CHOICE SOULS

6 5 R C H O I C E S O U L S P E N E L O P E N I V E N It is a great opportunity – a few months – to learn your Paris, the language and the rest – but of what avail if you become corrupted – perhaps cynical, reckless – even coarsened: you can hardly escape this; yet you are the one dedicated to speak delicate truths to choice souls. —Amos Parker Wilder to Thornton Wilder, 12 July 1921 After graduating from Yale in 1920, Thornton Wilder set out on his long-awaited first trip to Europe, going to Rome as a visiting student in the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy . That is where the trouble began. As much as he loved Rome, he began to feel overwhelmed and even intimidated by it. He found that ‘‘the very complexity of things flays one’s peace of mind to the point of torment,’’ writing to his father, Amos Parker Wilder , on 1 February 1921: ‘‘You are haunted by the great vistas of learning to which you are unequal; continuous gazing at masterpieces leaves you torn by ine√ectual conflicting aspirations; the social pleasures and cheap successes bring (against this antique and Renaissance background) more immediate revulsions and 6 6 N I V E N Y satiety. . . . Your queer ‘aesthetic’ over-cerebral son may yet turn out to be your most fundamental New Englander.’’ Thornton thought that he should leave the Academy around Easter time, spend a ‘‘week or two in Florence and the hill towns,’’ and then go on to Paris for a couple of months before returning to the United States in late June. His father, no doubt pleased by Thornton’s new assessment of Rome, was not opposed to more travel. Ideally, he wished that Thornton could have a journey akin to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ’s three-year exploration of Europe after he graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. Longfellow had traveled and studied in Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, taking formal courses in universities, and walking through country towns and villages, talking to people, learning their ways and their language, all to prepare himself to teach modern languages. Dr. Wilder wrote to Thornton, ‘‘My wish for you – the analogy is Longfellow’s, if you know his story – is that you might have three intensive weeks in Germany; on the language and meeting as many people as possible ; a walking trip etc. among the people. I would supplement that by the same in France, a month if possible; then for a bird’s eye of England etc.’’ But the ‘‘simplest and cheapest thing to do,’’ he wrote to Thornton, would be to book passage and come home, although, Dr. Wilder mused, ‘‘If there is anyone who would be benefitted by even a look and dash through a number of countries, it is you; it is clearly the kind of education you need.’’ Thornton did not want the family to sacrifice any further for such travel, however. He was grateful to have had the experience in Italy, he wrote, ‘‘and if those qualities have not been added to me that you sent me to Europe for, by my happiness here, no amount of eager gazing-about and applying historic quotations further can add them to me.’’ Parents and son were also trying to plan what Thornton would do once he returned to the United States. He proposed that he go to New York to see if he could find a job writing drama reviews or a weekly column, perhaps for Henry Seidel Canby’s new journal. If not, he could find a teaching job, and he was determined, no matter what, to forge ahead with the writing. ‘‘I am going to be at a frightful disadvantage for some years, sheepish and put-upon,’’ C H O I C E S O U L S 6 7 R he acknowledged to his father, ‘‘but when I am discovered things will be vulgarly resplendent; I vend a cake Americans will hug.’’ But Papa had more practical ideas: Thornton could teach, or get a civil service job in Washington, with status...