Chapter XV: Part II: is, of course, the DANCE and sensual culmination. It is also an (6)

Today it is raining, but the ten days before it have been as divine as anyone could wish for. We have had big fires in the evenings, long walks, big meals almost entirely of lettuce, carrots, beets, turnips, squash, etc., just taken from the garden. Sue [Jenkins] seems to be very contented out here and is busy every moment making jellies, jams, pickles, etc. The hills are covered with wild grapes, elderberries and apple orchards. Don’t you think the quince is a beautiful fruit? There are about a dozen quince trees on Brown’s property--all loaded with their sort of kid glove golden fruit. Yesterday we had a great time making six gallons of ale. It must ripen for about five days in a warm corner of the chimney in a huge crock, and then we can begin to drink it. Brown also has a complete distilling outfit out in the shed. He makes wonderful apple jack from cider. But this is a forbidden drink for me these days!

All my furniture and things arrived in perfect condition. In addition I have been making tables and cupboards from old loose wood that has been lying around for years. They really look like antiques, all right! But I do love the weather stains and silver streaks on the surfaces. Most of the wood is oak and quite strong.

So you see how the days go.... In addition I am getting back to enough poise to read a good deal. It’s funny! Here I’ve been for over two weeks, now, and without a cent of money to my name. But I haven’t felt uncomfortable by any means. I know I can go back to a job now with a much better feeling of independence than before. --/--/

216: TO SLATER BROWN

[_Brooklyn_] _Oct. 21st, ’25_

Dear Tories: There have been numerous “celebrations” besides the already recounted one (by Bina) on the great transaction, and the Punch Palazzo has had due patronage. The engrossing female [Laura Riding] at most of these has been “Rideshalk-Godding,” as I have come to call her, and thus far the earnest ghost of acidosis has been kept well hence. My real regret, however, is that I just missed getting the pick of jobs of the S. Am. line, last steamer--said occupation being deck yeoman at 20 minutes work a day, all freedom of ship, mess with officers or any first class passengers that seemed colloquial, white uniform, brass buttons, cap, meditation on the sun deck all day long, and seventy-five dollars a month clear sailing! The chief officer had already approved me, but before I could get over to the offices for final approbation they had already sent someone else over to the ship. We must have passed under the river. However, I noticed that my questionnaire (filled last June) had won an OK sign in the upper right corner, and I have been told to come around again on the 26th when the next boat arrives. I’m not waiting for that, however, as I need instant cash and there is not one chance in a hundred of a similar vacancy soon. Otherwise I have finished “The Wine Menagerie” and have sent it off, along with “Passage,” to _The Criterion_. Since the last (yesterday) _Guardian_ has come out _without_ the “Voyages” I am thinking of trying to become a literary ex-patriot. It’s just as tiresome as ever. This issue contains a lot of tommy-rot by Seaver and an “announcement” in the bargain that reads unforgivably: “Voyages, four remarkable poems by Allen Tate” will appear in the next issue! --/--/

Am on my way to _The Dial_ to have lunch with K. B[urke] and shall try to bag a review or briefers from the Rt. Rev. Miss Mountjoy [Moore]. A momentous morning: Frank is going to try to corner Liveright on my vol., also. --/--/

217: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Brooklyn_] _Oct. 26th_

Dear Waldo: Your advice and stimulation are still with me. Your solidity and conviction seemed never more firm or luminous than during our last talk.--I was glad to see you looking so well. I wrote this out this morning, thinking it might go well in the book.[39] No other news yet.

218: TO WILLIAM SOMMER

_Brooklyn, N. Y._ _Oct. 27th, ’25_

Dear Bill: --/--/ I know you’ll be glad to know that there is a good chance of my first book of poems, _White Buildings_, being published by next spring. In fact Boni & Liveright (at Waldo Frank’s persuasion) have practically agreed to bring it out if Eugene O’Neill will consent to write a short foreword. They have lost so much money on the better kind of poetry (which simply _doesn’t_ sell these days) that they want to hook the book up with an illustrious name and catch the public that way as much as possible. Gene is a good friend of mine and admires my work--I know that--but whether or not he feels like performing this favor I haven’t yet heard. Frank thinks he can engineer the matter anyway--in time, but I don’t know. He would gladly write the foreword himself if he thought his name would count sufficiently, and at any rate will write a whole page of praise for it in _The New Republic_ when it comes out. This and other favorable reviews that I am sure to get from friends of mine ought to make quite a sensation for the book. I’m a little up in the air with the uncertainty and excitement of the present situation. It would be fine for me in so many ways if the thing did go through!

Have been reading Ernest Hemingway’s _In Our Time_, a new book that is full of startlingly simple and vivid description. --/--/

219: TO HIS FATHER

[_Brooklyn_] [_November 21, 1925_]

Dear Father: I was very glad to hear from you and it was generous of you to thus come to my aid.[40] The only pity is that artificial theories and principles have to come so much between us in what is, after all, a natural relationship of confidence and affection.

You may not believe it, Father, but in spite of what opinions you may hear that I have against you (and, not knowing what is told you, I still refuse to acknowledge them, either way), I still resent the fate that has seemed to justify them and God knows how much we all are secretly suffering from the alienations that have been somehow forced upon us. If we were all suddenly called to a kind of Universal Judgment, I’m sure that we would see a lot of social defenses and disguises fall from each other, and we would begin from that instant onward to really know and love each other.

I feel rather strange these days. The old house sold in Cleveland; Grandmother ill in Florida; Mother somewhere in Cuba or the Isle of Pines; and I not hearing from either of them for the past month. Altogether, it’s enough to make one feel a little foot-loose in the world. But I’ll have a job soon, and will probably be reassured in the mail that everything’s all right. At such times, though, I realize how few we are and what a pity it is that we don’t mean a little more to each other.

Please let me hear from you when the spirit moves you.

220: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK

_Brooklyn, NY_ _Dec. 1st ’25_

Dear Charlotte and Richard: --/--/ The facts are hard, but true, I have not yet succeeded in finding myself a job, and even after trying every sort of position, like selling books in stores during the Christmas rush, ship jobs, etc., etc., and I have just been kept going by the charity of my friends. The nervous strain of it all has about floored me, and I feel as though the skin of my knees were quite worn off from bowing to so many people, being sniffed at (to see whether I had “personality” or not), etc. How I shall love it when, some day, I shall have a little hut built on my place in the country to live in--and get out of all this filthy mess!

Even the publication matter of my book of poems has not come through the way I had expected. O’Neill is writing the Foreword, after all, but he took so long to notify Liveright (the publisher) about it that I must now try to place it somewhere else. This may not be so hard, but it probably means that it will not come out until next autumn, and I had so hoped to have it printed before that....

So you see how it’s been! I don’t mean to wail, but it is hard to keep up and going sometimes. --/--/

--/--/ I have an appointment tomorrow with a possible job. I certainly hope to get it, and begin paying back what you were so kind in lending me. _The Dial_ bought my “Wine Menagerie” poem--but insisted (Marianne Moore did it) on changing it around and cutting it up until you would not even recognize it. She even changed the title to “Again.” What it all means now I can’t make out, and I would never have consented to such an outrageous joke if I had not so desperately needed the twenty dollars.--Just one more reason for getting my book published as soon as possible!

221: TO HIS FATHER

_Brooklyn, N. Y._ _Dec. 3rd, ’25_

Dear Father: Your letter was appreciated in many respects and I don’t want you to think that I wasn’t glad to hear from you. But there were recriminations in it which assumed a basis for apologies and regrets on my part which I don’t feel I at all suggested in my last letter and which I certainly cannot acknowledge now or later. In fact, you always seem to assume some dire kind of repentance whenever I write you or call on you, and so far as I know I have nothing in particular to repent. I simply said I was sorry that you could not see me in a clearer light, and it seems I shall have to go on lamenting that to some degree for the rest of my life. If I began to make recriminations on my behalf there wouldn’t be any use writing at all, for though I have plenty to mention, I don’t see what good it would be to either one of us to embark on a correspondence of that sort. My only complaint right now is that you seem determined to pursue such a course, and I can only say that if you persist I have no answers to offer. You and I could never restore our natural relationship of father and son by continually harping on all the unnatural and painful episodes that life has put between us via not only ourselves but other people during the last ten years, and if you are not willing to bury such hatchets and allow me, also, to do so, then I’ll have to give up.

For the last six weeks I’ve been tramping the streets and being questioned, smelled and refused in various offices. Most places didn’t have any work to offer. I’ve stepped even out of my line as advertising copywriter, down to jobs as low as twenty-five per week, but to no avail. My shoes are leaky, and my pockets are empty; I have helped to empty several other pockets, also. In fact I am a little discouraged. This afternoon I am stooping to do something that I know plenty of others have done whom I respect, but which I have somehow always edged away from. I am writing a certain internationally known banker who recently gave a friend of mine five thousand dollars to study painting in Paris, and I’m asking him to lend me enough money to spend the winter in the country where it is cheap to live and where I can produce some creative work without grinding my brains through six sausage machines a day beforehand. If he refuses me I shall either ask Eugene O’Neill who is now writing the Foreword to my book and won’t refuse me for some help to that end, or I’ll take to the sea for awhile--for I’m certainly tired of the desolating mechanics of this office business, and it’s only a matter of time, anyway, until I finish with it for good. I can live for ten dollars a week in the country and have decent sleep, sound health and a clear mind. I have already bought ten acres near here in Connecticut and it’s just a matter of time until I have a cabin on it and have a garden and chickens. You see I have a plan for my life, after all. You probably don’t think it’s very ambitious, but I do. As Dr. Lytle said to me when I was last in Cleveland, “What does it all amount to if you aren’t happy?” And I never yet have spent a happy day cooped up in an office having to calculate everything I said to please or flatter people that I seldom respected.

I wish you would write me something about yourself these days. Let’s not argue any more.

222: TO OTTO H. KAHN

_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _December 3, 1925_

Dear Mr. Kahn: Yesterday I telephoned Mr. Sharpp, your secretary, to request an interview with you regarding some temporary assistance which I felt you might possibly care to render me under the pressure of my present circumstances. Mr. Sharpp advised that I write you first, explaining the exigencies of the situation and the application I wished to make. I shall try to be as definite and as brief as possible.

My first collected poems are about to be published (probably next spring) with a Foreword by Eugene O’Neill. Although my poems have appeared from time to time in various magazines such as _The Dial_ and _The Little Review_, I am not yet well enough known to reap any substantial benefits from what I have written. I am twenty-six years of age, and for the last seven years I have been entirely dependent on my efforts as an advertising copywriter for my living. What real writing I have done has had to be accomplished after office hours and sometimes at the risk of losing my position. Last June, as a result of ill health and nervous exhaustion, I had to resign my position with Sweet’s Catalogue, regardless of my dependence on my salary there, and live in the country until my health recovered.

For the past eight weeks I have been back in New York, endeavoring by every means to secure work again as a copywriter. As I have been unfortunate in not finding any openings I have recently attempted to get any other kind of work available, but as I find myself now completely without funds, my circumstances seem to be rather acute. One of my friends has suggested that you might be sufficiently interested in the creation of an indigenous American poetry to possibly assist me at this time. As I have never before asked for such assistance I run the risk of writing you quite presumptuously, and I certainly wish to beg your pardon if my letter seems so.

Besides the poems collected into my forthcoming volume I have partially written a long poem, the conception of which has been in my mind for some years. I have had to work at it very intermittently, between night and morning, and while shorter efforts can be more successfully completed under such crippling circumstances, a larger conception such as this poem, _The Bridge_, aiming as it does to enunciate a new cultural synthesis of values in terms of our America, requires a more steady application and less interruption than my circumstances have yet granted me to give to it.

If the suggestion seems worthy and feasible to you I should like to borrow the sum of a thousand dollars, at any rate of interest within six percent. With this amount I could live in retirement and cheaply in the country for at least a year and not only complete this poem, but also work on a drama which I have in mind. As security I can only offer an unconditional sum, amounting to five thousand dollars, which by the terms of my deceased grandparent’s will, I inherit on the death of his widow. I do not know whether such bequests are open to outside inquiry, but the proper reference, in case you are interested, is Mr. Stockwell, Trust Department, Guardian Savings & Trust Co., Cleveland; estate of C. O. Hart.

As to the estimation my work deserves, I naturally do not feel free to do more than quote a few statements from critics who have seen my poems in print and read my mss. I include these on a separate sheet herewith. Let me say in concluding that I should appreciate an interview with you at your offices, Mr. Kahn, and that I honestly feel that my artistic integrity and present circumstances merit the attention of one like yourself, who is and has been so notably constructive in the contemporary and future art and letters of America.

_Statements on my writings_--

“It is time that your poetry should appear in a volume. You know
what I think of it. I have done my best these years to spread my
recognition of your genius not alone here but abroad. But it has
been hard, without a volume of your work to go on. WHITE BUILDINGS
will be an event in American poetry--a major event. Not the sort of
event that journalists make paragraphs about, three times a week.
But the sort of event that literary historians make chapters
about--years later. You are a real poet.

“I promise you, that when your volume appears, I shall devote a
long article to your work, in one of our leading literary
magazines.” WALDO FRANK

“The publication of WHITE BUILDINGS is one of the five or six
events of the first order in the history of American poetry. It is
doubtful if any other first volume since Whitman’s, in 1855, has
so definitely exceeded promise and reached distinction on its own
account. Hart Crane’s poetry, even in its beginnings, is one of the
finest achievements of this age. So one must predict the reviewer’s
protest--‘Incomprehensible!’” ALLEN TATE--Reviewer for _Nation_,
_New Republic_, _etc._

“Many thanks for sending me copies of your recent poems. I have
taken them with me on my brief vacation and I have greatly enjoyed
reading them. They have refreshed my conviction that you are
writing the most highly energized and the most picturesquely
emotionalized poetry in ‘These United States.’ ‘Voyages’ is the
finest love suite composed by any living American.” GORHAM B.
MUNSON--Managing editor of _Psychology_, and critic; contributor to
_Dial_, _New Republic_, _Criterion_, _New Age_, _Europe_, _etc._

* * * * *

_Other references_--Eugene O’Neill, Greenwich Village Theatre, or
Ridgefield, Conn.; James Light, Provincetown Theatre; Miss Eleanor
Fitzgerald, Provincetown Theatre; Waldo Frank, 150 East 54th St.,
N.Y.C. Telephone: Plaza 2342; Marianne Moore; Jane Heap; Harrison
Smith; Paul Rosenfeld.

223: TO HIS MOTHER

[_Brooklyn_] _Dec. 9th, ’25_

My dear Mother: For almost six weeks, now, I have not heard from you or Grandma. Though Mr. Curtis was thoughtful enough to notify me that you have been taken ill, the circumstances did not seem to describe a situation so severe that you could not have taken pen in hand and at least have written me once yourself during that time--especially, it seems to me, since you knew by my several letters that I was having a difficult time and was without funds entirely. I have put off writing you under these conditions; there was enough reason to so do simply on the basis of your own indifference, or possible disgust with me. And I admit that it was a shock for me to realize that you needed me so little. I have gone through a good many realizations of various sorts during the last six months and they are not without echoes of certain things you said to me last summer, trying as I may have been.

I don’t know where you may be at this time, but in case you may for any reason wish to write to me I am writing to say that I shall be probably for the next year at the following address: c/o Mrs. Addie Turner, Patterson, New York, R.F.D. I am unusually well provided for and shall leave for the country next Saturday. Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of being rewarded in some measure for some of the work I have been doing. You have probably heard of the banker, Mr. Otto H. Kahn, who has kept the Metropolitan Opera and various other artistic ventures endowed for years. After an interview with Mr. Kahn at his home at 1100 Fifth Ave., I was given the sum of two thousand dollars to expend on my living expenses during the next year, which time is to be spent in writing the most creative message I have to give, regardless of whether it is profitable in dollars & cents or not.

Mr. Kahn was keenly interested in what Waldo Frank and Eugene O’Neill had said about my work, and it makes me very happy indeed to have this recognition from a man who is not only extremely wealthy and renowned on that account, but who is also very astute and intelligent. I am very tired now--with all the strain and effort of the last two months, but I shall probably pick up as never before when I get into the quiet of the country and have the first real opportunity of my life to use my talents unhampered by fear and worry for the morrow.

If you are not too prejudiced about me by this time, you may also be interested in this turn of affairs.

Let me hear from you sometime soon.

I certainly hope you and Grandmother are feeling better.

224: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK

[_Patterson, New York_] _New Year’s Eve ‘26 [25]_

Dear Charlotte & Ricardo: Here I am at this date and sixty-six miles from a drink. Isn’t it tragic! And there will not be a whistle or a shout to tell me it is a new year. I shall probably be fast asleep, unless I get scared and stay up blinking over a book--for it must be a bad omen to be asleep at the switch of the new twelvemonth. But tomorrow night I shall make up for it. That is, if certain friends come out from New York with all their bottles on them.

Life out here so far has been ideal--even if it has been below zero much of the time. But I came prepared for all kinds of weather and dress every morning in boots, woolens, and furs. I shall have my picture taken and you shall see how very impolite I look.

Imagine paying only ten dollars a month for the rent of a whole house (8 rooms)! I share it with Allen Tate and his wife and have a suite all to myself on the second floor--1 room I do not use at all, a bedroom with a fine old “sleigh bed” and a study, spacious and light, in which the sun streams every morning. My pictures and nick-knacks look wonderfully jolly on the simple kalsomined walls and the books fairly glisten on the shelves. This room is kept well heated by two oil stoves. Downstairs we cook and heat with wood-burning stoves which means enough daily exercise to keep us glowing.

Otherwise all I have to do is wash dishes. Mrs. Tate cooks lunch and dinner and Allen gets breakfast! This routine plan is the only way for all of us to get each his work done--I mean our writing. Mrs. Tate is writing a novel (her second) and Allen is _supposed_ to be writing reviews, etc. Nothing much _yet_, however, has been done by any of us. There have been food supplies, appliances and sundries of all sorts to order--and then came Christmas with flocks of people visiting Brown’s place (about 1/2 mile away) and drinking and talking day and night. Allen also has dissipated terribly with a gun he bought (called “_The White Powder Wonder_”)! and has so far spent most of his time ranging over the hills shooting at sparrows. He did get a squirrel one day, however, and we had an exclamatory time over the stew it made. -- -- -- -- There are all kinds of game around here, even deer, and it’s a temptation to hunt, of course.

Well, the expected results have already been noticed on my family! Long and ardurous letters from uncles, aunts, etc. (not Zell [Hart Deming], but she’s in Europe anyway), and a fat check from my father for Christmas. They all want me to come out and visit again--which I see no reason for doing at this time. I want to get into my work. My God, it’s the first time anyone paid me to do it or even encouraged it in any substantial way! Of course--to them the $2,000 seems like some kind of shower bath without any connection with any conceivable responsibilities. You can have responsibilities toward your time clock, your cow or your maiden aunt, but you can’t mean to say that poems or pictures demand anything but aimless dreaming! No. I’m not coming until spring--unless there is serious need of me.

Mother, it seems, has been terribly ill in Miami, and did not even go to the Isle of Pines. As she was scheduled to leave for there on a certain day and, failing to, did not inform me I went on writing her there and as I got no word of her from _anywhere_ I finally gave up writing at all. Finally I got word through Mr. Curtis that he had been called to Miami to take care of them both--but I still didn’t understand her not writing me in all that time, and thought she must be angry about something.

Everything was all mixed up. And I finally had a long letter from her rejoicing in my good luck and full of the harrowing details of how very ill she had been with all sorts of complications. Miami turned out to be more terrible than even I had predicted--and what this folly has cost those women in pain and in expense God only knows. Both in bed for weeks. Six doctors, nurses, compartments on trains, etc., etc., Grandma got back about 2 weeks before Grace was able to leave. The latter joined her finally and they are living at the Manor--where they should have been all the time, of course. I’m sure they would love to see you both, and believe me, there were no complications, as I had thought, between us.

I’m expecting you both to visit me here next summer. Plenty of room for you--and you’ll be sure to relax. I bought some wonderful snow shoes with some of Otto’s money and so I pray for heavy storms. --/--/