sheets of your book and for your beautiful Christmas gift, which I
treasure and have with me always. The poem “To Rose in Heaven” is so
exquisite that I cannot write or speak all my deep appreciation of
it. But I know that it is not my personal feeling alone that makes me
consider it one of the noblest elegiac poems in our language. I wish
that I were still in the book-reviewing game--I’d like to express my
opinion of your new book. My column in the _Literary Digest_ is now
conducted by Mrs. Edwin Markham. However, I occasionally send in some
clippings and comment, and I’ll try to get some of your book quoted. I
congratulate you on your book; it is an achievement for which you must
be deeply grateful; of course none of us rhymers can really be proud
if we’re true to the traditions of our craft. You see, I’m not in “The
Proud Poet” mood now. I’m neither proud nor a poet--I’ve written only
one poem since I sailed, a little thing called “Militis Meditatio.”
We all are well and happy--I do not think that any one of us can
honestly say that he has not enjoyed this Winter. The trials and
hardships of the life are so novel as to be interesting. But I imagine
that one enjoys very little his tenth year of soldiering. It is
especially pleasant to be in France and the part of France that we are
in. I am surprised, I acknowledge, by the passionate Catholicity of the
people. Even “Holy Ireland” can scarcely be more Catholic than rural
France.
Tell my friends my address and urge them to write to me. Pray for me,
and believe me always
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
Headquarters Company, 165th Infantry,
A. E. F., France.
May 6, 1918.
My dear Father:
It is very comfortable to dwell in so genuinely Catholic a land as
this; to be reminded in every room of every house, and at every
cross-road of the Faith. I do not know when you last visited France,
and perhaps you are already familiar with conditions here, but I do
not cease to be surprised and delighted to see the number of people
receiving Holy Communion not only on Sunday, but every day. And you
will find soldiers of this Regiment in church whenever and wherever
there is a priest to say Mass. I think that most of us are better
Catholics now than when we were at home--certainly we should be.
My own work is growing steadily more interesting. For a while I
worked, as you know, in the Adjutant’s Office, having special charge
of recording and reporting statistics. But this I gave up recently to
enter (as a Sergeant) the Regimental Intelligence Section. This is much
better for me, since it is open-air work of an intensely interesting
kind, and I think that I am now more useful to the Regiment. My
newspaper training, you see, has made me a competent observer, and
that is what I am nowadays--an observer of the enemy’s activities. I
have already some strange stories to tell, but for telling them I must
await a time when censorship rules are abrogated. I have written very
little--two prose sketches and two poems since I left the States--but
I have a rich store of memories. Not that what I write matters--I have
discovered, since some unforgettable experiences, that writing is not
the tremendously important thing I once considered it. You will find me
less a bookman when you next see me, and more, I hope, a man.
Pray for me, my dear Father, that I may love God more and that I may be
unceasingly conscious of Him--that is the greatest desire I have.
Your affectionate friend,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
_To Reverend James J. Daly, S.J._
Cragmere, Mahwah, New Jersey.
Oct. 7, 1912.
My dear Father Daly:
I hope that I interpret your letter of September 20th correctly
in thinking that it means that you will permit me to write to you
occasionally, and that you will write me in return. Of course I know
that your work occupies much of your time, and that you have pleasanter
uses for your leisure than writing letters to some one you have not
seen. So do not feel obliged by courtesy to answer me at length.
I am glad that you like some of my work. My present occupation is that
of assistant editor of _The Churchman_, an Anglican weekly paper. It is
a Church Newspaper, with some literary features. Did Grey tell you that
I was not of your Communion? I hope that this knowledge will not shut
me out of your regard.
Your remarks, in your letter, on the fact that many of our most famous
writers to-day are anti-Christian, are certainly justified. Still, do
you not think that a reaction is coming? Already we have Chesterton,
and Belloc, and Bazin, and Miss Guiney, and Fr. Vincent McNabb,
and a number of other brilliant writers who not as theologians but
purely as literary artists express a fine and wholesome faith. People
are beginning to tire of cheap eroticism and “realism” and similar
absurdities.
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
[Illustration:
JOYCE KILMER, AGE 5
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH
IN THE POSSESSION OF
MRS. KILBURN KILMER
]
Dec. 14, 1912.
My dear Father Daly:
The cards are rather laconic, but they are supposed to convey the
information, as you thought, that my family is the larger by one. I
have already a little boy, who will be four next March. His name is
Kenton Sinclair. I married when I was twenty-one, immediately after
my graduation from Columbia. Then--since you have twice asked for
biographical information--I taught school in Morristown for a year,
came to New York, went to work on the Standard Dictionary, and after
three years took my present position on _The Churchman_.
Do you know the Rev. Michael Earls? I recently received a copy
of his book of verse. He is a member of your Society--I think he
is at Georgetown. The poems about children are very delicate and
sympathetic--one called, I believe, “An Autumn Rose-bush” is admirable.
I see Grey frequently--I hope to take breakfast with him to-morrow. A
number of us have the custom of breakfasting on Sunday mornings on the
excellent Irish bacon to be procured at Healy’s, on 91st St. When you
return to New York, you must join us. Do you know Thomas Walsh? He is
with us occasionally--you should know him, and his translations from
the Spanish, and his verse. I hope you are coming East soon.
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
Cragmere, Mahwah, N. J.
July 24, 1913.
Dear Father Daly:
I do not like to burden my friends with my troubles, but you have
certain opportunities that I lack, so I am asking you the greatest
favour. Please pray for the healing of my little daughter Rose. She is
dangerously ill with infantile paralysis. This is a disease that has
appeared among mankind only recently, and physicians are uncertain how
to treat it. She is staying in New York with her mother to be near the
doctor and I am staying here nights to take care of my other child.
Of course the maid is here during the day so the house is kept up.
But Rose cannot move her legs or arms--She was so active and happy
only last week--she cannot even cry--her voice is just a little
whimper--the danger is of its reaching her lungs and killing her. I
cannot write any more. You know how I feel. Pray for her.
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
Aug. 30, 1913.
Dear Father Daly:
There is not, it seems, any danger of the death of Rose now. And she
has regained her strength. Her arms and legs have been left paralysed
but her hands and feet move. It will take a year’s time for us to know
whether or not this paralysis is permanent.
I am deeply grateful to you for your compliance with my request. I
know that your prayers were of value in keeping her alive. Apologies
for the brusqueness of my letter asking your aid, are, I think, not
necessary--you were the only man to whom I could appeal for the special
help needed, and I was in bitter grief and anxiety.
My wife asks me to express her sincere gratitude to you.
Now that the crisis is past, we have a strange tranquillity.
And we have acquired a humility that is, I think, good for us. Well,
these are things not readily expressed--accept our heart-felt thanks.
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
New York.
Oct. 6, 1913.
Dear Father Daly:
This is to express our gratitude for your prayers. They have helped us
in our trial--they are helping--and I know that in part to your efforts
Rose owes her life and we our peace of mind. For fifteen or sixteen
years she will, the doctors say, remain paralysed, unable to move her
arms or legs. But her mind is active and we will keep her happy. I
think that there are compensations, spiritual and mental, for the loss
of physical power.
My wife and I are studying Catholic doctrine and we hope to be received
this Autumn.
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
New York.
Dec. 5, 1913.
Dear Father Daly:
You may be amused by the circular which I enclose. You know, we have
been having a plague of white-slave plays in New York this season--“The
Lure,” “The Fight” and the rest; and now they are giving white-slave
moving pictures--“The Traffic in Souls” they are called. I think that
“The Drama as a Factor in Sex Education” is ridiculous--and I’m going
to say so. Most of the other people who are to speak at the Academy of
Medicine are very serious-minded settlement workers, ready to save the
world by means of eugenics and inexpensive divorce. So I don’t think
I’ll make myself very popular. But I hope to have a lot of fun.
My wife and I are very comfortable now that we are Catholics. I think
we rather disappointed Father Cronyn (the Paulist who received us) by
not showing any emotion during the ceremony. But our chief sensation
is simply comfort--we feel that we’re where we belong, and it’s a very
pleasant feeling.
I wonder if the enclosed verses will shock you. I am very much bored
by the praise of suicide so common in “æsthetic” circles. Many of
my friends like to think themselves “decadents” and they are most
enthusiastic over the work of such third-rate versifiers as the late
Richard Middleton, who killed himself at the age of thirty. It seems to
me that suicide is the most absurd of all sins. There is, undoubtedly,
pleasure in many sorts of evil; many crimes are reprehensible but not
ridiculous. But suicide is a stupid sort of sin--the criminal gets no
fun at all out of it. I have tried to put this idea into verse--and
you should have heard the criticisms when the poem was read aloud at a
meeting of the Poetry Society!
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
New York, Dec. 22, 1913.
Dear Father Daly:
I am grateful to you for your sound criticism of “To a Young Poet Who
Killed Himself.” It had previously been criticised by “pagans” who
thought that suicide was romantic and charming. You gave me just what I
needed--an analysis of its “philosophy.” Of course I’ll leave it out of
my new book of verse, or else, as you suggest, make it the utterance of
someone not myself.
You will be glad to hear of our Christmas present from Soeur Therese.
Rose can lift her left forearm. I know that you have been getting her
aid for us. Please tell us how to show our gratitude to her and to you.
A picture of Rose and her mother is going to you for Christmas. I hope
that it may be a mirthful feast for you. We can honestly say that we
have never before been so happy.
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
Mahwah, N. J.
Jan. 9, 1914.
Dear Father Daly:
At last I have leisure to thank you for your Christmas gifts. I did not
know that such beautiful cards were made. How is it that in Prairie du
Chien--a place of which the name suggests Indians and tomahawks and
Deadwood stage-coaches--you can procure better cards than I can get
in New York? The medals are highly valued--the workmanship on them is
admirable--they will be worn properly as soon as I can afford to buy
some silver chains--and that will be next Tuesday.
Of course you understand my conversion. I am beginning to understand
it. I believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic view of
ethics and æsthetics, for a long time. But I wanted something not
intellectual, some conviction not mental--in fact I wanted Faith.
Just off Broadway, on the way from the Hudson Tube Station to the Times
Building, there is a Church, called the Church of the Holy Innocents.
Since it is in the heart of the Tenderloin, this name is strangely
appropriate--for there surely is need of youth and innocence. Well,
every morning for months I stopped on my way to the office and prayed
in this Church for faith. When faith did come, it came, I think, by way
of my little paralysed daughter. Her lifeless hands led me; I think her
tiny still feet know beautiful paths. You understand this and it gives
me a selfish pleasure to write it down.
I was very glad of your criticism of “The Young Poet Who Killed
Himself.” I need some stricter discipline, I think, and it’s hard to
get it. I enjoy Father Cullem’s direction very much, he is a fine old
Irishman with no nonsense about him. But I need to be called a fool, I
need to have some of the conceit and sophistication knocked out of me.
I suppose you think this is “enthusiasm”--that much heralded danger of
converts. Perhaps it is, but I don’t think so. I know I’m glad I live
two miles from the Church, because it’s excellent for a lazy person
like myself to be made to exert himself for religion. And I wish I
had a stern mediæval confessor--the sort of person one reads about in
anti-Catholic books--who would inflict real penances. The saying of
Hail Marys and Our Fathers is no penance, it’s a delight.
Forgive this egotistical letter! I am praying that the New Year may
bring you much happiness.
Yours sincerely,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
Mahwah, N. J.
July 14, 1914.
Dear Father Daly:
If you read my “Some Mischief Still” I hope the strong language of my
janitor didn’t shock you. I’ve written to my long-suffering confessor
to ask whether or not I can let characters in my plays and stories
“cuss” when they feel so disposed. I fear that I introduced a new sin
to him--vicarious profanity.
You asked me several questions recently. Let me see if I can answer
them. In the first place, you asked me why I addressed the Holy Name
Society of Suffern, New York. The answer to that is, why not? I go
to Sacred Heart Church in Suffern. My parish church is in Ramsey, New
Jersey, but we Mahwah Catholics (those of us who go to Church) are
allowed to go to Suffern, which is much nearer. Ramsey has only a small
Mission Church, to which comes the priest from Hohokus.
Furthermore, I tolerate no levity on the name _Suffern!_ especially
from a dweller in Prairie du Chien (named after a ridiculous vermin)
who has been visiting a place called Pilsen (named after a beer) and
conducting a retreat in a place called Peoria (obviously a corruption
of Peruna, a patent medicine of ill repute).
You ask me if I know what a retreat is. I do, because long before I
was a Catholic, before I was a wild-eyed Socialistic revolutionary,
I was a ritualistic Anglican, and I went twice up to Holy Cross
Monastery at West Park. This is an Anglican institution, which observes
a modification of the Benedictine rule. And there I learned about
imitation retreats, anyway. I must go to a regular retreat sometime.
I don’t expect to take any vacation this Summer, but I’m going to spend
several Saturdays fishing. I hope you do not scorn that wholesome and
unliterary diversion. Most writers of my acquaintance consider it
lamentably base.
I hope you were satisfied with your efforts at Peoria. I did what you
asked. By the way, when you pray for the Kilmers, please include a new
Kilmer, who is coming, we hope, in October. He--or she--will have Barry
among his or her names, after the family from whom my wife is descended.
Yours affectionately,
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
Mahwah, New Jersey.
Nov., 1914.
Dear Father Daly:
We are now back in Mahwah, thank God! It’s the chief thing I thank Him
for, of all the splendid things He’s given me--this home of mine. My
children are all well, and my wife. Prayer has given Rose the almost
normal use of one arm and the power to sit up. And prayer will do more.
Yours affectionately,
JOYCE.
This is a postscript, to say that the smug young person portrayed in
the _Citizen_ resembles me only “as the dew resembles the rain.” I
am fat and gross, and I have “elastic and rebellious hair,” like M.
Baudelaire’s cat. Someday I’ll have a decent picture and courageously
send it to you. In my young youth, I was slightly decorative. But now I
drink beer instead of writing about absinthe. And therefore--
* * * * *
June 15, 1915.
Dear Father James:
Your suggestion as to a lecture tour is characteristically kind. I am
already on the books of a lecture manager named Feakins, who manages
Chesterton, Barry Pain and other people. I’ll probably lecture before
Catholic organizations as well as secular ones, because I need the
money, but I don’t want to for reasons you will, I know, understand.
In the first place, I don’t want in any way to make money out of my
religion, to seem to be a “professional Catholic.” In the second place,
I have delight chiefly in talking veiled Catholicism to non-Catholics,
in humbly endeavouring to be an Apostle to Bohemia. I have no real
message to Catholics, I have Catholicism’s message to modern pagans. So
I want to lecture chiefly to Pagans.
The Prairie du Chien correspondent of the Police Gazette has cabled
that you are to read a paper at the St. Paul Educational Conference.
Congratulations! And I’ll try to help you to the extent of my
power--but you don’t need help as I do.
Yours affectionately,
JOYCE.
* * * * *
Good Samaritan Hospital,
Suffern, N. Y.
August 2, 1916.
Dear Father James:
I am sorry that you received exaggerated reports of my accident. All
that happened to me was the fracture of a couple of ribs, and I have
been very comfortable in a delightful hospital. My secretary comes out
several times a week, so I am keeping up with my work.
Remember me, if you please, to Mother Mercedes and Father O’Reilly.
Yours affectionately,
JOYCE.
* * * * *
Mahesh, N. J.
Aug. 10, 1916.
Dear Father James:
This is to say that I am rapidly recovering my health, and hope to
be in my office in a week. I had a fine time in the hospital, a
comfortable place run by particularly amiable Sisters of Charity. It
may interest you to know that I had received the Blessed Sacrament half
an hour before the train struck me, and that to this fact I attribute
my escape from death--since at the place where I was struck several men
have been killed, being thrown forward and under the wheels, instead
of, (as I was), to one side.
Affectionately,
JOYCE.
* * * * *
(Aug 8, 1917).
Monday.
Dear Father James:
Your letter was opened and read by one Private Kilmer, a hardened
military cuss, unused to literary activities. This is the first
literary labor he has essayed for a month, aside from studying Moss’s
Manual of Military Training and the art of shooting craps.
We’re still in New York--at the Armory from 9 A. M. to 4.30 P. M., but
we usually get home at night. Young Louis is in the same company as
myself. We probably will go to Spartansberg, North Carolina, about Aug.
17, but we may be here till October, or we may go to France to-morrow.
Nobody knows. I find that there are many Catholics in the Seventh. It’s
amusing that our training camp is in North Carolina--nothing to drink
and no Jesuits! Bishop is a Benedictine mitred abbott--it’s in Belmont
Abbey.
Before mobilisation I finished editing “Dreams and Images,” an
anthology of Catholic verse written since (but including) Patmore.
Terrible rush job, but pretty good book. Do you mind having it
dedicated to you? Wanted to include some of your stuff, but didn’t have
time to get any. Have dedicated it to you, but can change it, if you
wish. Don’t hesitate to say so! Can’t hurt my feelings! Hard military
character, seriously considering acquisition of habit of chewing
tobacco.
This is an absurd note, but I find myself very stupid at writing.
Perhaps after drill becomes easier, I’ll have more of a mind left
at night. Fr. Dwight honoured me by asking me for a sonnet on St.
Ignatius for _America_, but I fell down on the assignment. I could not
write even a limerick on St. Ignatius in my present mental state! But
it’s a comfortable life physically--mentally too, I guess, and as for
spiritually, why, pray for yours affectionately,
JOYCE.
* * * * *
(Sept., 1917).
Thursday.
Dear Fr. James:
I never expected to write to you on lined paper or Y. M. C. A.
paper--uses of adversity! The Y. M. C. A. gives us poor “dough boys”
the only place we have to sit down and read and write--so far the
Knights of Columbus have not been in evidence in this highly papistical
camp. I am, as you know, a member of the 165th Infantry, U. S.,
formerly the 69th New York. I have recently been transferred from Co.
H. to Headquarters Co., and exchanged my 8 hours a day of violent
physical exercise (most deadening to the brain, a useful anodyne for
me, coming as it did after my grief) for exacting but interesting
statistical work. I am called Senior Regimental Statistician, but in
spite of all these syllables still rank as a private. My work is under
the direction of the Regimental Chaplain, Fr. Francis Patrick Duffy.
The people I like best here are the wild Irish--boys of 18 or 20,
who left Ireland a few years ago, some of them to escape threatened
conscription, and travelled about the country in gangs, generally
working on the railroads. They have delightful songs that have never
been written down, but sung in vagabonds’ camps and country jails.
I have got some of the songs down and hope to get more--“The Boston
Burglar”--“Sitting in My Cell All Alone”--they are fine, a veritable
Irish-American folk-lore. Before I was transferred to Headquarters
Co., I slept in a tent with a number of these entertaining youths, and
enjoyed it tremendously. We sang every night from 9 to 9.30. Now I am
in more sophisticated but less amusing company--ambitious youths, young
office men, less simple and genial than my other friends.
I get to New York for part of Saturday and Sunday. Aline is staying
with her mother in New York. It is good that I am not with the 7th
Regiment in Spartanburg--as it is I can telephone to Aline every night.
I will send you a picture of Rose soon. Her death was a piercing blow,
but beautiful. It happened at the best time. Aline was there and I
and our parish priest. Rose was happy but did not want to get well.
“I’ll drink it in another house,” she said, when the nurse coaxed
her to take some broth. Perhaps she meant the new house in Larchmont
which we move to in October. And perhaps not. There was a Mission in
our parish-church, just a couple of blocks from the house, and while
Rose died the voices of the Sisters singing “O Salutaris Hostia”
could be heard in the room. I thank you for your letter, beautifully
interpretative. Certainly Rose makes Heaven dearer to us.
Yours affectionately,
JOYCE.
* * * * *
Headquarters Company, 165th U. S. Infantry,
Camp Albert E. Mills, New York.
October 28, 1917.
Dear Father James:
I hope you don’t mind being typewritten to by an unskillful typist. I
have learned all I know of this art since I became a soldier. It is
ridiculous for a newspaperman to learn typewriting in the army, but I
never had the time to learn it before--I found it better to have an
expert typist for a secretary and dictate my stuff to him. I used to
turn out four or five thousand words an hour when Watts was working
for me. I haven’t much speed as yet but I ought to be pretty good at
it when I get back. There are two things I always wanted to learn--how
to typewrite and how to serve Mass. I’m learning the one and I’m going
to get Fr. Duffy to let me pinch-hit for his orderly at Mass some
mornings. So I’ll be an accomplished cuss when I come back from the
Wars--I’ll know how to typewrite and to serve Mass and to sing the
Boston Burglar.
Numerous philanthropic citizens are sending cigarettes to soldiers, and
pipe-tobacco (in which last bounty I often share). But some enlightened
person should start a nation-wide campaign for sending cigars to
Senior Regimental Statistical Representatives. I am Senior Statistical
Representative of the 165th U. S. Infantry, I am!
Yours affectionately,
JOYCE.
* * * * *
Headquarters Company,
165th Infantry,
A. E. F., France.
April 5, 1918.
Dear Father James:
When I next visit Campion, I will teach you (in addition to “The Boston
Burglar”) an admirable song called “Down in the Heart of the Gas-House
District.” I sing it beautifully. Its climax is, “If you would meet
good fellows face to face, Just hang around Jimmy Cunningham’s place,
For it’s down in the heart of the Gas-house district, In Old New York.”