick°; Croom (1 mi. w. Dysert°);
Listowel, Rattoo° (betw. Ballyburnan and Ballyduff); Tralee (Arafert°);
Stradbally; dingle; Slea Head (Blaskets?); Kilorglin; Macgillicuddy; Reeks
(Parknasilla, etc?); Aghadne°; Killarney; Mallow; Ferney[?]; Cahir; Thurles
(Holy Cross); Johnstown (Fertagne°); Kilkenny; Ashavillar°; Kilkee° (s. w. of K
nr Callans); Kell; Thomastow for Terponit Abbey; Carlow; Timahoe (nw)°;
Castledermot; Baltinglass; Glenmalure; Brae; Rathmichael (2 mi nw)°. On Table of
Contents page, "Alternate Route: Limerick; Croom; Listowel, etc. Killarney;
Rathmore; Charleville; Kilmallock; Kilfanane; Ardpatrick; Tipperary Castle; Lusk
v[?] of Dublin and Swords." Notes about car hire companies (Liverpool Cars,
Prouts Liverpool, Ltd., and James McHarris County Garage) are mingled with the
following: "In a vault near this place / lie the Remains of Richard Woodward
Music II / Late organist of the church / Vicar of St. Pat. Cathedral / and
Predepter to the children of the 2 choirs / Dublin. His love of harmony /
equally refined his taste / and regulated his heart / and / while it gave melody
/ to his voice and compositions / added a consonant sweetness / to his temper
and conversation / So that / He lived eminently distinguished / In his public
profession / and died universally lamented / for his private virtues. / Died
Nov. 22 1777 in the 34 yr. of his age / To the memory of whose filial affection
/ His afflicted father / dedicates this last sad testimony / of parental love.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in
Thy sight." Page x: A list of 21 sites headed, "Wish to See 1948." Six
entries are marked with a penciled "X," indicating that they had indeed been
visited in 1948: Aghaviller, Kilkenny; Tullaherin, Kilkenny; Iniskeen, Monaghan;
Drumlane, Cavan; Drumiskin, Louth; Trummery nr. Ballinderry. Two marked with
"f’s," Annadown, Galway and Ardpatrick, Limerick. Three are marked with blue
checks, Desert Angus, Aranmore and Desert Carigeen, Limerick. One is marked with
a penciled check, Rathmichael, nr. Bray.Page xi: In the margins around
the listing for A. A. Offices, Una has written notes pertaining to round towers:
"Rothcroghan - palace of Maeve, Co. Roseommon"; round tower at ? / Ferrycarrig
is a modern copy of old Round Tower, a memorial to the Wexford men who fought in
the Crimea / Ferrycarrig by the Slaney, W. Wexford, nr. Mornington and Drogheda,
mouth of Bayne." Inside back cover: A few random place-names, probably
jotted while en route: Dublin, Malahide Castle; Heraldic Museum; St. Michan;
Killiney; Nat. Gallery; Col. Moore; Mt. Stewart; Londonderry; Castledermot,° Co.
Kildare; Claudeboye; Lusk° n. of Dublin and Swords; Iniskeen°, Monaghan nr.
South border, eat of Dundalk; Drumlane° nr. Fernanagh border; Tegadoe° s. of
Maynorth; Rathcroghan Co. Roscommon." The significance of the "°" symbol in
Una’s lists is not yet apparent. If these place names can be checked with the
map of round towers at Tor House, it might be possible to see if there is a
link.
Robinson, Edward Arlington. The Glory of the
Nightingales. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. Notes:
Flyleaf: Inscription "To Robinson Jeffe |