to Mass. And just outside the village where the church is, I met a
young lady and walking beside her was a pleasant young pig with a pink
nose.
“Bonjour, M’sieur!” said the young lady.
“Bonjour, Mam’selle!” I replied.
“Bonjour, M’sieur!” said the pig.
“Bonjour, M’sieur!” I replied.
And the young lady and the pig threw back their heads and laughed
heartily and went on to breakfast. And I went on to Mass.
Remember me to young Michael and young Christopher, and believe me
Your respectful Dad.
* * * * *
_To Mrs. Joyce Kilmer_
Nov. 11, 1917.
This is what is technically known as a hurried scrawl. It is to the
effect that I have arrived, in excellent health and spirits. I have
recently read the Censorship Regulations, and am in doubt about what
I can say--God help the people who have to interpret them! I mailed
a postcard two weeks ago, which you should now receive. Also I’ll
try to cable you soon, if it is allowed. I have not yet consulted
the adjutant on the subject, but so far as I have been able to find
from a diligent study of the censorship regulations, I am allowed
to say that I love you. Accordingly, I state it, with considerable
enthusiasm. Also, I have a certain regard for Kenton, Deborah, Michael
and even Christopher. I hope to write you again very soon. You know
my address--same as before, only American Expeditionary Forces. I
enclose some verses which may entertain you. The brief one is a
memory of the days when I used to drill. I don’t feel that way about a
typewriter--which instrument I now use with accuracy and speed. Send me
some magazines now and then, and _Times_ REVIEW OF BOOKS. And love me
exceedingly.
* * * * *
Headquarters Co.,
165th Infantry,
A. E. F.
Nov. 24, 1917.
I am having a delightful time out here--absolutely beautiful country
and very nice people. I am short of money, but I believe we’ll be paid
soon and I’ve borrowed 80 francs from Fr. Duffy. That isn’t as much
as it sounds--you get 5 francs and 70 centimes for a dollar at the
Y. M. C. A. I enclose a bill I received for two enormous boxes of cakes
I hired an old lady to make for me. I furnished the sugar--you know
there was a bag of it in the box of groceries my mother sent me just
before I left. I meant the cakes for dessert for Thanksgiving dinner,
but with the help of my friends I’ve already eaten most of it. There is
a rumour to the effect that we are to have duck for dinner to-morrow,
and the Regiment is much more excited about it than about the good
news of the War in yesterday’s paper. We get the Paris editions of
the London _Daily Mail_, New York _Herald_ and Chicago _Tribune_, and
before long I suppose we’ll see the magazines when the Y. M. C. A.
opens up its local tent. I never thought I’d regard the Y. M. C. A.
with such esteem--I wish the Knights of Columbus had a chance to do as
much work for us.
I haven’t written anything in prose or verse since I got here--except
statistics--but I’ve stored up a lot of memories to turn into copy when
I get a chance. The Colonel occasionally speaks of my historical work,
but I doubt if it will be feasible to publish any part of it except
some very general stuff until the war is over. I asked Thomas Hughes
Kelley to send me a history of the 69th published some years ago,
and another copy to you, to make sure. I think it will be useful in
preparing the introductory chapters.
I love you very much indeed and see you clearly always and have a
conviction that I will be with you soon--sooner than you expect.
* * * * *
Dec. 9th, 1917.
I was delighted to receive the other day (December 7th, the day after
my birthday) a batch of letters, including two from you. I am glad
Kenton is getting along well; I was worried about his illness. It is
fortunate you were able to get a good nurse.
You ought to be receiving some money from the government soon. I made
over half my pay to you, and the government is supposed to add to it
so much for you and so much for each youngster. The whole thing will
come to about $57 a month, I believe! I personally am not in need of
money--I am getting a book of traveller’s cheques from my father and
before I heard he was sending it I wrote to John Timpson Co., and asked
them to open an account for me in some Paris bank. Also we are paid in
francs, which makes us feel wealthy, as there are 5.70 of them in a
dollar. And I could live comfortably without any spending money--all
there is to buy is candy and canned stuff and wine and an occasional
meal when the business of my department takes me to a nearby town.
Fr. Garesché’s poem certainly is beautiful; by far the best thing he
has done. I am enclosing a letter from Sister ---- which I think you
will enjoy. Delightful old person, nearly blind, but tremendously
energetic. Harriet Monroe was one of her pupils. Probably you remember
her book on Fr. Tabb.
Your Christmas presents probably will reach you in time for Easter. I
hope to get a pair of wooden shoes for Deborah.
I am having a fine time. My statistical work occupies me in the evening
as well as all day, but it’s interesting, and will be increasingly
important, since the Statistical Department really is the only link
between the soldier and his family.
I hope as soon as we get settled I’ll be able to do some writing, I’ve
been too busy so far. I love you very much, and always think of you.
In your letters you spoke of sending me some stuff. Send anything you
think of as soon as you think of it--don’t wait to find out if I want
it, because the mails take too long. Just now I want snap-shots of you
and the children, especially Deborah, and tobacco. I love you.
* * * * *
December 17.
I hope you are getting the letters I send you from time to time.
I got one admirable batch of letters from you by way of birthday
present--they came on the day after my birthday. Perhaps I’ll get
another batch for Christmas--it’s December 17th now, and we should
receive another mail soon. I hope to send you a photograph soon. I
believe personal pictures may be sent through the mail. It will be a
beautiful sight. I got a Sing Sing haircut recently and am growing a
corsair moustache. This is the pleasantest war I ever attended--nothing
to do but fall in, fall out, pound a typewriter 13 hours a day and
occasionally hike across France and back carrying a piano. However, I
do really enjoy it, and the work is different in kind from newspaper
work, and so a rest from it. By the way, I sent you some time ago
a poem called “_Militis Meditatio_.” Please send a copy of it to a
magazine and tell them to send the check for it to you. I hope to be
able to do some writing as soon as we get settled and I get some of
my statistical work out of the way. You ought to get your allotment
this month, with additions from the Government (I hope you and the
children are not yet in the poorhouse, or at any rate that you have
struck a comfortable poorhouse). Send me pictures of yourself and the
children, especially Deborah. I have made a nuisance of myself telling
my bored friends about her intelligence in naming her doll “Hugh and
Mrs. Leamy.” Also send me some tobacco, enough to fill a bedsack (also
love me as intensely as possible; I love you more than ever before and
think of you all the while)....
* * * * *
Christmas Eve.
The enclosed clippings may amuse you--after you read them you’d better
send them to Bob Holliday. They came with a raft of letters a couple of
days ago. It’s very nice the way feasts seem to be marked--I last heard
from you just before my birthday, and I got three letters from you
by way of Christmas present. There must be a lot of parcels awaiting
me, judging from information in your letters and those of my father
and mother. We may get the packages to-night, in which case I’ll have
some hours hard work, for all the Adjutant’s office helps in assorting
mail. But I don’t think the packages will come until after Christmas. I
suppose that you and the children are in New Brunswick now, and will go
to Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s and pray for a vagrant verse-maker who
is trying to be a soldier. We may have a Midnight Mass in the church
here to-night. Fr. Duffy has had a choir practising for it, and we
possess a tenor soloist. He is an Italian, a barber when not singing or
soldiering.
I have allotted half my pay to you, and the Government’s addition to
that will bring it, I believe, up to about $60--enough to pay the
rent. But don’t worry if there is delay in receiving it. It takes a
long time, usually, to set things like that in motion. I recently read
that a veteran of the Civil War had just received a check for $12 from
Washington, representing his pay for his last month of service.
I am glad you are sending me some tobacco--I suppose it’s in the five
truck loads of Christmas packages said to be awaiting us at a town some
miles away. I have been able to get American tobacco, I am glad to say,
but not my favourite brand. Also I’ll be glad to get the cigars my
father has sent me--I have smoked all of Fr. Duffy’s. But be sure that
tobacco or anything else you send me, such as Michael and Deborah, is
very securely wrapped and tied, as the journey is hard on packages and
many of them go to pieces.
I am hoping to get more letters from you soon--write as often as you
can. I’d rather get a letter from you than anything else now possible.
(I love you more than ever before).
* * * * *
Jan. 18, 1918.
Virginia is an excellent State. One evening last week I met by chance a
Sergeant Interpreter named Nicholson Barney Adams. And he didn’t know
my name and I didn’t know his--he is not connected with the 69th. And
he said, “I see by the _Times_ that Joyce Kilmer has enlisted.” And
furthermore, thereafter, he put me up in his place--he and two other
fellows have a room together--and I had admirable things to eat and
drink, and slept in a bed, for the first time in over three months. And
he came from Lynchburg, Virginia.
You will find with this letter $50 in American Express checks. Put the
place and date in the upper right-hand corner when you cash them. You
see, I had written to John Timpson for some money before I got a book
of checks from my father, so I find myself having more money than I
need.
I wrote this letter--the first part of it--this afternoon. Now it is
evening, and five ambulance-loads of mail have arrived and I have
helped distribute it. I got a November _Harpers_ from my father and a
copy of Frances Huard’s “My Home In the Field of Mercy” from Doran.
To-morrow we get 14 more ambulance loads, they say--I hope I get some
packages, but I especially desire letters from you. My last letter
from you--dated Dec. 12--contained a very noble poem by you--“High
Heart.” I was delighted to get it, I felt admitted to a realer intimacy
than I had known since I crossed the ocean. Please send me all your
poems, sad or spirited. I cannot write verse, but enjoy reading it more
than ever before. And you happen to be my favourite poet.
I bought a copy of Conan Doyle’s new “Sherlock Holmes” book in a nearby
town recently, in the Conrad edition. A French publisher named Conrad
has taken over the Tauchnitz business--you remember the Tauchnitz
books, don’t you? Also I’ve been reading Harry Leon Wilson’s, “The
Spenders”--an entertaining imitation of Mr. Howells, and rereading “The
Cardinal’s Snuff Box”--most delightful.
I love you very much, and I am very sorry for you--you aren’t having
the amusing adventures I am having--but you’re able to write nice
things, and that’s a consolation. I hope to see you and your admirable
babies soon.
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
Jan. 21, 1918.
Two or three days ago I received from you an admirable letter,
dated December 12, and yesterday arrived our long errant Christmas
mail--many trucks of it--and in it several letters from you dated about
Thanksgiving. It is strange that my letters take so long to reach you,
but you must have some of them by now. I certainly was glad to get ten
cans of tobacco from you, I have wanted a pipe full of that excellent
tobacco for months. I got a thousand stogies from Fr. Daly, a box of
cigars from my father, another from John B. Kennedy and another from
one Romaine Pierson, one of my father’s friends, who sent me also a
large can of tobacco. Also I got a lot of jelly and candy from my
mother and a little book of “Maxims of Fr. Faber” from Eleanor Rogers
Cox, and enough scapulars to sink a ship.
It certainly gives me the keenest delight to read your poetry. The
poem about the Christmas Tree has ---- backed off the map. Also “High
Heart” is very noble poetry. I envy you your power of writing poetry--I
haven’t been able to write a thing since I left the ship. Also I envy
you your power of being high hearted and, wholly legitimately, aware
of your own high heartedness. Not that I am low spirited--I am merely
busy and well-fed and contented. I am interested but not excited, and
excitement is supposed to be one of war’s few charms. The contentedness
is not absolute, of course, for I have, when away from you, always a
consciousness of incompleteness. But I have not had the painful and
dangerous times I expected to find as soon as we reached this country.
I am keenly interested in the novel you and Margaret are writing. But
don’t plunge too deep into occult studies in getting dope for it.
Don’t attend any seance of any kind or use Planchette or try automatic
writing or make any experiments of a supernatural kind. If you do, I
swear that if I do get shot I won’t haunt you--and I’m conceited enough
to think I can’t make a worse threat.
By the way, Kenton’s suggestion that you send me a checkerboard is
excellent. I’d like it very much.
I love you.
* * * * *
Feb 5, 1918.
I am enclosing a letter from Helen Parry Eden which should be put in
the autograph-letter file. A good way to keep author’s letters is
to paste special envelopes for them on the inside of the covers of
author’s books. Do not use the original envelopes for this purpose. But
probably this plan is unsafe in a library frequented by wild babies.
But at any rate try to get the stuff stowed away safely and neatly. Bob
Holliday could advise you intelligently as to the proper preservation
of autographed letters.
It is about a week now since I heard from you, and I am eagerly
awaiting to-day’s arrival of mail. I work in the place to which the
mail is brought for assortment, so I get my letters without much
delay--that is, delay after they reach the Regiment. The first delayed
batches of mail are still arriving--I get a November letter one day, a
January letter the next, a December the next.
Send me by all means all the verse you write--I find I enjoy poetry
more these days than I did when I made my living largely by making it
and writing and talking about it. But I wish I could make it as I used
to--I have not been able to write any verse at all except “_Militis
Meditatio_” which I sent you. I wrote a brief prose sketch which is
still in process of censuring--the censorship regulations may or may
not be so interpreted as to exclude it. I think I’ll be allowed to
print it, however, as it is really not a writing on military subjects,
but an introspective essay written by a sort of soldier. If it gets by,
it will go immediately to George H. Doran to be censored.
The second package of tobacco has arrived. The package containing it
was broken, but in the bottom of the mail bag I found all ten cans of
tobacco. I certainly am glad to get it--after ten years this kind still
seems to me to be the best tobacco in the world.
I am not especially delighted with the circumstances of my work just at
present. I am perfectly comfortable, have good meals and quarters and
my work is not at all hard. But I want to get into more interesting and
important work--perhaps it will be all fixed up by the time I write to
you again. I love you.
JOYCE KILMER.
* * * * *
February 22d, 1918.
My dear Aline:
It is a long time since I have heard from you--about three weeks. But
I suppose that I will receive a number of letters at once. I do not
yet know whether or not you have received the two batches of American
Express Company checks, amounting in all to $100.00, which I sent
you some time ago. But I am not worrying about it, if the checks are
lost it still is possible to recover the money. I sent you two lots of
prose and verse recently, and in the envelope containing this letter
is a quaint supplement to one of my little sketches--that called
“Breakfasts.” It is a letter to Kenton from the little girl who lives
in the house by the Fountain, where Farrell and Driscoll and I used to
eat every morning in our last station. I showed Solange (an excellent,
demure and pious infant) Kenton’s photograph, and told her that he
studied French in school. He is supposed to answer in French, tell
him--of course his French teacher must help him. I saved the censor
trouble by clipping from Solange’s letter the name of the town honoured
by her presence, but I guarantee (with St. Anthony’s aid) the safe
delivery to her of any epistle he may entrust to me.
The town we are in now has no Solange--or has revealed none to me as
yet--but in a certain Cafe which I much frequent is Antoine, aged two,
who can salute in the French manner, _comme ca_ (illustrated) or in the
American manner, _comme ca_, (illustrated). No, not with the left hand!
good Heavens, child! _Sacre bleu! nom d’um nom! Quelle dommage!_ Well,
if you are going to cry about it, you needn’t salute at all. Here, shut
up and drink the dregs of my _vin rouge et sirop_. _Fini, bebe!_
Also there is an admirable child named Jean who has six months. He
wears a lavender cloak with a hood attached. His home is a barber
shop, the most beautiful and extraordinary barber shop in the world.
His father the barber has gone to the Wars--remain madame, grandpere,
and M. Biebe. It is a very modern barber shop, with mirror-walls, and
powdered soap in silver salt cellars. Grandpere sits by the stove all
day long and says that there are many American soldiers in the town.
Madame exhibits le petit Jean and asks if it is ever as cold as this in
America. I shave with six razors if I desire, and wash in _beaucoup de
l’eau chaud_. And Madame deftly swinging le petit Jean over her left
shoulder opens a secret drawer under a mirror and proffers me a tiny
tube of _fixative_ for my moustache.
I have a delightful delusion now and then--I see you walk into the
Adjutant’s office, past the Sergeant Major’s desk, and to me. The
building in which we work was once a palace--but its inlaid floor never
supported a duchess (gold powdered though her hair were, and light her
laughter as champagne bubbles) so precious as this fleeting vision of
you.
JOYCE KILMER.
Note.--Three small, spirited pen drawings are incorporated into
this letter at the points indicated in the printed text.
* * * * *
A. E. F.
Dear Aline:
Sorry to use this absurd paper--but none other is accessible. I’m in a
hospital at present--been here for three days with a strained muscle.
It has been delightful to sleep between sheets again--I have rested up
beautifully, I go back to the regiment to-morrow.
I sent you two batches of copy recently--or three, rather. Hope you
get them--but if you don’t, I’ll write some more--like Caterina, you
know when she was defending her husband’s castle against the enemy. The
enemy took her six children as hostages. “Surrender the castle, or I’ll
kill the children!” said he. “Go ahead, kill ’em!” said Caterina. “I
can make more!”
As to your plan of renting a house at Shirley--wherever that is--for
the Summer, go ahead, if you must--I don’t think there is any chance
of my getting home this Summer. If I do come home, I’ll cable you in
time for you to get back to Larchmont before my arrival. Larchmont is
just about far enough from New York. Not for many a year will I consent
to spend a day in any place more rural. I have had enough of wildness
and rawness and primitiveness--the rest of my life, I hope, will be
spent in the effetest civilization. I don’t want to be more than an
hour’s distance from the Biltmore grill and the Knickerbocker bar. And
God preserve me from farms!
I love you.
JOYCE.
* * * * *
March 12, 1918.
Dear Aline:
I receive your letters frequently and regularly, and they are
delightful, stimulating, typical. To-day I returned from a week’s
sojourn in a charming hospital (a strained muscle, now healed, sent
me there) and I found two letters from you awaiting me, the latest
dated February 12. Let me congratulate you on your aviation poem--most
beautiful and true, the most intellectual poem you have made. By all
means put it in your book.
I received Francis Carlin’s wholly heavenly book just before I went
to the hospital, and have read it many times with delight. When you
see him, give him my homage. He should be walking goldener floors
than those of a mortal shop--he should rather be over here with us,
whatever his convictions may be. For it is wrong for a poet--especially
a Gael--to be listening to elevated trains when there are screaming
shells to hear, and to be sleeping soft in a bed when there’s a cot in
a dug-out awaiting him, and the bright face of danger to dream about,
and see.
I treasure your picture, and Christopher’s shadowy profile--send me
more photographs. Love me constantly, never let a day pass without
going to church for me.
JOYCE.
* * * * *
March 14, 1918.
Dear Aline:
I enclose some verses that you may like very much. That is, I think I
enclose them--I have yet to consult with our Regimental censor as to
whether or not I may send them. If the place name is cut out, put in
its stead any French proper name that rhymes and do with the poem as
you will. Perhaps the best thing to do with it will be to hand it to
Bob for publishing.
As to my book--why don’t worry about it--we all will live just as long
and just as happily and probably be just as wealthy--or poor--if it
is never written. I am cheerfully neglecting it, for many reasons.
One is, of course, the censorship, which prevents the sending out of
articles sufficiently topical and specific to be interesting. Another
is a military regulation which forbids an officer or enlisted man from
acting as a correspondent or writing for publication on a military
subject. This will not, I suppose, prevent the publication of such of
my verses and essays as are inspired by my experiences. But it will
prevent my making for serial publication any consecutive record of
events. What I will do will be to assemble, after the war is over,
or after I have returned from it, such random essays or rhymes as I
have made and bind them together with a thread of reminiscence--partly
introspective, partly--what is the word? extraspective? external, at
any rate. I shall write nothing that has any news value. I believe in
my vanity that it will be a most charming book, not without its high
lights of something more than charm. It really is the sort of book I’d
like greatly to read, and I think that it will reach a public tired of
the many war-narratives. And don’t think people won’t read it after the
war is over! They will! The only sort of book I care to write about the
war is the sort people will read after the war is over--a century after
it is over! And that is the sort of book I am going to make. A _journal
intime_, but as close to literature, as carefully thought and wrought
as I can do. It will be episodic--chaotic, perhaps--no glib tale, no
newspaper man’s work--but with God’s help, a work of art. So clamour
not for copy! My enclosures of some weeks ago may have pleased you, but
you’ll like this better.