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.

I’m happy, quite well, and living as never before. The accumulation of

impressions and concepts gathered the last several years and constantly

repressed by immediate circumstances are having a chance to function, I

believe. And nothing but this large form would hold them without the

violences that mar so much of my previous, more casual work. _The

Bridge_ is already longer than _The Wasteland_,--and it’s only about

half done.

But enough of this shop talk. I’ll exhaust your patience with it

someday. You know I don’t expect comments of any sort, except when

they’re easy and spontaneous. --/--/

260: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _August 19th ’26_

Dear Waldo: Here, too, is that bird with a note that Rimbaud speaks of

as “making you blush.” We are in the midst of the equatorial storm

season; everyday, often at night, torrents engulf us, and the thunder

rods jab and prospect in the caverns deep below that chain of mountains

across. You can hear the very snakes rejoice,--the long, shaken-out

convulsions of rock and roots.

It is very pleasant to lie awake--just half awake--and listen. I have

the most speechless and glorious dreams meanwhile. Sometimes words come

and go, presented like a rose that yields only its light, never its

composite form. Then the cocks begin to crow. I hear Mrs. S-- begin to

stir. She is the very elf of music, little wrinkled burnous wisp that

can do anything and remembers so much! She reads Dante and falls to

sleep, her cough has become so admirably imitated by the parrot that I

often think her [in] two places at once.

I have made up a kind of friendship with that idiot boy, who is always

on the road when I come into town for mail. He has gone so far as to

answer my salutations. I was unexpected witness one day of the most

astonishing spectacle; not that I was surprised.--A group of screaming

children were shrieking about in a circle. I looked toward the house and

saw the boy standing mostly hid behind the wooden shutters behind the

grating; his huge limp phallus waved out at them from some opening; the

only other part visible was his head, in a most gleeful grin, swaying

above the lower division of the blinds.

When I saw him next he was talking to a blue little kite high in the

afternoon. He is rendingly beautiful at times: I have encountered him in

the road, talking again tout seul and examining pebbles and cinders and

marble chips through the telescope of a twice-opened tomato can. He is

very shy, hilarious,--and undoubtedly idiot. I have been surprised to

notice how much the other children like him. --/--/

I’m glad to know that _The Bridge_ is fulfilling your utmost intuitions;

for an intuition it undoubtedly was. You didn’t need to tell me that

[you] had “seen” something that memorable evening, although I was never

so sure just what it was you saw, until now. But I have always carried

that peculiar look that was in your eyes for a moment there in your

room, it has often recurred in my thoughts. What I should have done

without your love and most distinguished understanding is hard to say,

but there is no earthly benefit for which I would exchange it. It is a

harmony always with the absolute direction [I] always seek, often miss,

but sometimes gain.

Your answer to G[orham Munson] on his essay was much more adept than any

of my critical armament. It was complete. My greatest complaint against

G-- is (apparently) an incorrigible streak of vulgarity, arising no

doubt from some distrust in experience. Sometimes it makes him

personally dangerous when he doesn’t intend such. Not especially par

example, BUT: when I last dined with G-- much happened to be said about

my “extravagances”--how I spent K[ahn]’s money, etc. Snowshoes, African

sculpture, etc. I happened to mention how useful the snowshoes had been

during the storms at Patterson, etc. G-- recently visited the Tates and

went up to my room, accompanied by Mrs. Turner, who writes me, most

unwittingly of the circumstances, that the main thing G-- quizzed her

about was whether I used my snow shoes or not! Really, it [is] all so

ridiculously small. You may think I’m wasting paper on such a silly

story. But in any kind of friendship I like to have my honesty sometimes

granted on my oath of it, and this is only one of many such little

evidences of a real lack of perspective and innate taste on G.’s part.

It does leak into his work, the vision of his world. He’d better

memorize the last stanza of Baudelaire’s famous Epilogue to the _Petits

Poèmes en Prose_; as, indeed, I may sometimes tell him to do. His

definition of “knowledge” in that essay incorporates the savour of just

such a mind as is preoccupied with such details as I’ve mentioned.

Yes, I read the whole of Spengler’s book. It is stupendous,--and it was

perhaps a very good experience for ripening some of _The Bridge_, after

all. I can laugh now; but you know, alas, how little I could at the

time. That book seems to have been just one more of many “things” and

circumstances that seem to have uniformly conspired in a strangely

symbolical way toward the present speed of my work. Isn’t it

true--hasn’t it been true in your experience, that beyond the acceptance

of fate as a tragic action--immediately every circumstance and incident

in one’s life flocks toward a positive center of action, control and

beauty? I need not ask this, since there is the metaphor of the “rotted

seed of personal will,” or some such phrase, in your _Spain_.

I have never been able to live _completely_ in my work before. Now it is

to learn a great deal. To handle the beautiful skeins of this myth of

America--to realize suddenly, as I seem to, how much of the past is

living under only slightly altered forms, even in machinery and

such-like, is extremely exciting. So I’m having the time of my life,

just now, anyway.

261: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _Aug. 23_

Dear Waldo: I feel rather apologetic about sending you so many

photographs--but the last seemed to be more what I wanted you to think

of me--than any others heretofore.

Work continues. “The Tunnel” now. I shall have it done very shortly.

It’s rather ghastly, almost surgery--and, oddly almost all from the

notes and stitches I have written while swinging on the strap at late

midnights going home.

Are you noticing how throughout the poem motives and situations

recur--under modifications of environment, etc? The organic substances

of the poem are holding a great many surprises for me.... Greatest joys

of creation.

Forgive me for telling that anecdote about G--. I don’t want to seem

stubborn or prejudiced, but you, on the other hand, are one who ought to

know more or less _why_ it is hard for me to maintain a steady sort of

whole-hearted confidence and enthusiasm with such constantly recurring

“obscurations,” if you will. I’m not saying that these ultimately or

“aesthetically” matter, but they enter the moral picture of the

personality.

Did I tell you that M. Moore has taken the Dedication?--needless to say,

without alterations.

262: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Havana, Cuba_] _Sept. 3 ’26_

Dear Waldo: I’m having my last bottle of “Diamante” before leaving for

la Isla tonight. A pestulant[52] Abbe is gulping olives at the next

table, and my waiter is all out of patience with him. But I cannot

conceal my mirth--cheeks bulge and eyes strain at suppressions. “F----

la Cubana!” says the waiter who is Spanish. Well I never had such a

fiesta of perfect food and nectar in my life. Furthermore, if you were

St. Valentine--well, maybe you are! So here goes--even if you call my

little story stale.

Perhaps you have also experienced the singular charm of long

conversations with senoritas with only about 12 words in common

understanding between you. I allude to A----, a young Cuban sailor (most

of them are terrible but A---- is Spanish parentage, and maybe that

explains it) whom I met one evening after the Alhambra in Park Central.

Immaculate, ardent and delicately restrained--I have learned much about

love which I did not think existed. What delicate revelations may bloom

from the humble--it is hard to exaggerate.

So there have been three long and devoted evenings--long walks, drives

on the Malacon, dos copas mas--and a change from my original American

hotel to La Isle de Cuba, sine commotion, however.

I’m going back much relaxed. I got on a terrible tension--not a tennis

court on the island! Just day after day in the heat and the house. Now I

shall get a fresh view of what I have written and have still to

write--and with an internal glow which is hard to describe. Silly of me

to say so--but life can be gorgeously kindly at times. -- -- -- --

263: TO WALDO FRANK

[_Isle of Pines_] _Sept. 5th_

Caro Hermano: Estoy en casa ayer de madrugada. No dormaba la noche a

bordo mar. Mucha calor, y pensaba en el carinoso A---- y los calles

blancas Habaneros, de consigniente dulces con Mi Bien. Encontreremos de

nuevo en Deciembre.... Busco en diccionario y gramatica, sudo, raspo

pelo de suerte que el tierno Cubano-Canario (Parentela los Canarios) mi

carta apprendera.

Tell me if any of it is sensible. I am now, more than ever anxious to

learn the most beautiful language in the world. And I suddenly conceive

it as a necessary preparation for my next piece of work just apprehended

in the form of a blank verse tragedy of Aztec mythology--for which I

shall have to study the obscure calendars of dead kings. If I have the

leisure for this study I shall certainly go to Spain sometime in the

next five years.... In fact I must manage this anyhow.

Your letter, awaiting my return, conveyed much goodness, the sense of

“wholiness”--of a complete return to yourself, from which I hope much;

in fact, I’m _sure_ of much therefrom. I am so glad that my progress has

meant so much to you. --/--/

264: TO CHARLOTTE RYCHTARIK

_New York_ _Nov. 1_

Dear Charlotte: --/--/ I have no idea of just what the situation is at

present with my mother, but I have been terribly worried about it for

many, many weeks. The result has been that there was only about four

weeks on the Isle of Pines that I managed to accomplish any work at all;

my mother’s unrestrained letters, the terrific heat and bugs, etc.,

nearly killed me.

But I’ve managed to come through, at least with my skin. What has been

done of _The Bridge_ is superb, according to what those few who have

seen it say. The rest I hope to finish up here or in the country. I

haven’t decided exactly where I am going to stay as yet.

I don’t want to do anything to hurt _anyone’s_ feelings, but I think

that unless I isolate myself somewhat (and pretty soon) from the

avalanche of bitterness and wailing that has flooded me ever since I was

seven years old, there won’t be enough left of me to even breathe, not

to mention writing. If I could really do anything to help the situation

it would be different. But it’s a personal problem, after all. I’m doing

my best--and I’m grateful to you for appreciating it. I’ll write you

more later.

I’ve wondered why I didn’t hear from you, but I discover that I’ve only

got about half my letters in Cuba; the Havana post office is in the

dirty habit of opening American mail to extract money, when it thinks

there is any currency inside. Maybe you didn’t get what I sent you.

_White Buildings_ will be out in Dec. I’m having Laukhuff send you a

copy.

265: TO WALDO FRANK

_Patterson_ _Nov. 21st_

Caro hermano: I am hoping that your country retreat is as pleasant to

you as mine is to me.... It seems marvelous to sleep again, buried under

the sound of an autumn wind--and to wake with the sense of the faculties

being on the mend. Now I can look back and enjoy “every moment” of the

summer Carib days,--so gracious is the memory in preserving most

carefully the record of our pleasures, _their_ real savor, _only_.

When are you coming back to town? Will you for a moment consider coming

out here for a week-end (or longer) sometime before you leave for

Europe? It would be pleasant and quiet, and the country is still

interesting if one doesn’t demand too much tropical splendor. We could

have the good deliberate talk that we couldn’t get in NY, of course.

Haven’t got my book yet, but expect it next week. Nor am I at work yet

on _The Bridge_ again.... But I’m not worried. I know too well what I

want to do now, even if it doesn’t spill over for months and months. It

must “spill,” you know. The little thing above I did yesterday.[53]

Write me when you have time. Aunt Sally sends you her best (sometimes

“love”!) in her every letter.

Williams’ _American Grain_ is an achievement that I’d be proud of. A

most important and _sincere_ book. I’m very enthusiastic--I put off

reading it, you know, until I felt my own way cleared beyond chance of

confusions incident to reading a book so intimate to my theme. I was so

interested to note that he puts Poe and his “character” in the same

position as I had _symbolized_ for him in “The Tunnel” section.

266: TO MRS. T. W. SIMPSON

_Patterson, N.Y._ _December 5th, 1926_

Dear Aunt Sally: From hurricane to Blizzards--all in six weeks! The

fates sure do give me immoderate changes. It’s “two below naught”

outside, as they say in Hicksville; snowdrifts on the hills and windows,

and my room isn’t so warm but what tickling the typewriter keys is a

stiff proposition. My nose got so cold last night it kept me awake,

besides I could hear the congealing water click into ice in the pitcher

on the washstand, ticking, ticking--every few moments. But my kerosene

stoves are doing better than last winter--better oil, and I think with

considerable economy I’ll be able to finish the winter here, if I’m not

called back to Cleveland.

Utter silence, by the way, from that quarter. It will make it a month

since I heard from mother, who evidently is displeased. It certainly is

too bad that she doesn’t write you; I guess she is in a pretty

disorganized state of mind.

I should have known when they said that my book would be out “in two

weeks” that it meant a month; but it’s promised for certain late this

week. I’ll be glad when it’s over--for though it, or rather the prospect

of its appearance doesn’t give me such a thrill after all, yet it does

keep me a little distracted. I’m sure I shall be better able to work on

the new stuff once this first book is really launched and off my mind.

Work is going very slowly on _The Bridge_, but I’m not worried.

Eventually it’s going to be done, and in the style that my conception of

it demands. Winters continues to write me most stimulating criticism;

his wide scholarship not only in English literature but in Latin, Greek,

French and Spanish and Portugese--gives his statements a gratifying

weight. I have heard nothing whatever from Waldo since I reached

Patterson (a month now), but he was going away to some country retreat

himself for awhile. Is very busy writing a play of some kind.

Got a letter from A---- (you remember the Havanese sailor?) yesterday.

The second since I got back. I have a great time translating his

Spanish--without a dictionary of any size. Once he got his niece to

write me a letter in (broken) English. One of the statements ran,

“Maximo Gomez, my ship--him sink in ciclon. All my clothes drowned.”

When I was going through Havana I asked another “Gomez” mariner if he

knew anything about the fate of A---- in the storm. I gathered from his

signs and contortions that A---- was badly laid up with a broken arm and

a smashed shoulder. But later learn that he escaped at least as whole as

the Adonis Crane referred to in your last letter. I’m still bent on

learning Spanish as soon as my fortune or inheritance permits. With

enough Spanish and enough reputation as a poet,--someday I might be

appointed to sell tires or toothpaste in Rio de Janeiro!

I was amused to hear about the drunken outbreak of the very red,

butter-faced hurricane friend of “ours”--who was looking for an Isle of

Pines retreat for his mother--among the ruins. Certain of the actors in

the melodramatic episode of wind, rain, lightnin’, plaster, shingles,

curses, desperation and sailors--never will leave my mind. Especially

our little one-step together the morning after, to the tune of

“Valencia”! And pillows wobbling on our heads!

I’m glad you have got under a good roof again. You’re such a good brick,

you ought to get dried before some of the rest. I hope you got my

letters, especially the one _containing_ the check. The other was

self-explanatory, of course, in case anything circumvented the

registered letter. I mailed it a day later on purpose. One has to be sly

with the Havana post office.

I’m eating like a horse, losing my becoming tan, and getting fat, I

fear. How I would like--at the present moment--to step into a grove of

royal palms, doff these woolens--and have a good glass of Cerveza with

you! The storm is increasing, howling loudly. It looks as though we were

to be snowed in for the rest of the winter. Really!--And I may be a good

time getting this letter to the PO if mail delivery is delayed, as usual

under such circumstances. Don’t work too hard! --/--/

267: TO ----

_Patterson, N.Y._ _Dec. 16 [1926]_

Dear ----: I’m laid up with tonsilitis--but must somehow thank you for

your pleasant N.Y. letter and wish you as amusing a New Year as

possible. As for myself--I don’t expect much.

Nothing but illness and mental disorder in my family--and I am expected

by all the middle-class ethics and dogmas to rush myself to Cleveland

and devote myself interminably to nursing, sympathizing with woes which

I have no sympathy for because they are all unnecessary, and bolstering

up the faith in others toward concepts which I long ago discarded as

crass and cheap.

Whether I can do it or not is the question. It means tortures and

immolations which are hard to conceive, impossible to describe. There

seems to be no place left in the world for love or the innocence of a

single spontaneous act. Write me here.

P.S.--have you read Norman Douglas’ _South Wind_? It almost makes one

jolly--

268: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson, N.Y._ _Dec. 22 ’26_

Dear Grace: -- -- -- -- Yes--it is a very melancholy Christmas for all of

us.... I am certainly anything but joyful.

Insomnia seems now to have settled on me permanently--and when I do

“sleep” my mind is plagued by an endless reel of pictures, startling and

unhappy--like some endless cinematograph.

Am making as much effort as possible to free my imagination and work the

little time that is now left me on my _Bridge_ poem. So much is expected

of me via that poem--that if I fail on it I shall become a laughing

stock and my career closed.

I take it that you would not wish this to happen. Yet it may be too

late, already, for me to complete the conception. My mind is about as

clear as dirty dishwater--and such a state of things is scarcely

conducive to successful creative endeavor. If it were like adding up

columns of figures--or more usual labors--it would be different....

Well, I’m trying my best--both to feel the proper sentiments to your

situation and keep on with my task. _The Bridge_ is an important

task--and nobody else can ever do it.

My _White Buildings_ is out. A beautiful book. Laukhuff has been

instructed to send you out a copy as soon as he receives his order.

--/--/

I’m glad you have taken up C[hristian] S[cience] again. You never should

have dropped it. But it seems to me you will have to make a real effort

this time--with no half-way measures. It isn’t anything you can play

with. It’s either true--or totally false. And for heaven’s sake--don’t

go to it merely as a _cure_. If it isn’t a complete philosophy of life

for you it isn’t anything at all. It is sheer hypocrisy to take it up

when you get scared and then forsake it as soon as you feel angry about

something. Anger is a costly luxury to you--and resentment and constant

self-pity. I have to fight these demons myself. I know they are

demons--they never do me anything but harm. Why look at yourself as a

martyr all the time! It simply drives people away from you. The only

real martyrs the world ever worships are those devoted exclusively to

the worship of God, poverty and suffering--you have, as yet, never been

in exactly that position. Not that I want you to be a martyr. I see no

reason for it--and am out of sympathy with anyone who thinks he is--for

the _real_ ones don’t think about themselves that way--they are too

happy in their faith to ever want to be otherwise. --/--/

1927

269: TO ALLEN TATE

_Patterson_ _Friday [ca. January 7_]

Dear Allen: I’m tremendously obliged to you for all this British

business.... I really hope it will go through. I’ve written Rickword

today immediately on receipt of your letter. I also wrote Liveright

yesterday, where to write and who; he forgets things said in

conversations very quickly sometimes. Let me know the cost of the cable

and I’ll send you a check at once.

The company that R. is lined up with [is] called Wishart & Co., address

same as _Calendar_, which is continuing, by the way, as a quarterly. A

new publisher just starting business in the Spring. You ought to send

them something. Garman has gone to Russia for a period, but Wishart is

bringing out a book of his poems. As for the preface--your foreword is

entirely good enough both here _and_ there. Besides, it would destroy

all the economic advantage in buying sheets from L. if they had much

extra printing to add over there. I therefore made no mention of the

idea in my letter. Hope to God, though, that Schneider had sent the copy

of _W[hite] B[uildings]_ to them that I put on my review list. As I

understood from you all review copies were sent out some time ago. A

detention of the book much longer is going to ruin all chance of sales

from Waldo’s article. Lord! is there anything else that can happen to

that book! How long _will_ it take them to put in those new title pages,

I wonder. All of my friends have got tired of asking for the book in

Cleveland and I expect there will be a record of less than the famous

Stevens-35 to my credit.

Your comments on Gorham’s shrine and gland-totemism convince me that

Orage talked as vaguely and arbitrarily in your presence as he did in

mine on a similar occasion. Some great boob ought to be hired as a kind

of heckler and suddenly burst out in one of those meetings held each

year to attract converts,--“Come on now, do your stuff--there’s millions

waiting!” Or some such democratic phrase.

As I seem to be going through an extremely distrustful mood in regard to

most of my own work lately, perhaps some of my present temper may unduly

limit my perspective in regard to your _Ode_.[54] I have a kind of

perpetual dull cold in the head, however, which may better account for

my reaction. But if you can bear to listen awhile to Aunt Harriet then

here goes....

The obscurities bother me. Stanza I, OK; and I get along very well until

I come to “ambitious” Novembers in II. Why this special epithet--this

particular designation for the whole season in relation to the

headstones, in fact? As it is stressed so much one chafes against the

stubborn dullness that blocks one’s apprehension of your precise

intention. The last 6 lines are particularly fine and The _last_--!

There is no doubt that you make the theme of the poem a living

continuity with the exception of the several places where, I admit, I

find it difficult to follow you. The theme of chivalry--a tradition of

excess (not literally excess, rather, active faith) which cannot be

perpetuated in the fragmentary cosmos of today--“those desires which

_should_ be yours tomorrow” but which, you know, will not persist nor

find way into action.... Your statement of this is beautiful, and the

poem is a POEM with splendidly controlled rhythms and eloquence. But

when you come to such lines as “From the orient of the sublime

economy/Remember the setting sun” I suddenly feel the thread cut.

_Sublime economy_ misses its aim with me, I suddenly seem to see a

little of Laforgue’s mannerism too wittily on the scene. What _is_ meant

here?

I fancy that you could go much better directly from Bull Run to “You

hear the shout,” etc. The next verse is superb. The last 7 lines are the

climax of the poem. The intensity of this “meditation” gives the lie, of

course, to all previous factual statements regarding the impermanency of

your grief.... But you are, of course, speaking throughout less from a

personal angle than a social viewpoint. Or are you? Both, of course. It

was fatuous to have raised this point....

Then you go back to speculation in the next stanza. You go _too_ far in

the succeeding, I think. And it, again, is rather obscure--exactly what

you mean. The capitalization of sentiment, I take it. A good dig at

certain people, but I think the sarcasm is over-bitter, marring the

beauty of the poem as a whole. The fierce resignation at the last is

beautiful, that irony _will_ sell, if you get what I mean.

Carolyn [Gordon] said you sent it to _The Nation_. I hope they have

sense enough to reward you; on the other hand, though, how can they take

such a chance with their average reader? Hang crepe on your door and

wait.... The sonnet makes me merry, though it’s the lovely last four

lines that I like best. They’re almost too good for the rest. The rest

is too complicated. I’d chop it apart and put the lovely windows in

another room. --/--/

Further readings may reveal to me the folly of some of my objections....

Take issue with me meanwhile wherever you feel justified.

270: TO EDGELL RICKWORD

_Patterson, New York_ _January 7th, 1927_

Dear Mr. Rickword: --/--/ I enclose three poems: “O Carib Isle,” “Cutty

Sark” and “The Harbor Dawn.” There is a general emphasis on the _marine_

in all of them, and if you should care to use them all I suggest that

the sequence in which I have named them above would chart an interesting

curve of the underlying element. I must risk a presumption on your

interest in the poems in order to emphasize the necessity of printing

“Cutty Sark” as closely as possible to the form as typed herewith,

especially in regard to the third page, which is a “cartogram,” if one

may so designate a special use of the calligramme. The “ships” should

meet and pass in line and type--as well as in wind and memory, if you

get my rather unique formal intentions in this phantom regatta seen from

Brooklyn Bridge.

Probably no one should be “thanked” for taking an interest in poetry,

but your kindness and interest in what little I’ve so far accomplished

are much appreciated. It is re-assuring to me--especially from the fact

that a couple of years ago I found so much in your Rimbaud volume which

was sympathetic and critically stimulating. -- -- -- --

271: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson, NY_ _Jan. 23, ’27_

Dear Grace: --/--/ I had heard nothing about the death of Frances

[Crane] until Grandmother’s letter reached me, last Friday, I think. CA

[Crane] did not trouble to answer the letter I wrote him in November,

and though I shall probably not hear from him, even now, until God knows

when--I wrote him a short note of condolence as soon as I heard.

I liked the pictures, especially the one with the hat, and the frame is

beautiful. I shall take them with me into NY when I get the job

(whatever it shall turn out to be) that I’m at present fishing for. I am

trying to get a line on something before going in, as I have scarcely

any money left, and I would like to avoid any charities from my friends

on this occasion if possible.

Meanwhile I am doing what writing I can, and studying Spanish.

I’m very much amused at what you say about the interest in my book among

relatives and friends out there in Cleveland. Wait until they see it,

and try to read it! I may be wrong, but I think they will eventually

express considerable consternation; for the poetry I write, as you have

noticed already, is farther from their grasp than the farthest planets.

But I don’t care how mad they get--_after_ they have bought the book!

--/--/

Yvor Winters, who is a professor of French and Spanish at the Moscow

University, Idaho, writes me the following: “Your book arrived this

evening, and I have read it through a couple of times. It will need many

more readings, but so far I am simply dumbfounded. Most of it is new to

me, and what I had seen is clarified by its setting. I withdraw all

minor objections I have ever made to your work--I have never read

anything greater and have read very little as great.” Etc. So you see

what kind of a review he is apt to write.

Waldo Frank ends his article in _The New Republic_ by saying: “At

present Hart Crane is engaged in a long poem that provides him with a

subject adequate for his method: the subject indeed which Mr. Tate

prophesies in his introduction. Yet already _White Buildings_ gives us

enough to justify the assertion, that not since Whitman has so original,

so profound and--above all, so important a poetic promise come to the

American scene.”

In a way it’s a pity that none of the Crane family are readers of

anything more important than such magazines as _The Saturday Evening

Post_ and _Success_. --/--/

The delay in the divorce proceedings may mean that Charles [Curtis] is

reconsidering--and it might be just as well all around if he did. I have

the idea that you both care for each other more than you thought you

did. Such thoughts are neither here nor there, however, and I’m in no

position to form judgments or advise. I’ve never been able to figure out

what the quarrel was “all about”--i.e., the issue involved. I think you

had probably better keep your mind off the subject as much as possible,

assuming the issue as closed. But you must get something to do as soon

as you are physically able.... I mean--that without some kind of

activity you’ll remain in a morbid condition--and your viewpoint will

become more warped all the time. People just have to have some kind of

activity to remain healthy-minded.

But you seem to [be] already much better; and I’m enormously glad. Don’t

think I don’t care for you,--I can’t help it, no matter how I feel about

some things. --/--/

272: TO WALDO FRANK

_Patterson, NY_ _January 28th_

Querido hermano Waldo: Just a little note to say hello. It’s sixteen

below and the sun brightly shining. I’m living in practically one

room--the kitchen--with the old lady these days--to keep warm. Writing a

little again on _The Bridge_ and studying Spanish.

Thank you so much for having _The Menorah_ [_Journal_] people send me

out your review of Spengler. It’s a magnificent rebuttal of the man’s

psychology. I don’t need to know your philosophical references well

enough to check up on them to feel that. I’ve sent the paper on to Tate

who was somewhat bowled over by Spengler--as wasn’t I?--thinking it will

prick him a bit.

_WB’s_ is getting--or is going to get--wonderful reviews. Not to mention

yours, there’s a great explosion coming from Yvor Winters in _The Dial_;

another from Mark Van Doren (of all the unexpected!) in _The Nation_

this week. Seligmann has written a sincere and just estimate in the

_Sun_; Josephson in the _Herald-Tribune_; MacLeish in _Poetry_; etc. I

don’t know any further, but there may be other surprises. I certainly

feel myself very fortunate, considering the type of stuff in _WB_.

--/--/ But I’ll be glad when all reviews and arrangements are over--so I

can put the book definitely behind me. Present preoccupations tend to

“exteriorize” one entirely too much. Winters has a lovely book of poems

coming out this spring, by the way,--and Ford Madox Ford has recommended

Allen’s poems highly to Duckworth, his London publishers. I hope they

take it; Allen needs some encouragement very much.

Remember me in your mugs--though I guess you never get in far enough to

become as sentimental as I do. Mrs. Simpson isn’t very well, has

overworked since the hurricane. Will you drop her a postcard from some

hofbrau? It would tickle her to death. I’ve an amusing story to tell you

sometime about one instance of the “mysticism of money”--it refers to

Kahn and the “gift.” It seems I have to pay $60 odd the rest of my

mortal term on life insurance to the Kahn estate, which, of course I was

dumb bell enough not to understand when he proposed it. Not that I

especially mind nor that I’m at all embittered, but I think I have

discovered a new way to avoid income taxes and become heroic--both at

once, if you get what I mean. -- -- -- --

273: TO ---- AND ----

_Patterson,_ _Feb. 16th_

Dear ---- and ----: I left town last Sunday--so there was no time to see

you again--and (already) scarce enough cash left to tip the conductor.

The last two nights in town were mainly spent on the Hoboken waterfront,

where you want to go (though it’s for men only) if you want the good old

beer, the old free-lunch counter and everything thrown in--for 15¢ a

glass. Whiskey and gin are also much superior to the other side of the

River and cheaper. Take the Christopher St. ferry. Walk up _past_ Front

St. There are three in a row. Begin with McKelly’s--or some such name.

The last night went flying back to Brooklyn with a wild Irish red-headed

sailor of the Coast Guard, who introduced me to a lot of coffee dens and

cousys on Sand Street, and then took me to some kind of opium den way

off, God knows where. Whereat I got angry and left him, or rather Mike

Drayton did. Returning here to the home roost I found six cards from

J---- the Incomparable with much more than the usual brief greetings, so

Caramba!

Mrs. Turner was laid up all day Monday from an excess of oatmeal eaten

at breakfast in celebration of my return. Went up to Tory Hill yesterday

and found everything just as I left it. Encountered Mrs. Powitzki at the

Jennings and think she is marvelous. Did you ever talk to her? I never

heard such locutions. I should love to tickle her. Since which I’ve been

reading the Cock also Rises (sent me by a Cleveland friend) and have

developed a perfect case of acidosis. No wonder the book sold; there

isn’t a sentence without a highball or a martini in it to satisfy all

the suppressed desires of the public. It’s a brilliant and a terrible

book. The fiesta and bullfight best. No warmth, no charm in it whatever,

but of course Hemingway doesn’t want such.

274: TO ISIDOR SCHNEIDER

_Patterson, NY_ _Feb 19th, ’27_

Dear Isidor: I like your _Anthony_ very much. The theme is as basic as

the best of Anderson, by which I don’t mean that it’s derivative in any

sense whatever,--only that Anderson has thrusts toward a similar hygiene

of the local soul, though never with such control and comprehensiveness.

Forgive me too, for bringing in Jeffers, whom it seems to me you’ve got

beat on a number of counts. He has poignance, but little of the

sustained intensity and still less of the metrical ingenuity that I

marvel at--the way you interweave action and emotion with precepts and

generalities, and manage to make what is, after all, a simple plot,--a

glowing canvas alive with irony and illumination.

The rugged-smooth drive of your lines is quite novel. I venture to say

that your previous struggles with prose in _Dr. Transit_ have helped you

here, for many of the best passages have all the weight and definition

of fine prose with the additional sharp, leaping movement of the

liveliest hexameters in Chapman’s _Homer_.

Here and there I think you are too didactic. Your “saint” is sometimes a

little _too_ consistent--though this latter reaction is so personal

merely to me, probably, that it’s valueless as comment. The beautifully

measured opening lines create a fine abstraction of time and space: out

of the clouds the sudden and dramatic introduction of the theme, the

earthly conflict. Will you forgive me for echoing something you recently

wrote me? I think this beats any and all of what previous verse of yours

I’ve seen. I suppose that it’s a case--with all of us--of having to find

the right theme. Much of your earlier poetry (and please don’t

unconsciously include _Doc Transit_ here) seemed diffuse to me, and

sometimes obscure. This long poem has the amplitude and self-contained

movement that I can’t seem to find in any recent narrative poetry. I

wish I had the facility for mingling fact and inference so neatly--into

so organic a rhythm. I’m so hugged and restricted by a single-track,

iambic metronometer these days!

Somebody sent me Hemingway’s _Sun Also Rises_ to read. It certainly does

what he evidently intends it doing--I’ve had a case of acidosis just

reading the list of drinks that clutter every page. He certainly knows

what dry-throated Americans want; no wonder the book sells. To me it

seems brilliant enough (the fiesta and the bullfight are splendid) but

horribly cold. A novel to read if you want a slant at one aspect of the

age, but without any of the engraciating qualities that makes _Ulysses_,

even that bitter book, a thing to keep and enjoy many times.

I’m still on the watch for a job, so let me know if you hear of

anything. -- -- -- --

275: TO ALLEN TATE

_Patterson_ _Thursday Feb 24_

Dear Allen: I wish I could keep up with Winters. I already owe him

several letters, besides comment on the ms. of his “Fire Sequence,”

which awaited me when I returned from town. All his work is so genuine

that it takes close attention, meditation and blood and bone to

answer.... At present it’s too much for me, so I’ve sent the manifesto

on with a brief note to the effect that I agree with most of your

marginalia, i.e., where I differ with him. Though I go further than you

do in qualification of the Loeb-physics-etc. recipe.... Pure hocus-pocus

for the poet. Just one out [of] a five-thousand other scientific

similes, equally good to go by (regardless of their veracity)--and I

venture to say that Winters’ work suffers already from such arbitrary

torturings--all for the sake of a neat little point of reference. What

good will it do him to go on repeating in the background of every poem,

that “life is some slight disturbance of the balance,” etc., etc?! But

we all must have some kind of incantation, I suppose. Though I’d rather

adopt some of Blake’s aphorisms. They’re abstract enough. And a lot

truer than the latest combination of scientific terms.

Glad you liked the Joyce lyrics. I make the following choice from my own

work. If they seem to fit your requirements let me know, and I’ll send

you copies:

“Passage”

“The Springs of Guilty Song” (F & H, II)

“Voyages (V)”

“Powhatan’s Daughter: The Dance”

“To Emily Dickinson”

“Repose of Rivers”

“The Dance” has been expanded to 104 lines, and is now the best thing

I’ve done. I shall send it soon to you--regardless of the Anthology, as

I want you to see and adjudge it. I’ve had to submit it to Marianne

Moore recently, as my only present hope of a little cash. But she

probably will object to the word “breasts,” or some other such detail.

It’s really ghastly. I wonder how much longer our market will be in the

grip of two such hysterical virgins as _The Dial_ and _Poetry_!

We have been without mail service all week. They may get the roads

cleared out before Easter, I don’t know. To have the sun again and a

little warmth again! My present quandaries, that extend to every detail

of my life, personal and artistic, have brought me near lunacy. I

couldn’t go on much longer on such a strain as the last year. Can you

send me a few stamps? About a dozen--to last until Andy [the mail

carrier] gets back on the road.

276: TO ALLEN TATE

_Patterson_ _March 10th_

Dear Allen: I abducted a copy of your _Sewanee Review_ essay from the

envelope before sending it on; I hope you don’t mind. As you had already

promised me one I thought it would save you the trouble of mailing it

back. Winters is sure to be interested, and I’m glad you’re sending him

one.

I’m too addled these days to have any ideas. And I may have a better

perspective later--on Ransom. Just now, though, he doesn’t impress me

very much, at least this last book. But I haven’t read nearly so much of

him as you have. He, oddly, partakes somewhat of both Hardy and Wallace

Stevens. Not that he imitates ... but that in my “reading” he seems to

share certain aspects of both. And though I grant him a distinct

personality I can’t feel that either his technique or his attitude come

half way up to the importance of either of them. He exploits his

“manners” a great deal. But his viewpoints don’t seem to me very

profound, nor does he possess any overwhelming graces. He never has

succeeded--and probably never will--in writing anything that compares

with your “Idiot” in respect to these qualities. He can satirize well at

times, very well.

Hardy is a marvel in skill. If it weren’t for my indifference to his

never-absent “message” I think I’d regard him as next to Shakespeare in

sheer dexterity. I’ve been reading him rather thoroughly lately,

instigated by Winters’ frequent mention of him, I suppose.

Hope Torrence treats us well.... I haven’t heard anything yet. Nor from

Marianne. What strange people these -- -- -- --- are. Always in a flutter

for fear bowels will be mentioned, forever carrying on a tradition that

both Poe and Whitman spent half their lives railing against--and calling

themselves “liberals.” --/--/

277: TO ALLEN TATE

_Patterson_ _14th March ’27_

Dear Allen: Miss -- -- -- -- won’t even take tea, you know, because she

finds it too “stimulating.” I’ve been to her house, so I know. AND so,

what can we expect! I got my verses [“Van Winkle” and “The Harbor Dawn”]

back also. They seemed to be too spacious for _The New Republic_....

Your letter was of course a piece of folly, but justified. It won’t do

Miss T. any good, but it’s an admirable relief to me, and probably to

you. I envy buckandwing dancers and the Al Jolsons of the world

sometimes. They don’t have to encounter all these milksops ... and they

do _please_. They’re able to do some “good” to somebody and when they

laugh people don’t think they are crying. Out here one reads the

paper--one sees evidence mounting all the time--that there is no place

left for _our_ kinds of minds or emotions. Unless we can pursue our

futilities with some sort of constant pleasure there is little use in

going on--and we must apprehend some element of truth in our mock

ceremonies or even our follies aren’t amusing. I’m looking around for

some new sort of “avocation,” but having gone half-blind with

conjunctivitis (better known as “pink-eye”) I [am] waiting for the

cornea to clear before taking any leap.

Phallus-es have been known to slyly leap out of some of Mr. Gilmore’s

poems published in _The Little Review_, so -- -- -- -- had better watch

out. But she probably doesn’t know one when she does encounter it! His

poems, about as long as a cicada’s whir, might make an amusing booklet.

His plays are even briefer, I’m told.

Thanks for the _NR_ copies. Miss T. had informed me of the matter,

saying “you must look out for it” (sic), so that I felt I might be

standing in the middle of Seventh Avenue with a huge truck bearing down

suddenly. Having bothered you so much lately I tho[ugh]t I’d worry Bill

[Brown] for awhile, so I asked him to send me copies. I’ll certainly

have plentEE now! I note that the one quotable paragraph (from the

publisher’s standpoint) has been lopped off: the last, with the allusion

to Whitman. The rest will be a sufficient warning to most readers not to

read the book, for it’s one long dissertation on the subject of

OBSCURITY.

The genial tactics of the editorial proofreader have even helped Frank

on a little by falsifying his ms.--at least the copy I hold. For

instance, “the obscure poet he is likely _for long_ to remain” has been

changed to read “_ever_ to remain.” This not only alters the time-limit

before my possible admission to the panting bosom of the generous

reader, but changes the emphasis of the context in such a way that the

reader infers the reviewer’s prophecy to be that I shall probably

_never_ write anything that is comprehensible! With the world all flying

into trillions of tabloids I probably shall not!

Your review of Laura [Riding] was just according to my estimates. If I’m

as obscure to others as she is to me--then I won’t even rail any more at

Miss T----.

GOLDEN TEXT:

Wondrous the gods, more wondrous are the men,

More wondrous, wondrous still, the cock and hen!--BLAKE

278: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson, NY_ _19th March 1927_

Dear Grace: My eyes are so much better today that I’m able to type a

little without straining. I had to order a pair of glasses--and that

seems to have done more good than medicine. I lost my old pair down on

the Island, but really have not worn them for more than a few days at a

time for years. Nervous crises always affect my eyes, however, and it

may be that this present case of conjunctivitis was caused as much by

that as by wind and sunglare on snow. At any rate there’s no snow left

around here now, and the air is as balmy as you could wish. I do hope

that the season has definitely arrived--and no more snow! My spirits

react entirely too much to the endless gloomy days we’ve had for so

long.

--/--/ I am so glad that you enjoyed the Columbus part. It is coming out

next September in _The American Caravan_, a yearbook of American

letters, just started by Paul Rosenfeld, Alfred Kreymborg and Van Wyck

Brooks, and published by the Macauley Co. When I was last in NY the

owners of the Macauley Co. gave a large party to all the contributors up

in a huge but unbelievably vulgarly furnished and expensive apartment on

West End Avenue. There seemed to be everybody there I’d ever heard of.

Enormous quantities of wine, cocktails and highballs were served. I had

just landed in town after three months with the bossy cows--and I had my

share. It would take me ages to tell all the amusing things that happen

at such parties. But to come back to the poem: Rosenfeld was so excited

about it that he called me up long distance and urged me to let them

have it. I had thought to have to deny it to them on account of some

complications on the copyright, conflicting possibly with my terms with

Liveright (he has first option on my next two books), but after some

concessions were made I was glad to have them take it.

_The Dial_ has just informed me today that they have taken the main

section of Part II, “Powhatan’s Daughter.” This is an Indian

“Dance”--and will run about 4 _Dial_ pages. I’ll be glad to have the

cash to pay my arrears with Mrs. Turner and the doctor.... I have for

some strange reason, heard nothing yet from London regarding the

projected British edition of _White Buildings_. What you say about the

reactions to it on Cornell Road are both amusing and touching. And when

I read about Mrs. Jackson taking a copy to read to the Garrettsville

Federated Women’s Clubs I rocked with laughter! The poor dears will

never, NEVER know what in hell to make of it all! --/--/

I took enough veronal powders on the Island during those mad last days

to convince me that there’s nothing worse. And they didn’t even give me

sound sleep! The feelings next day were weird in the extreme. I hope

that CA won’t keep them up very long. His attitude and emotions toward

life would probably make one gasp if one could get a cross section of

them. For a long time he has seemed to me as thorough a specimen of

abnormality as I have ever heard of. I’ve given up even trying to

imagine how he sees or thinks. I probably shall continue to not write

him until he answers some of my former letters--or gives me some sign

that he wants to hear from me. I sent him a copy of the recent _New

Republic_, but without any note or comment. He probably likes to build

up the picture that he’s creeping around in utter disgrace on account of

the public “disgrace” his son has made of himself. Well, the thirty

thousand people that read _The New Republic_ probably wouldn’t give him

much sympathy--regardless of their estimate of my particular value.

That was a happy thought--sending me the picture of the Kinsman house.

It is particularly beautiful. -- -- -- -- Every once in awhile I have a

dream with Warren scenes in it. Hall Kirkham, Donald Clarke, Katherine

Miller, Leonard Bullus, Mrs. P---- with her great heart-shaped

bosom--and Mrs. G---- gasping with her goitre--what has become of them

all? I wonder. I once wrote a poem with Mrs. P---- as the subject--but

it didn’t turn out to be much of anything but a sentimentality, and I

guess I threw it away. You are right; I should write some prose. But to

date I’ve never been able to think of things with plots to them. Somehow

just can’t. When I do, there won’t be any particular difficulty in

expressing myself. We’ll see what happens when I get through with this

long _Bridge_ poem. Right now I’m too occupied with _it_ to think of

other themes. --/--/

The enclosed letter may interest you. I am also enclosing the poem

referred to--“O Carib Isle!”--which is one of three of mine which Jolas

has translated into French to appear in a French anthology of American

poems coming out this Fall. “O Carib Isle!” was written one hellish hot

day on the Island--but the _scene_ of the poem and its inspiration was

_Cayman_! It is coming out soon in _Poetry_ in this country. It’s not a

bad poem. I’m crazy about those Caribbean waters and skies--even if they

_are_ hot! There’s a lot of the feeling they give you in the Columbus

poem--don’t you think? _Please return the letter._

279: TO ALLEN TATE

_Patterson_ _March 21, 1927_

Dear Allen: --/--/ The B---- casques are 150 gallons full of successful

and highly combustible nectar.--I celebrated to the full--returning to

my boudoir late Saturday night--and knocking Senora Turner down besides

hurling my Corona from the window in a high dudgeon because it wouldn’t

write to President Calles automatically in Spanish and express my

“untold” admiration for his platform. Bill has taken it to the hospital

for long and I fear expensive treatment. --/--/

280: TO ALLEN TATE

_Patterson_ _March 26_

Dear Allen: I hope my letter of yesterday hasn’t involved you in any

great efforts so far! Written (and suddenly conceived) in the mood of

waiting for the post--it reflected a too sudden flare of enthusiasm.

There probably is no chance left to write Roebling’s life--but I would

like the initials of the _right_ Furman to address at Macauley’s--and

sometime when you are up at the Library you might look in the file index

and see if any life of Roebling has yet been written. The man was a

genius--and his accomplishment stupendous at “that time.” There might be

only slight public interest in his work. Nevertheless, he was a true

Spenglerian hero--and his efforts brought tremendous wealth to his

family. _They_ might be interested--anyway tho they’d probably want some

engineer friend of the family to do it. My “ideas” always have some

unlikely catch to them! --/--/

281: TO ALLEN TATE

[_Patterson_] _Sunday, March 27_

Dear Allen: --/--/ As to the _briefer_,[55] I think that you give good

reasons for assuming that Aiken wrote it. It might be more satisfying to

ascertain this more definitely--but I do not feel that beyond that there

is any particular justification for attacking him. He has a perfect

right to claim that many of the poems are specious, and call them

intellectual fakes, etc. He may quite well believe that he is right on

the score. For years, remember, perfectly honest people have seen

nothing but insanity in such things as [Blake’s] “The Tiger”--The only

pity is what can be done about it. You have Aiken’s sentimentality

beautifully defined. Personally the man is rather likeable, but I think

he is full of poison. Let people like Hemingway have every convert they

want. When he writes something vulnerable and signs it--we can

backfire--and publicly--and that’s the only worthwhile way to spend--“we

have so little breath to lose.” Thanks for the Davidson review. I

certainly appreciate its tone of honesty and sincerity. A copy of

_transition_ #1 has reached me--and I’m enthusiastic about it. By all

means send Jolas some poems--and why not your article on Marianne Moore?

It doesn’t spoil re-sale of ms. over here, you know. _transition_ has

some weak contribs, of course, but the majority is respectable. Joyce,

Gertrude Stein, Williams, Winters, Laura [Riding], Larbaud, Gide,

MacLeish, Soupault, etc. It’s a wedge that ought to be used. Malcolm

[Cowley] also ought to send things--and it seems to have a proof-reader!

Aunt Harriet [Monroe] has taken “Cutty Sark”--of all things--and I feel

more cheerful. Have you sent her anything recently? Now seems to be the

time. --/--/

282: TO ALLEN TATE

_Patterson_ _March 30_,

Dear Allen: Thanks for the _Times_ review. I am looking for _Poetry_

review today--and by the way, Carolyn [Gordon] forgot to enclose the

Fletcher letter to _The New Rep._ I’m anxious to know what it was about.

It’s damned interesting to notice how evident it is that your Foreword

set the key--at least to a large extent--for most of Gorman’s comments

on all six poets reviewed. I consider his comments on _W.B._ quite

unexpectedly favorable. What they would have been without your preface

is hard to imagine.... I see we have come to the same conclusions about

the Aiken debate--and shall leave him in his achin’ void! I enclose a

remarkable little surprise from the _London Times_ [Feb. 24, 1927].

Altogether it’s the most satisfying newspaper mention we have had. One

wonders who wrote the notice. As for space--they seldom give more to

foreign _editions_. Please don’t lose this, as I may want it for

quotations--Liveright, I mean.

Altogether, I think this is the last time in our lives to be badly

discouraged. The ice is breaking--for both of us, as near as I can

see--in several different quarters--and I’m beginning to detect many

salutary signals. Apparently our ideas and idiom evokes some

response--however slow. And what we do win in the way of intellectual

territory is _solid_--it can’t be knocked over by every wave that comes

along--as could Masters, Bodenheim, Lindsay, etc. We wouldn’t believe

the developments of the next five years if they could be detailed now!

I’m _so_ unhappy without a machine [typewriter]. Hope I get my new one

soon. Let us know as much beforehand as possible if (and when) you

intend coming. We’re down to the last crust in the pantry--and no

conveyance in sight to get any marketing done. --/--/

283: TO HIS FATHER

_Patterson, NY_ _May 7th, 1927_

Dear Father: Your good letter of the third came yesterday, and I have

been thinking over your kindness in offering me so pleasant a domicile

in the Ohio hills as the tavern plan would seem to present. There is one

big bugbear, in my case a permanent one, which you probably didn’t think

of; and this in addition to a rather temporary but nevertheless

important consideration makes me feel that it would be inadvisable to

adopt the role of Ohio innkeeper, especially now.

I am referring to such divers matters as hay fever and “bridges.” I’m

sure I’ve mentioned more than once that this particular valley out

here--for God knows what reason--does, however, as a proven fact

furnish me almost complete immunity from that nightmare affliction. It

has so happened that for a number of years you haven’t seen me under the

benign influence of Ohioan pollens during the months of June, July,

Sept. & October,--so you probably don’t so sharply recollect what a

miserable looking critter I become during those twelve or so weeks every

year. Cleveland is severe enough, but what those months would mean out

in the hayfields--I dread to contemplate. And, wouldn’t those be the

most active months of all the year for a hostelry? I’m sure you will see

my point and realize as well that I wouldn’t be much good to you,

either, at such periods. I used to be asked to remain away from the

office--often for several days--during my hayfever period with Corday &

Gross. The fact is that I’m unusually susceptible. The altitude and

extreme woodedness of these parts are probably what make the difference

here.

The other drawback is the urgency of getting my _Bridge_ poem completed

by next fall. It will take all the concentration I can give it to

accomplish this. And if I came out behind-hand on it I would disappoint

Boni & Liveright, my publisher, very much: he wants it to appear by next

spring. So you see how things stand.... It would be folly for me to add

complications, however fine it would be to live in such a lovely place

as you describe and be with you. Get the farm though, I think it’s a

fine idea, and you will get a great deal of pleasure and relaxation out

of it. One doesn’t lose money often on that kind of real estate, and as

for someone good to run it--the range of your acquaintance will probably

suggest a number of capable people. --/--/

--/--/ I looked for the May check in today’s letter. Hope you won’t

forget it before plunging into the Canadian wilds as I have obligated

myself somewhat for oil and other supplies on the pleasant prospect of

being solvent. The Tates are definitely decided against coming out here

this summer, so that makes it possible for you to comfortably visit me

here whenever you feel like it. I wish you would consider it and come!

284: TO HIS MOTHER

_Patterson_ _May 27th, 1927_

Dear Grace: We’ve had four days of continued downpour with such

disastrous effects on my garden, newly planted, that I guess I’ll have

to put new seeds in. There are several brooks and lakes floating around

over the bean and corn rows, and I can almost swear there’s a geyser or

so! --/--/

I’m in a considerable stew about money myself. CA’s fine promises have

already shown their vacancy. The worst was--that on the strength of his

word (I certainly thought he wouldn’t fail the very first month!) I went

ahead and put in a wholesale supply of a number of commodities necessary

here, and have been worrying ever since how I was going to pay for them.

Meanwhile he has kept me so busy writing him successive excuses first

for not going with him here, or managing some new tavern of his there,

or what-not--ever since, that I’ve had no time to settle down to work or

anything! DAMN it all!

This next month _must_ see something accomplished on _The Bridge_ or I

shall be completely discouraged. I have done nothing but insignificant

parts since last July, no _major_ work has been done since then. And I

must have it ready to hand over to my publisher this fall. I’ve got to

clear my head of a lot of things, pleasant and unpleasant, and dig.

I don’t know what to tell you about your leg or work or anything. For so

much depends on your alimony. If there were something you could work at

for awhile, like library work, where you would not have to remain

standing for long I should recommend it. But you said you didn’t care

for that. I want you to come here and visit me later on in the summer

when it gets hot and when there are some nice green things to be had

from the garden. Meanwhile, can’t you make ends meet? While you are here

your expenses won’t amount to more than ten dollars a week. Please

understand me right; you are certainly welcome here at any time. I have

the whole house to myself and shall continue to have it--there is a

bedroom for you, etc. And the country around here is simply gorgeous. I

never saw such profusion of wildflowers. And it is cool here at night

throughout the whole year. The best thing in the world for you would be

to spend long days of comparative solitude here--away from all the

hubbub of life in the city, and in a totally new environment. I think

that your nervous feelings are mainly responsible for your swelled

leg--disordered nerves generate all kinds of poisons--and you must plan

to come here awhile at least some time during the summer. --/--/

If this letter sounds kinda crabby please don’t mind. I’m feeling in

fine shape--all too well--but you can’t blame me for having a conscience

and getting a little upset at times at the slow progress my work seems

to be making! And if I don’t always answer as promptly as you like,

you’ll realize, I know, that a letter generally means losing a whole

day’s work--I don’t care how slight it is, or to whom, it demands a

completely different adjustment and takes one completely out of one’s

creative subject matter. --/--/

285: TO YVOR WINTERS

_Patterson, New York_ _May 29th, 1927_

Dear Winters: You need a good drubbing for all your recent easy talk

about “the complete man,” the poet and his ethical place in society,

etc. I’m afraid I lack the time right now to attempt what I might call a

relatively complete excuse for committing myself to the above

sentiments--and I am also encumbered by a good deal of sympathy with

your viewpoint in general. Wilson’s article was just half-baked enough

to make one warm around the collar. It is so damned easy for such as he,

born into easy means, graduated from a fashionable university into a

critical chair overlooking Washington Square, etc., to sit tight and

hatch little squibs of advice to poets not to be so “professional” as he

claims they are, as though all the names he has just mentioned had been

as suavely nourished as he--as though 4 out of 5 of them hadn’t been

damned well forced the major part of their lives to grub at _any_ kind

of work they could manage by hook or crook and the fear of hell to

secure! Yes, why not step into the State Dept. and join the diplomatic

corps for a change! indeed, or some other courtly occupation which would

bring you into wide and active contact with world affairs! As a matter

of fact I’m all too ready to concede that there are several other

careers more engaging to follow than that of poetry. But the

circumstances of one’s birth, the conduct of one’s parents, the current

economic structure of society and a thousand other local factors have as

much or more to say about successions to such occupations, the naive

volitions of the poet to the contrary. I agree with you, of course, that

the poet should in as large a measure as possible adjust himself to

society. But the question always will remain as to how far the

conscience is justified in compromising with the age’s demands.

The image of “the complete man” is a good idealistic antidote for the

hysteria for specialization that inhabits the modern world. And I

strongly second your wish for some definite ethical order. Munson,

however, and a number of my other friends, not so long ago, being

stricken with the same urge, and feeling that something must be done

about it--rushed into the portals of the famous Gurdjieff Institute and

have since put themselves through all sorts of Hindu antics, songs,

dances, incantations, psychic sessions, etc., so that now, presumably

the left lobes of their brains and their right lobes respectively

function (M’s favorite word) in perfect unison. I spent hours at the

typewriter trying to explain to certain of these urgent people why I

could not enthuse about their methods; it was all to no avail, as I was

told that the “complete man” had a different logic than mine, and

further that there was no way of gaining or understanding this logic

without first submitting yourself to the necessary training. I was

finally left to roll in the gutter of my ancient predispositions, and

suffered to receive a good deal of unnecessary pity for my obstinacy.

Some of them, having found a good substitute for their former interest

in writing by means of more complete formulas of expression have ceased

writing altogether, which is probably just as well. At any rate they

have become hermetically sealed souls to my eyesight, and I am really

not able to offer judgment.

I am not identifying your advice in any particular way with theirs, for

you are certainly logical, so much so that I am inclined to doubt the

success of your program even with yourself. Neither do you propose such

paradoxical inducements as tea-dansants on Mt. Everest! I am only

begging the question, after all, and asking you not to judge me too

summarily by the shorthand statements that one has to use as the

makeshift for the necessary chapters required for more explicit and

final explanations. I am suspect, I fear, for equivocating. But I cannot

flatter myself into quite as definite recipes for efficiency as you seem

to, one reason being, I suppose, that I’m not so ardent an aspirant

toward the rather classical characteristics that you cite as desirable.

This is not to say that I don’t “envy” the man who attains them, but

rather that I have long since abandoned _that_ field--and I doubt if I

was born to achieve (with the particular vision) those richer syntheses

of consciousness which we both agree in classing as supreme, at least

the attitude of a Shakespeare or a Chaucer is not mine by organic

rights, and why try to fool myself that I possess that type of vision

when I obviously do not!

I have a certain code of ethics. I have not as yet attempted to reduce

it to any exact formula, and if I did I should probably embark on an

endless tome with monthly additions and digressions every year. It seems

obvious that a certain decent carriage and action is a paramount

requirement in any poet, deacon or carpenter. And though I reserve

myself the pleasant right to define these standards in a somewhat

individual way, and to shout and complain when circumstances against me

seem to warrant it, on the other hand I believe myself to be speaking

honestly when I say that I have never been able to regret--for

long--whatever has happened to me, more especially those decisions which

at times have been permitted a free will. (Don’t blame me entirely for

bringing down all this simplicity on your head--your letter almost

solicits it!) And I am as completely out of sympathy with the familiar

whimpering caricature of the artist and his “divine rights” as you seem

to be. I am not a Stoic, though I think I could lean more in that

direction if I came to (as I may sometime) appreciate more highly the

imaginative profits of such a course.

You put me in altogether too good company, you compliment me much too

highly for me to offer the least resistance to your judgments on the

structure of my work. I think I am quite unworthy of such associates as

Marlowe or Valéry--except in some degree, perhaps, “by kind.” If I can

avoid the pearly gates long enough I may do better. Your fumigation of

the Leonardo legend is a healthy enough reaction, but I don’t think your

reasons for doubting his intelligence and scope very potent. I’ve never

closely studied the man’s attainments or biography, but your argument is

certainly weakly enough sustained on the sole prop of his sex--or lack

of such. One doesn’t have to turn to homosexuals to find instances of

missing sensibilities. Of course I’m sick of all this talk about b--s

and c--s in criticism. It’s obvious that b--s are needed, and that

Leonardo had ‘em--at least the records of the Florentine prisons, I’m

told, say so. You don’t seem to realize that the whole topic is

something of a myth anyway, and is consequently modified in the

characteristics of the image by each age in each civilization. Tom

Jones, a character for whom I have the utmost affection, represented the

model in 18th Century England, at least so far as the stated

requirements in your letter would suggest, and for an Anglo-Saxon model

he is still pretty good aside from calculus, the Darwinian theory, and a

few other mental additions. Incidentally I think Tom Jones (Fielding

himself, of course) represents a much more “balanced” attitude toward

society and life in general than our friend, Thomas Hardy. Hardy’s

profundity is real, but it is voiced in pretty much one monotonous key.

I think him perhaps the greatest technician in English verse since

Shakespeare. He’s a great poet and a mighty man. But you must be fanatic

to feel that he fulfills the necessary “balanced ration” for modern

consumption. Not one of his characters is for one moment allowed to

express a single joyous passion without a forenote of Hardian doom

entering the immediate description. Could Hardy create anything like

Falstaff? I think that Yeats would be just as likely--more so.

That’s what I’m getting at.... I don’t care to be credited with too

wholesale ambitions, for as I said, I realize my limitations, and have

already partially furled my flag. The structural weaknesses which you

find in my work are probably quite real, for I could not ask for a more

meticulous and sensitive reader. It is my hope, of course, not only to

improve my statement but to extend scope and viewpoint as much as

possible. But I cannot trust to so methodical and predetermined a method

of development, not by any means, as you recommend. Nor can I willingly

permit you to preserve the assumption that I am seeking any “shortcuts

across the circle,” nor wilfully excluding any experience that seems to

me significant. You seem to think that experience is some

commodity--that can be sought! One can respond only to certain

circumstances; just what the barriers are, and where the boundaries

cross can never be completely known. And the surest way to frustrate the

possibility of any free realization is, it seems to me, to wilfully

direct it. I can’t help it if you think me aimless and irresponsible.

But try and see if you get such logical answers always from Nature as

you seem to think you will! My “alert blindness” was a stupid ambiguity

to use in any definition--but it seems to me you go in for just about as

much “blind alertness” with some of your expectations.

If you knew how little of a metaphysician I am in the scholastic sense

of the term, you would scarcely attribute such a conscious method to my

poems (with regard to that element) as you do. I am an utter ignoramus

in that whole subject, have never read Kant, Descartes or other doctors.

It’s all an accident so far as my style goes. It happens that the first

poem I ever wrote was too dense to be understood, and I now find that I

can trust most critics to tell me that all my subsequent efforts have

been equally futile. Having heard that one writes in a metaphysical vein

the usual critic will immediately close his eyes or stare with utter

complacency at the page--assuming that black is black no more and that

the poet means anything but what he says. It’s as plain as day that I’m

talking about war and aeroplanes in the passage from “F & H”

(“corymbulous formations of mechanics,” etc.) quoted by Wilson in _The

New Republic_, yet by isolating these lines from the context and

combining them suddenly with lines from a totally different poem he has

the chance (and uses it) to make me sound like a perfect ninny. If I’d

said that they were Fokker planes then maybe the critic would have had

to notice the vitality of the metaphor and its pertinence. All this

ranting seems somehow necessary.... If I am metaphysical I’m content to

continue so. Since I have been “located” in this category by a number of

people, I may as well go on alluding to certain (what are also called)

metaphysical passages in Donne, Blake, Vaughan, etc., as being of

particular appeal to me on a basis of common characteristics with what I

like to do in my own poems, however little scientific knowledge of the

subject I may have.

I write damned little because I am interested in recording certain

sensations, very rigidly chosen, with an eye for what according to my

taste and sum of prejudices seems suitable to--or intense enough--for

verse. If I were writing in prose, as I sometime shall probably do, I

should probably include a much thicker slice of myself--and though it is

the height of conceit for me to suggest it, I venture to say that you

may have received a somewhat limited idea of my interests and responses

by judging me from my poems alone. I suppose that in regard to this

limitation of poetic focus one should consult the current position of

poetry in relation to other intellectual and political characteristics

of the time, including a host of psychological factors which may or may

not promote the fullest flowering of a particular medium such as verse.

I am not apologizing. Nor am I trying to penetrate beyond a certain

point into such labyrinths of conjecture and analysis. It seems

unprofitable. One should be somewhat satisfied if one’s work comes to

approximate a true record of such moments of “illumination” as are

occasionally possible. A sharpening of reality accessible to the poet,

to no such degree possible through other mediums. That is one reason

above all others--why I shall never expect (or indeed desire) _complete_

sympathy from any writer of such originality as yourself. I may have

neglected to say that I admire your general attitude, including your

distrust of metaphysical or other patent methods. Watch out, though,

that you don’t strangulate yourself with some countermethod of your own!

286: TO HIS FATHER

_Patterson, New York_ _June 9th, 1927_

Dear Father: Your good letter with check came yesterday. I’m certainly

relieved to know that I can now meet my obligations and continue _The

Bridge_ with a free mind and imagination. You certainly have my

enthusiastic gratitude for your loyalty and the general attitude you

have toward my work. I venture to predict that you will not be

disappointed in the final results. --/--/

287: TO MRS. T. W. SIMPSON

_Patterson, N.Y._ _July 4th, 1927_

Dear Aunt Sally: Sunshine and a certain amount of heat seem to stimulate

me to writing, that is, judging by the intensive work I did on the

Island with you last summer, and by the returned activity I’ve been

having lately. We haven’t had any particularly hot weather, but it’s

been warm enough to sweat a little, and that seems to be good for me. As

a little evidence of my activities I’m enclosing a new section of _The

Bridge_ called “The River.” It comes between “Van Winkle” which I sent

you in the last letter and the Indian “Dance” which you are familiar

with.

I’m trying in this part of the poem to chart the pioneer experience of

our forefathers--and to tell the story backwards, as it were, on the

“backs” of hobos. These hobos are simply “psychological ponies” to carry

the reader across the country and back to the Mississippi, which you

will notice is described as a great River of Time. I also unlatch the

door to the pure Indian world which opens out in “The Dance” section, so

the reader is gradually led back in time to the pure savage world, while

existing at the same time in the present. It has been a very complicated

thing to do, and I think I have worked harder and longer on this section

of _The Bridge_ than any other.

You’ll find your name in it. I kind of wanted you in this section of the

book, and if you don’t have any objections, you’ll stay in the book. For

you are my idea of the salt of all pioneers, and our little talks about

New Orleans, etc., led me to think of you with the smile of Louisiana. I

continue in a kind of “heat”--and I may have another section or so

finished up before August. I sure want to get it _all_ done by December.

Well, here it is the Fourth again. I keep thinking of last year at this

time. I guess my ears were about healed by that time, but I was still in

a blue funk, and I remember how I went to town and after four or five

Tropicals came home again and read. We aren’t having much of any

celebration up here this year. The Browns are rather broke, and so am

I--neither of us able to indulge in either firecrackers or firewater to

any extent. Eleanor Fitzgerald is going to give a little levee down at

her place, however, and maybe there will be some cider.

I got a card from NY the other day saying that my old jack tar friend,

J---- F----, was back from his long trip in European waters, so I just

piked in and saw him! He was standing up on the forward deck when I saw

him from the pier head, and after taking me all over the ship (a

destroyer) we had a very pleasant evening, taking in a movie on hunting

in a jungle, full of marvelous tiger close-ups and elephant stampedes.

--/--/

I get very little news from Cleveland. But from all I have heard mother

and grandma are both fairly well. They have moved into a new apartment,

but I guess I mentioned that change as well as the address in my last. I

have stopped writing anything whatever to mother about the Island and

the Island property, because I don’t get any more return comment from

her on that subject than you seem to get. She doesn’t seem to be able to

get her mind settled on any matters relating to that problem. I don’t

understand why, but I’m sure of this, and I hope you will believe

me--she hasn’t anything but gratitude to you for all you have done, and

certainly entertains the most friendly sort of sentiments toward you

constantly. --/--/

I can’t get over thinking how sweet it was of you to sell the four

copies of _White Bldgs_. Did they arrive alright from the publisher? If

they didn’t I will see to it that they do. I somehow think of you as

being out on the Golfo de Batabano today in a sailboat. Am I right? How

I should like to be on the water! The sea’s the only place for me, with

my _nose_. I’m just getting a little over my spring attack of hayfever

now. And the next session begins before September. --/--/

Wish I could read “The River” out loud to you as I used to do last

summer! Too damned bad the hurricane came--I liked my little study room

there so much, with the mango tree to look at through the back

window.... I achieved some triumphs in that little room.

288: TO HIS FATHER

_Patterson, N.Y._ _August 12th, 1927_

Dear Father: --/--/ Life goes on here pretty evenly and monotonously. I

have managed to do a good deal of writing, but not as much of it is on

_The Bridge_ as I would have liked to have finished by this time.

Difficult is no word to describe the sort of things I’m trying to “put

across” in that poem, and I’ve been rather too much on a tension of

worry lately about a number of things to give it the requisite

concentration. Grace and her present pathetic circumstances is one cause

and my own arrangements for the coming fall and winter is another. It’s

obvious that I must get a job in town, and I’m casting out lines now

even--for it generally takes ages to get anything definite worked up.

I’m not asking for reassurances, but I do hope that I can count on your

assistance to the extent of the monthly amount until I can get something

on my hook--for otherwise I may not have the necessary carfare to ride

in when the time comes for the preliminary interview! --/--/

289: TO OTTO H. KAHN

_Patterson, New York_ _September 12th, 1927_

Dear Mr. Kahn: I am taking for granted your continued interest in the

progress of _The Bridge_, in which I am still absorbed, and which has

reached a stage where its general outline is clearly evident. The

Dedication (recently published in _The Dial_) and Part I (now in _The

American Caravan_) you have already seen, but as you may not have them

presently at hand I am including them in a ms. of the whole, to date,

which I am sending you under separate cover.

At the risk of complicating your appreciation of Part II (“Powhatan’s

Daughter”), I nevertheless feel impelled to mention a few of my

deliberate intentions in this part of the poem, and to give some

description of my general method of construction. Powhatan’s daughter,

or Pocahontas, is the mythological nature-symbol chosen to represent the

physical body of the continent, or the soil. She here takes on much the

same role as the traditional Hertha of ancient Teutonic mythology. The

five sub-sections of Part II are mainly concerned with a gradual

exploration of this “body” whose first possessor was the Indian. It

seemed altogether ineffective from the poetic standpoint to approach

this material from the purely chronological angle--beginning with, say,

the landing of “The Mayflower,” continuing with a résumé of the

Revolution through the conquest of the West, etc. One can get that

viewpoint in any history primer. What I am after is an assimilation of

this experience, a more organic panorama, showing the continuous and

living evidence of the past in the inmost vital substance of the

present.

Consequently I jump from the monologue of Columbus in “Ave Maria”--right

across the four intervening centuries--into the harbor of 20th-century

Manhattan. And from that point in time and place I begin to work

backward through the pioneer period, always in terms of the

present--finally to the very core of the nature-world of the Indian.

What I am really handling, you see, is the Myth of America. Thousands of

strands have had to be searched for, sorted and interwoven. In a sense I

have had to do a great deal of pioneering myself. It has taken a great

deal of energy--which has not been so difficult to summon as the

necessary patience to wait, simply wait much of the time--until my

instincts assured me that I had assembled my materials in proper order

for a final welding into their natural form. For each section of the

entire poem has presented its own unique problem of form, not alone in

relation to the materials embodied within its separate confines, but

also in relation to the other parts, _in series_, of the major design of

the entire poem. Each is a separate canvas, as it were, yet none yields

its entire significance when seen apart from the others. One might take

the Sistine Chapel as an analogy. It might be better to read the

following notes _after_ rather than _before_ your reading of the ms.

They are not necessary for an understanding of the poem, but I think

they may prove interesting to you as a commentary on my architectural

method.

1. “The Harbor Dawn”:

Here the movement of the verse is in considerable contrast to that of

the “Ave Maria,” with its sea-swell crescendo and the climacteric vision

of Columbus. This legato, in which images blur as objects only half

apprehended on the border of sleep and consciousness, makes an admirable

transition between the intervening centuries.

The love-motif (in italics) carries along a symbolism of the life and

ages of man (here the sowing of the seed) which is further developed in

each of the subsequent sections of “Powhatan’s Daughter,” though it is

never particularly stressed. In 2 (“Van Winkle”) it is Childhood; in 3

it is Youth; in 4, Manhood; in 5 it is Age. This motif is interwoven and

tends to be implicit in the imagery rather than anywhere stressed.

2. “Van Winkle”:

The protagonist has left the room with its harbor sounds, and is walking

to the subway. The rhythm is quickened; it is a transition between sleep

and the immanent tasks of the day. Space is filled with the music of a

hand organ and fresh sunlight, and one has the impression of the whole

continent--from Atlantic to Pacific--freshly arisen and moving. The walk

to the subway arouses reminiscences of childhood, also the “childhood”

of the continental conquest, viz., the conquistadores, Priscilla, Capt.

John Smith, etc. These parallelisms unite in the figure of Rip Van

Winkle who finally becomes identified with the protagonist, as you will

notice, and who really boards the subway with the reader. He becomes the

“guardian angel” of the journey into the past.

3. “The River”:

The subway is simply a figurative, psychological “vehicle” for

transporting the reader to the Middle West. He lands on the railroad

tracks in the company of several tramps in the twilight. The

extravagance of the first twenty-three lines of this section is an

intentional burlesque on the cultural confusion of the present--a great

conglomeration of noises analogous to the strident impression of a fast

express rushing by. The rhythm is jazz.

Thenceforward the rhythm settles down to a steady pedestrian gait, like

that of wanderers plodding along. My tramps are psychological vehicles,

also. Their wanderings as you will notice, carry the reader into

interior after interior, finally to the great River. They are the

left-overs of the pioneers in at least this respect--that their

wanderings carry the reader through an experience parallel to that of

Boone and others. I think [I] have caught some of the essential spirit

of the Great Valley here, and in the process have approached the primal

world of the Indian, which emerges with a full orchestra in the

succeeding dance.

5.[4] “The Dance”:

Here one is on the pure mythical and smoky soil at last! Not only do I

describe the conflict between the two races in this dance--I also become

identified with the Indian and his world before it is over, which is the

only method possible of every really possessing the Indian and his world

as a cultural factor. I think I really succeed in getting under the skin

of this glorious and dying animal, in terms of expression, in symbols,

which he himself would comprehend. Pocahontas (the continent) is the

common basis of our meeting, she survives the extinction of the Indian,

who finally, after being assumed into the elements of nature (as he

understood them), persists only as a kind of “eye” in the sky, or as a

star that hangs between day and night--“the twilight’s dim perpetual

throne.”

6.[5] “Indiana”:

I regret that this section is not completed as yet. It will be the

monologue of an Indiana farmer; time, about 1860. He has failed in the

gold-rush and is returned to till the soil. His monologue is a farewell

to his son, who is leaving for a life on the sea. It is a lyrical

summary of the period of conquest, and his wife, the mother who died on

the way back from the gold-rush, is alluded to in a way which implies

her succession to the nature-symbolism of Pocahontas. I have this

section well-nigh done, but there is no use including [it] in the

present ms. without the final words.

The next section, “Cutty Sark,” is a phantasy on the period of the

whalers and clipper ships. It also starts in the present and “progresses

backwards.” The form of the poem may seem erratic, but it is meant to

present the hallucinations incident to rum-drinking in a South Street

dive, as well as the lurch of a boat in heavy seas, etc. So I allow

myself something of the same freedom which E. E. Cummings often uses.

“Cutty Sark” is built on the plan of a _fugue_. Two “voices”--that of

the world of Time, and that of the world of Eternity--are interwoven in

the action. The Atlantis theme (that of Eternity) is the transmuted

voice of the nickel-slot pianola, and this voice alternates with that of

the derelict sailor and the description of the action. The airy regatta

of phantom clipper ships seen from Brooklyn Bridge on the way home is

quite effective, I think. It was a pleasure to use historical names for

these lovely ghosts. Music still haunts their names long after the wind

has left their sails.

“Cape Hatteras,” which follows, is unfinished. It will be a kind of ode

to Whitman. I am working as much as possible on it now. It presents very

formidable problems, as, indeed, all the sections have. I am really

writing an epic of the modern consciousness, and indescribably

complicated factors have to be resolved and blended.... I don’t wish to

tire you [with] too extended an analysis of my work, and so shall leave

the other completed sections to explain themselves. In the ms., where

the remaining incompleted sections occur, I am including a rough

synopsis of their respective themes, however.

The range of _The Bridge_ has been called colossal by more than one

critic who has seen the ms. And though I have found the subject to be

vaster than I had at first realized, I am still highly confident of its

final articulation into a continuous and eloquent span. Already there

are evident signs of recognition: the following magazines have taken

various sections:

“Dedication: To Brooklyn Bridge” _The Dial_

“Ave Maria” _The American Caravan_

“The Harbor Dawn” _transition_ (Paris)

“Van Winkle” “

“The River” _The Virginia Quarterly_

“The Dance” _The Dial_

“Cutty Sark” _Poetry_ (Chicago)

“Three Songs” _The Calendar_ (London)

“The Tunnel” _The Criterion_ (London)

(I have been especially gratified by the reception accorded me by _The

Criterion_, whose director, Mr. T. S. Eliot, is representative of the

most exacting literary standards of our times.)

For some time past I have been seeking employment in New York, but

without success so far. It’s the usual problem of mechanical prejudices

that I’ve already grown grey in trying to deal with. But all the more

difficult now, since the only references I can give for the last two

years are my own typewriter and a collection of poems. I am, as you will

probably recall, at least avowedly--a perfectly good advertising writer.

I am wondering if you would possibly give me some recommendation to the

publicity department of The Metropolitan Opera Company, where I am

certain of making myself useful. I was in New York two days last week,

trying to secure employment as a waiter on one of the American lines. I

found that I needed something like a diploma from Annapolis before

hoping for an interview. A few years ago I registered with the Munson

Line with reference to my qualifications for a particular position which

every ship includes--that of “ship’s writer,” or “deck yeoman”; but I

always found that such jobs were dispensed to acquaintances of the

captain or to office workers, and that my references were never taken

from the file. I am not particular what I do, however, so long as there

is reasonable chance of my doing it well, and any recommendation you

might care to offer in any practical direction whatever will be most

welcome. My present worried state of mind practically forbids any

progress on _The Bridge_, the chances for which are considerably better

under even greatly limited time conditions.

I am still assured of a definite inheritance, previously mentioned in my

first letter to you; and if you care to consider advancing me, say 800

or 1,000 dollars, on the same basis of insurance security as your

previous assistance I should be glad to come into New York and talk it

over. There is no monetary standard of evaluation for works of art, I

know, but I cannot help feeling that a great poem may well be worth at

least the expenditure necessary for merely the scenery and costumes of

many a flashy and ephemeral play, or for a motor car. _The Aeneid_ was

not written in two years--nor in four, and in more than one sense I feel

justified in comparing the historic and cultural scope of _The Bridge_

to this great work. It is at least a symphony with an epic theme, and a

work of considerable profundity and inspiration. Even with the torturing

heat of my sojourn in Cuba I was able to work faster than before or

since then, in America. The “foreign-ness” of my surroundings stimulated

me to the realization of natively American materials and viewpoints in

myself not hitherto suspected, and in one month I was able to do more

work than I had done in the three previous years. If I could work in

Mexico or Mallorca this winter I could have _The Bridge_ finished by

next spring. But that is a speculation which depends entirely on your

interest.

Please pardon the inordinate length of this letter. I shall, of course,

hope to hear from you regarding your impressions of the poem as it now

stands. Along with the ms., I am enclosing three critical articles which

may interest you somewhat.

290: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN

_Patterson, N.Y._ _Sept. 18th, ’27_

Dear Sam: I was glad to hear from you. I had been totally at a loss to

explain the basis of your resentment, and still am not quite clear on

the subject--but as you say that it is now removed perhaps nothing is

gained by probing old wounds and asking you what exactly it was all

about. Certainly, if I borrowed some money from you and have forgotten

to return it I shall have deserved the full measure of disapproval.

Memory plays tricks with all of us at times, and mine is no more

faithful to me than it ought to be. --/--/

291: TO HIS FATHER

_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _October 11th, 1927_

Dear Father: I have just had an interview with Otto Kahn, following his

reading of the manuscript of _The Bridge_. Kahn is very enthusiastic

about what I have accomplished and is most anxious that I keep on with

the composition without interruption until it is finished. I told him

about your willingness to extend me the assistance of the monthly

allowance of $50 and he has come forward with an additional $300 which

will provide me with necessary boat fare to Martinique for the winter.

That is a much pleasanter island than the Isle of Pines and I will also

be able to learn French and Spanish there, which will make it possible

for me to earn my living up here later by translation work.

I know enough about Martinique from people who have recently been there

to be sure that the allowance you have been giving me will cover my

living costs there. The winter season will insure me against any of the

excessive heat that I experienced on the Isle of Pines and I shall be

able to get much more accomplished.

I shall probably sail on the 20th (Furness-Bermuda Line) and arrive

about 8 days later. Am busy now seeing about my passport. Please let me

hear from you soon.

292: TO ---- AND ----

[_Brooklyn_] _Nov. 16, 27_

Dear ---- and ----: Traintime approaches, but I hope life does not

continue to grow accordingly more hectic, as has been the rule so far!

Several times I have all but lost my ticket, presented several days ago.

Notably Tues. night in jail....

After a riotous competition with Cummings and Anne [Cummings] in which

(I don’t _know_ but I’m sure) I won the cocktail contest I found myself

in the Clark St. station along about 3 o’clock playing with somebody’s

lost airedale. The cop who rushed at me, asking me what I was doing is

reported to have been answered by “why the hell do you want to know?!!!”

in a loud tone of voice, whereat I was yanked into a taxi and was sped

to the station (slyly and en route tossing all evidence such as billets

doux, dangerous addresses, etc., out the window) and the next I knew the

door crashed shut and I found myself behind the bars. I imitated

Chaliapin fairly well until dawn leaked in, or rather such limited

evidences of same as six o’clock whistles and the postulated press of

dirty feet to early coffee stands.

I was good and mad. Made an impassioned speech to a crowded court room,

and was released at 10 o’clock without even a fine. Beer with Cummings

in the afternoon which was almost better than evening before, as C’s

hyperbole is even more amusing than one’s conduct, especially when he

undertakes a description of what you don’t remember. Anyhow, I never had

so much fun jounced into 24 hours before, and if I had my way would take

both C’gs and Anne along with me to heaven when I go. --/--/

293: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK

_Altadena, Cal[ifornia]_ _Nov. 29th, ’27_

Dear Charlotte & Ricardo: --/--/ I have just been here a week and a day,

having left NY on the 17th in company with my new “boss,” his valet,

chauffeur and 3 dogs. I am more-or-less his secretary and companion, but

I’m treated more as a guest and have practically all of my time to

myself. Boss is a semi-invalid, a wealthy Wall Street broker who travels

most of the time, and who has been sent out here for six months rest by

his doctors. Lord! I never lived in _this_ style before! It’s almost

oppressive! But maybe I’ll get used to it in time....

As I said, about all I have to do is to be agreeable, talk about

Aristotle, Einstein, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, etc., etc., (in other

words, my boss is really a very cultured man and didn’t want to take too

much of a chance on running into a vacuum as regards companionship out

here). He is also interested in my writing, and it is with some regard

to helping me with my work that he has taken me out here. We’re living

in an amazing house, rented for the season from the president of the

American Express Company. It is all bath rooms and bad furniture--but

such bath rooms! And there is a huge patio in the center, on which all

the rooms open--very much the Spanish style of course.

It all came about as a sudden surprise to me. I was in Patterson only

about two weeks after I left Cleveland. Came into New York and found a

job in a little book shop almost immediately. I thought I was lucky

until the bad lighting of the store (it was a black little hole!) got to

working on my eyes. But I’d been there less than two weeks when Miss

Fitzgerald of the Provincetown Theatre told me about this opportunity.

As she is a very good friend of my boss her recommendation was seriously

considered, and after a few preliminary “try-outs” dining, riding in the

park, etc., I was formally invited. So here I am! --/--/

My boss has a curiosity about meeting some of the movie people--and

later on, when he gets to feeling better, expects to do some

entertaining. I’m hoping that Charlie Chaplin will remember my evening

with him and Frank in NY and possibly be friendly. Then there’s an old

“flame” of mine from Cleveland, Alice Calhoun, who has since become a

movie queen who lives out here. My boss is only 34, a bachelor, and has

a furious love of excitement, so there may be some amusing developments.

But at present, it’s part of my “task” to keep him quiet on a

more-or-less intellectual and sedentary diet. Well, well--not at all!

Where will I be next? Tahiti? It’s not so far from here! -- -- -- --

294: TO SLATER BROWN

_Santa Monica, California_ _Monday--Dec. 19_

Dear Bill: Yes, one can hear the sea seven flights below--and I’ve been

walking on the beach most of the day. The boss, finding that I didn’t

get along too well with some of his Hollywood week-end guests, advised

my taking a vacation, and with means happily provided here I am until

tomorrow night. Wall Street seems to carry a slight oppression and

madness with it wherever it “extends.” It has been good to come over

here where places are rather deserted of crowds and hear the gulls cry

overhead and watch the solemn pelicans eye you awhile--and then haul up

their legs and sprawl into the air.

Viennese cooking with caviar and port every night for dinner is playing

hell with my waistline--and I sleep as never before, excepting the

cradle. One can’t seem to wake up out here without the spur of scotch or

gin. There has been plenty of that--in fact last Saturday night I danced

the “Gotzottski” right on Main St. Los Angeles, while -- -- -- --, an

aviator from Riverside and a Kentuckian--danced the Highland Fling--or

as good an imitation of it as he could manage. This after having invaded

the Biltmore ballroom and dancing with fair ladies of the haute

mondaine. Albeit--and having got our waiter drunk and having left in

high dudgeon--I don’t think I’ll dare attend that[?] supper club again.

After a good deal of fair “sailing” since arriving here--I am now

convinced that “flying” is even better. Right now however--and until

next weekend--I am “all fives” on the ground and life can run as high as

it wants to over in our villa without my batting an eye. -/-/

God! you never know who you’re meeting out here.... First there was a

snappy collegiate hanging around the studios, who turned out to know

Allen [Tate]--and then today on the beach a mile below here, at Venice,

I found myself talking literature, Spengler, Kant, Descartes and

Aquinas--to say nothing of Charles Maurras and Henri Massis--to a

Bostonian of French descent who knows Stewart Mitchell, and especially

his Aunt, very well! He turned out to be one of the best scholars I’ve

ever met--a great reactionary toward the same kind classicism that Eliot

and Lewis are fostering in England. I had him spotted as a Romanist in

less than five minutes--but he wouldn’t admit until we parted. The

dialectic we had was more rousing than the aforesaid tonic combustions

of alcohol, I admit....

Winters and wife will be here visiting relatives during Christmas

week--and I look forward to that as a real event. Really, it’s terribly

dulling having so many servants around, so much food, so much tiptoeing,

and ceremony. --/--/ The present “star” was once “Ariel” in _The

Tempest_--and though she still makes the welkin ring I fear her voice

will never do it again. She has adopted the pronoun “we” to signalize

her slightest thought, whim or act--and her conceit was so wounded on

spying my “Chaplinesque” during the course of her drunken and

exclamatory rampage through _Edificios Blancos_--that she nearly passed

out--and insisted on the spot that I make instant amends by composing a

sonnet to her superb P.A. (Hollywood shorthand for physical attraction)

as displayed in her erstwhile success in _Peter Pan_. Hence here I am by

the sea--and mightily pleased--until the storm subsides....