John Cowper Powys was born in Derbyshire. He was called for the defense in the Ulysses obscenity trial, and he was also a great friend of the revolutionary anarchist Emma Goldman. He wrote to Henry Miller rather often. Although, as Ronald Hall notes in his long introduction, his books are in many ways the polar opposite of Miller’s work, he admired Henry very much. Cowper Powys has been largely forgotten, but thanks to the efforts of those abroad who admire his work, he seems to be making a comeback. He is a thoroughly decent, unreligious man, the kind we probably always need. I am currently making my way through his Autobiography, a deeply rewarding volume (so far) that cost me $50 and is in thoroughly shoddy shape. This book isn’t just begging for an issue, it’s homeless and it’s waving a sign.
This letter to Henry Miller was Cowper Powys’ last, or at the very least, the last that we know of. It is from the paperback collection, Letters to Henry Miller. The ending is the perfect Cowper Powys synthesis of the serious, the mind-bendingly sad, and the sublime.
The Last Letter of John Cowper Powys to Henry Miller
My dear Henry
O yes I well remember your talking about Lawrence Durrell tho’ I’ve never seen him. But I thought I had met Richard Aldington–but no! I was thinking Richard Arlington Robinson. My only trouble from old age, for I’ll be 87 next October, is loss of Memory…otherwise I’m in splendid health and spirits.
Lawrence Durrell
Phyllis Playter and I have never heard of Rozanov. We must try to get hold of ‘Solitaria’ and ‘The Apocalypse of our Time.’
Aye! but what an exciting trip you sure did have! I’ve never been to any one of those places you describe though my instinctive sexual lechery has always had, from my boyhood, a Sadistic tendency but I never saw that place where the Marquis de Sade lived tho’ I do remember that when, in the French Revolution, they took the Bastille the only prisoner they found there to liberate was De Sade!
Henry Miller
Think of your visiting Vanclue (Lacosti) near Laura & Petrargue and L’Ile-sur-Sorgne. Think of your stopping in a house that has the only ‘Loo’ in town! I take it that means what in America they call a Lavatory and what over here we call a W.C. or Water-Closet! Well we have a ‘loo’ on the right spot, for our little house with only two rooms has an excellent loo! as well as being half of the house called Waterloo! All our visitors think that Waterloo is a street or a Terrace whereas is is just one house divided into two halves and our half, No. 1, is built under what they call a Ramp a steep ascent with a 12 feet stone wall and big Iron railings.
I love your answer to Paul Morand of whom by the way I have never heard : but he certainly was what at school we used to call ‘a decent chap’ to accept so well your preference for vagabonds and lunatics and imbeciles! — over Academicians!
O my dear Henry but how I do sympathise with your praying to the Roman Gods!
That‘s the point where you and I meet and agree heart-whole–our tendency to pray really and truly to pray–just as when kids we were taught to pray to ‘God’, that horrid Monster of infernal cruelty–far worse than The Devil! And how good to my ears it is to hear you say about the superiority of the Roman buildings you’ve got out there to the Mediaeval & Renaissance ones!
Aye my dear but I do so love to hear of that Retired Seaman you have near you with whom you talk and of Nostradamus under whose influence you are now on your travels. Jesus, yes! and I love to think of your talks with your old friend to whom at death you will say, ‘Are you there, old chap?’
You must have more life love in you, my dear Henry, than I have for though I am very strong and very happy and very well, when I am dead I shall want to stay dead. No, although I am enjoying my present life enormously, I don’t want at all to live after I am dead–not at all–O let me stay dead, I shall pray to my favourite goddess Pallas Athene who, when she was born in his belly, broke out with her shield and her spear through the top of her Daddy’s Skull !!! No it’s queer that, though I love my present life so much and am more in love with Phyliss than any other girl in all my life and I have not got the faintest touch of homo-sexuality in me, I don’t want to live after death. So I just say to God–go to the Devil ! What I want is to stay dead.
Love to you & your Lady & your children with
both of whom I have
exchanged letters
ever
your
old
Friar
John
You can buy a used copy of Letters to Henry Miller here.
“Always” — Amon Tobin (mp3)
“Back From Space” — Amon Tobin (mp3)
“Self-Torture” — Andrew Bird (mp3)
This Recording 