PUBLISHED OCCASIONALLY BY THE FRIENDS OF THE BANCROFT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720

No. 66 February 19 J J

^Dearest Violas- Letters of George Moore In December of 1952, Roland E. Duncan, a member of the Bancroft staff who was in London to oversee the microfilming of docu­ ments in the Public Record Office, crossed the Channel to Paris to conduct an interview with Alice B. Toklas, an interview which would become the first in the Library's Oral History program. During this same week Duncan journeyed on to the village of Lardy in Seine-et-Oise, seeking the villa of the late Viola Rodgers, a California-born journalist who had died in 1944, where he hoped to find her correspondence from Frank Norris and a file of letters written to her by the Anglo-Irish novelist, George Moore. The letters from Norris had disappeared, pre­ sumably during the war, but those from Moore had indeed survived the German oc­ cupation of the villa; they were not then available to The Bancroft Library. Now, twenty-four years later, it is good to an­ nounce that all one hundred and thirty-two letters have come to the Library as the gift of an anonymous donor. George Moore, perhaps best known for his novels Esther Waters and Evelyn Inness and for his memoirs including A Story teller s Holiday and Memoirs of My Dead Life, studied painting in Paris from 1872 to 1882. While in the French capital he read deeply in current literature and when he returned to England and to a career of fiction he be­ gan to utilize the realistic and naturalistic techniques of Flaubert, Zola, and others. Viola Rodgers in France during World War I With William Butler Yeats and Lady Greg­ said "could not have been done at all with­ ory he collaborated in the planning of the out Moore's knowledge of the stage." Irish National Theatre, a work which Yeats Moore first met Viola Rodgers in 1907 [• ] when she came from London to Dublin for Dujardin. He mentions other friends in pass­ Perhaps the earliest book written entirely an interview. In an unpublished memoir, ing, notably Nancy Cunard, whose own 30th Annual Meeting on Costa Rica is John Hale's Six Months which is also in The Bancroft Library, Miss memoir of Moore, published in 1956, re­ William Saroyan, the internationally fa­ Residence and Travels in Central America Rodgers describes this meeting: counts that all of his letters to her disap­ mous Fresno-born dramatist and novelist for through the Free States of Nicaragua, and I had a telegram from the New York peared when her house in Normandy was whose play, The Time of Your Life, he was particularly Costa Rica: Giving an Interest­ office [of the Hearst newspapers] ask­ occupied by German soldiers during the sec­ awarded, and declined, the Pulitzer Prize in ing Account of that Beautiful Country . . . ing me to arrange for George Moore to ond World War. He announces that Cath- 1940, will be the principal speaker at the with the Peculiar Advantages offered by the write an article on art for the Cosmo­ leen Nesbitt, who is to play the lead in his thirtieth Annual Meeting of The Friends Government to Settlers, showing the most politan Magazine. I took the train and play The Coming of Gabrielle, is coming to of The Bancroft Library on Sunday after­ Eligible Place for Cutting the Projected boat over to Dublin where he was living luncheon and says: "I wish it were you." noon, May 8th. A special exhibition of mate­ Canal, to Unite the Atlantic and Pacific in his lovely house in Ely Place, not far Moore airs his literary tastes: rials drawn from the Library's extensive Oceans . . . published in New York in 1826. from the Shelburne Hotel... Mr. Moore Hawthorne the great master of English theater collections will be installed in the Hale is enthusiastic about the possibilities was there with his hair and moustache prose could not mould a tale; and it is a Gallery, and the annual Keepsake, to be for potential immigrants, and his account a pinkish shade (not red in any sense great pity he was no tale teller for he edited by Professor Travis Bogard, Depart­ is rich in detail concerning the Indians, of what one calls a "brick top.") The wrote beautifully, far better than any ment of Dramatic Art, will also have a climate, soil, mines and minerals, incipient most noticeable thing about him was English writer, Pater excepted. theatrical theme. An announcement and in­ industry, and the subsidies provided by the his beautifully formed white hands, with He also has definite feelings about how vitation will be sent to members in April. government to settlers. the long tapering fingers. He was tall Shakespeare ought be played: Grammar of the Miskito Language with and straight and his eyes the bluest of I have seen Barrymore in Hamlet and exercises and Vocabulary was compiled by blue eyes—kind, witty, mischievous — was surprised to learn that a man can Central American Rarities H. Berckenhagen, a Moravian missionary, and his face pink and white, with his study Hamlet month after month with­ and printed in Saxony, in the English lan­ drooping moustache covering a full out discovering that use of the mono­ With funds contributed by The Friends guage, in 1894. The Mosquito Coast, whose mouth, sensuous and red. logue is to communicate the prince's of The Bancroft Library, a remarkable col­ capital was Bluefields (or, as in Bancroft, They fast became friends and remained so mood to the audience . . . Barrymore's lection of Central American books and pam­ Blewfields), occupied a portion of the east­ until Moore's death early in 1933. The rec­ Hamlet is too hateful to be mentioned. phlets, many of them so rare as not to be ern coast of Nicaragua and Honduras; a ord of their friendship, at least from Moore's In 1923 Moore is enthusiastic about his listed in the standard bibliographical guides, German colony, Carlsruhe, was established point of view, is told in these letters, written new play, The Apostle, but writes to Miss has recently been purchased. This area of there in 1844, and the author may have been over a quarter of a century, primarily from Rodgers that it "cannot be acted in England the western world was part of Hubert Howe a descendant of these earlier settlers. In a his London home in Ebury Street. because the law forbids plays in which Jesus Bancroft's "literary territory," for volumes prefatory note he states: "Though this little Viola Rodgers was born in Watsonville in and Paul are the chief or among the minor six through eight of his histories deal with grammar is still imperfect, it is hoped how­ 1874, educated at the Irving Institute in San characters." He is, however, hopeful that the peoples and development of Central ever to be a guide into the language for Francisco, and became a reporter on the San "there will be no objection to the play being America, and these sixty-four new items those, who have to acquire it." Francisco Examiner. In 1903 she traveled to performed in America — a country, inhab­ nicely enhance the Library's collection in The final title to be noted here is Regula­ China to visit a brother who was in business ited, I believe, mostly by Unitarians." this field. tions For The Better Government of His there, and upon her return she settled in The letters of the last years chronicle Pelaez Francisco Garcia's Vindicacion del Majesty's Subjects in the Bay of Honduras, New Y>rk where she joined the staff of the Moore's illnesses; the final communique, Sistema Federal de Centro-America, escritaPresented to them by the Honourable Sir New York American after her initial assign­ dated December 30th, 1932, foretells his ap­ en Guatemala . . . was published in San Sal­ William Burnaby, Knight . . . , printed in ment for the paper proved a scoop. Follow­ proaching death: vador in 1825. This essay calls for a Central London in 1809. By terms of the Treaty of ing this success she achieved what she later I think of you constantly, for you have American Confederation, which, in fact, Paris in 1763, the British demolished their called "the greatest beat of my journalistic been a good friend to me. The past was came briefly into being following the Mexi­ fortifications around the Bay of Honduras career, the first exclusive interview and story pleasant but I am afraid there is no re­ can Revolution. An equally rare title, simi­ but were permitted to continue cutting wood of her life with Evelyn Thaw," better known turning to it. It is very probable that I larly not listed in the British Museum, is in this area. Sir William Burnaby was sent as Evelyn Nesbit, great friend of Stanford shall never see you again. William Perks' Relacion de la Vida Publica to Belize to establish the limits within which White who was murdered by her husband, In her memoir, Viola Rodgers notes this del Coronel Guillermo Perks, published in the wood-cutting was to be confined and to Harry K. Thaw. After six months in New letter and concludes her comments on George Guatemala in 1826. Perks, an English soldier draw up a code of laws for the regulation of Y>rk her editor sent Miss Rodgers to France, Moore: of fortune, had come to Guatemala from the the colony. The Burnaby Code, as it came by way of London, to become the Paris cor­ He left this world the following month United States and Mexico in 1825, and this to be known, was for many years the only respondent for the American. and his ashes were taken back to his autobiographical apology sets forth his po­ written body of law by which Belize was Moore's letters to "Dearest Viola" are at native Ireland where they belonged for litical and military qualifications for public governed. once affectionate and chatty; he seeks to ar­ his soul never wandered from his native life in the newly-established Federal Repub­ Because of political instability, natural dis­ range friendly meetings, either in London land. No one was more Irish than lic. Another work by Perks, Manifiesto, asters, and problems of climate, Central or in Paris, or, later, at Fontainebleau, where George Moore. His very resentment of printed in Guatemala two years later, was American publications of the early nine­ he often visited the French novelist, Edouard the fact proved it. also received in this collection. teenth century are extremely scarce, and M [3]

) Copyright 1977 The Friends of The Bancroft Library to have come across such a large group at riet Beecher Stowe. Both titles are repre­ tion of the prevalent notion that women are one time has been a fortunate happening for sented in the collection of early household fragile playthings or ignorant drudges and the Library. and etiquette books formed by Professor that weakness is an expression of femininity. Emeritus George R. Stewart and donated by Their cult of domesticity went beyond the him to The Bancroft Library. recipes for cooking and cleaning and the California's Wine Industry Until the middle of the nineteenth cen­ sententious generalities about moral obliga­ A series of interviews, begun in 1969 by tury, American women relied heavily on the tions which had filled earlier guides. Added the Library's Regional Oral History Office, advice of British publications concerning here were floor plans for the middle-class with twenty-five Californians prominently domestic duties and the skills of home man­ home and instructions for the building of connected with the manufacture of wine has agement. English cookbooks, volumes on storage closets. At a time when stimulus of provided documentation for a sparsely- etiquette, and moral exhortations on the the brain was considered harmful to the fe­ recorded period in one of the state's major education of children were reprinted in the male nervous system, Catherine assembled businesses. Many years before the onset of United States along with the popular novels as much scientific information as possible national Prohibition following the firstWorl d of Richardson and Scott. These directed as­ to introduce women to the basic medical War, the wine industry appears to have be­ piring ladies and gentlemen of the American and physiological facts about their bodies. come disheartened; a decline of morale be­ Republic toward the aristocratic life style of Her alarm over the tortures suffered from gan in the early 1890's when, for a variety the British gentry. From the outset, however, displacement of the uterus, from misformed of reasons, the prideful optimism that had it was difficult for the American housewife spines, from want of air and exercise, com­ earlier kept winegrowers in the limelight, to live up to the advice from England be­ pelled her to write with unusual frankness in the public press and in state documents, cause she was unable to depend upon an about topics which other writers considered fell away. Thus, there have come down better established servant class. If she did have unmentionable. records of the state's wineries in the decade servants, she had to train them, and if she of the 'eighties than for any decade there­ herself did the work she had to design her after until the 1940's. Cellar at Mont La Salle, agio. house and her activities to save labor and energy. Two of the interviewees, Ernest A. Wente ably the overplanting of popular grape varie- and Edmund A. Rossi, contributed recollec­ Miss Beecher's book was the first to deal tals, were irreversible. Together with the realistically with the American woman's tions dating back to the 'nineties and extend­ technical advances which have been made ing forward through Prohibition to the boom many problems, ranging from lack of ser­ by the University's scientists, these lessons vants to rapid economic change in the family, years of the 1960's. Accounts which begin of history will serve the wine industry in the early in the present century include those of from poor health to poor education. The future. latter, said the author, a founder of the Louis M. Martini, Horace O. Lanza, and The interviews, conducted by Ruth Teiser Antonio Perelli-Minetti, all of whom were American Woman's Education Association, and funded by the Wine Advisory Board, was the source of all other troubles. If women active in the wine industry during the 1920's have now been transcribed into nineteen when manufacturing continued under the were as carefully trained for their profession Illustrating the misformed spine. volumes and are available for research in the as homemakers as men were trained as law­ supervision of the Prohibition Department. Library's Heller Reading Room. An indirect benefit of the interview series yers and doctors (all male domains in 1842), Her warnings against the corset were not was the discovery of records of this latter family labor would no longer be "poorly heeded until well into the next century, and department, long thought destroyed, which The American done, poorly paid, and regarded as menial her practical designs for raised kitchen sinks have been donated to the University's Davis and disgraceful." In opposition to her con­ and sanitary plumbing were fifty years in campus where several of the interviewees — Woman's Home temporaries in the suffrage movement, advance of the home economics and effi­ Maynard Amerine, William V Cruess, Har­ A Treatise on Domestic Economy, issued Catherine Beecher believed that woman's ciency movement. As a solution for sanitary old P Olmo, Albert J. Winkler — have con­ by Harper & Brothers in 1842, was the first stronghold was in the home where she might waste disposal she advocated the use of the ducted the bulk of the state's research in household book to recognize the fact that be "chief minister of the family estate—the earth closet which would restore human ex­ both viticulture and oenology. the American woman had to learn the do-it- center of the Nation." Although her opinion crement to the soil instead of passing it Between the inception of this series and yourself approach to frontier society. "At is still shared by many Americans today, it into the sewers. Not many Victorian ladies the present time the wine industry, volatile the present time," wrote the author, Cather­ was then a more progressive thought in the would have cared, or dared, to write that throughout its history, has moved from pros­ ine Beecher, "America is the only country Victorian era when a woman's home con­ "30,000,000 bushels of corn contain, among perity to retrenchment. It is interesting to where there is a class of women who may be fined her intellect as her crinoline confined other minerals, nearly 7,000 tons of phos­ note that some of the men interviewed, draw­ described as ladies who do their own house­ her movement. phoric acid, and this amount is annually ing upon their experience of the past, pre­ work." Her book was reprinted almost every For the student of American literature, lost in the wasted night-soil of New "Vbrk dicted just such problems as have now year for more than two decades, and re­ The American Woman s Home exposes the City." occurred. Perhaps these difficulties might published in 1869 as The American Woman s crude realities behind the Victorian domestic As members of the "Saints, Sinners and have been avoided, but certain trends, not- Home, with contributions by her sister, Har- scene; it is Catherine's and Harriet's refuta­ Beechers" clan, Catherine and Harriet were [4] [5] croftiana as an expression of our apprecia­ irrepressible reformers. At a time when teach­ his Bachelor's degree in 1969, Mr. Cuello tion. ing was a male profession, Catherine estab­ earned his Master's at Berkeley the follow­ Bank of America lished her female academy at Hartford, ing year. The subject of his dissertation is a Bank of California where Harriet was both pupil and teacher. study of the agricultural-commercial village Bechtel Foundation Women are better teachers because of their of Saltillo, Coahuila during the period 1760 Bixby Ranch Company natural affinity for children, Catherine said to 1821. In addition to extensive research Crocker National Bank in her fund-raising campaigns. Besides, accomplished in Mexico, Mr. Cuello will be Firemen's Fund American Foundation women teachers need smaller salaries be­ utilizing the Library's microfilm copies of Levi Strauss Foundation cause their careers serve only as stepping- Mexican municipal archives. Wells Fargo Bank stones toward marriage. Her arguments won Mr. Griffith holds his A.B. from the Uni­ male support, and through her initiative versity of Michigan and has been a student some five hundred New England women at Berkeley since 1970 in the Department of "New " Drawings teachers went to the frontier settlements History. His dissertation is entitled "Urban where they more than lived up to their Order in the Far West: Oakland, 1850- by Edward Vischer mentor's expectations by marrying before 1914" and he hopes to make use of the Ban­ Two original drawings by Edward Vis­ their programs got off the ground. croft's preeminent collection of newspapers, cher, documenting his visit to the ruins of In scope and content The American city directories, county and local histories, Mission San Carlos in October 1867, have Woman's Home is a striking document of and photographs dealing with the Oakland recently been added to the Pictorial Collec­ Victorian concern for a better quality of life area. tions. They were purchased with Bancroft's under feminine leadership. While clinging We welcome them to the Library where Edith M. Coulter Fund, and reflect the late to the values of the past, the authors try to we expect to see them often in the Heller Miss Coulter's life-long concern with illustra­ point the way to a more liberated future. At Reading Room. tions of the Far West, an interest which led the threshhold of change from the prevail­ to the publication of California Pictorial: A ing perceptions of women and children as Hesse Centennial History in Contemporary Pictures, 1786- social entities with a specific place and a Hermann Hesse, cig3$. 1859, and similar volumes. rigid function within the family, this re­ The Library's current exhibition, which Hesse settled permanently in 1919 in Swit­ Executed in graphite pencil on yellow trac­ markable volume reflects an awakening con­ was opened with a reception in the Gallery ing paper with delicate washes of gray and sciousness of personal happiness and a new on Wednesday evening, January 19th, cele­ zerland at Montagnola, where he died in 1962. blue, the two drawings give a lively impres­ understanding of individual growth. brates the centenary of the birth of Her­ sion both of the interior (here shown) and mann Hesse, German novelist and poet who Horst Kliemann was also a native of Calw and as a young man became interested in exterior appearance of the Mission at Car­ was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature mel after thirty years of ruin and neglect. The Bancroft Fellows in 1946. With the assistance of Professor the work of the German writer. Beginning in 1913 and continuing for a period of forty These pictures complement three others by The competition among graduate students Joseph Mileck, a renowned Hesse scholar Vischer already owned by the Bancroft — from all the University's campuses for the and member of the Department of German, years he brought together a vast body of Hesse's output. During the second World two of the Mission ruins, sketched in 1861, Bancroft Fellowships for 1976-1977 has re­ the Bancroft has brought together a rich and a rear view executed in October 1867, sulted in awards to Jose Cuello and Michael sampling from the voluminous Horst Klie- War the collection was buried in his garden at Munich and thus escaped damage. In doubtless at the same time our "new" pic­ Dennis Griffith, both of the Berkeley cam­ mann-Hermann Hesse Collection which tures were finished. came to the University in 1959 and which 1947 Kliemann co-authored the major Hesse pus, and to Anita Abascal of UCLA. Each Vischer, born in Bavaria on April 6th, of these doctoral candidates is engaged in has been substantially augmented since that bibliography, based upon his own library. time. Bancroft's holdings now include a large 1809, emigrated to Mexico at the age of research on subjects whose source materials nineteen and continued to live in Acapulco are in The Bancroft Library. Hesse was born on July 2nd, 1877 at Calw number of first editions, manuscripts, let­ ters, water colors, photographs, and a sizable for fourteen years, being employed by the Ms. Abascal, a graduate of the University in Wurttemberg, and spent much of his boy­ trading company of Heinrich Virmond. In of Southern California, where she received hood in Basel; he later worked there in the file of newspaper clippings. The exhibition will remain on view through March 12th. 1842 he made his first visit to Alta Califor­ both Bachelor's and Master's degrees, is writ­ book trade before devoting full time to writ­ nia, stopping at Monterey, Yerba Buena, ing a thesis on colonial society in California, ing. His first volume of poems, Romantische Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles, and in 1849 covering all levels from Indian day laborer Lieder, appeared in 1899, and during the en­ Institutional Members he returned to settle permanently. He be­ to Catalan governor, and "asking some new suing decades he published a good many Institutional Members of The Friends of came a merchant in San Francisco, sketched questions of old sources." Among these old novels, stories, and works of non-fiction, The Bancroft Library provide extraordinary in his spare time, and gradually developed sources, long among the treasures of The including Siddhartha (1922), a poetic support in augmenting our funds to acquire a reputation as a painter and local historian. Bancroft Library, are the Provincial State expression of Indian philosophy. Der Step- and preserve books, manuscripts, and pic­ He was also an excellent photographer. From Papers. penwolf was issued in 1927 and met with tures. We are pleased to include the roll of rapid notes and photographs made on the A graduate of the University of Illinois considerable public acclaim; in English trans­ this special category in this issue of Ban­ spot he would create finished pictures which at Chicago Circle from which he received lation it became a popular book in the 1960's. [6] [7] - [yZ^$&"->. v.

were then lithographed, the lithographs be­ personal style, and we are pleased now to be ing later photographed for wider distribution. able to augment the collection with two Following a trip in 1861 to Calaveras Big more examples of his art. Trees, Vischer lithographed and published The Mammoth Tree Grove (1862). At the COUNCIL OF THE FRIENDS same time he published Sketches of the William P. Barlow, Jr., James D. Hart Chairman Mrs. Edward H. Heller Washoe Mining Region, for which he also Kenneth K. Bechtel Preston Hotchkis supplied the text. These were followed by Miss Mary John R. May Pictorial of California (1870) and Missions Woods Bennett Joseph A. Moore, Jr. of Upper California (1872), both of which Henry Miller Bowles Atherton M. Phleger Mrs. Jackson Chance Harold G. Schutt are illustrated with photographic prints of E. Morris Cox Norman H. Strouse Vischer's original drawings. Charles de Bretteville Mrs. Calvin K. Townsend Edward Vischer died in 1879, leaving to Henry K. Evers Daniel G. Volkmann, Jr. his son a collection of over fifty original James M. Gerstley George P. Hammond, drawings, handsomely boxed and inscribed Mrs. Vernon L. Goodin Honorary "The Mission Era." These drawings, later Editor, Bancroftiana: J. R. K. Kantor deposited in The Bancroft Library, docu­ Contributors to this issue: Lawrence Dinnean, An- ment all twenty-one missions in Vischer's negret Ogden, Ruth Teiser.

[8