On October 3, 1947, Marianne Moore wrote to her brother about a dinner party she had attended the night before, given by Margaret Mitchell, the literary editor of The Nation:
I was overwhelmed—crabmeat in alligator pears, each a half broiled chicken, delicate peas, salad, & real pears & cheese. I was put by Stephen Spender who is quite a treat; he knew Yeats, knows Mr. Auden & T. S. Eliot well, and then afterward Louise Bogan came in & others. She has reviewed me twice you know very boldly & ardently. . . . Then I came home quite late—11:15 & found a telegram from Barbara Howes & William Smith—he’s a poet & Rhodes Scholar—they are being married today, before he goes to Oxford—& invite me to a small party at 8:30 & I b’lieve I’ll go.
She did indeed go to that wedding party, where she was, as she often was at such gatherings, the center of attention. I had never set eyes on her before, but my debt to her was inestimable, for she had literally launched my poetic career. Like W. H. Auden, who admitted having stolen more from her than he cared to acknowledge, I benefitted not only from her poetry, which had been a constant companion, but also from her generosity and from what Louise Bogan, whom she admired above all her contemporaries, called in a New Yorkerreview her connoisseurship. I like to think that it was this
