DLA015-0037 Transcription

OCÉANIDE

BÉNERVILLE

BLONVILLE-SUR-MER

(CALVADOS)

Sunday

Dear Friend,

I was so sorry you were obliged to leave suddenly London: it was such a nice time we had all together in your nice house.

Mrs de Laszlo was charming to me – and we had a very interesting evening the

[Page 2]

day before I left at St Joan. It is really a very interesting play – and very surprising to be seen in London, without any “protestation”!...^[1]

We are all here – the boys and little Corisande enjoying the seaside – [illegible] then I do myself – but it is rest, and perhaps good for me…

With many thanks, I remain | Yours sincerely

Guiche

Editorial Note:

Antoine XII-Armand, 12th duc de Gramont; styled duc de Guiche (1879-1962), scientist, entrepreneur and close friend of de László; for biographical notes, see [11801].

27/04/2006

[1] Presumably a reference to the George Bernard Shaw play, Saint Joan, which had its London première on 26 March 1924 at the New Theatre. Describing Shaw’s portrayal of Joan of Arc, T. S. Eliot commented that she “is perhaps the greatest sacrilege of all Joans: for instead of the saint or the strumpet of the legends to which he objects, he has turned her into a great middle-class reformer, and her place is a little higher than Mrs. Pankhurst" (T. S. Eliot, "A Commentary", The Criterion, vol. 3, October 1924, p. 5).