Abschied zur Bina¹

Variant title in typescript, in Faber K44:

[‘Commemorative Gift: Happy Birthday Jonny Heywald’]

Hayward turned thirty-four on 2 Feb. 1939.

JDH: ‘Mr H. removed from Bina Gardens in Nov. 1938.’

For a translation of this poem by Rodney Dennis (1930–2006), Archivist of the Houghton Library, Harvard, see Poems II, 235–7.

See the poem by Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), ‘Abschied von Paris’ (‘Goodbye to Paris’), the prologue to Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen (Germany. A Winter’s Tale), 1844, which opens:

TSE to Henry Eliot, 7 Feb. 1939: ‘I may … have to send you a copy of some poems privately printed, “As were lately exchang’d between several of the choicest wits” to which I contributed – the printing was an afterthought. I enclose for your amusement a copy of one of mine [‘Abschied von Binagarten’], written in relation to one of the wits, John Hayward, having lately moved from Bina Gardens Kensington to Chelsea.’

JDH: ‘Sir Roderick Meiklejohn, formerly Chief Civil Service Commissioner.’

Sir Roderick Meiklejohn, KBE, CB (1876–1962), civil servant, served from 1899 in the War Office; then in the Treasury; and from 1928 to 1939 as First Civil Service Commissioner.

JDH note: ‘A great bore.’

Hugh Macdonald (1885–1958), who trained as a solicitor, went into partnership with Frederick Etchells to produce fine editions under the imprint of The Haslewood Books, 1924–31. His own works include England’s Helicon (1925), John Dryden: A Bibliography of Early Editions and of Drydenianae (1939) and Portraits in Prose (1946). JDH to TSE, 23 Feb. 1943: ‘He’s a clever, wizened civil servant …’

JDH note: ‘A celebrated artist.’

E. McKnight Kauffer (1890–1954) – christened Edward Kauffer, he took the middle name McKnight in tribute to Professor Joseph McKnight (University of Utah) who sponsored him to study in Paris – was an American artist who became famous for his graphic designs, book illustrations and posters. He lived from 1914 to 1940 in England, gaining fame for his London Underground posters; he also illustrated books and book covers. On his return to New York in 1940, his chief client was American Airlines. His partner, later his wife, Marion Dorn, was also a successful designer.

Asked in 1949 to contribute to a ‘profile’ of Kauffer, TSE wrote: ‘I think it was at the end, or shortly after the end of the first World War that I met McKnight Kauffer, who was already, I think, better known and remarked among the younger artists than I was amongst the men of letters. He was in appearance very much the same figure that he is to-day: tall, slender and elegantly dressed, and wearing whatever he wore with a grace that would make the best of the best efforts of the best tailor. (I cannot venture to say much about his appearance, because there is said to be a facial resemblance between Kauffer and myself – at any rate, when I have asked for him at the building in which he lives, several successive porters have taken for granted that I was his brother.)’

John Betjeman (1906–84): poet, journalist, authority on architecture. He had been taught by TSE at Highgate School in 1916. See further ‘Ode to a Roman Coot’, n.1 (above).

In his Summoned by Bells (1960) Betjeman recalled the time at Highgate School when he had brought himself to show TSE a collection of his manuscript poems:

Mary Trevelyan, ‘The Pope of Russell Square’, Boxing Day 1954: ‘[TSE] is maliciously amused at [Betjeman’s] choice of Books of the Year for the Sunday Times – absurdly highbrow. “One must keep the flag flying! … But I was horrified that so many distinguished people included Betjeman’s ‘Late Chrysanthemums’ in their lists – it just goes to prove that people dislike poetry.”’

This stanza was given on a postcard from TSE (addressed to JDH at 115 Swan Court, Chelsea, SW3), dated 3 February 1939.

JDH: ‘Mr. Jennings, a notable man of sorrows & a great wit.’

Richard Jennings (1881–1952): bibliophile and book collector (the term ‘Jennings condition’ has become a byword among book collectors); literary editor and editorialist of the Daily Mirror (where he worked for nearly forty years until retiring in 1942); brilliant conversationalist.

TSE to Stephen Passmore, 1 Aug. 1957: ‘I … am interested to know that you attended my old friend Richard Jennings in a medical capacity. I did not know that Jennings possessed a copy of Noctes Binanianae in the composition of which my friend Mr John Hayward, who lived at that time in Bina Gardens and was a still closer friend of Richard Jennings, took part.’

This stanza was supplied by postcard, addressed to Swan Court, 3 February 1939.

JDH note: ‘Mme Roland de Margerie.’

die fromme Jenny: ‘the pious Jenny’. Henriette de Margerie (1896–1991) – née Fabre-Luce (granddaughter of the distinguished banker Henri Germain, founder of Crédit Lyonnais; and older sister of the writer Alfred Fabre-Luce) – was married in September 1921 to the cultured diplomat Ronald Jacquin de Margerie (1899–1990) – a nephew of Edmond Rostand (creator of Cyrano de Bergerac) and friend of the theologian Teilhard de Chardin – who was Secretary to the French Embassies in Belgium and Germany before serving as Counsellor at the Embassy in London, where he formed good relations with politicians including Winston Churchill. (He was later to become adviser on foreign policy to President Charles de Gaulle, and from 1962 French Ambassador to West Germany in Bonn.) The couple lived at 113 Eaton Square, London SW1.

See Roland de Margerie, Journal 1939–1940, with preface by Éric Roussel (Paris, 2010): ‘Roland de Margerie n’avait pourtant rien d’un héritier attendant tout de sa naissance dans un milieu extrêmement privilégié. Acharné au travail, dévoué par tradition familiale et par disposition personnelle au bien public, il ne songea jamais, semble-t-il, à un autre destin que celui de grand serviteur de l’Etat.’

JDH note: ‘Mrs John Maxse.’

Dorinda Maxse, née Thorne (1910–88), was born in Hampstead and married Major John Maxse (son of General Sir Frederick Maxse) in 1931, at Chelsea Old Church, London. She served as a JP.

JDH note: ‘Mrs Morley Kennerly’.

Jean Morley Kennerley, née Simpson-Baikie: wife of TSE’s American editorial colleague Morley Kennerley (1902–85).

See Tom Faber, Morley Kennerley 1902–1985 (privately printed, 1985): ‘I suspect that he was left to carry much more than his share of the routine editorial work of the firm, besides being landed with responsibility for things like advertising and promotion, which no one else was willing to handle and which would not now be regarded as part of an editor’s job. Being Morley, he carried the load with uncomplaining good humour and efficiency. Most of his colleagues were prima donnas, given to eccentric enthusiasms and fits of temperament. Morley’s great value to the firm lay precisely in his lack of temperament; it lay in his unassuming loyalty, his courtesy and charm, his stability and commonsense. But his enthusiasms, though never eccentric, were also of value, and he was responsible for a whole range of delightful books, particularly books about the countryside and country pursuits, many of which live on in the firm’s list as a memorial to him. When he retired from full-time publishing in 1964 he was greatly missed … More than most couples [MK and Jean] seemed to resist the ravages of time. Jean remained as vital and stylish as ever. Morley remained his tall, slim and handsome self, always immaculately dressed and with beautifully polished shoes, his posture marvellously upright … In Russell Square during the Thirties the Chairman was kept on his toes by a succession of joke cigars, firecrackers under the table, threatening letters, bogus fan-mail and such like, and in most of these now legendary pranks Morley was actively involved. But truly, one could never be in his company for long without hearing him laugh and laughing oneself.’

See too Peter du Sautoy, ‘Morley Kennerley’, The Bookseller, 9 Mar. 1985.

According to a note by Constance Cruickshank, TSE thought Morley Kennerley ‘rather a swell’.

A portrait of Morley Kennerley (c. 1925), by Augustus John, is in the National Museum of Wales. In the TV movie Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story (1982), Jean Kennerley was played by Zoë Wanamaker.

JDH note: ‘Mrs John Codrington.’

Die nette Kodringburger: ‘The nice Kodringburger.’

Primrose Harley (1908–78), artist and gardener, studied at Chelsea Polytechnic and at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing, and exhibited at the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club, and the Society of Women Artists. She was married from 1936 to 1942 to Lt-Col. John Codrington (1898–1991), a career soldier – serving for twenty years with the Coldstream Guards – and noted horticulturalist.

JDH note: ‘Mrs Alan Cameron better remembered as Elizabeth Bowen, a renowned writer.’

Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) – Mrs Alan Cameron – Irish-born novelist; author of The Last September (1929) and The Death of the Heart (1938). TSE to Desmond Hawkins, 3 Feb. 1937: ‘[Elizabeth Bowen] has a very definite place, and a pretty high one, amongst novelists of her kind.’

JDH note: ‘Two High-Church curates now residing at No. 22.’

TSE, in an undated letter (on Criterion writing paper) to JDH:

I thought of putting in a stanza something like this:

But on the whole perhaps it breaks the frame to introduce the fauna for the sake of the canon. I have no copy of the text. You will give me your opinion.