Chapter XII: Part II: is, of course, the DANCE and sensual culmination. It is also an (3)

There was a great crowd out here from the City for Thanksgiving, and the preparations, celebration and “aftermath” are still rather buzzy in my head. Altogether, it has kept me from writing you much sooner. When your letter came yesterday I felt and still feel very remiss, the most so now that my imagination, sunk in a kind of agreeable vegetable existence, refuses to offer you any real evidence that life in the country has been of personal benefit to me. But it’s rather pleasant to be irresponsible and purely bovine once in five years or so. About all I am doing besides the many chores is--grow a mustache (very slight so far!). You will probably see Munson very soon. He left here about ten days ago, and, I think, intends to remain the rest of the winter in Town writing as usual. His honesty IS outstanding and he has a veneration for that fundamental beauty in yourself which is not easily swerved. I’m hoping that you see more of Kenneth Burke, too. He is using my room at 45 Grove St. at present and is perfectly free with his time so far as I know. Burke (between us only) keeps fighting off a true spiritual revelation which is really his birthright, though he can’t consciously recognize it. So he falls a prey to Spengler and the cynics of more reasonable tongue--and lives in a rather unhappy and delicate state of scepticism. He sees the surface of your work and admires it intensely, but he simply thinks I’m cucu when I remain unconvinced that he has really SEEN one picture of yours.

Please let me know if you hear of any job--of any sort--that I could begin to “fill” about Jan. 1st. I think I’ll write Zigrosser if he knows of anything, too. --/--/

165: TO HIS GRANDMOTHER

_Woodstock, N.Y._ _December 5th ’23_

My dear Grandma: Your interest in my culinary triumphs is certainly very much appreciated. I’ve been waiting quite a while for the moment to tell you about the Thanksgiving dinner, etc., and have just about got adjusted again, the house in order and our simple program restored although the last guest left on Monday. Altogether, the party and every detail of the festivities was quite a success. Some things were very funny and some were a little aggravating. I think I did most of the cooking when it came right down to the last moment, as both my confreres were so occupied with their lady friends and rather daffy that they went around like dizzy roosters, and keeping the rest of the company entertained and out of the kitchen was some job, too.

The people we bought the turkey from had already cleaned it and plucked it, and had promised to make the stuffing. But at the last moment they went back on the stuffing, and so it was left to me entirely. You should have seen me going at it, sewing it up tight afterward and everything! Everyone said the stuffing was great, and I liked it myself. I rubbed the outside all over with salt and butter, and then the ten pound bird was put into a wonderful roasting machine that Lachaise brought out from New York which he got in the French bazaar. You put the bird on a long spit which had a crank and catches. One side of the cage was entirely open and that was turned toward the fire in the big studio. I never ate more luscious turkey than this process produced. You must have seen one of these roasting devices because similar ones have been used in New England for many many years. It’s a large, fat oval shape and looks a little like a big tin pig on its legs. We kept turning the bird around inside until it was a rich brown and thoroughly done. The meal began with potato and onion soup made by Nagle. Then turkey with mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, squash and gravy. Celery too. Then I made some fine lettuce salad with onions and peppers and French dressing. Dessert was composed of pumpkin pie and mince pie and the marvelous fruit cake. We had cider in abundance, Marsala wine and red wine as well as some fine cherry cordial. Nuts, raisins, etc. Quite a dinner, you see. And everyone went wild about the cake. We had all the walls hung with candles as well as the table. Sat down at five and didn’t get up to dance until eight. I danced fat Mme. Lachaise around until we both felt almost exhausted. Then there was a girl who could match me on my Russian dance and we did that together at a great rate. I forgot to mention that we had a Victrola, of course, which Lachaise bought in Kingston just the day before. Lots of jazz records, etc. Most of the guests had left by the following evening, but we have spent most of the time since in getting things straightened around again and catching up on our supply of wood. --/--/

166: TO CHARLOTTE RYCHTARIK

_Woodstock, New York_ _December 10, ’23_

Dear Lotte: I guess you and Richard have deserted me ... anyway I don’t hear from you any more. --/--/

You should not forget me. I am free now--at least more so than ever before in my life, but that doesn’t mean that I forget such people as you and Richard who have been so fine to me and whom I shall love always--even though I haven’t any way of proving it but to just keep on saying so. I hear that my Mother has taken a job of some kind and is working very hard. I am sorry to hear it, but I also know that she did not need to do it unless she felt like it. Everything is being sold as soon as possible. Only I refuse to sell myself any longer than I absolutely have to. I shall beg and steal when necessary to avoid it.

This letter is very intimate, and I have written it at the risk of a great deal of misunderstanding from you, I well know. Who knows,--perhaps you have some quaint ideas about me by this time. But I do hope that you will write me soon if you feel like it--and tell me all about yourselves, how you are playing and how R is painting. I am sure you are gaining on Time! One must.

167: TO GORHAM MUNSON

_Woodstock, New York_ _Dec. 10th, ’23_

Dear Gorham: Both Nagle and B. were enthusiastic about your investigation in obstetrics (needn’t voice my own disgust, I trust!). I am still a little blushing about my premature delivery of two poems and a quite personal letter to Miss Gregory as (already) Editor Managing of _The Dial_, asking for reviews, etc., etc. However, I do hope through her gentle accession and the rape of a former -- -- -- --to inveigle my brain children into a little more acceptance thereabouts--in time.

I approve of your going, as announced, to Croton. Do not become as other infectious bugs there--however much on second thought the worst vermin seems to haunt nearer, far nearer precincts adjacent to King Street, Lincoln Highway and the Battery for daily duels. (What you started rolling on your return to NY or what Burke had started just before that I am wild to know about. Cowley wrote the most mystifying hint of volcanic disorders at the end of a letter he wrote to B. anent _Broom_ and its publication in Kingston, _which fell through_, by the way). There have been three days of agony around here, just terminated, during which beads of sweat were wrung and sighs heaved perpetually, but B’s review of Cummings for _Broom_ at last is in the mailbox and I will get a chance to write a few letters, I hope.

Last Friday I climbed the mountain (Overlook) and called on the caretaker who lives in the house beside the ruins of the hotel. He is very anxious to leave, has been there for seven months, etc., and I am seriously thinking of taking the place myself at pay of 40 bucks per month and all expenses gratis. It would be a hard winter, perhaps a terrific experience, but I should like to keep away from the city and its scattered prostitutions for awhile. The man who owns the place lives in Brooklyn and I expect to hear detailed terms from him in a few days. B. is very keen about going with me, but his previous arrangements with Nagle may check that on grounds of honorable understanding. Certainly I should much prefer to have B. with me there, but the whole plan is in embryo now, and nothing may come of it. The prospect so far as money goes is so threatening and hopeless as I see it in New York that I may take this strenuous means of asserting myself against the traditional conflicts of my past. --/--/

Fisher has been over a couple of times for dinner and an evening. I couldn’t read the James book at all under present aspirations and interests, but I have been amazed much at the finesse and depth of Pater in his _Plato and Platonism_ which Fisher has subsequently loaned me. I think it beats _The Renaissance_ all hollow for style and ratiocination. What are you reading--and, more important, writing? I have been very lazy, but am growing more tight and particular--perhaps a favorable change after my somewhat flamboyant period in NY just before I left. I enclose the new version of “Recitative” (which may not be final, but which I think is really better than the original confession).[31] -- -- -- --

168: TO GORHAM MUNSON

_Woodstock_ _December 20th, ’23_

Dear Gorham: I had a kind of dirge all written to send you this morning before the mail came: fortunately I reconsidered sending it before one of us went into town, returning with your good news. I’m not worried about the _Fugitive_ prize because I had not been planning at all on it anyway, and I am enormously pleased at your news about _The Dial’s_ acceptance of you. IT WAS ABOUT TIME, however. What you have won there, too,--you may be sure--has been gained against a deal of prejudice against you, due mainly, of course, to your liaison with Waldo’s work, etc.

The folks at Cleveland have disappointed me much, not only by sending me only half as much money as I asked for and require, but by a great deal of wailing. I guess I told you before you left here that my mother has taken a position, since explained to me as helping a friend of hers in a very de luxe antique and what-not establishment just started. It involves nothing but standing around and talking to people, I’m sure, yet mother is reported to return home every night so exhausted and wrecked that she can hardly speak. She has not personally written me for a month now. All the reports and symptoms come from my grandmother. But would it have been so much different had I been at Thompson’s during these two months, I am tempted to ask. They won’t stop to think or plan,--either of them,--beyond the next day ahead. And woes continue indefinitely. --/--/

Brown tells me and Nagle so little about _Broom_ that I don’t know how well founded your report from Burke may be. Brown loves his little secrets (of all sorts) and it’s pleasant to leave his surface sobrieties unchallenged. Certainly Matty is not going to let go of his sheet until it is either so dead as to be hopeless or else so loaded with debts that his successor would be crushed under them. But there is much mail every week to B. from _Broom_, and Cowley, Matty and B. seem to have an enviable little love nest all to themselves.

Jean [Toomer] hasn’t written me for a long time, and I have the suspicion that he a little resents my not writing to Margaret Naumburg. The fact is--I’ve often thought of it and delayed because I somehow felt that I wasn’t ready to say the sort of things to her which would interest her. I have certainly, as far as that goes, no flattering chart of developments within myself to report to anyone. This sojourn has meant little more to me so far than a purely physical rehabilitation. That is something, but not a very absorbing topic to write about.

Fisher has been over a number of evenings since you left--for tea, too, several times. He has a great fondness for Brown and myself, too, I think. I certainly enjoy him most alone, as the other day when I came over to his place in the afternoon and stayed until nearly midnight. This poet, Greenberg, whom Fisher nursed until he died of consumption at a Jewish hospital in NY, was a Rimbaud in embryo. Did you ever see some of the hobbling yet really gorgeous attempts that boy made without any education or time except when he became confined to a cot? Fisher has shown me an amazing amount of material, some of which I am copying and will show you when I get back. No grammar, nor spelling, and scarcely any form, but a quality that is unspeakably eerie and the most convincing gusto. One little poem is as good as any of the consciously-conceived “Pierrots” of Laforgue. --/--/

169: TO HIS MOTHER

_Woodstock, NY_ _Dec. 21st, ’23_

Dear Grace: --/--/ We are, all of us, in something of a strained state this Christmas but I don’t think we need to be so much wrought up about it as you and Grandma apparently are. After all, Christmas is only one day in the year--and as a special day, I don’t get half so excited about it (and haven’t for some years) as I used to. It’s too bad that we can’t all be together, but that can’t be helped. It wouldn’t have made any difference so far as I could see, had I remained at Thompson’s during all this time--so far as [the] money side [of] it goes. I was just keeping things going as it was, and had nothing left over for travelling expense, and had I remained I might have incurred much more expense by this time by being flat on my back. I think you take my little rest and vacation a bit too strenuously. I’m going back to NY on the second or third of January (if I can get the carfare) and after that I won’t ask for any more money. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I can probably wash dishes or work on the docks or something to keep skin and bone together. I shall keep my old room at 45 Grove Street (which is as cheap as any that can be found anywhere) as long as I can bamboozle the landlady. After that I’ll have to depend on my good coat, or the kindness of friends. I’ve been able to store up a sufficient reserve of physical and nervous force while out here in the country to last me quite awhile, I think. I am not at all discouraged about anything, and I think that if you and Grandma will use your natural wits at a little better planning--you’ll be able to get along fairly comfortably without working so hard. One can live happily on very little, I have found, if the mind and spirit have some definite objective in view. I expect I’ll always have to drudge for my living, and I’m quite willing to always do it, but I am no more fooling myself that the mental bondage and spiritual bondage of the more remunerative sorts of work is worth the sacrifices inevitably involved. If I can’t continue to create the sort of poetry that is my intensest and deepest component in life--then it all means very little to me, and then I might as well tie myself up to some smug ambition and “success” (the common idol that every Tom, Dick and Harry is bowing to everywhere). But so far, as you know, I only grow more and more convinced that what I naturally have to give the world in my own terms--is worth giving, and I’ll go through a number of ordeals yet to pursue a natural course. I’m telling you all this now, dear, because I don’t want you to suffer any more than inevitable from misunderstandings--for once we see a thing clearly, usually nine tenths of our confusion and apprehension is removed. Surely you and I have no quarrels, and I think you understand me well enough to know that I want to save you as much suffering from Life’s obstacles as can be done without hypocrisy, silliness or sentimentality. You may have to take me on faith for some things, because I don’t know whether it is possible for all people to understand certain ardours that I have, and perhaps there is no special reason why you, as my mother, should understand that side of me any better than most people. As I have said, I am perfectly willing to be misunderstood, but I don’t want to put up any subterfuges before _your_ understanding of me if I can help it. You have often spoken to me about how you lamented the fact that you didn’t follow certain convictions that you had when you were my age because it wasn’t easy enough; and I know what strong obstacles were put in your way. I, too, have had to fight a great deal just to _be myself_ and _know myself_ at all, and I think I have been doing and am doing a great deal in following out certain natural and innate directions in myself. By Jove--I don’t know of much else that is worth the having in our lives. Look around you and see the numbers and numbers of so-called “successful” people, successful in the worldly sense of the word. I wonder how many of them are happy in the sense that you and I know what real happiness means! I’m glad we aren’t so dumb as all that, even though we do have to suffer a great deal. Suffering is a real purification, and the worst thing I have always had to say against Christian Science is that it wilfully avoided suffering, without a certain measure of which any true happiness cannot be fully realized.

If you will even partially see these facts as I see them it will make me very happy--and we can be much closer and more “together” that way than merely just living in the same house and seeing each other every day would ever bring about alone. I have been thinking much about you and about dear Grandma--and I shall have you with me much on Christmas day. We’ll be dancing a little, and are invited around to a couple of celebrations at other houses here, but there will be no such pretentious preparations as for Thanksgiving and no extra guests here. --/--/

1924

170: TO CHARLOTTE RYCHTARIK

_New York City_ _Jan. 6th, ’24_

Dear Charlotte: Your lovely gift and long beautiful letter made me feel a little bit ashamed that I had written you such a hasty and doubting letter. Isn’t it funny that just about the time one doubts humanity and begins to take some kind of active resentment against it, along comes fresh proof that there are, after all, many noble people that make life worth all kinds of trouble for the reward of having known them, kissed or shaken hands! I have been looking into your eyes--whether you knew it or not; you looked into mine in that letter--and I’m grateful for the confidence that you had in me, even though something made you doubt me a little. I really am just the same old person--just as moody and unreliable as ever I was in Cleveland when we used to exchange our troubles and get rid of them in some music or over a book or a picture.

What I said about “prostituting my mind,” etc., I really meant. I _do_ resent it--and because so many others as good and better than myself must also do the same in order to live and breathe doesn’t help things at all. I shall keep right on talking that way--and probably not practice what I preach at all. I seemed very bitter in my letter because my mother seemed to think that a vacation was an extravagance--while I knew that it was the only thing for me to do in order not to go all to pieces. I feel now like a new man--better than I can ever remember feeling and realize that the country and hard work out in the keen sparkling air are the finest things in the world. Of course I should like to have stayed in the mountains even longer, but I know that I must now get to work again and earn some money. And I don’t mind it a bit, either, feeling as I do.

I have two appointments tomorrow and I don’t think I shall have such a slow time finding work as before. It is a better season, “business is better” and I have had “experience in N.Y.” which counts some. --/--/

171: TO ISABEL AND GASTON LACHAISE

[_New York City_] _Jan. 9th --’24_

Dear Mme. and Gaston! There are no memories stronger than the spiritual outlines of rock and branch so bare and fine as winter mountains yielded me while I was with you and two precious others recently. So, in a moment of enthusiasm for all things great I must inscribe a greeting and regret (thus floridly!) that we can’t presently walk and talk “all together.” And, as a sort of apology, offer the enclosed poem[32] to your appreciation, or extenuation of such in relation to at least one other admiration of yours--reflection to my better moods. Especially do I send it--because I feel it had its first thought in the dance of music, flesh and stone wherein you live always--you two! -- -- -- --

172: TO GORHAM MUNSON

[_New York City_] _Jan 9, ’24_

Dear Gorham: Back in the welter again. I’ve been so pressed with various desires and necessities that the thought of writing any one at all has seemed nearly impossible. I’ve lunched and dined with Burke and the Cowleys, seen the new Stieglitz clouds, Sunday-breakfasted with Jean [Toomer] and Lisa [Munson], argued an evening with Rosenfeld and Margy [Naumburg], chatted with O’Neill, Macgowan & R. Edmond Jones--Wescott, Matty, Light, and been to concerts with Jean--etc., etc. All this besides running around and looking for jobs. As all these contacts have brought so much in my mind to talk to you about, I began to and still do despair of including anything but the above catalogue in this letter. It will, after all, be only about a week longer before I see you and then we can have an extensive outburst. Meanwhile--I somehow feel about as solitary as I ever felt in my life. Perhaps it’s all in the pressure of economic exigencies at present--but I also feel an outward chaos around me--many things happening and much that is good but somehow myself out of it, between two worlds. Of course none of this would be were I creating actively myself. It certainly helps things a lot that you are working on so well and it is very gratifying to see Burke and Cowley gravitating constantly more parallel to your initial theories and convictions. Cowley’s gaucheries in admitting his mistakes and _tactics_ are really funny. But I can’t write you more details now.

Along comes a letter from my father this morning offering me a position with him as travelling salesman! This is unacceptable, of course, even though I now can’t complete the rent on the room for the rest of this month and simply don’t know what is going to happen. If worse comes to worse I can go back to Woodstock and stay with Fisher who urgently invited me to stay a month or so whenever I liked. Just now I haven’t made up my mind about anything. I have no more illusions about advertising, yet that is the only thing I can talk about at all. Leffingwell (at Thompson’s) is out of town, so I have not been able to attempt any reinstatement there. The lady at _Machinery_ says she wants to use me there sometime and _may soon_, but the vacancy so far doesn’t exist there. Hal Smith at Harcourt seems to be neither sufficiently interested in me nor my work to fulfill any of my hopes there. And so it goes. There’s no point in going into more details.

Jean’s new hygiene for himself is very interesting to me. He seems to be able to keep himself solid and undismayed. Certain organic changes are occurring in us all, I think, but I believe that his is more steady and direct than I have been permitted. My approach to words is still in substratum of some new development--the same as it was when we talked last together--and perhaps merely a chaotic lapse into confusion for all I dare say yet. I feel Stein and E.E.C.[33] as active agents in it, whatever it is, and I’ve a short poem to show you soon which presents more interesting speculation to myself than it does to anyone else. Suffice to say that I am very dissatisfied with both these interesting people and would like to digest their qualities without being too consciously theoretical about it.

Stieglitz liked the drawings I brought back--and you’ll like the one of Brown I think. I’d like to paint and draw half the time, and write the rest. “Prince Llan” is published and I admire its strenuous prose. --/--/

173: TO HIS FATHER

_New York City_ _January 12th, ’24_

My dear Father: Your letter has been on the table for longer than I had expected. I had wanted to answer it more promptly in view of your real consideration in offering me such a favorable opportunity in your business, but I’ve been so altogether occupied since I came back from Woodstock in looking around here for a new position, interviewing people and answering advertisements, that there has been only the evenings--when there was either someone in to call, or I was too tired to write you as I wanted.

By all this you will probably have guessed that I don’t find it practical to accept your offer, kind as it is, and beyond all that I must also add in justice to us both that it would also not be honest of me to do so, either. I realize that in order to be understood in both the above reasons it is necessary that I at least attempt to explain myself in more detail than I may have gone into with you ever before, and as that is rather an unwieldy process within the limits of a letter I may only touch on a few points about myself and try to make them clear, leaving the rest to some later date when you may care to look me up in New York, provided I am here at your next visit. In what follows, father, I hope that you will take my word for it that there is no defense of my personal pride involved against any of the misunderstandings that we may have had in the past. I have come to desire to talk to you as a son ought to be able to talk to his father, that is, in a pure relationship, without prejudices or worldly issues interfering on either side. That was the basis of my first letter[34] to you in three years--that I wrote a little over two months ago, and I hope it may be the basis of your interpretation of what I am writing you now. I, at least, am doing the most honest thing I know to do in whatever I have said to you and in whatever I may say to you since that time. That’s a pledge from the very bottom of my heart.

In your letter you carefully advise me to turn a deaf ear to your offer if I find my advertising work so absorbing, pleasant and profitable that I might in later time regret a transfer into so widely divergent an enterprise as your business. You were perfectly right in presupposing that I had a considerable interest in this sort of work, for in less than three years I had got into the largest agency in the world and was to all outward appearances very much engrossed in carrying myself through to a highly paid and rather distinguished position.

But if there had been any chance to tell you before I should have stated to you I had no interest in advertising beyond the readiest means of earning my bread and butter, and that as such an occupation came nearest to my natural abilities as a writer I chose it as the quickest and easiest makeshift known to me. Perhaps, in view of this, it will be easier for you to see why I left my position at J. Walter Thompson’s at the last of October, unwise as such an action would be understood from the usual point of view. I went to the country because I had not had a vacation for several years, was rather worn with the strain of working at high speed as one does in such high geared agencies, and above all because I wanted the precious time to do some real thinking and writing, the most important things to me in my life. The director of the copy department asked me to see him when I came back to New York, but he has not returned yet from out of town and I don’t know whether or not I shall return there. I told Grace that they had asked me to return definitely because I didn’t want her to worry about me: she has enough worries as it is. But so much for that....

I think, though, from the above, that you will now see why I would not regard it as honest to accept your proposition, offered as it was in such frankness and good will. I don’t want to use you as a makeshift when my principal ambition and life lies completely outside of business. I always have given the people I worked for my wages-worth of service, but it would be a very different sort of thing to come to one’s father and simply feign an interest in fulfilling a confidence when one’s mind and guts aren’t driving in that direction at all. I hope you credit me with genuine sincerity as well as the appreciation of your best motives in this statement.

You will perhaps be righteously a little bewildered at all these statements about my enthusiasm about my writing and my devotion to that career in life. It is true that I have to date very little to show as actual accomplishment in this field, but it is true on the other hand that I have had very very little time left over after the day’s work to give to it and I may have just as little time in the wide future still to give to it, too. Be all this as it may, I have come to recognize that I am satisfied and spiritually healthy only when I am fulfilling myself in that direction. It is my natural one, and you will possibly admit that if it had been artificial or acquired, or a mere youthful whim it would have been cast off some time ago in favor of more profitable occupations from the standpoint of monetary returns. For I have been through some pretty trying situations, and, indeed, I am in just such a one again at the moment, with less than two dollars in my pocket and not definitely located in any sort of a job.

However, I shall doubtless be able to turn my hand to something very humble and temporary as I have done before. I have many friends, some of whom will lend me small sums until I can repay them--and some sort of job always turns up sooner or later. What pleases me is that so many distinguished people have liked my poems (seen in magazines and mss.) and feel that I am making a real contribution to American literature. There is Eugene O’Neill, dramatist and author of _Anna Christie_, _Emperor Jones_, _The Hairy Ape_, etc.; Waldo Frank, probably the most distinguished contemporary novelist; and others like Alfred Stieglitz; Gaston Lachaise, the sculptor who did the famous Rockefeller tomb at Tarrytown and the stone frescoes in the Telephone Building; and Charlie Chaplin, who is a very well-read and cultured man in “real life.” I wish you could meet some of my friends, who are not the kind of “Greenwich Villagers” that you may have been thinking they were. If I am able to keep on in my present development, strenuous as it is, you may live to see the name “Crane” stand for something where literature is talked about, not only in New York but in London and abroad.

You are a very busy man these days as I well appreciate from the details in your letter, and I have perhaps bored you with these explanations about myself, your sympathies engaged as they are--so much in other activities, and your mind filled with a thousand and one details and obligations which clamour to be fulfilled. Nevertheless, as I’ve said before, I couldn’t see any other way than to frankly tell you about myself and my interests so as not to leave any accidental afterthought in your mind that I had any “personal” reasons for not working in the Crane Company. And in closing I would like to just ask you to think some time,--try to imagine working for the pure love of simply making something beautiful,--something that maybe can’t be sold or used to help sell anything else, but that is simply a communication between man and man, a bond of understanding and human enlightenment--which is what a real work of art _is_. If you do that, then maybe you will see why I am not so foolish after all to have followed what seems sometimes only a faint star. I only ask to leave behind me something that the future may find valuable, and it takes a bit of sacrifice sometimes in order to give the thing that you know is in yourself and worth giving. I shall make every sacrifice toward that end.

P.S. When you next write better address me care of G. B. Munson, 144 West 11th Street. I may not be able to hold on this room longer than the end of Jan.

174: TO HIS MOTHER

[_New York City_] _Jan 24--’24_

Dear Grace and Grandma: --/--/ Along came a note from B. W. Huebsch, who evidently had some proposition to talk to me about. It only said to phone him, which I did today, and we’re to have lunch together on Saturday just for the personal pleasure. I told you, I guess, that I find him one of the smartest men in New York--and he certainly is the most cultured publisher here. I am thinking of submitting my book to him when it is ready, in preference to Gorham’s publisher who is pretty commercial and pettifogging.

To give you many details of my activities and contacts since I got back from the country would take four or five pages. I was pretty blue for awhile and poor, as you know, but that didn’t prevent my plunging into a lot of varied company, meeting new people and revisiting the old, dining here and there and enjoying free tickets to modern concerts, plays and exhibitions of modern painters, etc. New York is abristle with its first acceptance of European art and artists this year. It’s become fashionable for the high-hatted uptowners now to buy Matisse’s paintings, Picasso, and all the other cubists, and there’s a great amount of “patronizing” going on. And talk, talk, talk!!! My visiting list has reached its limits. I’ll be glad to quietly come home evenings and work when I get into the treadmill again. I know about the most interesting and vital people in New York, but there isn’t time to take advantage of all that constantly. Some day when we get together you will be astonished at the flow of anecdotes and amusing trifles that’ll just naturally begin to rise out of me, but which can’t be written about. --/--/

175: TO HIS MOTHER

[_New York City_] _Jan 29th, ’24_

Grace dear and Grandma: --/--/ I started in yesterday morning, and have been working like a tiger since then, of course. So far I like boss and office very much. There is only one other copywriter besides myself, and he is an old friend of Gorham’s. The two stenogs and office boy are the only otherwises. I, personally and alone, occupy the nicest niche I ever sat in--15 stories up, and the corner of the building with windows, of course, on two angles. Perfect privacy and quiet and a desk and chair that are quite massive and comfortable. Every hour or so the office boy comes in, inquiries if I want anything; otherwise I press a neat button on the corner of the desk and service is immediate.

I always get mixed up in some strange topic. This time it is a book on cheese, how happy it makes you and how good it is for tissues, stomach, and bowels, etc. A large importing house wants it, and I’ve been having to write it in no time. I hope to finish it tonight. Life certainly is amusing. I’ve been quite happy up there the last two days. --/--/

I don’t believe that I told you about my second interview with B. W. Huebsch, the publisher. It was at his request, and when I got there and found what he wanted I fairly whooped. His office isn’t ready for it yet, but he said that he had been wishing that in time I might enter his employ as a kind of personal assistant to him and his responsibilities. The combination of my advertising and literary judgment, he said, was rather rarely found, and he thought I would be able to read manuscripts, attend to certain details of printing, and superintend the publicity where certain others would be too limited for that range. I felt considerably complimented, especially after so brief an acquaintance with him. As you [know], that sort of work is what I have been looking for for years in New York.

Well, inasmuch as I told him that I was at least temporarily bound to work at this agency, I would have to postpone his offer at least a few weeks. But he wants me to take lunch with him a couple of weeks from now and let him know how I like my present work, and discuss the prospects with us both as they stand then. Right now, I am only interested in making as good as I can at this job, and I’m not going to let that prospect, alluring as it is, absorb me much. However, it’s fine to have it to occasionally ponder, and, of course, something may develop.

I had loaned my room during the last few days to Elizabeth Smith and the writer she was working for. Last night when I came in she was almost in tears,--said he had just paid and fired her, and that he couldn’t stand the room. Well,--Eliza was a little foolish in not finding herself a separate room away from the club sorority, Smith Girls Home, or whatever it is--so that she could have carried on his work under pleasanter conditions. I know that in time I should certainly have had to ask [her] to seek other arrangements because--after all, on Sat. afternoons, I would have felt the lack of a place to go and work. She’s out of the Macy book store possibilities, too, now--and running all over town for something else today. It’s too bad, but I did my best,--even to the extent of putting down money for a phone installation (which she said was necessary) when I don’t have any use for it myself. She’ll find something, though, I’m sure. --/--/

176: TO HIS MOTHER

[_New York City_] _Feb 3rd, ’24_

Grace, dear: --/--/ Yesterday afternoon I had a long talk with CA [Crane] up at the Waldorf. He phoned me at my office yesterday morning and asked for that time. He had been here since the morning before, but had been so tied up with engagements, he said, that there had not been time even to phone me before. Frances [Crane] was also along, but I didn’t have to see her. They are returning home tonight.

We talked from 3 until five--and in the end it was very satisfactory. He began in the usual arbitrary way of inquisition into my attitude toward business life, etc., just as though there had been no exchange of letters and recent understandings on that subject, and did his best to frighten me into compromises. I parried these thrusts very politely, although it was very hard many times not to jump up and begin declaiming. However, I realized this time that my ordinary language about such topics is simply beyond his comprehension, so I quietly kept on doing my best to explain myself in terms that he would understand and not resent any more than possible. He finally ended by accepting me quite docilely as I am: in fact there was nothing else to do, especially as I did not so much as hint that there was anything I hoped he would do for me--or was ever planning that he would do for me.

Then he talked to me, as usual about his own affairs, and finally came around to asking my advice on a new product of his, its proper naming, and the best way to advertise it. He is going to send me data on the subject, and wants me to write some ads for him about it! You see, from this alone (and I have also other grounds to judge by) that he really respects me. He inquired in detail about you and Grandma and seems to have the right sort of interest in you. He also came around to agree that I was quite exemplary of both sides of my family in not being made of any putty--knowing what I want to do, and sticking it out despite adversities. At parting he spoke of his anticipations of more extended contact with me on his next visit here, urged me to write him often, and thrust a greenback in my pocket. So that’s that!

The work at the office goes smoothly enough to reassure me somewhat. My copy on the cheese book went over without any changes whatever, and that makes one write the next job a whole lot faster and imaginatively. Your own dear special has just come, and I’m awfully glad to know that things are alright and that my letters are worth something to you in spite of the haste they always have to be written in.

Tonight is the opening of a new play at the Provincetown Theatre and I am invited to attend with Sue [Jenkins], who is the wife of James Light, the stage director. Through Light and O’Neill I know the whole crowd over there now, and it is very interesting to watch this most progressive theater in America in the details of its productions,--going behind scenes, watching rehearsals, etc. I have changed my opinions, or rather prejudices, about Claire Eames since meeting her there and watching her work in two recent productions. She isn’t at all stiff or pompous,--and as an artist she is very flexible and exact. O’Neill, by the way, recently told a mutual friend of ours that he thinks me the most important writer of all in the group of younger men with whom I am generally classed.

Last night I was invited to witness some astonishing dances and psychic feats performed by a group of pupils belonging to the now famous mystic monastery founded by Gurdjieff near Versailles (Paris), that is giving some private demonstrations of their training methods in New York now. You have to receive a written invitation, and after that there is no charge. I can’t possibly begin to describe the elaborate theories and plan of this institution, nor go into the details of this single demonstration, but it was very, very interesting--and things were done by amateurs which would stump the Russian ballet, I’m sure. Georgette LeBlanc, former wife of Maeterlinck, was seated right next to me (she brought them over here, or was instrumental in it, I think) with Margaret Anderson, whom I haven’t seen since she got back from Paris in November. Georgette had on the gold wig which the enclosed picture will show you, and was certainly the most extraordinary looking person I’ve ever seen; beautiful, but in a rather hideous way. --/--/

177: TO HIS MOTHER

[_New York City_] _Feb 13th, ’24_

Dear Grace: There’s a pack of troubles to listen to shortly so don’t mind too much.

In the first place, I have been sick with the grippe for three days, but am getting better. In the second place I lost my job on Monday last--because, plainly, the man who had employed me had over-estimated the volume of his business. I had heard that he was prone to extravagances of such sort from one of the other men in the firm before I took the job, but I took the chance. He couldn’t say a thing against my work or copy as an excuse, but he had to invent some fantastic pretenses that I saw through right away as grounds; it was a dirty deal, and the only hope I have is that Huebsch is still considering me for the position there, which, if it eventuates, will certainly be better than anything I have ever had yet. To make matters worse, just a moment ago I got a letter from the man from whom I have been renting this room and its furniture. He is coming back to take possession again on the first of March! I have only fifty dollars on me in the meantime and my 30 dollars rent for this remaining month on the room has not been paid.

So, you see how matters stand. I am going to try some feature articles for the newspapers while I am looking for another job, but I have not yet got paid for them yet, nor even made connections, nor written them. _I shall do my best._ Right after this letter I am going to write CA [Crane] and ask for a _loan_ of a hundred dollars to carry me over. If he can’t do that at 6% interest I think he is rather careless, to say the least. Otherwise I shall fare as best I may among my friends. They have been so kind, and they so respect my genius that probably you need not worry about anything serious happening to me. I feel quite indomitable. I shall not return to Cleveland to live permanently, at any rate, until I am such a wreck that I might as well go there as anywhere else. I am so sorry about all this because I had been planning on saving the first sixty dollars possible to save and returning for a week end to see you and dear Grandma. You don’t know how I have longed to see you: But we must wait. It may be [a] long or a short time still before that is possible. There are opportunities for quick and plentiful money in the newspaper field if I am lucky. --/--/

178: TO ALLEN TATE

_NYC_ _March 1st ’24_

Dear Allen: Somehow I imagine that you aren’t finding it so bad to stand on the platform and dispense judgment and information after all! Whatever your attitude may now be, I must say that I am damned glad that you got the job,--first, because its remunerations may bring you to me here in NY, and less selfishly, because I think that the activity will put you in better spirits, whatever erosions and disgusts the job may incidentally incur.

I’m dead tired.... You will note by the above [address] that I am finally moved. It has taken more time and consternation than seems believable,--all for just a few clothes, books, knicknacks and pictures: but while I’m against my will now in a furnished room, I must admit that it seems good to get to a comfortable bed that hasn’t ridges in the middle! and to have someone to clean things up for me (the old room I had was conducive to more dissipation and unease in some ways than any place I have ever been, and I seem to have had to get away before realizing it!). Forgive all this domestic bosh, please,--and consider my mind for just what it is at present,--a melon sort of pulp, recuperating into better shape.

Your comments on my poems were so sharp, yet at the same time so pleasing to me, that I had to read them to Munson when he came in yesterday. “Possessions,” it gives me much joy to know, hit you squarely as you say: I cannot help thinking that more of “Recitative” will get over better at some later date if you happen to re-read it. It _is_ complex, exceedingly,--and I worked for weeks, off and on, of course,--trying to simplify the presentation of the ideas in it, the conception. Imagine the poet, say, on a platform speaking it. The audience is one half of Humanity, Man (in the sense of Blake) and the poet the other. ALSO, the poet sees himself in the audience as in a mirror. ALSO, the audience sees itself, in part, in the poet. Against this paradoxical DUALITY is posed the UNITY, or the conception of it (as you got it) in the last verse. In another sense, the poet is _talking to himself_ all the way through the poem, and there are, as too often in my poems, other reflexes and symbolisms in the poem, also, which it would be silly to write here--at least for the present. It’s encouraging that people say they get at least some kind of impact from my poems, even when they are honest in admitting considerable mystification. “Make my dark poem light, and light,” however, is the text I chose from Donne some time ago as my direction. I have always been working hard for a more perfect lucidity, and it never pleases me to be taken as wilfully obscure or esoteric.

Your second version of “Light” was much improved, I think. But still I don’t like it as well as that charming [the rest of this letter is lost].

179: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK

_New York City_ _March 5th, ’24_

Dear Charlotte and Richard: --/--/ This afternoon I went around to an exhibition of sculpture by Maillol (who is an honest workman, but not very creative), and in the same rooms were some large canvasses by Rousseau (le douanier) the first I have ever had the chance of seeing. Next door was a limited but splendid exhibition of Picassos, Braques, and Duchamps. This is a very active year in New York for painting, shows, etc. Modern painting seems to have come into its own here at last. Stieglitz’s wonderful new cloud photographs are also on show at the Anderson Galleries this week along with Georgia O’Keeffe’s work. And there is the Independents at the Waldorf and an exhibition of Marins which I have not seen yet. What with one’s work, one’s friends, books, writing, eating and sleeping, things are certainly rushed! It almost makes me long for quiet Cleveland. It really is good to be thoroughly bored once in awhile, don’t you think so?

I have seen a great deal of Eugene O’Neill and his wife lately. They have been wonderfully kind to me, invited me out to their house in the country. O’Neill thinks my poetry is better than that of any other American writing today, and in many ways we seem to agree about things. I wish you could both see the charming play called _Fashion_ which they are running now at the Provincetown Theater. An old play written seriously in 1840, but the funniest thing in the world to see now. Such costumes and settings by Robert Edmond Jones! You may have seen in the papers what a terrible row is being stirred up all over the country by the prospect of acting O’Neill’s new play, _All God’s Chillun Got Wings_, in which a white woman marries a Negro. There will be some kind of mobbing or terrors on the first night, and I expect to be there with my cane for cudgeling the unruly! He is frightfully upset about it, and receives terrible threats and insults through the mail from the KU KLUX Klanners. This country is very immature as yet. Such actions prove that thoroughly.