Chapter XVII: Part THREE: West Indies-Europe (2)

Poor Mrs. Simpson hadn’t expected us for at least three days more--and F. of course, the extra party, almost bowled her over at first sight. She had a violent coughing fit, at which I thought the fragile frame of her would break and during which a parrot screamed from a corner somewhere, “Damned poor dinner!” She has recovered, and is really lovable and quite the contrary of all I had expected. I’ve had one pleasant shock after another. The house is much more spacious than I had remembered, the island much more beautiful.... The approach from the sea is like the Azores, F. says. To me, the mountains, strange greens, native thatched huts, perfume, etc. brought me straight to Melville. The heat _is_ different from northern summer heat and the parroty phrase does hold--“it’s always cool in the shade.” It was cool enough for F. to put a coat on at sundown today, “breezes prevail.” Oleanders and mimosas in full bloom now make the air almost too heavy with perfume, it’s another world--and a little like Rimbaud. I’m surprised that I didn’t carry away more definite impressions from my first visit 11 years ago.

We discovered a beach yesterday, very near our house. We bathed late in the day and the water was almost too warm. The rest of the time we’ve wandered over the grove, bought fish, played with a baby owl that suddenly appeared, drunk punch, picked coconuts (which are a meal by themselves). You ought to see that owlet (Pythagoras) make away with a chameleon! No bigger than a fat sparrow, it blinked and swallowed a lizard whole. I’ve nearly died laughing at the creature. We brought it to table and it turded in F.’s salad, it sits on your finger and squeaks like P---- does when she gets tipsy. I’ll probably be taking it to bed with me, like B----, when I first get tipsy (No I haven’t been tipsy since I left NY).

I spose Bina [Flynn] has already told you the details of the parental wedding in NY. Those last three days in town were mad ones for me. -- -- -- -- sister, gnawed at my hand for quite a while at the dinner with the Cowleys. I don’t remember what it was all about, but I think we fell in love with each other. I finally brought the bridal pair [Crane’s mother & her husband] to lunch with Lachaise and Mme. A good time was had by all. I insisted on my bringing the famous bird with me. All my fears about the trunks were wrong, they brought everything in fine shape, even china unbroken.

I feel like a gastric museum at present, a cross cut of Tahitian stomach coast--but not in especial distress--at least so far. Uric acid won’t have a whispering chance in a few days what with all the strange fruits and vegetables I’m trying. Casavas, guavas, bread fruit, limes, cumquats, kashew apples, coconuts, wild oranges, bananas, God I can’t remember any more of the damned names. O yes, mulberries and avacadas and papayas! And mangos! Maybe I don’t get enough of it yet! Tamarinds ... pomegranates ... grabanas ... O sacre Nom de.... --/--/

243: TO HIS MOTHER

[_Isle of Pines_] _May 14th_

Dear Grace and Grandma: We haven’t had altogether more than 3 hours of rainfall since arriving. Rather less than usual, Mrs. Simpson says, for the rainy season. Today the sky is overcast, making it much cooler than usual, and the rain of last night promises repetition at any moment. When there is a good wind, like today’s, it sweeps the bugs away somewhat--but otherwise they are terrific,--especially around Casas Villa [the Crane house], which so far as I have been able to judge by contrast with other places is become the buggiest place on the island. This is mostly due to the thick growth of trees and shrubbery surrounding the house--which hardly lets a zephyr through and which harbor and incubate millions of insects. It is, of course, a great mistake to have planted so many fruit trees so close to the house. They give practically no shade--and simply stifle every breeze that approaches.

Yesterday we rented a car from Herrin and I drove Mrs. S. and Waldo over to the Jones’s Jungle. Mrs. S. had prepared a wonderful picnic lunch which we finally shared with the Jones’s in their bungalow. Both Waldo and myself went quite wild about the beauties of the place, the marvelous work they have accomplished there is equalled, I’m sure, by nothing else in the West Indies or N. America. Waldo says he remembers visiting a place in the Azores, owned by a wealthy Portuguese prince, which was something like it, but I have never seen anything so amazing before.

The Jones’s are by far the pleasantest and most cultured people I have met on the island. The tragedy of their life here is pitiable to the point of tears. After twenty-three years of unremitting toil on their place, to have it all brought to naught--as it is now, since the treaty matter, makes them the saddest kind of jests of fate. Jones says that the Cuban bureaucrats may seize his place at any moment without offering more than five dollars an acre, and he can have no recourse whatever. Furthermore, they are both quite penniless, and live entirely on what he can gather as a taxi-driver and the little fee they charge for visiting the jungle. But Jones is no worse off than others--in many ways. He is only too old to ever hope to take hold anywhere else again. --/--/

244: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _May 22nd_

Camerado: In the middle of the terrible little performance we left you to attend and below the crash of floods on the roof--I was astonished to hear the whistle of your boat, whooping, I hope, a really final salute: I had supposed the Cristobal Colon long since departed. After so long a wait I hope you at least had a private and quiet rest in your stateroom, or rather, cabin.

Today frequent downpours and your card from Havana. Also a letter from O’Neill--more mysterious than ever. I’ll quote exactly and all the words pertaining to the Liveright matter:

“There seems to be a misunderstanding about this Liveright matter somewhere. He isn’t waiting for any foreword from me _yet_--at least not according to what he said when I saw him last before I wrote you the last time. He was waiting for more stuff from you apparently. And he spoke of having talked about you with Otto Kahn and so forth.

“However, I expect to be back in New York within a month and I will see him then and get this matter straightened out.”

You will remember my descriptions of the situation up to this point with sufficient accuracy without further repetitions; I can only say with regard to it all that Gene has either misinformed me in his previous letters or else is suffering from a lapse of memory. At any event, I hope that the conversation with Kahn alluded to, hasn’t twitched Liveright into the decision to hold up my book until _The Bridge_ shall be completed. If he doesn’t really want the book of course nobody can force him to take it,--in which case I hope it won’t be too much trouble for you to return the mss. to the Boni Bros. There seem no end to the complications with L. The mysterious “yet” in Gene’s statement (my underlining) is simply inexplicable.

Mrs. Simpson is having some duplicates made for you of the beach pictures and wishes to be remembered to you. Attaboy frequently calls out “Waldo!” Mrs. Durham (whose name I remember always just in time by thinking of the Bull) has come to stay at least for the week-end. And I have just written a little unconscious calligramme on the mango tree which I enclose.[47] --/--/

245: TO ----

[_Isle of Pines_] _May 22nd_

Dear ----: The post-Crane period in Patterson seems to have been full of excitements. Your letter, with its news about the incomparable J---- was corroborated in the same mail by no less than a letter from the noble tar himself. Poor J---- spent no little time and trouble, coming clear up from Norfolk. Mrs. Turner had been forwarding warnings of the impending disaster, first a letter from Norfolk on the date of landing, then a letter on the Potomac boat bound for Washington; I began to feel as though the wireless would be necessary to save my honor. His people live at P---- and it was there, after his excursion north, that he finally got a card I had mailed from Havana explaining things. He’s back on the job now, but quits June 6th. I commend your control under the penetrating gazes of Mrs. T. J----’s letter contained a closing greeting from “me, J----’s sister, M----” written in a very elegant hand, so I guess I’m well introduced when I come to P----. Anyway, he made good company and I’m awfully sorry to have missed him.

Yesterday I got tight for the first time, on Bacardi. Cuban Independence day. Falling in with a flock of goats on my way home (I was trembling at what Mme. Sampsohn would say) I stubbed my toes and skinned my knee. Arrived home in a somewhat obvious condition, there was nothing to be done but have it out with Mme.... Waldo having left Tuesday night, we had it fair and square. It is now established that I can drink as much as I damned please. A couple of murdering desperadoes got loose from the penitentiary here recently--and I think she’s glad to have my company. But she’s been so damned pleasant and considerate that I haven’t any reason to think she doesn’t like me on less fearful grounds. I’m rather jealous of Mrs. T’s old love, the weather, however.

Yes, Marianne [Moore] took the little specialty I wrote for her, and even proof has been corrected and sent back. This time she didn’t even suggest running the last line backward. “Again” is in the May issue; I spose you’ve seen the happy mixture. I enclose an accidental calligramme committed this morning accidentally on my way to _The Bridge_. I’m convinced that the Mango tree was the original Eden apple tree, being the first fruit tree mentioned in history with any accuracy of denomination. I’ve been having a great time reading _Atlantis in America_, the last book out on the subject, and full of exciting suggestions. Putting it back for 40 or 50 thousand years, it’s easy to believe that a continent existed in mid-Atlantic waters and that the Antilles and West Indies are but salient peaks of its surface. Impossible forever to prove, however.

I’m glad that Malcolm [Cowley] has had such luck. It’s likely he’s made for life--once he enters the Lorimer field; and the articles ought to be interesting, certainly the material is. Because Poole’s book, _The Harbour_, was said to have been written while looking from the windows of 110 Col. Hts., I had the idea that it might contain something--and have just finished reading it, a thin-chested little affair if there ever was one! I wonder if McFee’s books are quite so ordinary. -- -- -- --

246: TO HIS MOTHER

[_Isle of Pines_] _June 1, 1926_

Dear Grace: --/--/ Mine own true self has been chewing its cud, mostly, i.e., trying to imagine itself on the waters with Cristobal Colon and trying to mend the sails so beautifully slit by the Patterson typhoon. The Island grows more attractive to me as I get more acclimated and we have had constant breezes and cool weather ever since Waldo left, just two weeks ago today. There are many things that need to be done about the place, but I am attacking them with some deliberation--one has to respect the ferocity of the sun and the insects not a little. I have succeeded in eradicating the carcasses of several dead and dying orange trees in the front yard, putting young royal palms in their places. How I wish you had thought of planting some of these perfect delights when the place was being built; they are the one perfect sort of tree to have round a house, their ornamentation, stateliness and open-airiness can’t be surpassed.

Mrs. Simpson is going to help me put up some new gate posts of rocks and cement. The entire fencing directly in front of the house is ready to collapse and there are so many breaches in the line down by the grove which we need repair at once (pigs can’t be kept out, but some of the cattle can be) that something should be done about it as soon as possible. Of course I’m constantly at a loss to know what attitude to take about these and other highly necessary repairs,--not knowing what you really intend doing about the place. Most important of all, of course, is an entirely new roof for the house. I don’t think you’ll ever get pin money for the sale of the place until this, at least, is done, for it’s the first and outstanding fault to be noticed even from the road.

Moreover, the inside of the house--its whole structure, in fact--will soon begin to deteriorate so rapidly for the want of dry sheltering that whatever value the place has now will be sacrificed. If I were you, and relished the tropics during the winter as much as you do, I’d economize in some way or other so as to afford a new roof as soon as possible. The house is really so comfortable and so very well built that it’s a shame to let it run down. A few shingles and patches here and there won’t meet the situation at all. The whole roof is rotted, loosely assembled and full of perforations. And, as I said, it looks it. Patches would only make it look a little worse.

Mrs. S. and I think that tile roofing, while costing a little more than the cheap shingles that we put on first, is the proper thing for the climate, exigencies of grass fires, etc. Asbestos shingling would be good, but not so permanent--and although I don’t know for certain as yet, I think it would be about as expensive as tile. Tile would also look better. Now we are going to ask Mr. Jones, whose honesty and disinterestedness is unquestionable, to make an estimate on what tile roofing would cost, also what he would charge for his services in undertaking the job. As soon as possible I’ll write you about the figures, or Mrs. S. will. It can do no harm to go this far, anyway. And as the Island is so infinitely superior to Florida, California or any other place you might go for the winters--_and so much cheaper a place to live when you get here_--I think you will agree with me that investments in repairs on the place here are ultimately cheaper than hotel rooms at ten to fifteen dollars a day with nothing to keep when you leave. A new roof, some new screening and a fresh coat of paint are all this house needs for years to come if someone like Mrs. Simpson or myself stays here. I don’t forget the water tank, but that isn’t so crucial; water can, after all, be pumped by hand. Let me know a little more of your present attitude about the property here, then I can better judge whether or not you want my reports, advice, etc.

Thursday (June 3rd) I’m sailing on the schooner for Grand Cayman. There are two days on the water each way, and I may spend a week on the island if the boat stays that long. I’m looking forward with great glee to my first real sail--and they tell me that Cayman is lovelier than anything around. Bread, cheese and cookies are to be packed by Mrs. Simpson and I’m hoping not to feed the fishes. If I do,--well then I’ll have at least found out that I’m a good-for-nothing landlubber. The trip will be worth while from any standpoint.

247: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _June 19th ’26_

Dear Waldo: Late amends for your last three letters, the first of which I got just as I was taking the schooner for Cayman! the last two yesterday when I returned. The trip was strenuous, four days instead of the expected two--each way, on account of head winds and calms. And let me tell you that to be “as idle as a painted,” etc., under this tropical sun with thirty-five cackling, puking, farting Negroes (women and children first) for a whole day or so (the water like a blinding glassy gridiron) is a novel experience. The first moral of the sea with the white man is clean decks; it’s the last considered with the Indian black. Vile water to drink, etc., etc., there’s no use recommending the facts further. And the much bruited Grand Cayman was some torment, I can survive to tell you. Flat and steaming under black clouds of mosquitoes, and not a square inch of screening on the island. I had to keep smudge fires burning incessantly in my room while I lunged back and forth, smiting myself all over like one in rigor mortis and smoke gouging salt penance from my eyes. The insects were enormous; Isle of Pines species can’t compare in size or number. After nine days and nights of that I staggered onto the schooner--and here I am--with a sunburn positively Ethiopian.

I have pleasantly proved to myself, however, that under more sociably agreeable circumstances there is nothing to compare with a sail boat. The motion made me anything but sea-sick, with a good wind the rhythm is incomparable. More gorgeous skies than even you saw, acres of man-sized leaping porpoises (the “Huzza Porpoises” so aptly named in _Moby Dick_) that greet you in tandems (much like M. & Mme. Lachaise if you have ever seen them out walking together) and truly “arch and bend the horizons.” One enormous shark, a White Fin, lounged alongside for awhile. Had there been a place to sit or stand a few moments in the shade and fewer basins and chamber pots under the nose the trips would have been far from onerous.

In spite of all, I find myself rather toughened and well. The exasperations and torments of such a siege make one grateful for modest amenities. Mrs. Simpson yesterday for the first time appeared to me as the Goddess of Liberty.

I am not writing to O’Neill about _White Buildings_--and do not expect to write him until I hear directly from him. He is supposed to be back in NY by this time, and in his last letter he said that he expected to see Liveright on his return and talk things over. He knows that I have prepared in mss. all the poems which are to be included in the book and that all that can now hold it back is the lack of his foreword. It was hard for me to ask him to write such a thing for my book, and it has been harder and more embarrassing still for me to have kept trailing him with letters of urgence.... It’s impossible for me [to] address him again on the subject. I’m sorry that what-ever-it-was made him feel constrained to promise the favor initially. It will be just as well for me to forget publishers for awhile, I think, though I can’t forget how steadfastly you have persevered in helping me--whatever the results have amounted to. And don’t think too much about me; my judgments are too unsettled these days to make me feel that I deserve much attention, much less the faith that you assure me of. The situation is really unique with me; it is absurd to say that one is battling indifference; but neither does one build out of an emptied vision. Mere word-painting and juggling, however fastidious,--a prospect of this doesn’t excite one very much. At times it seems demonstrable that Spengler is quite right. At present--I’m writing nothing--would that I were an efficient factory of some kind! It was unfortunate in a way to have been helped by our friend, the banker,--with my nose to the grindstone of the office I could still fancy that freedom would yield me a more sustained vision; now I know that much has been lacking all along. This is less personal than it sounds. I think that the artist more and more licks his own vomit, mistaking it for the common diet. He amuses himself that way in a culture without faith and convictions--but he might as well be in elfin land with a hop pipe in his mouth.... No, _The Bridge_ isn’t very flamboyant these days.

I’m glad that the Mango poem meant something to you. I’m cooking up a couple of other short poems to go with it (“Kidd’s Cove,” & “The Tampa Schooner”) under the common title of “Grand Cayman.” Maybe I can sell them to Marianne M[oore]. Word was just forwarded from Patterson that Edgell Rickword, who edits _The Calendar_ (London), has taken three poems I sent him about eight weeks ago, “At Melville’s Tomb,” “Passage” and “Praise for an Urn.” _The Calendar_ is a very decent quarterly, and I’m glad to get the “Melville” in print--not one magazine in America would take it. You ought to send them something of yours--(1 Featherstone Buildings, London, W.C.1.)

So far no zonite, but gratitude none the less. The only people who can get records to me securely are the Victor headquarters, I’ll order direct from them. There’s a duty of about 90% on all records! But I do wish you would have _The New Republic_ send me the Gide article.... As much of your work as is printed there and elsewhere. I read _Moby Dick_ between gasps down in Cayman--my third time--and found it more superb than ever. How much that man makes you love him! --/--/

248: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _June 20th_

Dear Waldo: Recollection of certain statements made in yesterday’s letter to you prompt me to a little better account of myself--not that I committed any insincerities (though the letter might seem to solicit sympathy or encouragement) but that I feel guilty of an injustice to you in some sort of way. You certainly do not deserve to have such fare set before you....

So I apologize for my crudity, with the foreknowledge of your understanding that there are times when it is a torture to write anyone sincerely--as I must always write to you. My statements may appear in a less insane light after you have read what has principally spurred them--the Spengler thesis. This man is certainly fallible in plenty of ways but much of his evidence is convincing--and is there any good evidence forthcoming from the world in general that the artist isn’t completely out of a job? Well, I may not care about such considerations 2 hours from now, but at present and for the last two months I have been confronted with a ghostliness that is new.

The validity of a work of art is situated in contemporary reality to the extent that the artist must honestly anticipate the realization of his vision in “action” (as an actively operating principle of communal works and faith), and I don’t mean by this that his procedure requires any bona fide evidences directly and personally signalled, nor even any physical signs or portents. The darkness is part of his business. It has always been taken for granted, however, that his intuitions were salutary and that his vision either sowed or epitomized “experience” (in the Blakeian sense). Even the rapturous and explosive destructivism of Rimbaud presupposes this, even his lonely hauteur demands it for any estimation or appreciation. (The romantic attitude must at least have the background of an age of faith, whether approved or disproved no matter).

All this is inconsecutive and indeterminate because I am trying to write shorthand about an endless subject--and moreover am unresolved as to any ultimate conviction. I am not fancying I am “enlightening” you about anything,--nor, if I thought I were merely exposing personal sores, would I continue to be so monotonous. Emotionally I should like to write _The Bridge_; intellectually judged the whole theme and project seems more and more absurd. A fear of personal impotence in this matter wouldn’t affect me half so much as the convictions that arise from other sources.... I had what I thought were authentic materials that would have been a pleasurable-agony of wrestling, eventuating or not in perfection--at least being worthy of the most supreme efforts I could muster.

These “materials” were valid to me to the extent that I presumed them to be (articulate or not) at least organic and active factors in the experience and perceptions of our common race, time and belief. The very idea of a bridge, of course, is a form peculiarly dependent on such spiritual convictions. It is an act of faith besides being a communication. The symbols of reality necessary to articulate the span--may not exist where you expected them, however. By which I mean that however great their subjective significance to me is concerned--these forms, materials, dynamics are simply non-existent in the world. I may amuse and delight and flatter myself as much as I please--but I am only evading a recognition and playing Don Quixote in an immorally conscious way.

The form of my poem rises out of a past that so overwhelms the present with its worth and vision that I’m at a loss to explain my delusion that there exist any real links between that past and a future destiny worthy of it. The “destiny” is long since completed, perhaps the little last section of my poem is a hangover echo of it--but it hangs suspended somewhere in ether like an Absalom by his hair. The bridge as a symbol today has no significance beyond an economical approach to shorter hours, quicker lunches, behaviorism and toothpicks. And inasmuch as the bridge is a symbol of all such poetry as I am interested in writing it is my present fancy that a year from now I’ll be more contented working in an office than before. Rimbaud was the last great poet that our civilization will see--he let off all the great cannon crackers in Valhalla’s parapets, the sun has set theatrically several times since while Laforgue, Eliot and others of that kidney have whimpered fastidiously. _Everybody_ writes poetry now--and “poets” for the first time are about to receive official social and economic recognition in America. It’s really all the fashion, but a dead bore to anticipate. If only America were half as worthy today to be spoken of as Whitman spoke of it fifty years ago there might be something for me to say--not that Whitman received or required any tangible proof of his intimations, but that time has shown how increasingly lonely and ineffectual his confidence stands.

There always remains the cult of “words,” elegancies, elaborations, to exhibit with a certain amount of pride to an “inner circle” of literary initiates. But this is, to me, rivalled by numerous other forms of social accomplishment which might, if attained, provide as mild and seductive recognitions. You probably think me completely insane, talking as obvious hysterics as [a] drunken chorus-girl. Well, perhaps I need a little more skepticism to put me right on _The Bridge_ again.... I am certainly in a totally undignified mind and undress--and I hope to appear more solidly determined soon.

Please don’t think that the O’Neill foreword has precipitated anything, nor that I [am] burning manuscripts or plotting oriental travels.... Desolately I confess that I _may_ be writing stanzas again tomorrow. That’s the worst of it. Mrs. S asks to be remembered to you.

--All this does not mean that I have resigned myself to inactivity.... A bridge will be written in some kind of style and form, at worst it will be something as good as advertising copy. After which I will have at least done my best to discharge my debt to Kahn’s kindness.

249: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _July 3rd, ’26_

Dear Waldo: I must thank you immediately for your wireless. The news is most welcome--and your affectionate haste in notifying me is not without results in piercing the miasmas of these tropics.

Also comes a letter from Sue [Jenkins]. It seems the news has reached Patterson via Jimmy Light. I copy Sue’s account of the circumstances given her by Jimmy, as having been so active an agent in the matter you probably will be interested. “The way it came about is not without interest. About a month ago Liveright, Jimmy and others were at Otto Kahn’s for a week-end. L. had the mss. with him at that time and on the boat coming back he said he had decided not to publish it--that he didn’t care for the poems and so far as he could see, nobody understood them. Then, a little over a week ago, Jimmy and O’Neill were in L.’s office on business and your mss. was on the table. Jimmy asked him if he had stuck to his decision and he said ‘Yes.’ Then Jimmy and Gene both told him they thought he would eventually be ‘proud’ of having published your first volume, so that even if he himself did not care for the poems, as a publisher he was failing to take advantage of an opportunity. So finally L. came around to his old position of saying that he would publish them if Gene would write a preface. (Previously L. had said that he did not want to publish the poems at all--preface or no preface.) Gene protested some, saying that while he liked the poems he wasn’t at all sure he could tell why he liked them, that he was by no means a critic of poetry, and that L. was preparing a fine opportunity for him (O’Neill) to make a fool of himself. But finally it was decided that the preface would be written, L. phoned immediately to the printer and dictated the announcement. And I understand that the preface is already written and in L.’s hands.”

Probably I’ll hear something direct from Liveright within the next week; nothing so far has reached me. If the book is really scheduled for fall it will relieve me of numerous embarrassments, especially with the family, who, I think have already ceased to believe any statements from me about my work, publications, etc.

Last Sunday I was obliged to go to Havana to consult with a doctor. For the last two weeks I have been suffering intensely from two abscesses, one in each ear, added to which apparently alarming symptoms of fever, and lung trouble had seemed to develop. Of these latter the doctor says there is no need to worry, but the abscesses have not healed yet, and are distracting to say the least. I shall be glad sometime to get a good night’s sleep. Doctor says they were caused by sun-exposure on my boat trip.

I have been reading _Quixote_ and _Swann’s Way_. My money is practically exhausted, but I think I can get a hundred by writing to Patterson and having my property there sold. The final 500 from Kahn can’t be solicited until August or later--if at all, for I shan’t ask for it unless I am writing again by that time. Mrs. Simpson has been so kind and altogether gracious that I couldn’t ask for better care.

When I’m feeling better I hope to write you a decent letter--the last two have been so haphazard, violent and vulgar. I hope these days of sea and sunshine and breezes are resting you and improving Tom.[48] In Havana I bought a _New Yorker_ and read your van Loon snapshot--marvelling again at your flexibility and dash. Otherwise I was sipping the glorious limonades most of the time! couldn’t get my mouth open wide enough to receive much other nourishment! Took long walks around the harbour and along the Malacon. A lovely city, albeit insipid; full of white and gold and azure buildings. Even plaster has something to say.

250: TO ----

_Isle of Pines, Cuba_ [_July?_]

Dear ----: --/--/ I have not been able to write one line since I came here--the mind is completely befogged by the heat and besides there is a strange challenge and combat in the air--offered by “Nature” so monstrously alive in the tropics which drains the psychic energies.--And my poem was progressing so beautifully until -- -- -- -- took it into her head to be so destructive! How silly all this sounds! Howsoever--it’s a cruel jest of Fate--and I doubt if I shall continue to write for another year. For I’ve lost all faith in my material--“human nature” or what you will--and any true expression must rest on some faith in something.

It has been so disgusting to note the sudden turns and antics of my “friends” since I had the one little bit help I ever had toward my work in the money from Kahn. Everytime I came into N.Y. from the country I’d hear new monstrosities of fables going about town as to how I was squandering money on pate de foi gras, etc. And worse whisperings. It’s all been very tiresome--and I’d rather lose such elite for the old society of vagabonds and sailors--who don’t enjoy chit-chat.

Two of the latter, by the way, are keeping up a regular flow of letters and cards to me here. One, F----, came clear up to Patterson to see me during May--but found me gone, of course.

I was very touched to hear that he had journeyed all the way from Norfolk--in memory of two evenings in Brooklyn last January. Immortally choice and funny and pathetic are some of my recollections in such connection. I treasure them--I always can--against many disillusionments made bitter by the fact that faith was given and expected--whereas, with the sailor no faith or such is properly _expected_ and how jolly and cordial and warm the tonsiling _is_ sometimes, after all. Let my lusts be my ruin, then, since all else is a fake and mockery. --/--/

251: TO HIS MOTHER

[_Isle of Pines_] _July 8th, 1926_

Dear Grace: Well,--after two months of absolute silence I’m glad to hear from you--and sorry to know that you are so disturbed and worried as you are, and sick in bed. --/--/

The trip to Cayman I’m still trying to get over. Everyone (I don’t know why native Americans here should tell such stories) had been telling me how charming the little island was. More than that, the sea-sailing to and fro had interested me. Being in a very dull mood (the intense and sudden heat here had made me torpid and inactive) I thought the trip would spur me, stimulate me a little toward continuing my writing on the _Bridge_ poem, not a line of which I had been able to add since I came down here.

Instead of a two days trip over, it took four. Headwinds all the way. It was not until the island was cleared that I realized how many were on that sixty-foot schooner. Thirty-five! and all of them niggers who proved to have no idea of ordinary decent cleanliness, and the crowd made it almost impossible to find a place to stand, lie or sit for ten minutes at a time--not to mention the fact that there was no shade from the intense blaze of the sun unless one could brave the stinks and fumes of a dozen odd sick and wailing nigger females below decks. Most of these never emerged from their hole there during the entire voyage, but pots, bowls, basins, fruit peelings and a thousand shrieks and wails were raised up every hour of the day and night to be emptied on the deck, my nose and ears being kept busy, I can tell you!

When we at last were in sight of the island we were greeted (even three miles out) with such droves of savage mosquitoes as I had never imagined outside of Bon Echo, Canada. And when I was landed I found them to be far, far worse. There was only one place on the island (no hotel) where I could be accommodated. A sort of boarding house kept by a woman who used to cook over at Santa Fe. Whether they were hers or not, I don’t know, but the house was packed with infants and children who kept up a constant racket and screaming. All the Negroes on the island were very pious, and about the time the children would quiet down a whole band of them in the house next door would raise their voices to God in hymns that would scrape the varnish off the woodwork. Worst of all, there was not an inch of screening on the house. I spent literally dollars buying insect powders and keeping a constant smudge going in my room so that my eyes were in a constant stream of tears from the smoke and my lungs nearly burst with suffocation.

Even then, one side of my face and neck were so badly poisoned from the constant bites that they were quite swollen. The beautiful beaches that I had heard about on the island I never saw. To walk more than half a mile from your doorstep was almost to court madness, St. Vitus dance, or death. The very arm with which you were attempting to beat off the regiments of insects would become so covered with them (even while in violent action) that you gave up any hope of relieving yourself of their company.

You can picture me, then, pacing back and forth in my room, very much in the mood of old Mrs. Johnson, in our kitchen at 1709 [Cleveland home of Crane family]--with a hand pressed on the top of my head, whispering to myself that I would soon be quite insane and relieved of my torments.

Someday I’ll tell you more about this famous “vacation” and “holiday” in the picturesque West Indies. I had _ten_ days and long nights of it before the boat captain finally pulled anchor and started back to Gerona again. The load this time was as heavy as before and equally dirty. The trip was equally long. We lay for two whole days in midocean and a dead calm, the water so still that you could see yourself in it like a mirror. The sun was terrific and the decks scorched your feet. Not a bit of shade, and I couldn’t go below decks without nausea. Our island seemed like Paradise and Mrs. Simpson like the goddess of Liberty when I finally got home. Two days later I was taken with abscesses in both ears, and I am still suffering night and day, though they seem to be on the mend.

Added to this, during the first week home, I had such difficulty in breathing, especially at night--with pains in the chest and terrific sweats--that I became seriously alarmed. Mrs. S. and I both agreed that I had better go at once to Havana and consult with an able physician. Which I finally did. Doctor A. Agramonte, Velado--a grad. of Columbia University, etc.

He pronounced me alright except [for] a slight infection of the throat, which may have been contracted from the common water supply on the boat, so musty and contaminated that at the time I almost parched my system by attempting to avoid all drinking. The ear trouble he said was probably due to sun exposure. I was given some prescriptions and returned on the next boat. Mrs. Simpson has been goodness itself in douching my ears and in giving me whatever other attentions I have needed. The last three days it has almost disappeared and then come again, by turns. I am hoping that nothing chronic ensues. The pain has been nerve wracking and my whole system is at present functioning “below par”.... So much for the Cayman trip. --/--/

252: TO WILLIAM WRIGHT

_Isle of Pines_ _July 16, 1926_

Dear Bill: --/--/ I liked the poem from _The Bookman_--even, if as you say, you don’t attempt more than a play of words. Convictions of any sort are hard to maintain these days--and maybe Spengler is right. Have you read his _Untergang des Abendlandes_--now translated (Knopf)? I envy people like Wheeler Lovell--who have intensive work to do without having to wrestle with either angels or devils to continue with it. I get awfully exhausted sometimes, trying to achieve some kind of consistent vision of things. But I don’t seem to be able to relax--and knowing quite well all the time that most of my energy is wasted in a kind of inward combustion that is sheer nonsense. All else seems boresome, however,--so I must continue to kill myself in my own way. --/--/

253: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _July 24, 1926_

Hail Brother! I feel an absolute music in the air again, and some tremendous rondure floating somewhere--perhaps my little dedication [“To Brooklyn Bridge”] is going to swing me back to San Cristobal again.... That little prelude, by the way, I think to be almost the best thing I’ve ever written, something steady and uncompromising about it. Do you notice how its construction parallels the peculiar technique of _space and detail division_ used by El Greco in several canvasses--notably the _Christus am Olberg_? I’ve just been struck by that while casually returning to my little monograph as I often do.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews
Thy guerdon ... Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise;
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

Read the above between the 6th & 7th stanzas of the last I sent--and you have the poem complete. It’s done, and I won’t bother you with any more scraps....

The news of Allen Tate’s generosity refreshed me a great deal; truly beautiful of him. You must know by now, how little I credited the Light gossip; I simply thought you’d be interested in hearing the sort of thing that goes around. I don’t mean to say I sensed the ultimate facts as your enclosure establish them--but I have always known that your efforts were the _sine qua non_ in this situation ... your devotion and courage the sustaining factor.

I shall not write Kahn for awhile, or if I do it will be in a different mood than you need to fear of. I sent Spengler to you registered, two weeks ago. Don’t know any exact date for the appearance of _White B’s_, the contract specifies only in “the fall of 1926”; November, perhaps. --/--/

254: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _July 26th, ’26_

Dear Waldo: Dear repository of my faith, will you also serve as sanctum of some [of] my “works”? By which I mean that, though I shouldn’t bother you now while you are busy with inner work of your own, I still must ask you to keep the enclosed somewhere.[49] One never knows what may happen, fires burn the house here, etc., and mss. be burnt or otherwise lost--and in the case of this _Bridge_ I feel enough honor-bound to desire preserved whatever evidence of my industry and effort is forthcoming.

I don’t presume to ask you for comments. Read it if you like and fold it away somewhere. You have the last section (“Atlantis,” as I have decided to call it) haven’t you? I have discovered that it IS the real Atlantis, even of geology!

My plans are soaring again, the conception swells. Furthermore, this Columbus is REAL. In case you read it--(I _can’t_ be serious)--observe the water-swell rhythm that persists until the Palos reference. Then the more absolute and marked intimation of the great _Te Deum_ of the court, later held,--here in the terms of C.’s own cosmography.

Mrs. S. is the god’s own gift. This were a perfect place for work but for the prostrating heat. I think of next winter! Last night a wonderful breeze came up--and you can walk singing through the grove with a great moon simply bending down.

255: TO MALCOLM COWLEY AND PEGGY BAIRD

_Isle of Pines, Cuba_ _July 29th_

Dear Malcolm and Peggy: I’ve been wanting to tell you how glad I’ve been to know about your good luck with the _Post_ business, etc.--but you probably know by this time what I’ve been going through with.... There’s really no news except that I’m better and have begun to write--for a period until prostrated by the heat--like mad. Columbus has been cleared up--and a lot of other things started within ten days.

In the middle of _The Bridge_ the old man of the sea (page Herr Freud) suddenly comes up. I enclose this section,[50] hoping you’ll like it. Please mention or display it to no one but Allen and les Browns for the time: it makes me nervous to have parts of an unfinished drama going about much before the curtain goes up.

It happens that all the clippers mentioned were real beings, had extensive histories in the Tea trade--and the last two mentioned were life-long rivals. Rather touching....

256: TO HIS MOTHER

[_Isle of Pines_] _July 30th_

Dearest Grace: --/--/ Everything new sent down here now incurs terrific customs duty, so don’t send me any luxuries--or necessities either until I ask for them. Waldo sent me some ointment for bug bites after he went north--and the duty came to over the original price in NY; I was so angry I threw it back into the post office and refused to have anything more to do with it (by which please understand I _didn’t_ pay the duty).

You already have most of the news from Grandma’s letter, and Mrs. Simpson’s letter also must have arrived explaining the cable matter. I wasn’t worried about it because I was certain that you had received my letter almost immediately afterward--couldn’t have _before_ or else how could my _whereabouts_ have been questioned in the cable. I’m feeling quite well now--all but sleep, and whether that’s due to the heat, chronic insomnia or my present ferment of creative work, I don’t quite know. Certainly the hayhennies and crowing roosters (at all times of nights) and the breathlessness of the “air” don’t encourage one to slumbers. In a number of ways, however, I’m better acclimated, and I don’t need to memorize your advice to know enough to keep out of the sun and physical work! My spasm of hay fever seems to have gone--at about the same time it leaves in the north, that is, the spring session.

In all other ways this is the most ideal place and “situation” I’ve ever had for work. Mrs. S---- lets me completely alone when I’m busy; let’s me drum on the piano interminably if I want to--says she likes it--and has assumed a tremendous interest in my poem.... She reads and sews a great deal and just talks enough to keep on splendid and equable terms with me. She’s a perfect peach, in other words. The result is--that now that my health’s better I’m simply immersed in work to my neck, eating, “sleeping,” and breathing it. In the last ten days I’ve written over ten pages of _The Bridge_--highly concentrated stuff, as you know it is with me--and more than I ever crammed into that period of time before. I can foresee that everything will be brightly finished by next May when I come north, and I can make a magnificent bow to that magnificent structure, The Brooklyn Bridge, when I steam (almost under it) into dock! For the poem will be magnificent.

Meanwhile my other book, _White Buildings_, will have been published. It comes out sometime this fall. I have my contract and the $100. advance royalties mentioned in Grandma’s letter. O’Neill finally backed out on the foreword, as I thought he would. He’s enthusiastic about my work, I’ve never doubted that, but he didn’t have the necessary nerve to write what his honesty demanded--a thorough and accurate appraisal of my work. He can’t write criticism, never has tried even, and I foresaw the panic that this proposal on the part of our mutual publisher would precipitate in his bosom.... None other than Allen Tate!, it seems, is to write the foreword. I was informed by my publisher of all this--along with the acceptance. Has written it, in fact.... And (mum’s the word on this!) I was very much touched to hear from Waldo, who knows all the inner workings on this, that Allen offered his foreword under O’Neill’s signature when he heard that O’Neill had backed out. Of course I wouldn’t think of anything like that--so the foreword goes back to its own name. I’m very glad things have turned out this way. My umbrage toward Allen is erased by the fidelity of his action, and I’m glad to have so discriminating an estimate as he will write of me. --/--/

257: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _Aug 3_

Dear Waldo: Enclosed is “Atlantis”;[51] there have been variances since your copy whether you have it now or not.--So will you kindly humor my present little neurosis, and take care of this. I feel as though I were dancing on dynamite these days--so absolute and elaborated has become the conception. All sections moving forward now at once! I didn’t realize that a bridge is begun from the two ends at once.... Don’t bother to read what I send you; ye Gods I hope to preserve at least the credit of not presuming on you to the point of total vulgarity. It’s all right to be elegant--if you are rebellious like Rimbaud; however, I have to admit grosser preoccupations; so I’m sloppy.

Gorham sent me Allen’s Preface, which I also enclose (you’re quite sure to want to read this, if you haven’t already). I think it clever, valiant, concise and beautiful. I’m more fortunate than I might have been had things gone as they were supposed to have gone. Gorham said he’d been up to see you. I’m trying to let down completely for awhile and “recuperate.” “Powhatan’s Daughter” must be that basic center and antecedent of all motion--“power in repose.”

Mrs. S-- has been following me in some of my recent reading, with the result that she has named one of her roosters “Ferdinand, Count Fathom”! It’s a good thing you aren’t near to hear our piano going it these days!

I’ve just sent Kahn the Dedication and “Ave Maria.” Please return me A.’s preface. Don’t know whether I’ll use the enclosed “Notes” or not. A reaction to Eliot’s _Waste Land_ notes put them in my head. However, the angle chart from _The Scientific Am[erican]_ embodies a complete symbolism of both Bridge and Star, even including the motif of the “holy tooth.” And I should like to use it on the cover. If the notes amuse you at the moment--as I wrote them--

Have you read how handy our _Orizaba_ recently proved in the cyclone off Florida--when Cutty Sark was bobbing up?

258: TO ISABEL AND GASTON LACHAISE

(Postcard)

[_Isle of Pines_] [_ca. August_]

This quarry is in the mountains, near our place. There’s plenty to work on anytime you come! Your bird (the gull) is divine, produces sea music, even winks at times!

259: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _August 12th_

Dear Waldo: Your _Menorah_ [_Journal_] scolding is good and proper.... When all America, not only the Jew, takes that to heart it will be well for all of us. I know a number of prosperous Jew families in Cleveland, among my best friends there, but they’re mostly alike, sadly similar to your categorical disposals.... And, has the Gide essay appeared yet? Remember your promise.

I want to meet Ornstein someday. But I never seem to hear or read of any of these concert tours he is supposed to have to make for bread, etc. Mrs. Simpson was enormously pleased at your postcard; and I with your praise of the Dedication. You generally do pick the weakest link; that verse has bothered me, and will undoubtedly be somewhat amended before the book. I’ve sent it to _The Dial_ and _The Criterion_ (London); the little money may help, IF they take it. Probably won’t let anything else out of the bag on this side of the water, though, for sometime yet. It keeps too many question marks in my head, albeit a little change in the purse. I play the lottery, though, and like it. I’m going to win a thousand before spring; you see. “_I knew I’d see a WHALE!_”

I’m reading [Sandburg’s] _The Prairie Years_ now. More of “Powhatan’s Daughter” later. It ends up with the prodigal son from the ‘49. There’s to be a grand Indian pow-wow before that. Two of three songs have just popped out (enclosed) which come after “Cutty Sark” and before “The Mango Tree.” The last, “Virginia” (virgin in process of “being built”) may come along any time. I skip from one section to another now like a sky-gack or girder-jack. Even the subway and “Calgary Express” are largely finished. Though novel experiments in form and metre here will demand much ardor later on.