Acerca del autor

Irene Goldman-Price has taught literature and women's studies at Ball State University and Penn State University. She serves on the editorial board of the Edith Wharton Review and has consulted and taught at The Mount, Edith Wharton's house museum in Massachusetts. In 2010–2011 she was a visiting fellow at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where the Wharton letters are held.

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My Dear Governess

Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Preface................................................................................ixList of Abbreviations..................................................................xiiiIntroduction...........................................................................11. "Herz" and "Tonnie" MAY 1874 TO MARCH 1885.........................................252. "Spliced" JULY 1885 TO MAY 1893....................................................633. "Un peu de faiblesse" AUGUST 1893 TO DECEMBER 1896.................................1174. "Harvesting laurels" APRIL 1898 TO APRIL 1907......................................1715. "Turning-points" JUNE 1907 TO JULY 1914............................................2056. "This sudden incredible catastrophe" AUGUST 1914 TO APRIL 1916.....................247Bibliography...........................................................................277Acknowledgments........................................................................283Credits and Permissions................................................................285Index..................................................................................287

Chapter One

MAY 1874 TO MARCH 1885

When Anna Bahlmann first met her in 1873, Edith, called "Pussy" Jones, was a well-mannered, much-petted child of twelve, indulged the more by her parents for being the baby of the family, the only girl, and for having recently survived a near-fatal attack of typhoid fever. Not conventionally pretty, she had a strong, somewhat plain face with melting brown eyes and a torrent of auburn hair. She was possessed of a natural courtesy and an enchanting facility with words. In her imagination, the grasses in the wild spoke to her, and she understood, she later wrote, what animals said to one another. This prodigious imagination had compelled her, before she could read, to pace the floor, upside-down book in hand, passionately making up stories. Pussy Jones was already on her way to becoming one of America's most gifted and respected women of letters, Edith Wharton.

Edith's family consisted of her parents, Lucretia Rhinelander Jones (1825–1901) and George Frederic Jones (1821–82), and two older brothers. Harry (Henry Stevens) Jones (1852–1922) was unmarried and frequently traveled and lived with the family; Edith later described him as "the dearest of brothers to all my youth" (to Bernard Berenson, 23 Aug 1922, LEW, 453). Her oldest brother Freddy (Frederic Rhinelander) Jones (1846–1918) was married to Minnie (Mary) Cadwalader Rawle Jones (1850–1935), and they had a young daughter, Beatrix, called Trix (1872–1959).

Edith was tutored in German by Anna Bahlmann in the fall and winter of 1873–74. Her letters to her teacher began when they parted in May 1874: the Jones family going to Newport, Rhode Island, and Anna remaining in New York for a short time before traveling to Newport herself to prepare Edgerston, the summer home of her employers, the Rutherfurds, for the family's arrival. Anna's travel was not as convenient as that of her employers, who would have had an elegant stateroom in which they could sleep until their carriage met them at the Newport dock. Anna's description to her sister-in law of her own trip displays a nice humor and self-irony: "I managed to put myself on board the Newport boat before the gang-plank was drawn up & arrived here at 3 o'clock last Sunday morning. You see what an advantage a plain face is—a pretty young woman could never have arrived at that hour unmolested, taken a cab & driven along the solitary roads by moonlight. It might have been romantic but I found it only chilly, & was not sorry to stretch & rest my weary limbs in a comfortable bed" (to Lydia Abbot Bahlmann, 25 July 1875).

Edgerston was next door to Pen craig, the Jones home, and Edith played with the two Rutherfurd boys, Lewis and Winthrop, the latter of whom was just Edith's age. She enjoyed Sunday walks led by their father, the amateur astronomer Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (1816–92). She looked up to the Rutherfurd daughters, Margaret (Daisy) and Louisa (Poodle), who served as inspiration to her both in becoming a young lady herself and in her writing, as she said many years later: "The young gods and goddesses I used to watch strolling across the Edgerston lawn were the prototypes of my first novels" (BG, 47).

These earliest letters, written over several summers, chronicle Edith's family life and her activities. Along with tennis and archery, Edith read avidly and widely, critiqued what she read, and wrote poetry with a dedication she would retain for the rest of her writing career. Anna was her touchstone for all literary endeavor, offering a cultivated mind against which Edith could test her literary judgments. We can observe Edith's command of the language broaden even as her tone takes on a growing sense of privilege and expectancy of having her desires gratified. We also see the deepening of her fondness for her teacher: "My dear Miss Anna" becomes "My dearest Miss Anna" and soon "Dearest Tonnie" (derived from Tante, aunt); "Ever your very affectionate E. N. Jones" intensifies to "Most lovingly yrs, E. N. Jones," then "Your devoted 'Herz,'" or heart.

Edith was twelve years and four months old when she composed this first invitation to "Miss Anna."

1. In A Backward Glance, Wharton spells her childhood home as one word, Pencraig, and biographers and critics have followed suit. However, in her letters the young Edith spells it as two words, Pen craig, and the house letterhead is the same. I have retained the two-word spelling throughout the text. Pen craig is Welsh for top of the rock.

Pen craig, Newport May 31st, 1874

My dear Miss Anna,

Mamma has commissioned me to write and tell you that, when you come up to put the house in order we shall have a room ready for you and be very, very glad indeed to see you. Newport is delightful and we are ready for you whenever you may come, if you could let us know on what day to expect you. Besides, if I don't see you until next winter—Ich wurde [sic] mein Deutsch ganz und gar vergessen! [I would completely forget my German!]

So you really must come and pray be a long time putting the house in order—

Ever your very affectionate,

E. N. Jones

At nearly fifteen, Edith has expanded her vocabulary and developed decided literary opinions.

Pen craig, Newport Nov. 13th, 1875

My dearest Miss Anna,

How kind you are to your stupid "Hertz" in sending her such a long, charming letter in the midst of your busiest days! If you knew how much I enjoyed it & how overwhelmed I am by the honour of being allowed to do a commission for you, you would realize my thanks better than I can write them. Just fancy it's trusting me to do anything for you! It is the greatest pleasure that you could give me, & I will do my best for you when I go into town this morning—taking it for granted, however, that you don't want a medallion of Tasso, who, apparently, was by no means as handsome as he was unfortunate, & which Hammett shewed me the last time I was there—

Today is what the poets call "halcyon" weather; a word which always brings to "my mind's eye, Horatio" a vision of becalmed ships in blue seas, with white birds swooping overhead—but we have not been without storms since you left. Now, dear Miss Anna, pray don't tire yourself, & leave my books alone until I go to town & I will get them myself. You will have enough to do without going to Christern's for them—

Yesterday I got Longfellow's new book, "The Masque of Pandora & other poems." I like "Pandora" quite well. It is a dramatic poem in blank verse, with Greek choruses, but it is too short—it has not substance enough, & it wants, as I think all Longfellow's poems do, fire & passion & reality. His poetry always reminds me of a chilly sculpture, it is so lifeless. I think his characters want vigour. They are passionless & collected as if they were walking in a trance, or beneath the influence of a calming spell. Such at least is the impression that he gives me, but I judge merely from my own feelings. Some parts, however, of "Pandora" are very beautiful, & I think these two lines run very smoothly.

"Who would not love, if loving she might be Changed like Callisto to a star in Heaven?"

I don't want to fill my letter with a review, but I must send you the last three lines spoken by Pandora, for I think them very fine & I want to know if you agree with me. She says:

"Only through punishment of our evil deeds, Only through suffering are we reconciled to the Immortal Gods & to ourselves"—

I hope that I have not bothered you with all this, but when I get on one of my pet subjects, I never feel inclined to leave it off, & I do like occasionally to have a discussion about poetry—

I hope that your arrival has made both Mr. & Mrs. Rutherfurd feel better, as I am sure it ought to—And you yourself—how are you?—

Sit down quietly by the fire in a comfortable chair when I come to visit you in the shape of this letter, and don't run away after your housekeeping, but rest yourself while you are listening to my chatter. When we last heard from my brother, my sister was in Philadelphia, but I daresay she will have returned by the time you find leisure to go & see her, & at all events lonely little Beatrix will be glad of a visit from "Anna"—Fred's address is 34 East 23rd. I think that we shall go to New York next week. I have packed up all my china ornaments & today I think I must pick out my books to take to town—which is a horrid task because I cannot bear to leave one behind me & yet cannot take them all along. The best way would be to have one copy of each book here & one in New York.

Mamma is much better, & Doyle thanks you very much for your remembrance of her. I am very sorry to say that she has a bad, croaking cold, which has been hanging about her for some days. The greenhouse looks very nicely & I water there every day. I saw Daisy [Margaret Rutherfurd] the day before yesterday, to my great surprise. I make my best dancing-school curtsey to Mr. & Mrs. Rutherfurd & to "Francis Beaumont" my co-author, & remain, with much love, yours in a very small space

E.N.J.

1. The Italian poet Torquato Tasso (1544–95) is noted, among other work, for having composed his poem "Rinaldo" before reaching the age of twenty. Edith owned a copy of Tasso's Le Gerusalemme Liberata. Additionally, Anna's favorite author, Wolfgang von Goethe, wrote a play called Torquato Tasso, and one might speculate that Anna has given the play to Edith and has used the model of Tasso to encourage Edith's aspirations as a young poet. Charles E. Hammett, Jr., was a Newport bookseller, publisher, and mapmaker.

2. Edith's quoted allusion is to Shakespeare's Hamlet, which shows that she had already studied the play.

3. F.W. Christern was a New York bookseller who specialized in foreign books. Edith's familiarity with him and with Charles Hammett suggests frequent commerce in books.

4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) was at the time America's most widely read and admired poet.

5. In Greek mythology, Callisto was seduced by Zeus, then changed into a star in the Ursa Major constellation.

6. Hannah Doyle, Edith's much-loved Irish nursemaid, remained in the Jones household as seamstress.

7. She has written herself into a tiny corner. For many years Edith will write on every bit of space of the paper, even writing across an earlier page. This may be the reason she uses so few new paragraphs. "Francis Beaumont" may refer to Anna herself, who, as we see in later letters, assists Edith in her translations and probably her writing, too. Francis Beaumont (1584–1616) famously collaborated with John Fletcher (1579–1625) in writing plays. That Edith knows this suggests that, at age thirteen, she is already familiar with a variety of Renaissance plays.

Pen craig, Newport August 1876

My dearest Tonnie—

It is a double pleasure to receive a letter from you. The present pleasure of reading it, combined with the prospect of answering it—which, you see, I do not leave long to the future, for it is not an hour since Trix came rapping at my door with "Here's a letter, Aunt Eduff." I am so terribly shy of shewing to any one whom I know to be a fair judge, any of my writings, that after I sent Mignon I was half-frightened; but I have been more than rewarded by your frank criticism, which is so much more of compliment to me than the polite, unmeaning, "Oh, it's lovely," which I so often get when I beg for an honest opinion. And now I wish that you would help me to correct it. "Still stands the myrtle & the laurel high" bothers me because it is so absurdly literal—but "calm grows the myrtle" is just as bad, & as I can only use a word of one syllable, I am at a loss how to correct it. Then—"O thou poor child, what hath man done to thee?" does not satisfy me. Yet what can I put in the place of "man"? "The cloud-ridged mountain" is a difficult line, for Wolkensteg is not very easily translated. Then again, "The mule ascends with care" is not a literal rendering of what, correctly, would be "The mule seeks his way through the fog." Please, if it be not troubling you too much, tell me which lines you do not like, in your next letter. "So lasst mich scheinen, bis ich werde" is much more difficult, & consequently my translation is much worse. Is "so let me seem until I be" good English, or would "am" be better? But I will not bewilder you with any more questions lest you should find your encouragement rash. I have half in mind to send you something that I wrote about Friederike this Spring when you were dictating that sketch of Goethe—It is very poor & too spun out, but if I decide to send it please find its chief virtue in the fact that it is associated with some very pleasant hours—

I was delighted to get that account of the "Trilogie" which I have not yet had time to read entirely, but which will of course be interesting. I thought that it was to be called "Ragnarok." Is it not taken from the original version of the Nibelungen in the Edda? It seems to me a mixture of the two, for we have Valhalla & the giants (Fafner, whom Fafnisbane slew) & the scene is laid on the Rhine. I do not understand how Herr Wagner can blend the two poems, for the later one has a sort of barbarous Christian veil thrown over its heathenism, a mixture of murder & high mass which is very amusing.

I agree with you in thinking that "music hath something or other to soothe the savage ear," for I, who am in that respect a South Sea Islander, am often fascinated by a soft, old-fashioned air or a stirring song—"Robin Adair" has really bewitched me, it is so exquisitely simple & pathetic. Over & over again I beg M. Bininger, who is staying with us & who sings it charmingly, to let me hear it. How can anyone sing opera music & foreign trash, when there are so many sad, beautiful English ballads & songs?

I have just been reading some of Lowell's blank verse, his Prometheus, Rhoecus, Columbus, etc., & I find them very beautiful indeed. The opening of Rhoecus is admirable. I think you said you had not read "The Vision of Sir Launful"; I am sure that you will be as much pleased as I was with it.

We expect the Dickeys here at Newport a week from yesterday, & it will be a great & delightful change to have my dear Ella back again. (I should have accounted long ago for my very bad writing by telling you that I have only my very short-sighted eye to guide me, the other being tied with a wet cloth, because it is inflamed. I am weeping tears of alcohol & water from my dripping bandage as I write.)

Do not crow over us any longer. The rain withholds itself but the weather is cool & breezy. As for the family, M. & Trix came last week & Fred comes up for his "Sunday out" not being wholly free, poor boy. The great rose-tree in the greenhouse is blooming prosperously & the "farm" flourishes to one's heart's desire, from the bull to the ferns & geraniums. As much cannot be said for one horseflesh, the new chestnut pair having been ill for a long time—but Poney is blooming & beautiful. Mr. Rutherfurd is away & the boys are off on the Palmer [the Rutherfurd yacht]. So that Edgerston is an establishment like that in Tennyson's "Princess," but not so rigidly guarded against the other sex, who go there to play lawn tennis almost every afternoon. It is a most fascinating game; difficult, tiresome, & destructive to pretty dresses, & to the complexion, but nevertheless delightful. Pin your skirts up high (it is well to have nice boots, still better & rarer to have small feet), put on a small hat & "go it!" Once begin & you will never care to stop chasing the magnetic balls hither & thither, throwing them back with your bats, etc.

For two or three days my eyes have been ailing, & reading & writing forbidden pleasures, but now they are well again & I have got a new pen and I am quite comfortable. The Palmer came back yesterday afternoon with the other yachts & I must call on Mr. Rutherfurd today. I have been asked to join an archery club & the first meeting is to be held this afternoon.

But I dare not write any more, not even to answer your questions. I will send Friederike another time. Your affectionate

E N Jones Ella may arrive today or tomorrow.

1. Edith was translating two of the "Mignon" poems from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.

2. Goethe immortalized his love affair with Friederike Brion in his poems "Welcome and Farewell" and "May Song," which Edith read with Anna. Unfortunately, whatever Edith wrote about Friederike has not been found.

3. Richard Wagner's (1813–83) Der Ring des Nibelungen is a four-opera cycle, considered by some a trilogy, with Das Rheingold as the prelude. Although all the poetry was written by 1852, composing the music was a work of decades, and the final opera of the series, Götterdämmerung, was performed for the first time the month that this letter was written.

4. She is paraphrasing William Congreve, "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast."

5. James Russell Lowell (1819–91), "Prometheus" (1843); "Rhoecus" (1843); "Columbus" (1844); "The Vision of Sir Launful" (1849).

6. I have been unable to identify Ella Dickey definitively. An Ella Dickey served as bridesmaid to Miss Mary Mason Jones at her April 1884 wedding to Louis Hassell. This was not Edith Wharton's more famous great-aunt Mary Mason Jones, but it suggests that the Dickeys were a part of the same Old New York society as the Joneses.

7. "Princess" is an 1847 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) about a princess who founds a school for women that is eventually infiltrated by her suitor.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from My Dear Governess Copyright © 2012 by Irene Goldman-Price. Excerpted by permission of Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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