A prelude landscapes, characters and conversations from the earlier years of my life PDF
Preview A prelude landscapes, characters and conversations from the earlier years of my life
Ic I. .I 3 c A PRELUDE a ~ --· Landscapes, Characters and Conversations · from the Earlier Years of My Life BOOKS BY EDMUND WILSON I THOUGHT OF DAISY AXEL's CASTLE THE TRIPLE THL'iiKERS TO THE FINLAND STATION THE WOUND AND THE BOW THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION ME"IOIRS OF HECATE COU:STY EUROPE WITHOUT BAEDEKER CLASSICS AND COMMERCIALS THE SHORES OF LIGHT FIVE PLAYS THE SCROLLS FROM THE DEAD SEA RED, BLACK, BLOND AND OLIVE A PIECE OF MY MIND THE AMERICAN EARTHQUAKE APOLOGIES TO THE IROQUOIS WILSON'S NIGHT THOUGHTS PATRIOTIC GORE THE COLD WAR AND THE INCOME TAX 0 CANADA THE BIT BETWEEN MY TEETH A PRELUDE EDMUND WILSON A Prelude Landscapes, Characters and Conversations from the Earlier Years of My Life FARRAR STRAUS AND GIROUX NEW YORK Copyright© 1967 by Edmund Wilson All rights reserved Library of Congress catalog card number 67-15011 "Lieutenant Franklin" copyright 1936 by Harcourt, Brace & Co., copyright renewed 1964, Edmund \Vilson Except for the illustrations, the contents of this book appeared in The New Yorker First printing, 196 7 Published simultaneously in Canada by Ambassador Books, Ltd., Rexdale, Ontario Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS First Trip to Europe, 1908 1 Family 27 School and College Friends 39 Princeton, 1912-1916 71 Plattsburgh, Summer of 1916 149 New York, 1916-1917 153 The Army, 1917-1919 171 v Illustrations appear following pages 88 and 152 First Trip to Europe 1908 In the summer of 1914, I began keeping a notebook, which eventually turned into something like a journal -though it neYer became for any length of time a day bv-dav diarv. I never noted the weather or recorded e~·crything that I did but only aimed to catch sur le v~f things that struck me as significant or interesting. Th1s volume is a first instalment. At this stage, my notations were scrappy, and I have had to fill them in with some thing in the nature of reminiscences. Later on, I came to develop this chronicle on a very much larger scale, and even to some extent to organize it in the form of episodes that consisted of interwoven elements of experience. It is unlikely that very much more than this volume, with perhaps a second volume, can be published till after my death. Of the two short stories included here, The Death of a Soldier first appeared in book form in The Undertaker's Garland, written in collaboration with John Peale Bishop, and Lieutenant Franklin, in Tral'els in Two Democ racies. In the notebooks, I have corrected punctuation and spelling, and have occasionallv corrected the stvle in order to remedy some intolerable ~lumsiness. I do' not much recommend for its interest the 1908 diary of my first trip to Europe, but I am printing it for the sake of complete ness, and because it provides me with a pretext for explaining certain family matters. "My Trip Abroad" Edmund Wilson Jr. Red Bank N.J. Presented By Miss Margaret Edwards [Margaret Edwards, about my own age, was at that time my closest friend in Red Bank. I shall tell more about her later. The diary, bound in leather, that she gave me when I was going away, had "My Trip Abroad" stamped on the cover. I crossed with my family on the North German Line Konig Albert. At the dock, I bought a riddle-book, which must have been British. Two of the riddles, because of their badness, have remained in my mind ever since: "Why is a needy pauper like a man getting down a pork pie from the top shelf?" Answer: "Because he is a pore creature." "\Vhat is the difference bet\veen a beggar and the Tsar of Russia?" Answer: "The Tsar issues manifestoes, and the beggar manifests toes without his 2 FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE, I 908 3 shoes.'' This joke-book is forever embedded in the memory of mv first excitement at going to Europe. 0~ the boat was \Villiam Randolph Hearst, of whose sinister reputation I had been const1ntly hearing and reading. He resembled the caricatures I had seen of him. Tall and stooping, gray-eyed and gray-faced, he walked the deck by himself.] May 8, 1908 [My birthday. I was thirteen] The Azore Islands In the afternoon we passed three of the Azores. First we passed Fayal, then Peko. On Peko is Mount Peko 7613 ft. high, the top of which is in the clouds. After that we saw San Jorge, which was very beautiful. On the tops of the hills we could see palm trees. The houses were nearly all white with red roofs and there were a great many windmills, which looked like large pinwheels. From San Jorge a man in uniform, the American consul and some Portuguese came out to the ship to get the mail, which was lowered to them while the captain talked to the consul, who wore an eyeglass, through a megaphone. The people on the Azores are mostly Portuguese (be cause the islands are owned by Portugal) and are very clean. So clean that some emigrants from the Azores were not allowed to mix with the others, but were given a place by themselves. The islands themselves are verv uneven and moun· tainous and seem to be surround~d by high cliffs, on which the waves dash \'cry high. A ladv told us she had three sons who had never seen the Azo;es, all bovs. We passed St: Michael at 4 o'clock in the morning.
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