Chapter XX: Part THREE: West Indies-Europe (5)

My Spanish quotation from Slater Brown reminds me that I now have Joyce’s _Arista Adoloscente_--a translation sent me by Marichalar who wrote a very interesting introduction.[56] He was greatly interested in _The [American] Caravan_ and is going to review it in the _Revista de Occidente_. I must get started at my Spanish again. Richards’ _Principles of Literary Criticism_ is a _great_ book. One of the few--perhaps the only one in English excepting stray remarks by Coleridge--that get to bed rock. Weston’s book, _From Ritual to Romance_, was quite fascinating--but Winters claims that scholars regard half her data and deductions as imaginative bunk. Did I rave[?] to you about Elizabeth Madox Roberts’ new book--_My Heart and Flesh_--before! Anyway, I hope you’ll read it. I think it a great performance. --/--/

I’m glad you liked the Breughel book. Its humor really belonged to you, if you get what I mean, and you therefore were more capable of “owning” it than anyone I ever knew. If you were dead and gone I think it would have been a better commemoration than flowers--so take good care of it--and hand it on to your grandchildren--for you never can tell--you may have them, you know!

1928

295: TO PEGGY BAIRD AND MALCOLM COWLEY

[_California_] _Jan. 31, ’28_

Dear Peggy & Mal: Writing is next to impossible--what with the purling of fountains, the drawling of mockingbirds, the roaring of surf, the blazing of movie stars, the barking of dogs, the midnight shakings of geraniums, the cruising of warships, etc., etc., not to mention the dictates of the Censor, whose absence will be welcome sometime, I hope, when we get together again at the Dutchman’s or some rehabilitated Punch Palace where I’ll at least be able to offer some new words to the (albeit) ancient tunes! My philosophic moments are few, but when they do occur it is almost always possible to turn on the radio and immediately expose my soul to the rasping persuasions of Aimee McPherson, eternally ranting and evangelizing to packed houses at the great palm-flanked arena of Angelus Temple. She broadcasts the news that people are frequently carried out in pieces, arms broken, heads smashed in the stampede for salvation which she almost nightly stages, thereby emphasizing the need of arriving early (so as to save one’s body as well) and thereupon lifts her voice into a perfectly convulsing chant, coaxing and cuddlingly coy about “Come, all ye--” (You can catch her in it on the Victor) the chorus of which would make a deacon’s bishopric leap crimson and triumphant from the grave.... I haven’t seen her, but they say she has beautiful long, red, wavy tresses....

The peculiar mixtures of piety and utter abandon in this welter of cults, ages, occupations, etc., out here make it a good deal like Bedlam. Retired schoolmarms from Iowa, Kansas and all the corn-and-wheat belt along with millions of hobbling Methuselahs, alfalfa-fringed and querulous, side by side with crowds of ambitious but none-too-successful strumpets of moviedom, quite good to look at, and then hordes of rather nondescript people who seem just bound from nowhere into nothing--one can’t explain either the motives nor means of their existence. One can generally “place” people to some extent; but out here it’s mostly nix. One begins to feel a little unreal as a consequence of this--and so much more, like the perfect labyrinth of “villas”--some pseudo-Spanish, some a la Maya (the colour of stale mayonnaise), others Egyptian with a simply irresistible amphora perched on the terrace, and some vaguely Chink. Our house, a large _U_ with patio and fountain, rambles all over the place, and is almost vertical to the observatory on Mt. Wilson. Plenty of roses, camellias, oleanders, acacias, etc., as well as a good wine-cellar. I’ve just been interrupted by the butler bringing in a makeshift for champagne, composed of cardbonated apple-juice with a sling of gin; so all attempts at epistolary consecutivety are hereby and henceforth abandoned! No, I’d better give up--I was just about to say something about the pool rooms down at San Pedro where the battle fleet rides close at anchor. Gradually I’m becoming acquainted with all the brands of bootleg that the Westcoast offers. I haven’t been blinded by anything yet but beauty and sunshine, however; but I did have to get glasses to shield me from the violet rays, which are terribly strong out here. I’d better stop, I guess.

296: TO WALDO FRANK

_Altadena, Cal._ _February 1, 1928_

Dear Waldo: I thought the enclosed poems might interest you as souvenirs of our tropical sojourn together. The quarry and the road leading to it, the idiot boy, etc., and the “Overheard”[57] which mocks the manner of the typical American settler’s comments on the natives.... There is another poem, “The Air Plant,” properly belonging to this series, which ought to be out soon in _The Dial_. And there was another,“O Carib Isle!,” published earlier in _transition_, which also belongs. In “The Hour”[58] I attempted to secure the ground-rhythm of the hurricane.

You have been silent for so long that I cannot but doubt your interest in hearing from me. Yet I so often think of you that I have risked an intrusion regardless. --/--/

297: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN

_Altadena, Cal._ _5th Feb., 28_

Dear Sam: --/--/ First of all: my “boss” has never once failed to play the admirable host, and what is more, I continue to find him at all times most agreeable and entertaining. --/--/

I see my mother on the average of twice a week. She is located so far away that it takes a good two hours to reach her, so it nearly always means devoting practically a whole day to the occasion. My grandmother is better off than at any time for the last three years--the climate has done wonders. They have a small cottage and would be quite comfortable were they more satisfied with the general temper of the woman they brought out here to live with them. I’m not capable of judging the situation very accurately, but there’s been a good deal of fretting and umbrage, very discouraging indeed to me at times. Wise has practically asked me to accompany him to Europe in the Spring, but their situation may deny me that opportunity. Mother asked immediately about you. She would rejoice at any word from you whatever.

We have met some movie actors, attended some studio screenings, etc. And I have had a fair amount of swimming and tennis. (The beaches--Long Beach, Venice, Santa Monica--are really a delight, and I have spent whole days watching the gulls, sandpipers, pelicans in their manoeuvres). But I am especially enjoying the wealth of reading and music around the house. Wise is buying all the albums of symphonies, quintettes, concertos and what-not on the Victor list. So I’m living on intimate terms for the first time with Brahms and Beethoven--the two most exciting of all to me.

_The Grandmothers_, I agree with you, is damned fine, although I think it weakens towards the last; Wescott seems to lose his grip. Then I’ve immensely enjoyed the trans. of Proust’s _Sodome et Gomorrhe_, as well as Gide’s _The Counterfeiters_. I also am now introduced to Heathcliff (whom I have put beside Ahab) thanks to your mention of _Wuthering Hts_. And by the way, I’m terribly excited about the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Winters loaned me his copy recently (I had never read any of Hopkins before) and I have discovered that I am not as original in some of my stylisms as I had thought I was. Winters tells me that the book (Oxford edition, edited by Robert Bridges) is now out of print. I’m simply wild to secure a copy--and am wondering if you could locate me anything around New York. I’m willing to pay anything up to $10.00. Failing this, I think I shall go to work and type out the whole volume, for I’ve never been quite so enthusiastic about any modern before. --/--/

298: TO SLATER BROWN

[_California_] _2/22/28_

Dear Bill: --/--/ A paean from Venusberg! Oy-oy-oy! I have just had my ninth snifter of Scotch. O shades of Bert Savoy! They say he had a glass eye as the result of some midnight with a mariner. But I have had no such dire results as yet. Oh BOY! Try to imagine the streets constantly as they were during that famous aggregation last May in Manhattan! And more, for they are at home here, these western argosies, at roadstead far and near--and such a throng of pulchritude and friendliness as would make your “hair” stand on end. That’s been the way of all flesh with me.... And wine and music and such nights--WHOOPS!!!!!!!

Besides which I have met the Circe of them all--a movie actor who has them dancing naked, twenty at a time, around the banquet table. O André Gide! no Paris ever yielded such as this--away with all your counterfeiters! Just walk down Hollywood Boulevard some day--if you must have something _out_ of uniform. Here are little fairies who can quote Rimbaud before they are 18--and here are women who must have the tiniest fay to tickle them the one and only way! You ought to see B---- C---- shake her tits--and cry _apples_ for a bite!

What can I write about? Yes, I am reading Wyndham Lewis’ _Time and Western Man_, Fernandez’ insufferable _Messages_ and all the other stuff. But I would rather do as I did yesterday--after a night of wine--wake up at dawn and dip into _The Tempest_, that crown of all the Western World. What have I to say after that event. I wonder.??? --/--/ [Act V, scene I, lines 64-68] Maybe with me someday, as good Prospero says. Perhaps--as Ceres says in the same play----/--/ [Act IV, scene I, lines 114-17] But you will tear this up--and keep me true, Bill. And if I come back to you and to the dear hills of Connecticut again, as I hope to, I shall have a cargo for your ears. --/--/

299: TO WALDO FRANK

_Hollywood, Calif._ _4th March 1928_

Dear Waldo: The date on your generous and welcome letter is an accusation. It is true that I haven’t lacked time to answer it, long since,--but the desire to give you something more than a muddled confusion of cross purposes--and my confidence in your preference for reason and order--have detained me, though I am still by no means settled in my present environment nor do I seem any too happily disposed. But at least I have decided on a few details, for better or worse....

My association with Mr. Wise, who brought me out here as private secretary, terminated about two weeks ago. Although it was unsatisfactory (my duties were extremely vague and I was neither servant nor guest) I might have stuck it out until May (when Wise returns to NY) had I felt justified in leaving my mother and grandmother alone out here in their present predicament. However, the experience of the last two years has taught me the futility of any retreat from what I, after all, must regard as my immediate responsibilities. The further I might go from the actual “scene” of operations the more obsessed I tend to become by the inert idea. So I am remaining here with the hope of securing some “literary” connection with the movies which will net me enough to be of some substantial help. When all this is over--someday--I may be able to regain the indispensable detachment from immediate concerns that such a work as my _Bridge_ demands. Needless to say, I find Hollywood far from tempting in any way--but my people had moved here before I arrived, and as my grandmother is unable to move more than a few steps from her bed she is hardly in the tourist class.

Your letter was as usual--bracing! You probably don’t realize it, but it had been a year since I had heard anything from you excepting a postcard. I was beginning to fear that something spurious had been repeated to you as an emanation of mine, for NY is so full of fabrications of all kinds--so, to know better was a welcome relief, also! I can well appreciate the many preoccupations which beset and hindered you. The marvel to me is the glamor and precision of your new work; I refer to the installments of it in _The N.R._ Some of my copies were lost when I was moving--and my readings were frequently interrupted and only partially realized--but the luminous impulse and essential direction I think I have apprehended. It is something more than mere analysis. Like most of your work it postulates a “Way.” I have tried reading Fernandez’ _Messages_ and Lewis’ _Time and Western Man_ without being able to wholly approve a single page of either, though Fernandez is more profound. But his style (or the translator’s) is abominable as compared to L.’s direct though misdirected thrusts. But L. just goes round in a desolate circle of elaborations--I can’t see anything creative in his offering. Beginning with Spengler and Wells, this age seems too typically encyclopaedic. This may assist the artist in time--by erecting some kind of logos, or system of contact between the insulated departments of highly specialized knowledge and enquiry which characterize the times--God knows, some kind of substantial synthesis of opinion is needed before I can feel confident in writing about anything but my shoestrings.... These Godless days! I wonder if you suffer as much as I do. At least you have the education and training to hold the scalpel.

If I can’t send you a new poem of my own I can at least send you a better new-old one [“Pied Beauty”] (for I don’t think you have yet read him) by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford) now out of print--a Victorian, posthumously printed, whose work has been a revelation to me. --/--/

300: TO ---- AND ----

_Hollywood, Calif_ _March 27th ’28_

Dear ---- and ----: As I don’t seem to get anything more out of you by means of postcards, telegrams, and such-like shorthand signals I guess it’s up to me to get busy on the typewriter and pay you your due torture--though I’ll try and not inflict such piercing shrieks on you again, such as my last epistle! When I get to feeling like that again I’ll begin on Pres. Calles first--and that will probably save you a good deal of amazement and conjecture.

This time the news is more diverse.... Life is nothing if not exciting wherever ---- happens to land, if only for a few hours. It took him (or his presence) to arrange the most harrowing weekend yet, and I’m only praying that he’s still alive, for when I left him in his berth in the “glory-hole” of the “California” last Sat. night he looked as though he were nearing the Pearly Gates. We were held up and beaten by a gang in San Pedro.... The story is complicated and lengthy--and ---- will probably give you the full version or as much as he can remember when he sees you.

I left Wise’s ménage a week ago today. However, as ---- somehow failed to get my ship letter announcing same and the hour at which I would meet him--he flew right up to Altadena, leaving me to wait a _full 8 hours_ by the gangway before I saw my dear “Goldy-locks.” By that time I had about finished a half pint of alcohol which I had brought for our mutual edification, and he had completely emptied a quart of Bacardi, also originally intended as a mutual benison.

_Scene Two._ Speakeasy joint with booths. Many bottles of dubious gin and whiskey--with much “skoling”--and ---- flashing a fat pay roll--and treating three or four still more dubious “merry andrews” who had invited themselves to our noisy nook. It being midnight, all ordered out.

_Scene Three._ A street, or rather, several streets. Our “guests” very insistent on taking a hotel room in which to finish the fire water. ---- & I both reeling but refractory. I finally noticed ---- being spirited away by three of them, while it was evident that I, who had been more emphatic in my wishes, was being guarded by two others. I broke away--and had just caught up to ---- who was being put around a dark corner--when all five started slugging us. I put up quite a fight, but neither of us were in much condition. They all beat it as a car turned on a nearby corner. Both of us robbed of everything, and ---- practically unconscious. After reporting at police headquarters I don’t know how I would have got ---- back to his ship without the help of a sailor friend of mine whom I had run into earlier in the evening while waiting for ----. We roused several of his shipmates--and I’m only hoping that his bumps and bruises haven’t been any more fatal than mine. I finally had to finish the night in a ward of the Salvation Army Hotel, and it was five o’clock Sunday before I got enough money to get back to Hollywood. On his way back from Frisco I’m hoping to see ---- again--but not in Pedro! Probably nothing of this had better be mentioned to the ----’s.... I don’t mind my losses, but I feel terribly about ----’s luck. He always seems to get the hardest end of things.

As you can see, we didn’t get much time for any gossip. But he did say that you had the most beautiful baby in the world! Wish I could see him! Besides which I get terribly homesick out here, but might as well not indulge myself in that emotion. My resignation from the Wise entourage was encouraged by a number of dissatisfactions, but as much as anything by the recognition of the fact that I must settle here for a while at least, and do whatever I can to help my mother during her attendance on grandmother. The two of them being completely alone out here, and none too well provided for, I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep in Conn. So I might as well relinquish my own wishes for awhile and try and earn some cash. Maybe scenario writing eventually. Meanwhile there are mechanical jobs such as title-writing, gag-writing, “continuity” writing, etc. I just had an interview with “Papa” Kahn this morning who is out here for a couple of weeks. He promises to help me connect with Lasky, Paramount, Wm. Fox, etc. At least I have “broken in” the movies in one way, for Pathe Newsreel or some such torture swooped down on us while we were talking in the patio of The Ambassador, and for all I know we may be thrown upon the screen together all the way from Danbury to Hong-Kong and Mozambique! I’m wearing hornrims now--so don’t be shocked.

As for my late employer--the situation became too strained to be continued. --/--/ Such circumstances don’t promote a very lively morale--and it’s probably better for me to lose a little of the attendant avoirdupois in favor of a more exhilarating outlook. But we are still friends so far as I know.

Every week I scour the pages of _The New Rep._, _Nation_, and _Herald-Tribune_ for the names of our “rising generation.” Have seen nothing by Malcolm for some time. Does this corroborate the news I got from Mrs. T[urner] some weeks ago that Malcolm has been laid up? Much by Robert Penn Warren, but little by his friend Tate, excepting a recent review of Winters which I thought excellent. Slater Brown, I long since neglected to mention, scored keenly in tussle with the milksop critic of Estlin C’gs in the Canby Crap Can. “The point was well taken,” as my grandmother would say. And how is C’gs? for I think you told me he was pretty hard up. Mitchell seems to be bursting with new energy by the evidence in recent numbers of _The Dial_. And last, but not least in this litry column, how goes it with your translations--and how is ----? No, you’re not the last, either! I must say that I haven’t yet been able to decipher that defense of me by Laura [Riding], published in _Transition_ along with Kay Boyle’s explosive boil. I wrote her promptly, thanking her for her sentiments, but questioning her style. Her latest book announced by Jonathan Cape, is _Anarchy Is Not Enough_--and so she seems to be maintaining her consistency. Judging by the time she has already taken before answering me, I judge that I’m off her correspondence list. I shouldn’t have been so rude had I thought her tender-hearted. But I can’t believe that anarchy is enough--or Gertrude Stein, either. --/--/

301: TO ISIDOR SCHNEIDER

_Hollywood, Calif_ _March 28th, 1928_

Dear Isidor: --/--/ I often wish I had the scientific and metaphysical training to appreciate and judge all these Whiteheads, Bradleys, Fernandez, Wyndham Lewis-es, etc., who keep drumming up new encyclopedias of the Future, Fate, etc. And now Waldo has written another, especially devoted to America. I read them, puzzle and ponder as best I’m able, but Spengler was about the only one who flattered my capacities to the least extent. They are all so formidable, bristling with allusions, statistics, threats and tremors, trumpets and outcries on the least splitting of a hair which I can’t locate through the labyrinth of abstractions. I’m afraid I’d better give up trying to make any headway in their directions--or else relinquish all attempts to do any writing myself. For about all they really net me is a constant paralysis and distraction. I think that this unmitigated concern with the Future is one of the most discouraging symptoms of the chaos of our age, however worthy the ethical concerns may be. It seems as though the imagination had ceased all attempts at any creative activity--and had become simply a great bulging eye ogling the foetus of the next century.... I find nothing in Blake that seems outdated, and for him the present was always eternity. This is putting it crudely; but when I get some of these points a little more definitely arranged then maybe I’ll have more nerve to continue my efforts on _The Bridge_. The struggle on paper is hard enough, but certain recent antecedent deliberations are proving even more stubborn.

I enjoyed your historical notes and orientalia. You ought to hear Aimee [McPherson] carry on over the radio to get the full blast of her personality. D. Parker’s review of her autobiography (_N. Yorker_) was amusing I thought. She’s a great pious Dame Quickly--and they almost caught her with her shoes off in that “kidnapping” episode. Coming from the ridiculous to the sublime--let me thank you for the Isadora! That book has a certain dignity, despite many lapses, which I expected from her; a very sad but beautiful book. Her career would be impossible now since the War. Other reading has included the cold glitter of Gide’s _Counterfeiters_ and the tremendous mosaic of Proust’s _Cities of the Plain_. I never got one-third through all the books that Wise continually ordered. But then, I’m always taking two steps backward to Queen Bess’s alleys for every one step ahead. --/--/

302: TO GORHAM MUNSON

_Hollywood, Calif._ _April 17th ’28_

Dear Gorham: I certainly feel guilty--and the evidence of your cordiality in sending me your _Destinations_ has not made me feel any more exemplary--for not having written you before. However you are exacting in the level of response which you expect from your friends, and in as much as I have been involved in a general state of doldrums so far as any creative progress has been concerned for well nigh every moment since I left NY, I haven’t felt like burdening you with the mere minutiae of personal trifles in lieu of more “decisive developments” if I could help it. But here goes--anyway--if only to signal to you my pleasure in receiving your opus and to assure you that at any rate my affections are not defunct.

With the general exhortation of your book (as a whole) towards more definite spiritual knowledge and direction I find myself in close sympathy. The spiritual disintegration of our period becomes more painful to me every day, so much so that I now find myself baulked by doubt at the validity of practically every metaphor I coin. In every quarter (Lewis, Eliot, Fernandez, etc.) a thousand issues are raised for one that is settled and where this method is reversed--as with the neo-Thomists--one has nothing as substitute but an arbitrary dogmatism which seems to be too artificial [to] have any permanence or hold on the future. This “future” is, of course, the name for the entire disease, but I doubt if any remedy will be forthcoming from so nostalgic an attitude as the Thomists betray, and moreover a strictly European system of values, at that. Waldo’s acute analyses now running in _The NR_ strike me as wonderfully promising. He hasn’t come to the constructive part of his program yet--but his ideas are promising; in a way they come to closer grips with American bogeys and vampires than any European is probably capable of seeing.

I think that _Destinations_ is a transitional book with you. It contains a lot of splendid analysis, especially your discussions of technical procedures and the historical positions and relationships of various writers. Above and beyond (or enclosing) these considerations I think your demand for more order, clearer direction, etc., well justified, but on the other hand, too vaguely articulated to offer any definite system in contrast to the distraction, indifference to major issues, mere intuitiveness, etc., which you complain of in a number of writers whose work you otherwise admire. This was almost inevitable, I am forced to acknowledge, especially as I have already admitted my own quandaries in the face of such problems--but the challenge still rings for all of us. You have certainly done this much: if you have not definitely (or even begun to) articulate the concrete values of the ideal _100_ per cent you have at least done some wiping on the slate and postulated _000_, or the position of the questionable ciphers. Skepticism may stop there and still claim gratitude and respect, but I am not exactly satisfied by that, and I doubt if you are. I still stake some claims on the pertinence of the intuitions; indeed some of Blake’s poems and Emily Dickinson’s seem more incontrovertible than ever since Relativity and a host of other ideologies, since evolved, have come into recognition.

As close and accurate scrutinies I like the Moore and Williams studies best. I don’t know Dreiser well enough to judge your opinions. As for Hart Crane, I know him too well to disagree on as many points as I once did, two years ago when I first read the essay. I am certainly grateful for such expert attention, and especially on the technical side I think you express my intentions with a very persuasive gusto that has recently revived in me some conviction of “reality” here and there in my scrap heap. --/--/

303: TO SLATER BROWN

[_California_] _April 27_

Dear Bill: Your salute to the comments of the ny critics cracks at _him_ displayed more life than I have seen around here since I arrived. Although I am still holding my sides, I’m a little sad; for I would like to have been there. Especially with Anne [Cummings] drinking gin and ---- sporting his shiners and shirt front and all the tumult and guzzling there must have been afterward! As for the critics--C’gs can be envied, in the same manner that even I can be envied, whereby I refer to the “clever” handling I recently got from Benét in the Canby crap can. At least we both have managed to evade the proverbial faint praise! Your clipping was the only one I’ve seen excepting a letter from Dos [Passos] in the last _Sunday Times_, and a laudatory review in the _Wall Street Journal_ which Wise had noticed. I hope you and others will make as much of a controversy about it as possible. That’s one thing good about Frank--he never hesitates a moment and never tires.

Since the Fleet with its twenty-five thousand gobs has left for Hawaii I have had a chance to face and recognize the full inconsequence of this Pollyanna greasepaint pinkpoodle paradise with its everlasting stereotyped sunlight and its millions of mechanical accessories and sylphlike robots of the age of celluloid. Efforts for a foothold in this sandstorm are still avid, but I have had little yet in encounter. “Crashing the gate” is a familiar expression out here, and it seems to be exclusively applied to the movie industry. To cap the climax I have to endure my mother’s apparently quenchless desire that I become an actor! But if I can hold on until the middle of May I’m due for an interview with Jesse Lasky (HIMSELF) and maybe through that entree I can creep into some modest dustpan in the reading dept. of Paramount. Your friend Dietz, by the way, draws a cool $750.00 a week as their ad. mgr.

It’s good to think of you as back near Patterson. I had a good letter from Malcolm. It all makes me homesick. Things like that croquet game in the rain, the afternoon at the cider mill, the skeleton surry ride and the tumble down the hill! I haven’t a thing to send for the _transition_ Am. issue. I can’t imagine ever having anything to say out here except in vituperation of the scene itself. If I could “afford” to go to work on some ranch it might be otherwise, but that, under present circumstances, doesn’t seem advisable.

Have just discovered the presence here of Mrs. Alice Barney, the world-famous grande dame and mother of Nathalie Clifford Barney of Paris, friend of Valéry, translator, -- -- -- --. As she is a great friend of Underwood of Washington I have been invited to her next weekly “evening.” She ought to be a little different than the typical Hollywood hostess--perhaps mildly Proustian. God knows I need some sort of diversion besides bus rides and the rigor mortis of the local hooch. -- -- -- --

304: TO WALDO FRANK

_Patterson,_ _June 12th ’28_

Dear goodhearted Brother: Your loan has been a godsend and I am only afraid I have appeared insensitive in not writing my thanks before. But you’ve been very busy getting settled, I know, and probably haven’t had any such extra thoughts. It’s nice, damned fine, of you to ask me up--maybe I’ll be able to make it along in August. But it’s a slim chance. I want above all things to get _The Bridge_ completed this summer, and aside from the necessity of taking any work which may come along I’ll need to keep my head or rather my nose away from too tempting horizons. But at least I _trust_ we’ll have a reunion and a long visit in the Fall.

I meant long ago to tell you my rather disappointing experience with Charlie.[59] During my first month on the Coast I happened to meet him sitting in his favorite restaurant one evening. I had a friend with me and he was also engaged, but I stopped for a moment in passing to say hello--identifying myself with you (whose address he wanted immediately). I later sent him an inscribed copy of _White Buildings_ along with a letter, but never got any response further than a formal letter from his secretary acknowledging receipt of same, etc. As I had already urged him to dine with me (my boss, Mr. Wise, was simply wild to meet him and entertain him) I couldn’t press matters much further. He was simply too busy otherwheres to be interested--that was obviously it--and all the stars have built walls of mystery about themselves as impregnable as Carcassonne! Just try to get them on the phone sometime! But Charlie surely was never so radiant and handsome as when I saw him.... Hair snow-white, which means almost as white as the smiling flash of his teeth, and those same eyes of genius.

I’m hardly qualified to give you any fair report on my reactions to your _NR_ series. I’ve missed several and those I did get a chance to read (out west) were read under disturbing circumstances. I remember such chapters as “Let’s be Comfortable,” “News as a Toy,” and the recent chapter on “The Arts” as especially keen analysis. The first two or three chapters seemed to hint at a little strain or rush; this more from their almost painful condensation of material and opinion than from other cause. But I ought to re-read them before barking. I can’t think of any living American with greater integrity or courage, you prove it on every page. The completed book will come out in the late fall, I take it. -- -- -- --

305: TO ISIDOR & HELEN SCHNEIDER

_Patterson, N. Y._ _July 16th, 1928_

Dear Isidor & Helen: Your good Parisian letter reached me here on about the third week after my return from the Coast. Leaving about the middle of May, I took the southern route across Texas to New Orleans, then down the Mississippi and up to NY by boat. The old French quarter of New Orleans with its absinthe speakeasies and wonderful cooking seemed unspeakably mellow and gracious after all the crass mechanical perfection of Hollywood, and the six hours on the great delta were even more symphonic than I had expected.

New York harbor looked both stridently busy and enormously friendly in the early morning light. I was mightily glad to get back among friends; I could find no work in California and excessively hysterical conditions arose between me and my family there. Altogether it was intolerable. I feel more like myself again, back in my familiar room at Mrs. Turner’s. Besides, we have located a marvellous bootlegger on a neighboring hill, who makes better beer than I’ve had north of Cuba! --/--/

306: TO HIS FATHER

_New York City_ _August 14th, 1928_

Dear Father: Your letter, forwarded from Patterson, reached me yesterday, I have been offered the use of the flat of a friend of mine [Cowley] who is spending the summer in the country, and I’m fortunate enough to have it for several weeks. I’ve been cooking my own meals and doing my best without the help of a flatiron to keep myself looking spruce, but my shoes are giving out as well as the several small loans that friends have given me--and so far I haven’t been able to make any connection with ad. work. I guess I’ll have to give that up.

I agree with you completely in what you say about learning a trade; in fact I have wanted to learn some regular trade like typesetting, linotyping, etc., for a long time back. However, connections that pay anything whatever while learning these trades are hard to find out about. And, of course, I need something more than air to live on in the meantime. I’m going to do my best during the next few days to find a job as a plumber’s or mechanic’s helper. The work is physically heavier than I have been used to for a long time, but I fancy I can make the adjustment in due time. The way things are now I’ll consider myself lucky to get anything. --/--/

307: TO HIS FATHER

_New York City_ _August 19, 1928_

Dear Father: I hope you won’t blame me for utilizing the check enclosed in your letter for some immediate necessities, without which my first pay day would seem even longer away! I can refund the money to you later. Meanwhile it will seem good to have something definite to do--as well as something definite to eat.

As I wired you, I start in tomorrow. The job isn’t much, but it can tide me over to something better. A former Cleveland acquaintance of mine has opened a book store here. He needs to be out a good deal collecting stock, rare editions, etc., and I’m coming in as clerk, besides which I shall have some work to do on his catalogues, make-up, etc. The offer wasn’t made until last Friday, else I should have let you know sooner.

This may strike you as a rather poor alternative to your invitation to return to Cleveland, but as there are two or three real possibilities hanging fire here--and of considerable ultimate importance,--I feel that I am justified in staying on the ground. One in particular, the editorship of a magazine, I should hate to risk missing. Thank you a lot though, Father, for your interest and help. --/--/

308: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK

_Brooklyn, New York_ _Sept 16th, 1928_

Dear Charlotte and Richard: It has hurt me to think that you thought me indifferent about returning the remainder of the money that you so kindly loaned me. I confess my guilt: it _could_ have been done before. But nevertheless at _no_ time since you wrote me asking for it. Owing to the recent death of my Grandmother Hart (in Hollywood) I shall, however, be able to discharge the obligation fairly soon, as I come into a slight inheritance which will take care of several debts. I have been struggling without any money for weeks, but have finally secured a decent job with an advertising agency here.

This is perhaps a futile letter to write, since our friendship seems to have been already sacrificed. But I owe it to myself perhaps as much as to you to give you rightful evidence of my continued intention of honest behavior, no matter what you may have thought of me. You don’t know how often I have thought of you and regretted the circumstances of your recent loss of interest in me. You don’t know the extent to which I feel gratefully indebted to you both for many things outside the realm of money or anything that money could ever buy. But there is no use in trying to make apologies. As long as I believe in myself I shall insist on my good intentions and with the ultimate faith of putting them into practice. I can never, of course, ask others as much as that.

If you will be friendly enough to answer _this_ letter some time in the next three months I shall be glad to know that at least I may be sure of your present address. Otherwise, I’ll have to ask someone in Cleveland to look you up in the directory or telephone book to ascertain your present whereabouts at the time I’m able to write a check out.

309: TO CHARLOTTE RYCHTARIK

_Brooklyn, NY_ _Oct. 23rd, 1928_

Dear Charlotte: --/--/ Your letter made me feel a lot better. It lifted a load from my spirit that I had felt for many months. I really need to _see_ you, _talk_ with you to explain what a hell the last two years have been. Perhaps you’d then see how it has been almost impossible for me to write anyone. For who wants to hear nothing but troubles? I’ve waited, putting off writing again and again, hoping to have something interesting to offer--for that is what such as you and Richard deserve.

I can realize how deeply you have felt the loss of your mother. You seem to have been having your share of tribulations.... O, I know.... How I wish I could have seen you on your way through New York when you came back from Europe! Now it may be some time before we get together again. There is much to say, but little to tell--if you get what I mean. I haven’t had a creative thought for so long that I feel quite lost and _spurlos versenkt_. My present job lasts another week, and then I must tramp around again to find another. Moving around, grabbing onto this and that, stupid landladies--never enough sense of security to relax and have a fresh thought--that’s about all the years bring besides new and worse manifestations of family hysteria. It’s a great big bore! I feel like saying what the Englishman did: “Too many buttons to button and unbutton. I’m through!” -- -- -- --

310: TO MALCOLM COWLEY

[_Brooklyn_] _the 20th of the 28th at the A.M. 7-thirtieth_

Dear Malcolm: After the passionate pulchritude of the usual recent maritime houreths--before embarking for the 20th story of the Henry L Doherty Co’s 60 on Wall Street story--I salute your mss which arrived yesterday morning--as well as the really cordial apologies accompanying them for the really unhappy hours inaugurated last week by the hysteria of S. God damn the female temperament! I’ve had thirty years of it--lacking six months--and know something myself.

It’s me for the navy or Mallorca damned quick. Meanwhile sorting securities of cancelled legions ten years back--for filing--pax vobiscum--With Wall Street at 30 per--and chewing gum for lunch--

But here I am--full of Renault Wine Tonics--after an evening with the Danish millionaire on Riverside--and better, thank God, a night with a bluejacket from the Arkansas--raving like a ‘mad. And it’s time to go to work. So long.... I’ll be careful with the mss.[60] And your book’ll be out within 7 months.... About time! God bless you and give my love to Peggy! And as W. J. Turner says: “O hear the swan song’s traffic’s cry!”

311: TO MALCOLM COWLEY

_Brooklyn, NY_ _Dec. 1, 1928_

Dear Malcolm: It has been a pleasure for me to spend part of the last two days in typing the mss. of your book. Certainly I have been on more intimate terms with the poems than ever, and my enthusiasm has been heightened thereby rather than in any way diminished.

I now have two copies, one to turn over to the “secret” arbiter[61] here and one to take with me to England. Whatever may or may not happen over there I’ll at least be sure of having you along with me--which is much. By the way, if the mss. is returned to you, refused, be sure to send it at once to Coward-McCann, who, I understand, are calling for new poets and planning some kind of series of them. Hanna [Josephson] spoke to me about this yesterday.

Although I hope to get off next Saturday (probably on the _Tuscania_) I’m not at all certain. The bank behaves too strangely--now ignores my letters not to mention telegram. The meddlesome old nanny that is handling the matter there will soon hear from me through a lawyer if things don’t take a new turn by Monday. That’s the only way to handle it, I guess. I’m to see Art Hays Monday and talk it over. At any rate, I think it would be foolish to bring my troubles over to London with me and have them poison my first impressions of the place.

To get back to the poems: I omitted practically nothing but the Decorations. The arrangement you made is ideal. As to the places for the following, I think you’ll agree that they are ideal:

“Tumbling Mustard” just before “Memphis Johnny”

“Still Life” just before “Seaport” (it doesn’t fit in the Grand Manner section particularly)

“Two Winter Sonnets” just after “St. Bartholomew” (they come in eloquently there)

Really the book as we now have it has astonishing structural sequence. Most of the more doubtfully important poems come in the central section. There is the fine indigenous soil sense to begin with in the Juniata, and the eloquent and more abstract matter mounting to a kind of climax toward the end. Hope you don’t mind my enthusiasm!

See _Show Boat_ when you come to town. Wise took me last night; the beautiful new Ziegfield Theatre has them all beat--and the settings, songs, costumes and glistening lithe girlies! Like greased lightning--the suave mechanical perfection of the thing.

You may not hear from me again if I leave next Saturday, but Mrs. Turner will be informed when I leave anyway. I’ll see that your mss. (the original) is remailed to you registered, early next week. ----and I went on the best bat ever last night--Sam’s [Loveman] old place--finally two cops came in and joined the party at three o’clock--asked ---- to marry me and live with me in Spain--but she’s got to wait for her divorce from the Danish gaucho now on the pampas.

312: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN

[_R.M.S._] _Tuscania off Newfoundland_ _Dec. 9 ’28_

Ahoy Sam! The ship is rearing like a high-strung broncho--and I’m out walking the quarter-deck much of the time--enjoying the rhythmical lift and plunge of it. We’ve had high seas running and sleet and rain since Sandy Hook but I’ve been down for every meal. O it’s great! The bad gin pains are leaving my head and--taking only the bad memories with them--_not_ the pleasant thoughts of you and Mony [Grunberg] and others.

This is a pleasant boat--not at all crowded--and such nice people. English servants know how to be pleasant as well as efficient. And of course I _would_ be given the one nearly handsome English waiter in the salon! Rather tough food--but I’m getting used to it. The whiskey--which is all I’ve tried thus far--is like balm of Gilead--or whatever Poe said. A little goes a long ways--and really doesn’t sadden one.

P.S. Melville makes fine reading on this trip.

313: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN

(Postcard)

_Off Cornwall [England]_ [_December 13_]

Gorgeous weather all the way. Today is like the “Tristram” verse of Swinburne. Millions of sea gulls following us and soaring overhead with such a flood of golden light as seems tropical. The coast of Cornwall in sight, and Plymouth by tea time.

314: TO CHARMION WIEGAND

_R.M.S. Rumrunia off the Coast of Ireland_ _near Christmas ’28_

Dear Charmion: My performance given at the Anderson party last summer was but a slight forecast to the splendors of my behavior night before last--when at a bal masque, dressed in a red coat of a sergeant-major, sailor hat, shark swagger stick, etc.--I essayed a dervish whirl. But I seem to have made no enemies and rum has become the favorite drink throughout the cabin.

If anything, I’ve had almost too good a time! I have been the only native American in the whole tourist cabin. The rest being Britishers, Canadians, Australians visiting relatives abroad, etc.--and all of them the pleasantest crowd I ever met. Think I’m going to like London entirely too well for an early take-off to Spain. One old squire took me for a Cambridge man--and I admit that after a day or two in conflab with some of these natives one does tend to lose one’s “middle-western accent.”

You must excuse my exuberance momentarily at least. I can’t stop being tremendously pleased at the wonderful ale, the pleasant manners of practically everybody (and one gets such graceful and attentive service everywhere), the balmy spring air, and the prospect of meeting more of such people soon on foreign shores. I feel really rested now, despite a hectic round of pleasures.

It was so nice of you to come to the little beer party. When I think of the mad rush of that last day I’m moved to wonder how I ever kept on my feet. But I enjoyed the evening after all. Hope you met some people that you liked. I’m always a little vain about my friends. --/--/

315: TO WALDO FRANK

[_London, England_] _December 28 ’28_

Dear Waldo: Landed here with incipient flu but have managed to stave it off with good Jamaica rum and quinine. The city is soberly impressive--full of courtesy and deep character. I feel now as though I’d like to settle here--and even might--later on. But it’s too expensive to linger long now--and I’m apt to be off to Paris next week. Shall not stay there very long, either, as I want to get settled and at work.

Am expecting to meet Edgell Rickword soon but not many others. Laura Riding and Robert Graves (friend of Col. Lawrence and the one who introduced Cummings here) have been delightfully hospitable. I had a most luscious plum pudding with them Christmas -- -- -- -- on the Thames at Hammersmith in front of Wm. Morris’ old headquarters.

No snow here at all--and the grass as green as summer in the parks. I’ve already seen a great deal--tramping about by myself, drinking Australian wine with old charwomen in Bedford Street--talking with ex-soldiers, and then the National Gallery with the marvelous “Agony in the Garden” of El Greco. The beautiful black and white streaked stone facades of the buildings make me quite sentimental. London is negative (as Laura says) but one gets a chance to breathe and deliberate. And there is something genuine about nearly every Englishman one meets. I feel almost too much at home.

Your pipe grows mellower every day. It’s a little like Paul Robeson’s voice--and I’ve been enjoying him by the way. He and Essie have taken a sumptuous home of an ex-ambassador to Turkey for the rest of his engagement. But he’s anxious to get to Paris to earn some astonishing laurels offered him there. --/--/

1929

316: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN

(Postcard)

[_Paris, France_] [_January 23, 1929_]

Dinners, soirées, poets, erratic millionaires, painters, translations, lobsters, absinthe, music, promenades, oysters, sherry, aspirin, pictures, Sapphic heiresses, editors, books, sailors. _And How!_

317: TO JOSEPH STELLA

_Paris_ _January 24th, 1929_

Dear Mr. Stella: Sometime before leaving America Charmion Habicht [Wiegand] showed me a copy of your privately issued monograph called “New York,” containing your essay on Brooklyn Bridge and the marvelous paintings you made not only of the Bridge but other New York subjects. This has been the admiration of everyone to whom I have shown it. And now I am writing you to ask if you will give permission to an editor friend of mine to reproduce the three pictures--“The Bridge,” “The Port,” and the one called “The Skyscrapers.” He would also like to reprint your essay.

I am referring to Mr. Eugene Jolas who is an editor of _transition_--a magazine which you have probably heard of. He would like to use this material in the next number if you will be so kind as to give us permission. _transition_ is able to pay little or nothing now for contributions, but, since our friend Varèse has told me that your essay has never been printed in any journal, we feel that so splendid and sincere a document should have wider circulation than private printing has allowed it.

I have also a private favor of my own to ask of you. I should like permission to use your painting of the Bridge as a frontispiece to a long poem I have been busy on for the last three years--called _The Bridge_. It is a remarkable coincidence that I should, years later, have discovered that another person, by whom I mean you, should have had the same sentiments regarding Brooklyn Bridge which inspired the main theme and pattern of my poem. --/--/

318: TO GERTRUDE STEIN

[_Paris_] _Jan. 31, ’29_

Dear Miss Stein: May I introduce myself as a friend of your friend, Laura Riding?

And on that presumption may I ask to see you some hour early next week--whenever it may suit your convenience to have me call--?

I am going away for the weekend, but shall probably be back by Monday evening. I hope I may hear from you.

319: TO MALCOLM COWLEY

[_Paris_] _Feb. 4 ’29_

Dear Malcolm: Time here flies faster than I can count. And now along comes the good news from you about the book of poems. Of course I’m all the happier that you got better terms from Hal [Smith]--it’s all to the good. But I do hope that you have seen Munson by this time, and at least thanked him for his interest. For the very fact that you were able to make such an announcement to Hal may well have influenced his interest to a great extent. Such matters are rather officious for me to mention I fear, but I do think Munson deserves some real credit. --/--/

I’m dizzy, also, with meeting people. “Teas” are cocktails here--and then that’s just the start of the evening. And as lions come these days, I’m known already, I fear, as the best “roarer” in Paris.

Have just returned from a weekend at Ermenonville (near Chantilly) on the estate of the Duc du Rochefoucauld where an amazing millionaire by the name of Harry Crosby has fixed up an old mill (with stables and a stockade all about) and such a crowd as attended _is_ remarkable. I’m invited to return at any time for any period to finish _The Bridge_, but I’ve an idea that I shall soon wear off my novelty. Anyway, Crosby, who inherited the famous Walter Berry (London) library, has such things as first editions of Hakklyt [Hakluyt] (I can’t spell today) and is going to bring out a private edition of _The Bridge_ with such details as a reproduction of Stella’s picture in actual color as frontispiece.

He’s also doing Lawrence, Cummings and Kay Boyle. It takes a book to describe the Crosbys--but it has (I mean the connection) already led me to new atrocities--such as getting drunk yesterday and making violent love to nobility. As -- -- -- -- was just about to marry, I couldn’t do better, though all agree (including Kay Boyle and Lawrence Vail) that I did my best. --/--/

320: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Paris_] _February 7th, 1929_