Graham Greene Read online

  23 Ways of Escape, 46.

  24 The Power and the Glory, 1945.

  25 Information from Amanda Saunders, Louise Dennys and Nicholas Dennys.

  26 Greene sometimes wondered if Sitwell had actually made this often-quoted remark. It can be found in a letter of Sitwell’s to Greene now deposited at Georgetown University.

  27 Edith Sitwell, letter to David Horner, 1 June 1948, Harry Ransom Center, Austin, Texas.

  28 Allain, 15.

  29 A Sort of Life, 54.

  30 Waugh, 779.

  31 Letter to Greene, 9 January 1961, Georgetown University.

  32 See West, 246–7.

  1

  THE EARLY YEARS

  TO MARION GREENE

  In the late spring of 1921, Graham suffered an emotional collapse, and from July he undertook a six-month course of psychoanalysis with Kenneth Richmond at his home in London.1 During his treatment, he took a brief holiday with his aunt Eva – she was going to Lisbon to meet her husband, Edward Greene, who ran a coffee business in Brazil. Graham describes some of the characters on the ship with a skill astonishing in a sixteen-year-old.

  R.M.S.P. ‘Avon’ | Sat. Sep. 3. 1921

  Dear Mumma,

  We are having another glorious day; the Bay of Biscay not fulfilling its reputation. I’ve been having a most energetic day, with deck tennis and bowls etc. and am getting back a sea-side appetite. We’ve got a most amusing table. There’s a large fat profiteer, who had the title, probably nominal, of captain during the war. He has practically no chin, the fat of his neck [?] drowning it in one colossal ‘bulge’. He has cultivated a critical twist downwards to his mouth, and snorts at every dish. Having ordered three bottles of champagne at dinner, he snorted and ‘peeved’ for ten minutes until at last the waiter realised his dreadful mistake. He’d brought him champagne – but, in ice! No good! Besides the admiring chorus of his Spanish wife, he has an attendant satellite in the person of a little, old gentleman who does nothing but flatter him. We have also a very thin, silent dour Scotchman, who interjects a meaningless joke about every quarter of an hour.

  The Irish clergyman who shares my cabin comes fully up to expectations. In answer to a remark about the amount of food they give us, he answered ‘Yes, keep your stomach full, and then, if you are sea-sick you’ll be quite all right!’ When he was at a University (Manchester, I believe he said) De Valera took him in mathematics. Nothing evil can be said of De V. for ‘he is a devout man, a good layman.’2

  Father Roach comes from the South, from Tipperary and, though he has no desire for a republic, is very indignant at the idea of the Northern Parliament.

  Altogether there’s an amusing ship load and, of course, there was an invasion of French people at Cherbourg. I had never dreamed of such a wonderful harbour as C. We got quite far in, so that we could see a lot of the forts.

  Tomorrow we get to Vigo, and hope to go ashore for a few hours. But it’s rather uncertain, as we have not got a Spanish visa on our passports. We also pass close into Corunna, and will probably be able to land at Leixoes.

  It will seem funny coming back as we will be quite a large party, six in fact.

  Aunt Eva sends her love to all,

  love from

  Graham

  Graham and his aunt visited the grave of General Sir John Moore (1761–1809), a distant relative and a hero of the Napoleonic wars. He was killed in the retreat to La Coruña and buried, according to the poet Charles Wolfe, ‘darkly at dead of night, the sods with our bayonets turning’.

  Graham revisited the grave sixty years later when he was planning Monsignor Quixote.3

  TO MARION GREENE

  Here, Graham describes a service at Westminster Abbey on 17 October 1921, during which the American Chief-of-Staff General John Pershing (1860–1948) laid the Congressional Medal of Honor on the tomb of the unknown warrior. The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Lloyd George (1863–1945), Winston Churchill (1874–1965), then Colonial Secretary, and Earl Haig (1861–1928), who had commanded the British Expeditionary Force.

  Tuesday [18 October 1921] | At 15 Devonshire Terrace W.2

  Dear Mumma,

  Thanks very much for the foolscap, and letter. I’m afraid the story is no use for a magazine. It’s much too short. I’ve sent it in for the school competition. Yesterday Aunt Eva came to see Mr Richmond about Ave;4 to-day in the distance, while reading in the gardens, I saw Raymond’s friend Crompton,5 and two other people, doing experiments of some kind.

  Yesterday I went to the American ceremony. I got into the Abbey for the service, but as far as the actual service went, I should have preferred being outside, as I was too far away to see anything, but a glimpse of Winston Churchill’s head, and to hear anything but a monotonous drone. I had a dreadful man next me, who expatiated to me the whole time on the League of Nations and insisted on reading a long poem on its ideals, written by a friend of his. But it was worth being bored by the service because of the waiting period beforehand. The Abbey itself lighted up brilliantly, but outside the door nothing but a great bank of mist, with now and again a vague steel helmeted figure appearing, only to disappear again. The whole time the most glorious music from the organ, with the American band outside, clashing in at intervals. Then the feeling of expectancy through the whole people, the minds of everyone on tip-toe. It got back the whole atmosphere of the war, of the endless memorial services; I’d never realised before how we had got away from the death feeling.

  But when Pershing and the rest arrived, there was a ghastly anticlimax, people standing up on the seats, and peering over other people’s shoulders, the whole dramatic effect lost, and the service did nothing to restore it. I rushed out afterwards and managed to get a good view of the inspection, Pershing and Haig and a lot of other generals whom I didn’t recognise. I’d never realised what a militarist face Haig had got before. As bad as Hindenburg. Lloyd George, before the inspection, drove off amidst very feeble cheers, and a great deal of laughter and chaff. I got another good view of the others driving off, Pershing amidst great enthusiasm, but Haig in practically silence. Altogether it was quite worth seeing.

  Love to all,

  Graham

  TO MARION GREENE

  15 Devonshire Terrace | W.2. | Tuesday [25 October 1921]

  Dear Mumma,

  I hear you are going to stay a week-end with Aunt N.,6 but I suppose you won’t have room for any books. If you should have room to spare could you bring my Warner and Martin? (History) If Mrs O’Grady would ask Guest,7 he’d get it from my locker in the library. But don’t trouble about finding room, if it’s at all difficult, because it’s not necessary. It is so to speak a ‘luxury’. Tell Hugh, if he would like to send me our stamp swops, I’d try and exchange them for a few we haven’t got at Stanley Gibbons.8 Of course, as most of them are very common, we’d only get a few for them. It’s just as he likes.9 If he wants to, he must also send me Stanley Gibbons’ address. I expect you’d have room for them, as they are only in a small sort of notebook, which would take up no room at all. But again, if it’s any bother don’t.

  I hope to see Walter de la Mare10 soon. Mrs. Richmond has promised to ask him to tea, before I go. I hope soon to blossom into the Saturday Westminster. ‘The Creation of Beauty. A study in sublimation,’ by H. Graham Greene. Ahem! Ahem! Mr. Richmond is going to thrust it before the Editor’s eyes, and thinks he’ll accept it. The cold weather at last! It is a gloriously sharp, raw day today.

  Love to all,

  Graham

  P.S. Hugh will find S. G.’s address on the stamp catalogues. I remember passing the shop a day or two ago, but I forget where.

  TO MARION GREENE

  Graham went up to Balliol College, Oxford, in the autumn of 1922. He had an appetite for pranks and helped to launch a candidate for the general election on 15 November.

  Oxford Union Society [c. 12 November 1922]

  Dear Mumma,

  There’ve been great excitements here lately. Ar
mistice night was on the whole a rather wet show after the first exhilaration had worn off. There was football with tin trays down the High, & with a bucket up St. Giles’s, where I cut my ankle on it, getting it wedged in the bucket & tripping up on it. Last night was a much better organised show. There was a bogus candidate, Jorrocks, up, & a bogus committee room, from which he made speeches in a mask. The townees imagined that he was a real candidate, & there were several scrimmages as a consequence, with the Liberal element in the crowd. I enclose a Jorrocks pamphlet…

  The campaign pamphlet proclaimed: ‘Old Wine in Old Bottles! A Plague on Promises! Personality Pays! … Ask the Returning Officer where to put your X for Jorrocks The Independent Independent! Only Triangular Candidate for Oxford.’

  TO ELISABETH GREENE

  Balliol College | Oxford [March 1923?]

  Dear Elisabeth,

  I hope you haven’t got this. You hadn’t last holidays. It’s not as good as Peacock Pie,11 but some of them are quite good. Are you having a birthday party? Is Hugh still spotty? Have you & Katherine acted any more plays? I think you might act one of Kipling’s Just So stories, & let Hugh take part in ‘How the Leopard got his Spots,’ or write a modern musical comedy & call it ‘Spot & Carry One,’ or an ancient play of the brave & wicked ‘Hugh the Rash,’ or a puzzle play called ‘Spot the’ no, that’s quite enough plays.

  Love from

  Graham

  TO ELISABETH GREENE

  Balliol College, | Oxford [March 1924]

  Dear Elisabeth,

  Here is a little memento of this auspicious, nay, may I say epoch making, occasion. For the first time you leave the single state (no, not to enter into matrimony, but into double figures). Double figures! What a thought is there! To think of the time that must elapse before you leave them. To be exact, if my mathematics does not fail me, ninety years. Did I say ninety years? Yes, ninety years. Though there’s always a trick about these numbers somewhere. For instance, the other day I was adding up the number of days between the first of March & the fourth. One from four, I said to myself, leaves three. Why, I learned that on my mother’s lap, I added (to myself). It was the first thing that my baby lips learned to lisp, I continued. But, would you believe it, I was wrong! There are not three days between. In the same way I have an awful suspicion that in some queer way you will only remain in double figures for eighty-nine years. Think of that! As the Americans say, it won’t be no freight train. Only eighty-nine years!

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

  12

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

  Of course, it may not look as if this little lecture has anything to do with your birthday, but it has really. Only it’s very subtle, & very, oh so very, deep. You’ll probably not understand it till you get into treble years, though of course if it’s only a question of eighty-nine – I wish you’d consult a mathematician about it, or ‘teacher’ or somebody & set my mind at rest. As Mr Leslie Henson13 sang

  ‘O I’m so very n-n-n-n-nervous,

  I’m not myself to-day.’

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

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

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

  Love & happy returns

  from Graham

  TO HUGH GREENE

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

  Balliol College, | Oxford [23 January 1925]

  Dear Hugh,

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

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

  Love,

  Graham

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

  TO— —

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

  Balliol College, | Oxford [1925?]

  Dear — —,

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

  Yours affectionately,

  Graham Greene

  TO VIVIENNE DAYRELL-BROWNING (LATER VIVIEN GREENE)

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

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

  Dear Miss Dayrell,

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

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

  Yours sincerely,

  Graham Greene

  TO AMY LOWELL

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

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

  Dear Miss Lowell,

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

  Yours sincerely,

  Graham Greene

  (Sec.)

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

  TO VIVIENNE DAYRELL-BROWNING (LATER VIVIEN GREENE)

  29 Museum Road [n.d.]

  Dear Miss Dayrell,

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

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

  Will seven o’clock at the George suit you?

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

  Yours,

  Graham Greene

  TO VIVIENNE DAYRELL-BROWNING (LATER VIVIEN GREENE)

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

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