proximoception: (Default)
proximoception ([personal profile] proximoception) wrote2005-03-04 02:12 am

Meeting and Passing

Hart Crane to William Wright, 1919:

Oh, by the way, I met Robert Frost's daughter at a theatre party the other evening, and had the pleasure of taking the very interesting and handsome young lady back to her Columbia dormitory. I am hoping to see more of her at a near date, as she is worth looking at.

[Lesley Frost Ballantine, in her one Google image, looks remarkably like her father.]

[identity profile] bieiris.livejournal.com 2005-03-04 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
A shame I couldn't find an image of her as a young woman.
Were she and Crane intimate friends?

[identity profile] proximoception.livejournal.com 2005-03-04 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
No. He doesn't mention her again in the selection of his Letters I was quoting from, and an internet biography of Lesley says she wasn't at Barnard long. But perhaps they met again, as he hoped? Lesley was apparently the one Frost child to die old and sane, and was herself a writer, publishing some children's books, poetry, and her own childhood diaries.

But even more fascinating is the apocalyptic sitcom fantasy of Crane as Frost's son-in-law.