Word: edithe
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When Dame Edith half sings her short, glittering lines, intones her long, prayer-like ones, many a listener feels the shivers induced by the delivery of the great actresses. Now that Dylan Thomas is gone, hers is the" most startling sight-and-sound presence in English or U.S. poetry...
...Edith & the Peacock. Great poets and happy childhoods rarely go together. Edith Sitwell's parents would have preferred a boy. Her father, Sir George, was offended by Edith's aquiline nose and got a doctor to try to change it "by iron and manacles." The attempt failed. Sir George also was cross when his daughter showed a distaste for lawn tennis, made her practice the cello, although she liked the piano. "I used to practice with tears pouring down my cheeks because the ¶string hurt my little finger so frightfully, and also because I was making such...
Even the servants disapproved of the lonely, awkward girl. Once when Edith was reading the Bible at family services, she happened to glance at the butler's solemn face and burst out giggling. "The butler rose and looked around at the maidservants, who all got to their feet and silently trooped...
...Edith was only five when she attempted to run away from home, but returned because she couldn't lace her boots. At Renishaw, the Sitwell country house in Derbyshire, the child's first friend was a peacock which used to wait for her each morning. "I would go to the garden and we would walk, you might say, arm in arm. When asked why I loved him so, I answered, 'Because he's beautiful, and be cause he wears a crown!' " That idyll ended when father Sitwell bought the peacock a wife. "From that moment...
Martinis & Murder. Today Dame Edith faces the world in a composite armor of shyness, imperiousness and friendliness. She likes her solitude, and she likes her martinis. At Renishaw, she stays in bed till noon reading and writing as a huge wood fire blazes away. Much as she likes elegance, she is addicted to occasional forays into London's East End, where she often chats with prostitutes and barrow boys. On these excursions, her friends say, she creates for herself an underworld dream life. She also follows murder cases avidly, recently dragged brother Osbert to the scene of the grisly...