Wilder writes to Louise Talma about a lively White House Dinner on May 11, 1962
50 Deepwood Drive
Hamden 17, Connecticut
May 17. 1962
Dear Louise:
Delighted, delighted about the Colony. Tho' it would have been "fun" to think of you here in August, both Isabel and I were concerned about some of those crushing days that can descend on us here.[1] (Yet, too, there can be halcyon days for a week on end, even in August.)
L. Bernstein,[2] whom I recently met "in society" will be at the Colony. What do you think of that? Are you going to tell him right to his face that he'd better re-contemplate Beethoven? Reinhardt's book, which concerns Homer and the Iliad, was published in 1961.
Oh, I'll betya he'll be charmed by you-transported-and things will come of it that'll almost persuade me to buy an air-ticket and fly east.
Remember my prophecy.
X
So you want to know what the Washington "do" was like?[3]
What did I talk about with M. Malraux.
I talked about "good evening" and that was all-and not even in French.
Gracious sakes, there were 162 guests.
The high points for me were A. meeting Scott Fitzgerald's beautiful "Shakespearean" daughter who remembered a walk we took in a rose-garden when she was eleven[4] B. meeting Balanchine and telling him, plump, in his face all that I owed to him and C. the President in the handshake line saying: "I want to thank you, Mr. Wilder, for what you said about last week" (at my "reading" in the State Department.*)
The greeting line was alphabetical and we were a nice little contingent in "W"s: Penn Warrens,[5] Wilder, Tennessee Williams.
I sat at the Vice President's table with Alexis Leger, Mrs Lindbergh, Mrs Bohlen, Robert Lowell.[6]
The first Lady was glorious in a white and pale raspberry Dior.
The food (Vendredi, maigre[7]) was perfect.
* When Mr. Ribicoff introduced me to the audience I said: "I am delighted to be here, but even if I were not here and another was here in my place I would be delighted to read about it ...... Washington has become like a lighthouse on a hill by the interest it takes in those things for which we spend our lives .... restoring a surprised self-respect .. .. <"> (something like that.)
TNW with Secretary of Health, Education and We!fore Abraham Ribicoff on April 30, 1962, at the State Department, where TNW re.ad excerpts from his work to an invited audience.
Stern-Rose-Istomin44[8] played the Schubert E-Flat superbly but the audience, excited by all that glamor and a little tight, did not behave as it should. (I sat by Mrs Sam Behrman[9]-and a lovely person she is who is Jascha Heifetz's sister.<)> We listened. Lenny was the only musician there-they having been at the Casals night. I finished the evening at the Francis Biddles[10] with the Edmund Wilsons, the Saul Bellows, Balanchine, and Lowell.
Fun?
A little contretemps took place involving our hosts which I will only tell you in confidence in 1965 (not involving me, deo gratia.)[11]
Garrison Chapin Biddle.
I start driving west Saturday. Don Quixote following his mission. Friday I go to Long Island to see Charlotte.
I love the Rumpelmeyer passacaglia.[12] What a girl! I suppose that surpassing difficulty is in allusion to my rusty old steps on the parquet. Oh, how often I shall think of those Frankfurt days in my new home and it'll all get more and more lyrical. And all on the tide of the rich right flowing music.
love
Thornt'
[1] Talma indicated in a footnote to this letter that if she had been rejected by the MacDowell
[2] Leonard Bernstein.
[3] TNW was a guest at the White House dinner on May 11, 1962, honoring French author and
[4] Frances Scott ("Scottie") Fitzgerald Lanahan, whom TNW had met in February 1928, when he spent the weekend at the Fitzgeralds' house in Delaware (see letter number 107); she was six at the time of TNW's visit.
[5] Robert Penn Warren and his wife, the writer Eleanor Clark.
[6] Anne Morrow Lindbergh; Avis Thayer Bohlen, the wife of Charles "Chip" Bohlen, the American ambassador to France at this time.
[7] French: (Friday, light). TNW is referring to the fact that since the dinner was held on a Friday, meat was not served.
[8] Violinist Isaac Stern, cellist Leonard Rose, pianist Eugene Istomin.
[9] Elza Heifetz Behrman, wife of playwright S. N. Behrman.
[10] Francis Biddle, a lawyer and former US. attorney general, and his wife, the poet Katherine
[11] TNW means Deo gratias (Latin: Thanks be to God).
[12] In a footnote appended to this letter, Talma explained that she mentioned to TNW that during certain “somewhat frivolous” parts of the fugue she was working on she was reminded of the night the two of them danced at Rumpelmeyer’s in Frankfurt.