One of the long-winded lady’s observations is that “the impulse toward good involves choice, and is complicated, and the impulse toward bad is hideously simple and easy.” After holding back from marrying anyone for a long time, in 1954 Maeve became the fourth wife of St. Clair McKelway. It may not have been the worst of all possible marriages but it wasn’t something you could be hopeful about. He was one of the most gifted of the New Yorker reporters, and if there was anyone who disliked him I never heard of it, but he was a heavy drinker and a manic depressive and subject to what he called “blank-outs,” during which he did not always know who he was and his behavior was sometimes highly bizarre. What money he had he spent as fast as possible and it was against his principles to pay any bill. His wives were all beautiful and charming women, and his marriages tended to be brief. He courted women ardently until the vows were said and then his interest in them faded.

He and Maeve lived together for a number of years, mostly in Sneden’s Landing, north of the city on the west bank of the Hudson River, and then parted amicably. During this period she wrote a series of stories about a bohemian enclave, which she called Herbert’s Retreat. They are satirical in tone, and seem to me to be heavy-handed and lack the breath of life.

Brendan Gill’s office was next to Maeve’s and there was so much slipping of notes under his door, and hers, and mine, and so many explosions of laughter as a result of our reading them that — we learned through the grapevine — Mr. Shawn decided it wasn’t good for the office morale, and Maeve was moved down the hall to the other side of the building.

Who bothers to preserve funny remarks? If they survive in the memory it is usually by accident. Recently, between the pages of my copy of In and Out of Never-Never Land, I came across a carbon of a New Yorker form letter addressed to a Mr. Boyce, who had written to the editors expressing a hope that they would print more of Maeve Brennan’s Herbert’s Retreat stories. This carbon was sent to Maeve as a matter of office procedure. Across the bottom on the reverse side she had written a second, corrective letter:

Dear Mr. Boyce: