J. Powers - Suitable Accommodations - An Autobiographical Story of Family Life - The Letters of J. F. Powers, 1942-1963

I’m glad you sold the DeSoto, I never liked it, now I can tell you. […] Yours, fondly.

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Dysart, Kimberley Road

Greystones, County Wicklow

December 22, 1951

Dear Fr Egan,

You are the first one (outside the family) to see our new stationery. Please let me know what you think, if favorable. I felt I ought to have it to answer numerous inquiries that come my way, mostly regarding literary matters, but unfortunately none has arrived since the stationery did. Maybe something Monday.

Glad you now approve move to Ireland. I’d like to have a house like this in U.S. Eight rooms, laid out longwise, rather than squarewise, so one puts some distance between himself and, say, the children. I will also need a fireplace in my permanent home, preferably a small coal-burning one such as the Marlborough, I suspect, had originally. I like to stand in front of it with pipe or glass. Back to Thackeray!

Fr Fennelly, our PP,2 dropped in this afternoon. He must be sixty, or close to it, and his conversation seemed to say that he’d just been given a parish, Holy Rosary, Greystones (the church on the postcard I sent), last summer. He’s got a heating problem, and over that the problem of getting people to contribute in general. Says they don’t realize times have changed and they—“the ordinary man,” one of his phrases — have to do what their betters did in palmier days. Offhand, I’d say he’s asking for it (just like a young pastor in the U.S.), trying to get people to use a missal and do their part, and he refuses to use a form (in which parishioners’ past performances would be published for all to see and handicap). He’s not a victim, however, not a softy full of theory. He seems to admire Spain (before Franco), has no time for America or Britain, speaks of the old families with their sense of noblesse oblige, and is an author (a book of prayer for children and some other stuff, not clear what, written as a curate and therefore, he said, “anonymously”). I think he’s lonesome, but doubt that I’m the one to fill his evenings. […]

You’ll be gratified, I hope, to know that in the past week I’ve been shown how right you can be sometimes when you sound pretty far gone. We have had bad cases of the crabs, or lice, both girls and Betty (only mildly). I favor capital punishment in this matter for the disseminators. Mr Power, the local chemist, hopes we don’t blame Ireland for our trouble. It’s touching to see people like him, so hopeful that we’ll like Ireland, won’t think it too slow, etc. I think most opinion of the U.S. here is reached through listening to returned stage performers tell about it, about Broadway, Times Square. I told Mr Power he doesn’t know the meaning of slow and would be glad to give him the name of a PP who does. […]

My turn to make the tea. Guinness has gone up l d., but they’re increasing the specific gravity. Can’t get Smucker’s here. We have to settle for Fruitfield. They’re a good house but no Smucker’s. Fairly Happy New Year!

Jim

HARVEY EGAN

Dysart

March 8, 1952

Dear Father Egan,

[…] I haven’t seen Commonweal for a while. It comes in spurts. Here I read The Irish Times, The Times (London), Time , the Wicklow People , the Standard , the Catholic Herald, The Observer (Sunday, London), the Sunday Times (London, not the aforementioned). I think there’s room for another paper, preferably one with the word “Times” in it, say, The Catholic Times , here. Except for The Irish Times , the Irish papers are awful; Sunday Visitor stuff, cutouts for children, a dress pattern for mother, sports for dad. As the new nuncio (O’Hara) said, Ireland is one country that works hand in glove with Rome. The press shows it — except The Irish Times , which is Anglo-Irish literate. The Standard is good for a diocesan paper but full of the usual junk too, enroll in the Golden Book of Our Lady of Something, Liverpool, only L.

I had dinner at the Bailey — a restaurant in Dublin — with Sean O’Faolain and Frank O’Connor the other night. Liked them both. O’C. is going to the U.S., hopes to settle there, can’t live or write here, he says, because of “personal troubles,” meaning his marital troubles, I guess. He now has an English wife, an Irish one here, numerous children, etc. O’F. is riding it — being happily married, it appears — riding it out on purer lines, the problem with being a writer in Ireland, I mean. O’C. said it would be impossible for him or O’F. to live anywhere but in Dublin, in Ireland; O’F. seemed to agree they’d be in physical danger in Cork, where they both come from. They were stunned to discover that I’d been employed by Marquette. O’F. is very calm, cool, and, I suspect, long-suffering … O’C. great admirer of A. E. Coppard and Saroyan. O’F. might have been a Dublin businessman, from his dress, dark suit, white shirt; O’C. raffish, orange wool shirt, wool tie, blue tam. O’F. in good health. O’C. has trouble with his liver, his wife tells him what he can eat, drinks light wines and lime juice. He paid the bill. That sums up the evening, my impressions. “Urbs Intacta” was the only Latin used — by Mrs O’F. — referring to Waterford, which she belittled, and fortunately I picked up on “Urbs.” “Inter alia,” I said, urbanely, “wasn’t that a long time ago?” I was smoking some small black cigars — Wills’s Whiffs — and probably made a very good impression, seen from the tables around us. We had Vichy water at the very end. Trying to cap that, I called for a jar of Smucker’s, but they couldn’t provide it. “What! No Smucker’s!” I cried, which got over the idea that the management, and indeed everyone, including parties all around us, had a lot to learn. “1943 is the best year,” I said. “’45 is acceptable.” Then I went on to tell them about that little place in Chicago that I took you to, not much to look at and all that, but what food, what service! […]

My PP came by and took me for a drive around his parish. Very interesting he is, once the sun goes down, and he loses his way, not the man then that brought us You Can Change the World. 3 He conscripted Betty to come and utter an opinion at St Kilian’s Hall, where he was throwing a parish debate. Subject: The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Controls the World. He outlined what Betty ought to say, leaving a pamphlet about this little Italian girl (Goretti) who’s up for canonization. I hadn’t heard about it — at least didn’t recognize the name when he was here — and that was somehow in my favor, made me out to be a good, healthy male preoccupied with my pipe. “Oh, he thinks he’s running the show, but it’s the little woman every time. She’s the one who keeps him straight. He just tags along, if he only knew it”—ha, ha. I said I knew it only too well, that I knew the torture of marriage, had dreamt of the beauties of celibacy. He hadn’t been prepared for such an ad-lib, was silent, lips twitching — and I could see that, though I’d spoiled his act, he was pleased to hear what he too regarded as the truth. […]

O’C. and O’F. spoke of Waugh as though he’d lost his mind. Said he had his servants wearing livery, the latest development. I must get something for my man, a cap anyway, who brings me wood, takes away my ashes, works around my demesne. He doesn’t work very hard, brings me green wood. Betty says he knows I’m a fool — her exact words. “Fool for God?” I ask eagerly, but I gather she doesn’t mean that kind. […]

Clark4

HARVEY EGAN

Dysart

Easter 1952

Dear Fr Egan,

[…] The first blood was drawn at Leopardstown5 a week ago. Two winners (8–1; 6–1), and I guess it’s going to be nip and tuck from now on between the track and me. Unfortunately, there are those two-bob6 (28c) machines, and I go with Betty, so even when I win, it’s moderately. A wonderful way to spend an afternoon, though. When I’m there, I always know what you and Thoreau mean. […]