Joyce’s _Arista Adoloscente_--a translation sent me by Marichalar who
wrote a very interesting introduction.[56] He was greatly interested in
_The [American] Caravan_ and is going to review it in the _Revista de
Occidente_. I must get started at my Spanish again. Richards’
_Principles of Literary Criticism_ is a _great_ book. One of the
few--perhaps the only one in English excepting stray remarks by
Coleridge--that get to bed rock. Weston’s book, _From Ritual to
Romance_, was quite fascinating--but Winters claims that scholars regard
half her data and deductions as imaginative bunk. Did I rave[?] to you
about Elizabeth Madox Roberts’ new book--_My Heart and Flesh_--before!
Anyway, I hope you’ll read it. I think it a great performance. --/--/
I’m glad you liked the Breughel book. Its humor really belonged to you,
if you get what I mean, and you therefore were more capable of “owning”
it than anyone I ever knew. If you were dead and gone I think it would
have been a better commemoration than flowers--so take good care of
it--and hand it on to your grandchildren--for you never can tell--you
may have them, you know!
1928
295: TO PEGGY BAIRD AND MALCOLM COWLEY
[_California_] _Jan. 31, ’28_
Dear Peggy & Mal: Writing is next to impossible--what with the purling
of fountains, the drawling of mockingbirds, the roaring of surf, the
blazing of movie stars, the barking of dogs, the midnight shakings of
geraniums, the cruising of warships, etc., etc., not to mention the
dictates of the Censor, whose absence will be welcome sometime, I hope,
when we get together again at the Dutchman’s or some rehabilitated Punch
Palace where I’ll at least be able to offer some new words to the
(albeit) ancient tunes! My philosophic moments are few, but when they do
occur it is almost always possible to turn on the radio and immediately
expose my soul to the rasping persuasions of Aimee McPherson, eternally
ranting and evangelizing to packed houses at the great palm-flanked
arena of Angelus Temple. She broadcasts the news that people are
frequently carried out in pieces, arms broken, heads smashed in the
stampede for salvation which she almost nightly stages, thereby
emphasizing the need of arriving early (so as to save one’s body as
well) and thereupon lifts her voice into a perfectly convulsing chant,
coaxing and cuddlingly coy about “Come, all ye--” (You can catch her in
it on the Victor) the chorus of which would make a deacon’s bishopric
leap crimson and triumphant from the grave.... I haven’t seen her, but
they say she has beautiful long, red, wavy tresses....
The peculiar mixtures of piety and utter abandon in this welter of
cults, ages, occupations, etc., out here make it a good deal like
Bedlam. Retired schoolmarms from Iowa, Kansas and all the corn-and-wheat
belt along with millions of hobbling Methuselahs, alfalfa-fringed and
querulous, side by side with crowds of ambitious but none-too-successful
strumpets of moviedom, quite good to look at, and then hordes of rather
nondescript people who seem just bound from nowhere into nothing--one
can’t explain either the motives nor means of their existence. One can
generally “place” people to some extent; but out here it’s mostly nix.
One begins to feel a little unreal as a consequence of this--and so much
more, like the perfect labyrinth of “villas”--some pseudo-Spanish, some
a la Maya (the colour of stale mayonnaise), others Egyptian with a
simply irresistible amphora perched on the terrace, and some vaguely
Chink. Our house, a large _U_ with patio and fountain, rambles all over
the place, and is almost vertical to the observatory on Mt. Wilson.
Plenty of roses, camellias, oleanders, acacias, etc., as well as a good
wine-cellar. I’ve just been interrupted by the butler bringing in a
makeshift for champagne, composed of cardbonated apple-juice with a
sling of gin; so all attempts at epistolary consecutivety are hereby and
henceforth abandoned! No, I’d better give up--I was just about to say
something about the pool rooms down at San Pedro where the battle fleet
rides close at anchor. Gradually I’m becoming acquainted with all the
brands of bootleg that the Westcoast offers. I haven’t been blinded by
anything yet but beauty and sunshine, however; but I did have to get
glasses to shield me from the violet rays, which are terribly strong out
here. I’d better stop, I guess.
296: TO WALDO FRANK
_Altadena, Cal._ _February 1, 1928_
Dear Waldo: I thought the enclosed poems might interest you as souvenirs
of our tropical sojourn together. The quarry and the road leading to it,
the idiot boy, etc., and the “Overheard”[57] which mocks the manner of
the typical American settler’s comments on the natives.... There is
another poem, “The Air Plant,” properly belonging to this series, which
ought to be out soon in _The Dial_. And there was another,“O Carib
Isle!,” published earlier in _transition_, which also belongs. In “The
Hour”[58] I attempted to secure the ground-rhythm of the hurricane.
You have been silent for so long that I cannot but doubt your interest
in hearing from me. Yet I so often think of you that I have risked an
intrusion regardless. --/--/
297: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN
_Altadena, Cal._ _5th Feb., 28_
Dear Sam: --/--/ First of all: my “boss” has never once failed to play
the admirable host, and what is more, I continue to find him at all
times most agreeable and entertaining. --/--/
I see my mother on the average of twice a week. She is located so far
away that it takes a good two hours to reach her, so it nearly always
means devoting practically a whole day to the occasion. My grandmother
is better off than at any time for the last three years--the climate has
done wonders. They have a small cottage and would be quite comfortable
were they more satisfied with the general temper of the woman they
brought out here to live with them. I’m not capable of judging the
situation very accurately, but there’s been a good deal of fretting and
umbrage, very discouraging indeed to me at times. Wise has practically
asked me to accompany him to Europe in the Spring, but their situation
may deny me that opportunity. Mother asked immediately about you. She
would rejoice at any word from you whatever.
We have met some movie actors, attended some studio screenings, etc. And
I have had a fair amount of swimming and tennis. (The beaches--Long
Beach, Venice, Santa Monica--are really a delight, and I have spent
whole days watching the gulls, sandpipers, pelicans in their
manoeuvres). But I am especially enjoying the wealth of reading and
music around the house. Wise is buying all the albums of symphonies,
quintettes, concertos and what-not on the Victor list. So I’m living on
intimate terms for the first time with Brahms and Beethoven--the two
most exciting of all to me.
_The Grandmothers_, I agree with you, is damned fine, although I think
it weakens towards the last; Wescott seems to lose his grip. Then I’ve
immensely enjoyed the trans. of Proust’s _Sodome et Gomorrhe_, as well
as Gide’s _The Counterfeiters_. I also am now introduced to Heathcliff
(whom I have put beside Ahab) thanks to your mention of _Wuthering
Hts_. And by the way, I’m terribly excited about the poems of Gerard
Manley Hopkins. Winters loaned me his copy recently (I had never read
any of Hopkins before) and I have discovered that I am not as original
in some of my stylisms as I had thought I was. Winters tells me that the
book (Oxford edition, edited by Robert Bridges) is now out of print. I’m
simply wild to secure a copy--and am wondering if you could locate me
anything around New York. I’m willing to pay anything up to $10.00.
Failing this, I think I shall go to work and type out the whole volume,
for I’ve never been quite so enthusiastic about any modern before.
--/--/
298: TO SLATER BROWN
[_California_] _2/22/28_
Dear Bill: --/--/ A paean from Venusberg! Oy-oy-oy! I have just had my
ninth snifter of Scotch. O shades of Bert Savoy! They say he had a glass
eye as the result of some midnight with a mariner. But I have had no
such dire results as yet. Oh BOY! Try to imagine the streets constantly
as they were during that famous aggregation last May in Manhattan! And
more, for they are at home here, these western argosies, at roadstead
far and near--and such a throng of pulchritude and friendliness as would
make your “hair” stand on end. That’s been the way of all flesh with
me.... And wine and music and such nights--WHOOPS!!!!!!!
Besides which I have met the Circe of them all--a movie actor who has
them dancing naked, twenty at a time, around the banquet table. O André
Gide! no Paris ever yielded such as this--away with all your
counterfeiters! Just walk down Hollywood Boulevard some day--if you must
have something _out_ of uniform. Here are little fairies who can quote
Rimbaud before they are 18--and here are women who must have the tiniest
fay to tickle them the one and only way! You ought to see B---- C----
shake her tits--and cry _apples_ for a bite!
What can I write about? Yes, I am reading Wyndham Lewis’ _Time and
Western Man_, Fernandez’ insufferable _Messages_ and all the other
stuff. But I would rather do as I did yesterday--after a night of
wine--wake up at dawn and dip into _The Tempest_, that crown of all the
Western World. What have I to say after that event. I wonder.??? --/--/
[Act V, scene I, lines 64-68] Maybe with me someday, as good Prospero
says. Perhaps--as Ceres says in the same play----/--/ [Act IV, scene I,
lines 114-17] But you will tear this up--and keep me true, Bill. And if
I come back to you and to the dear hills of Connecticut again, as I hope
to, I shall have a cargo for your ears. --/--/
299: TO WALDO FRANK
_Hollywood, Calif._ _4th March 1928_
Dear Waldo: The date on your generous and welcome letter is an
accusation. It is true that I haven’t lacked time to answer it, long
since,--but the desire to give you something more than a muddled
confusion of cross purposes--and my confidence in your preference for
reason and order--have detained me, though I am still by no means
settled in my present environment nor do I seem any too happily
disposed. But at least I have decided on a few details, for better or
worse....
My association with Mr. Wise, who brought me out here as private
secretary, terminated about two weeks ago. Although it was
unsatisfactory (my duties were extremely vague and I was neither servant
nor guest) I might have stuck it out until May (when Wise returns to NY)
had I felt justified in leaving my mother and grandmother alone out here
in their present predicament. However, the experience of the last two
years has taught me the futility of any retreat from what I, after all,
must regard as my immediate responsibilities. The further I might go
from the actual “scene” of operations the more obsessed I tend to become
by the inert idea. So I am remaining here with the hope of securing some
“literary” connection with the movies which will net me enough to be of
some substantial help. When all this is over--someday--I may be able to
regain the indispensable detachment from immediate concerns that such a
work as my _Bridge_ demands. Needless to say, I find Hollywood far from
tempting in any way--but my people had moved here before I arrived, and
as my grandmother is unable to move more than a few steps from her bed
she is hardly in the tourist class.
Your letter was as usual--bracing! You probably don’t realize it, but it
had been a year since I had heard anything from you excepting a
postcard. I was beginning to fear that something spurious had been
repeated to you as an emanation of mine, for NY is so full of
fabrications of all kinds--so, to know better was a welcome relief,
also! I can well appreciate the many preoccupations which beset and
hindered you. The marvel to me is the glamor and precision of your new
work; I refer to the installments of it in _The N.R._ Some of my copies
were lost when I was moving--and my readings were frequently
interrupted and only partially realized--but the luminous impulse and
essential direction I think I have apprehended. It is something more
than mere analysis. Like most of your work it postulates a “Way.” I have
tried reading Fernandez’ _Messages_ and Lewis’ _Time and Western Man_
without being able to wholly approve a single page of either, though
Fernandez is more profound. But his style (or the translator’s) is
abominable as compared to L.’s direct though misdirected thrusts. But L.
just goes round in a desolate circle of elaborations--I can’t see
anything creative in his offering. Beginning with Spengler and Wells,
this age seems too typically encyclopaedic. This may assist the artist
in time--by erecting some kind of logos, or system of contact between
the insulated departments of highly specialized knowledge and enquiry
which characterize the times--God knows, some kind of substantial
synthesis of opinion is needed before I can feel confident in writing
about anything but my shoestrings.... These Godless days! I wonder if
you suffer as much as I do. At least you have the education and training
to hold the scalpel.
If I can’t send you a new poem of my own I can at least send you a
better new-old one [“Pied Beauty”] (for I don’t think you have yet read
him) by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford) now out of print--a Victorian,
posthumously printed, whose work has been a revelation to me. --/--/
300: TO ---- AND ----
_Hollywood, Calif_ _March 27th ’28_
Dear ---- and ----: As I don’t seem to get anything more out of you by
means of postcards, telegrams, and such-like shorthand signals I guess
it’s up to me to get busy on the typewriter and pay you your due
torture--though I’ll try and not inflict such piercing shrieks on you
again, such as my last epistle! When I get to feeling like that again
I’ll begin on Pres. Calles first--and that will probably save you a good
deal of amazement and conjecture.
This time the news is more diverse.... Life is nothing if not exciting
wherever ---- happens to land, if only for a few hours. It took him (or
his presence) to arrange the most harrowing weekend yet, and I’m only
praying that he’s still alive, for when I left him in his berth in the
“glory-hole” of the “California” last Sat. night he looked as though he
were nearing the Pearly Gates. We were held up and beaten by a gang in
San Pedro.... The story is complicated and lengthy--and ---- will
probably give you the full version or as much as he can remember when he
sees you.
I left Wise’s ménage a week ago today. However, as ---- somehow failed
to get my ship letter announcing same and the hour at which I would meet
him--he flew right up to Altadena, leaving me to wait a _full 8 hours_
by the gangway before I saw my dear “Goldy-locks.” By that time I had
about finished a half pint of alcohol which I had brought for our mutual
edification, and he had completely emptied a quart of Bacardi, also
originally intended as a mutual benison.
_Scene Two._ Speakeasy joint with booths. Many bottles of dubious gin
and whiskey--with much “skoling”--and ---- flashing a fat pay roll--and
treating three or four still more dubious “merry andrews” who had
invited themselves to our noisy nook. It being midnight, all ordered
out.
_Scene Three._ A street, or rather, several streets. Our “guests” very
insistent on taking a hotel room in which to finish the fire water. ----
& I both reeling but refractory. I finally noticed ---- being spirited
away by three of them, while it was evident that I, who had been more
emphatic in my wishes, was being guarded by two others. I broke
away--and had just caught up to ---- who was being put around a dark
corner--when all five started slugging us. I put up quite a fight, but
neither of us were in much condition. They all beat it as a car turned
on a nearby corner. Both of us robbed of everything, and ----
practically unconscious. After reporting at police headquarters I don’t
know how I would have got ---- back to his ship without the help of a
sailor friend of mine whom I had run into earlier in the evening while
waiting for ----. We roused several of his shipmates--and I’m only
hoping that his bumps and bruises haven’t been any more fatal than mine.
I finally had to finish the night in a ward of the Salvation Army Hotel,
and it was five o’clock Sunday before I got enough money to get back to
Hollywood. On his way back from Frisco I’m hoping to see ---- again--but
not in Pedro! Probably nothing of this had better be mentioned to the
----’s.... I don’t mind my losses, but I feel terribly about ----’s
luck. He always seems to get the hardest end of things.
As you can see, we didn’t get much time for any gossip. But he did say
that you had the most beautiful baby in the world! Wish I could see him!
Besides which I get terribly homesick out here, but might as well not
indulge myself in that emotion. My resignation from the Wise entourage
was encouraged by a number of dissatisfactions, but as much as anything
by the recognition of the fact that I must settle here for a while at
least, and do whatever I can to help my mother during her attendance on
grandmother. The two of them being completely alone out here, and none
too well provided for, I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep in Conn. So I
might as well relinquish my own wishes for awhile and try and earn some
cash. Maybe scenario writing eventually. Meanwhile there are mechanical
jobs such as title-writing, gag-writing, “continuity” writing, etc. I
just had an interview with “Papa” Kahn this morning who is out here for
a couple of weeks. He promises to help me connect with Lasky, Paramount,
Wm. Fox, etc. At least I have “broken in” the movies in one way, for
Pathe Newsreel or some such torture swooped down on us while we were
talking in the patio of The Ambassador, and for all I know we may be
thrown upon the screen together all the way from Danbury to Hong-Kong
and Mozambique! I’m wearing hornrims now--so don’t be shocked.
As for my late employer--the situation became too strained to be
continued. --/--/ Such circumstances don’t promote a very lively
morale--and it’s probably better for me to lose a little of the
attendant avoirdupois in favor of a more exhilarating outlook. But we
are still friends so far as I know.
Every week I scour the pages of _The New Rep._, _Nation_, and
_Herald-Tribune_ for the names of our “rising generation.” Have seen
nothing by Malcolm for some time. Does this corroborate the news I got
from Mrs. T[urner] some weeks ago that Malcolm has been laid up? Much by
Robert Penn Warren, but little by his friend Tate, excepting a recent
review of Winters which I thought excellent. Slater Brown, I long since
neglected to mention, scored keenly in tussle with the milksop critic of
Estlin C’gs in the Canby Crap Can. “The point was well taken,” as my
grandmother would say. And how is C’gs? for I think you told me he was
pretty hard up. Mitchell seems to be bursting with new energy by the
evidence in recent numbers of _The Dial_. And last, but not least in
this litry column, how goes it with your translations--and how is ----?
No, you’re not the last, either! I must say that I haven’t yet been able
to decipher that defense of me by Laura [Riding], published in
_Transition_ along with Kay Boyle’s explosive boil. I wrote her
promptly, thanking her for her sentiments, but questioning her style.
Her latest book announced by Jonathan Cape, is _Anarchy Is Not
Enough_--and so she seems to be maintaining her consistency. Judging by
the time she has already taken before answering me, I judge that I’m off
her correspondence list. I shouldn’t have been so rude had I thought her
tender-hearted. But I can’t believe that anarchy is enough--or Gertrude
Stein, either. --/--/
301: TO ISIDOR SCHNEIDER
_Hollywood, Calif_ _March 28th, 1928_
Dear Isidor: --/--/ I often wish I had the scientific and metaphysical
training to appreciate and judge all these Whiteheads, Bradleys,
Fernandez, Wyndham Lewis-es, etc., who keep drumming up new
encyclopedias of the Future, Fate, etc. And now Waldo has written
another, especially devoted to America. I read them, puzzle and ponder
as best I’m able, but Spengler was about the only one who flattered my
capacities to the least extent. They are all so formidable, bristling
with allusions, statistics, threats and tremors, trumpets and outcries
on the least splitting of a hair which I can’t locate through the
labyrinth of abstractions. I’m afraid I’d better give up trying to make
any headway in their directions--or else relinquish all attempts to do
any writing myself. For about all they really net me is a constant
paralysis and distraction. I think that this unmitigated concern with
the Future is one of the most discouraging symptoms of the chaos of our
age, however worthy the ethical concerns may be. It seems as though the
imagination had ceased all attempts at any creative activity--and had
become simply a great bulging eye ogling the foetus of the next
century.... I find nothing in Blake that seems outdated, and for him the
present was always eternity. This is putting it crudely; but when I get
some of these points a little more definitely arranged then maybe I’ll
have more nerve to continue my efforts on _The Bridge_. The struggle on
paper is hard enough, but certain recent antecedent deliberations are
proving even more stubborn.
I enjoyed your historical notes and orientalia. You ought to hear Aimee
[McPherson] carry on over the radio to get the full blast of her
personality. D. Parker’s review of her autobiography (_N. Yorker_) was
amusing I thought. She’s a great pious Dame Quickly--and they almost
caught her with her shoes off in that “kidnapping” episode. Coming from
the ridiculous to the sublime--let me thank you for the Isadora! That
book has a certain dignity, despite many lapses, which I expected from
her; a very sad but beautiful book. Her career would be impossible now
since the War. Other reading has included the cold glitter of Gide’s
_Counterfeiters_ and the tremendous mosaic of Proust’s _Cities of the
Plain_. I never got one-third through all the books that Wise
continually ordered. But then, I’m always taking two steps backward to
Queen Bess’s alleys for every one step ahead. --/--/
302: TO GORHAM MUNSON
_Hollywood, Calif._ _April 17th ’28_
Dear Gorham: I certainly feel guilty--and the evidence of your
cordiality in sending me your _Destinations_ has not made me feel any
more exemplary--for not having written you before. However you are
exacting in the level of response which you expect from your friends,
and in as much as I have been involved in a general state of doldrums so
far as any creative progress has been concerned for well nigh every
moment since I left NY, I haven’t felt like burdening you with the mere
minutiae of personal trifles in lieu of more “decisive developments” if
I could help it. But here goes--anyway--if only to signal to you my
pleasure in receiving your opus and to assure you that at any rate my
affections are not defunct.
With the general exhortation of your book (as a whole) towards more
definite spiritual knowledge and direction I find myself in close
sympathy. The spiritual disintegration of our period becomes more
painful to me every day, so much so that I now find myself baulked by
doubt at the validity of practically every metaphor I coin. In every
quarter (Lewis, Eliot, Fernandez, etc.) a thousand issues are raised for
one that is settled and where this method is reversed--as with the
neo-Thomists--one has nothing as substitute but an arbitrary dogmatism
which seems to be too artificial [to] have any permanence or hold on the
future. This “future” is, of course, the name for the entire disease,
but I doubt if any remedy will be forthcoming from so nostalgic an
attitude as the Thomists betray, and moreover a strictly European system
of values, at that. Waldo’s acute analyses now running in _The NR_
strike me as wonderfully promising. He hasn’t come to the constructive
part of his program yet--but his ideas are promising; in a way they come
to closer grips with American bogeys and vampires than any European is
probably capable of seeing.
I think that _Destinations_ is a transitional book with you. It contains
a lot of splendid analysis, especially your discussions of technical
procedures and the historical positions and relationships of various
writers. Above and beyond (or enclosing) these considerations I think
your demand for more order, clearer direction, etc., well justified, but
on the other hand, too vaguely articulated to offer any definite system
in contrast to the distraction, indifference to major issues, mere
intuitiveness, etc., which you complain of in a number of writers whose
work you otherwise admire. This was almost inevitable, I am forced to
acknowledge, especially as I have already admitted my own quandaries in
the face of such problems--but the challenge still rings for all of us.
You have certainly done this much: if you have not definitely (or even
begun to) articulate the concrete values of the ideal _100_ per cent you
have at least done some wiping on the slate and postulated _000_, or the
position of the questionable ciphers. Skepticism may stop there and
still claim gratitude and respect, but I am not exactly satisfied by
that, and I doubt if you are. I still stake some claims on the
pertinence of the intuitions; indeed some of Blake’s poems and Emily
Dickinson’s seem more incontrovertible than ever since Relativity and a
host of other ideologies, since evolved, have come into recognition.
As close and accurate scrutinies I like the Moore and Williams studies
best. I don’t know Dreiser well enough to judge your opinions. As for
Hart Crane, I know him too well to disagree on as many points as I once
did, two years ago when I first read the essay. I am certainly grateful
for such expert attention, and especially on the technical side I think
you express my intentions with a very persuasive gusto that has recently
revived in me some conviction of “reality” here and there in my scrap
heap. --/--/
303: TO SLATER BROWN
[_California_] _April 27_
Dear Bill: Your salute to the comments of the ny critics cracks at _him_
displayed more life than I have seen around here since I arrived.
Although I am still holding my sides, I’m a little sad; for I would like
to have been there. Especially with Anne [Cummings] drinking gin and
---- sporting his shiners and shirt front and all the tumult and
guzzling there must have been afterward! As for the critics--C’gs can be
envied, in the same manner that even I can be envied, whereby I refer to
the “clever” handling I recently got from Benét in the Canby crap can.
At least we both have managed to evade the proverbial faint praise! Your
clipping was the only one I’ve seen excepting a letter from Dos [Passos]
in the last _Sunday Times_, and a laudatory review in the _Wall Street
Journal_ which Wise had noticed. I hope you and others will make as much
of a controversy about it as possible. That’s one thing good about
Frank--he never hesitates a moment and never tires.
Since the Fleet with its twenty-five thousand gobs has left for Hawaii I
have had a chance to face and recognize the full inconsequence of this
Pollyanna greasepaint pinkpoodle paradise with its everlasting
stereotyped sunlight and its millions of mechanical accessories and
sylphlike robots of the age of celluloid. Efforts for a foothold in this
sandstorm are still avid, but I have had little yet in encounter.
“Crashing the gate” is a familiar expression out here, and it seems to
be exclusively applied to the movie industry. To cap the climax I have
to endure my mother’s apparently quenchless desire that I become an
actor! But if I can hold on until the middle of May I’m due for an
interview with Jesse Lasky (HIMSELF) and maybe through that entree I can
creep into some modest dustpan in the reading dept. of Paramount. Your
friend Dietz, by the way, draws a cool $750.00 a week as their ad. mgr.
It’s good to think of you as back near Patterson. I had a good letter
from Malcolm. It all makes me homesick. Things like that croquet game in
the rain, the afternoon at the cider mill, the skeleton surry ride and
the tumble down the hill! I haven’t a thing to send for the _transition_
Am. issue. I can’t imagine ever having anything to say out here except
in vituperation of the scene itself. If I could “afford” to go to work
on some ranch it might be otherwise, but that, under present
circumstances, doesn’t seem advisable.
Have just discovered the presence here of Mrs. Alice Barney, the
world-famous grande dame and mother of Nathalie Clifford Barney of
Paris, friend of Valéry, translator, -- -- -- --. As she is a great friend
of Underwood of Washington I have been invited to her next weekly
“evening.” She ought to be a little different than the typical Hollywood
hostess--perhaps mildly Proustian. God knows I need some sort of
diversion besides bus rides and the rigor mortis of the local hooch.
-- -- -- --
304: TO WALDO FRANK
_Patterson,_ _June 12th ’28_
Dear goodhearted Brother: Your loan has been a godsend and I am only
afraid I have appeared insensitive in not writing my thanks before. But
you’ve been very busy getting settled, I know, and probably haven’t had
any such extra thoughts. It’s nice, damned fine, of you to ask me
up--maybe I’ll be able to make it along in August. But it’s a slim
chance. I want above all things to get _The Bridge_ completed this
summer, and aside from the necessity of taking any work which may come
along I’ll need to keep my head or rather my nose away from too tempting
horizons. But at least I _trust_ we’ll have a reunion and a long visit
in the Fall.
I meant long ago to tell you my rather disappointing experience with
Charlie.[59] During my first month on the Coast I happened to meet him
sitting in his favorite restaurant one evening. I had a friend with me
and he was also engaged, but I stopped for a moment in passing to say
hello--identifying myself with you (whose address he wanted
immediately). I later sent him an inscribed copy of _White Buildings_
along with a letter, but never got any response further than a formal
letter from his secretary acknowledging receipt of same, etc. As I had
already urged him to dine with me (my boss, Mr. Wise, was simply wild to
meet him and entertain him) I couldn’t press matters much further. He
was simply too busy otherwheres to be interested--that was obviously
it--and all the stars have built walls of mystery about themselves as
impregnable as Carcassonne! Just try to get them on the phone sometime!
But Charlie surely was never so radiant and handsome as when I saw
him.... Hair snow-white, which means almost as white as the smiling
flash of his teeth, and those same eyes of genius.
I’m hardly qualified to give you any fair report on my reactions to your
_NR_ series. I’ve missed several and those I did get a chance to read
(out west) were read under disturbing circumstances. I remember such
chapters as “Let’s be Comfortable,” “News as a Toy,” and the recent
chapter on “The Arts” as especially keen analysis. The first two or
three chapters seemed to hint at a little strain or rush; this more from
their almost painful condensation of material and opinion than from
other cause. But I ought to re-read them before barking. I can’t think
of any living American with greater integrity or courage, you prove it
on every page. The completed book will come out in the late fall, I take
it. -- -- -- --
305: TO ISIDOR & HELEN SCHNEIDER
_Patterson, N. Y._ _July 16th, 1928_
Dear Isidor & Helen: Your good Parisian letter reached me here on about
the third week after my return from the Coast. Leaving about the middle
of May, I took the southern route across Texas to New Orleans, then down
the Mississippi and up to NY by boat. The old French quarter of New
Orleans with its absinthe speakeasies and wonderful cooking seemed
unspeakably mellow and gracious after all the crass mechanical
perfection of Hollywood, and the six hours on the great delta were even
more symphonic than I had expected.
New York harbor looked both stridently busy and enormously friendly in
the early morning light. I was mightily glad to get back among friends;
I could find no work in California and excessively hysterical conditions
arose between me and my family there. Altogether it was intolerable. I
feel more like myself again, back in my familiar room at Mrs. Turner’s.
Besides, we have located a marvellous bootlegger on a neighboring hill,
who makes better beer than I’ve had north of Cuba! --/--/
306: TO HIS FATHER
_New York City_ _August 14th, 1928_
Dear Father: Your letter, forwarded from Patterson, reached me
yesterday, I have been offered the use of the flat of a friend of mine
[Cowley] who is spending the summer in the country, and I’m fortunate
enough to have it for several weeks. I’ve been cooking my own meals and
doing my best without the help of a flatiron to keep myself looking
spruce, but my shoes are giving out as well as the several small loans
that friends have given me--and so far I haven’t been able to make any
connection with ad. work. I guess I’ll have to give that up.
I agree with you completely in what you say about learning a trade; in
fact I have wanted to learn some regular trade like typesetting,
linotyping, etc., for a long time back. However, connections that pay
anything whatever while learning these trades are hard to find out
about. And, of course, I need something more than air to live on in the
meantime. I’m going to do my best during the next few days to find a job
as a plumber’s or mechanic’s helper. The work is physically heavier than
I have been used to for a long time, but I fancy I can make the
adjustment in due time. The way things are now I’ll consider myself
lucky to get anything. --/--/
307: TO HIS FATHER
_New York City_ _August 19, 1928_
Dear Father: I hope you won’t blame me for utilizing the check enclosed
in your letter for some immediate necessities, without which my first
pay day would seem even longer away! I can refund the money to you
later. Meanwhile it will seem good to have something definite to do--as
well as something definite to eat.
As I wired you, I start in tomorrow. The job isn’t much, but it can tide
me over to something better. A former Cleveland acquaintance of mine
has opened a book store here. He needs to be out a good deal collecting
stock, rare editions, etc., and I’m coming in as clerk, besides which I
shall have some work to do on his catalogues, make-up, etc. The offer
wasn’t made until last Friday, else I should have let you know sooner.
This may strike you as a rather poor alternative to your invitation to
return to Cleveland, but as there are two or three real possibilities
hanging fire here--and of considerable ultimate importance,--I feel that
I am justified in staying on the ground. One in particular, the
editorship of a magazine, I should hate to risk missing. Thank you a lot
though, Father, for your interest and help. --/--/
308: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK
_Brooklyn, New York_ _Sept 16th, 1928_
Dear Charlotte and Richard: It has hurt me to think that you thought me
indifferent about returning the remainder of the money that you so
kindly loaned me. I confess my guilt: it _could_ have been done before.
But nevertheless at _no_ time since you wrote me asking for it. Owing to
the recent death of my Grandmother Hart (in Hollywood) I shall, however,
be able to discharge the obligation fairly soon, as I come into a slight
inheritance which will take care of several debts. I have been
struggling without any money for weeks, but have finally secured a
decent job with an advertising agency here.
This is perhaps a futile letter to write, since our friendship seems to
have been already sacrificed. But I owe it to myself perhaps as much as
to you to give you rightful evidence of my continued intention of honest
behavior, no matter what you may have thought of me. You don’t know how
often I have thought of you and regretted the circumstances of your
recent loss of interest in me. You don’t know the extent to which I feel
gratefully indebted to you both for many things outside the realm of
money or anything that money could ever buy. But there is no use in
trying to make apologies. As long as I believe in myself I shall insist
on my good intentions and with the ultimate faith of putting them into
practice. I can never, of course, ask others as much as that.
If you will be friendly enough to answer _this_ letter some time in the
next three months I shall be glad to know that at least I may be sure of
your present address. Otherwise, I’ll have to ask someone in Cleveland
to look you up in the directory or telephone book to ascertain your
present whereabouts at the time I’m able to write a check out.
309: TO CHARLOTTE RYCHTARIK
_Brooklyn, NY_ _Oct. 23rd, 1928_
Dear Charlotte: --/--/ Your letter made me feel a lot better. It lifted
a load from my spirit that I had felt for many months. I really need to
_see_ you, _talk_ with you to explain what a hell the last two years
have been. Perhaps you’d then see how it has been almost impossible for
me to write anyone. For who wants to hear nothing but troubles? I’ve
waited, putting off writing again and again, hoping to have something
interesting to offer--for that is what such as you and Richard deserve.
I can realize how deeply you have felt the loss of your mother. You seem
to have been having your share of tribulations.... O, I know.... How I
wish I could have seen you on your way through New York when you came
back from Europe! Now it may be some time before we get together again.
There is much to say, but little to tell--if you get what I mean. I
haven’t had a creative thought for so long that I feel quite lost and
_spurlos versenkt_. My present job lasts another week, and then I must
tramp around again to find another. Moving around, grabbing onto this
and that, stupid landladies--never enough sense of security to relax and
have a fresh thought--that’s about all the years bring besides new and
worse manifestations of family hysteria. It’s a great big bore! I feel
like saying what the Englishman did: “Too many buttons to button and
unbutton. I’m through!” -- -- -- --
310: TO MALCOLM COWLEY
[_Brooklyn_] _the 20th of the 28th at the A.M. 7-thirtieth_
Dear Malcolm: After the passionate pulchritude of the usual recent
maritime houreths--before embarking for the 20th story of the Henry L
Doherty Co’s 60 on Wall Street story--I salute your mss which arrived
yesterday morning--as well as the really cordial apologies accompanying
them for the really unhappy hours inaugurated last week by the hysteria
of S. God damn the female temperament! I’ve had thirty years of
it--lacking six months--and know something myself.
It’s me for the navy or Mallorca damned quick. Meanwhile sorting
securities of cancelled legions ten years back--for filing--pax
vobiscum--With Wall Street at 30 per--and chewing gum for lunch--
But here I am--full of Renault Wine Tonics--after an evening with the
Danish millionaire on Riverside--and better, thank God, a night with a
bluejacket from the Arkansas--raving like a ‘mad. And it’s time to go to
work. So long.... I’ll be careful with the mss.[60] And your book’ll be
out within 7 months.... About time! God bless you and give my love to
Peggy! And as W. J. Turner says: “O hear the swan song’s traffic’s cry!”
311: TO MALCOLM COWLEY
_Brooklyn, NY_ _Dec. 1, 1928_
Dear Malcolm: It has been a pleasure for me to spend part of the last
two days in typing the mss. of your book. Certainly I have been on more
intimate terms with the poems than ever, and my enthusiasm has been
heightened thereby rather than in any way diminished.
I now have two copies, one to turn over to the “secret” arbiter[61] here
and one to take with me to England. Whatever may or may not happen over
there I’ll at least be sure of having you along with me--which is much.
By the way, if the mss. is returned to you, refused, be sure to send it
at once to Coward-McCann, who, I understand, are calling for new poets
and planning some kind of series of them. Hanna [Josephson] spoke to me
about this yesterday.
Although I hope to get off next Saturday (probably on the _Tuscania_)
I’m not at all certain. The bank behaves too strangely--now ignores my
letters not to mention telegram. The meddlesome old nanny that is
handling the matter there will soon hear from me through a lawyer if
things don’t take a new turn by Monday. That’s the only way to handle
it, I guess. I’m to see Art Hays Monday and talk it over. At any rate, I
think it would be foolish to bring my troubles over to London with me
and have them poison my first impressions of the place.
To get back to the poems: I omitted practically nothing but the
Decorations. The arrangement you made is ideal. As to the places for the
following, I think you’ll agree that they are ideal:
“Tumbling Mustard” just before “Memphis Johnny”
“Still Life” just before “Seaport” (it doesn’t fit in the Grand Manner
section particularly)
“Two Winter Sonnets” just after “St. Bartholomew” (they come in
eloquently there)
Really the book as we now have it has astonishing structural sequence.
Most of the more doubtfully important poems come in the central section.
There is the fine indigenous soil sense to begin with in the Juniata,
and the eloquent and more abstract matter mounting to a kind of climax
toward the end. Hope you don’t mind my enthusiasm!
See _Show Boat_ when you come to town. Wise took me last night; the
beautiful new Ziegfield Theatre has them all beat--and the settings,
songs, costumes and glistening lithe girlies! Like greased
lightning--the suave mechanical perfection of the thing.
You may not hear from me again if I leave next Saturday, but Mrs. Turner
will be informed when I leave anyway. I’ll see that your mss. (the
original) is remailed to you registered, early next week. ----and I went
on the best bat ever last night--Sam’s [Loveman] old place--finally two
cops came in and joined the party at three o’clock--asked ---- to marry
me and live with me in Spain--but she’s got to wait for her divorce from
the Danish gaucho now on the pampas.
312: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN
[_R.M.S._] _Tuscania off Newfoundland_ _Dec. 9 ’28_
Ahoy Sam! The ship is rearing like a high-strung broncho--and I’m out
walking the quarter-deck much of the time--enjoying the rhythmical lift
and plunge of it. We’ve had high seas running and sleet and rain since
Sandy Hook but I’ve been down for every meal. O it’s great! The bad gin
pains are leaving my head and--taking only the bad memories with
them--_not_ the pleasant thoughts of you and Mony [Grunberg] and others.
This is a pleasant boat--not at all crowded--and such nice people.
English servants know how to be pleasant as well as efficient. And of
course I _would_ be given the one nearly handsome English waiter in the
salon! Rather tough food--but I’m getting used to it. The whiskey--which
is all I’ve tried thus far--is like balm of Gilead--or whatever Poe
said. A little goes a long ways--and really doesn’t sadden one.
P.S. Melville makes fine reading on this trip.
313: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN
(Postcard)
_Off Cornwall [England]_ [_December 13_]
Gorgeous weather all the way. Today is like the “Tristram” verse of
Swinburne. Millions of sea gulls following us and soaring overhead with
such a flood of golden light as seems tropical. The coast of Cornwall in
sight, and Plymouth by tea time.
314: TO CHARMION WIEGAND
_R.M.S. Rumrunia off the Coast of Ireland_ _near Christmas ’28_
Dear Charmion: My performance given at the Anderson party last summer
was but a slight forecast to the splendors of my behavior night before
last--when at a bal masque, dressed in a red coat of a sergeant-major,
sailor hat, shark swagger stick, etc.--I essayed a dervish whirl. But I
seem to have made no enemies and rum has become the favorite drink
throughout the cabin.
If anything, I’ve had almost too good a time! I have been the only
native American in the whole tourist cabin. The rest being Britishers,
Canadians, Australians visiting relatives abroad, etc.--and all of them
the pleasantest crowd I ever met. Think I’m going to like London
entirely too well for an early take-off to Spain. One old squire took me
for a Cambridge man--and I admit that after a day or two in conflab with
some of these natives one does tend to lose one’s “middle-western
accent.”
You must excuse my exuberance momentarily at least. I can’t stop being
tremendously pleased at the wonderful ale, the pleasant manners of
practically everybody (and one gets such graceful and attentive service
everywhere), the balmy spring air, and the prospect of meeting more of
such people soon on foreign shores. I feel really rested now, despite a
hectic round of pleasures.
It was so nice of you to come to the little beer party. When I think of
the mad rush of that last day I’m moved to wonder how I ever kept on my
feet. But I enjoyed the evening after all. Hope you met some people that
you liked. I’m always a little vain about my friends. --/--/
315: TO WALDO FRANK
[_London, England_] _December 28 ’28_
Dear Waldo: Landed here with incipient flu but have managed to stave it
off with good Jamaica rum and quinine. The city is soberly
impressive--full of courtesy and deep character. I feel now as though
I’d like to settle here--and even might--later on. But it’s too
expensive to linger long now--and I’m apt to be off to Paris next week.
Shall not stay there very long, either, as I want to get settled and at
work.
Am expecting to meet Edgell Rickword soon but not many others. Laura
Riding and Robert Graves (friend of Col. Lawrence and the one who
introduced Cummings here) have been delightfully hospitable. I had a
most luscious plum pudding with them Christmas -- -- -- -- on the Thames at
Hammersmith in front of Wm. Morris’ old headquarters.
No snow here at all--and the grass as green as summer in the parks. I’ve
already seen a great deal--tramping about by myself, drinking Australian
wine with old charwomen in Bedford Street--talking with ex-soldiers, and
then the National Gallery with the marvelous “Agony in the Garden” of El
Greco. The beautiful black and white streaked stone facades of the
buildings make me quite sentimental. London is negative (as Laura says)
but one gets a chance to breathe and deliberate. And there is something
genuine about nearly every Englishman one meets. I feel almost too much
at home.
Your pipe grows mellower every day. It’s a little like Paul Robeson’s
voice--and I’ve been enjoying him by the way. He and Essie have taken a
sumptuous home of an ex-ambassador to Turkey for the rest of his
engagement. But he’s anxious to get to Paris to earn some astonishing
laurels offered him there. --/--/
1929
316: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN
(Postcard)
[_Paris, France_] [_January 23, 1929_]
Dinners, soirées, poets, erratic millionaires, painters, translations,
lobsters, absinthe, music, promenades, oysters, sherry, aspirin,
pictures, Sapphic heiresses, editors, books, sailors. _And How!_
317: TO JOSEPH STELLA
_Paris_ _January 24th, 1929_
Dear Mr. Stella: Sometime before leaving America Charmion Habicht
[Wiegand] showed me a copy of your privately issued monograph called
“New York,” containing your essay on Brooklyn Bridge and the marvelous
paintings you made not only of the Bridge but other New York subjects.
This has been the admiration of everyone to whom I have shown it. And
now I am writing you to ask if you will give permission to an editor
friend of mine to reproduce the three pictures--“The Bridge,” “The
Port,” and the one called “The Skyscrapers.” He would also like to
reprint your essay.
I am referring to Mr. Eugene Jolas who is an editor of _transition_--a
magazine which you have probably heard of. He would like to use this
material in the next number if you will be so kind as to give us
permission. _transition_ is able to pay little or nothing now for
contributions, but, since our friend Varèse has told me that your essay
has never been printed in any journal, we feel that so splendid and
sincere a document should have wider circulation than private printing
has allowed it.
I have also a private favor of my own to ask of you. I should like
permission to use your painting of the Bridge as a frontispiece to a
long poem I have been busy on for the last three years--called _The
Bridge_. It is a remarkable coincidence that I should, years later, have
discovered that another person, by whom I mean you, should have had the
same sentiments regarding Brooklyn Bridge which inspired the main theme
and pattern of my poem. --/--/
318: TO GERTRUDE STEIN
[_Paris_] _Jan. 31, ’29_
Dear Miss Stein: May I introduce myself as a friend of your friend,
Laura Riding?
And on that presumption may I ask to see you some hour early next
week--whenever it may suit your convenience to have me call--?
I am going away for the weekend, but shall probably be back by Monday
evening. I hope I may hear from you.
319: TO MALCOLM COWLEY
[_Paris_] _Feb. 4 ’29_
Dear Malcolm: Time here flies faster than I can count. And now along
comes the good news from you about the book of poems. Of course I’m all
the happier that you got better terms from Hal [Smith]--it’s all to the
good. But I do hope that you have seen Munson by this time, and at least
thanked him for his interest. For the very fact that you were able to
make such an announcement to Hal may well have influenced his interest
to a great extent. Such matters are rather officious for me to mention I
fear, but I do think Munson deserves some real credit. --/--/
I’m dizzy, also, with meeting people. “Teas” are cocktails here--and
then that’s just the start of the evening. And as lions come these days,
I’m known already, I fear, as the best “roarer” in Paris.
Have just returned from a weekend at Ermenonville (near Chantilly) on
the estate of the Duc du Rochefoucauld where an amazing millionaire by
the name of Harry Crosby has fixed up an old mill (with stables and a
stockade all about) and such a crowd as attended _is_ remarkable. I’m
invited to return at any time for any period to finish _The Bridge_, but
I’ve an idea that I shall soon wear off my novelty. Anyway, Crosby, who
inherited the famous Walter Berry (London) library, has such things as
first editions of Hakklyt [Hakluyt] (I can’t spell today) and is going
to bring out a private edition of _The Bridge_ with such details as a
reproduction of Stella’s picture in actual color as frontispiece.
He’s also doing Lawrence, Cummings and Kay Boyle. It takes a book to
describe the Crosbys--but it has (I mean the connection) already led me
to new atrocities--such as getting drunk yesterday and making violent
love to nobility. As -- -- -- -- was just about to marry, I couldn’t do
better, though all agree (including Kay Boyle and Lawrence Vail) that I
did my best. --/--/
320: TO WALDO FRANK
[_Paris_] _February 7th, 1929_
Dear Waldo: It would take volumes to tell you all that’s
happened--mainly the people I’ve met, I fear, and just that sort of
thing. For I haven’t got down to work yet, and probably won’t do so
until I get off to some quieter place in the country. This City, as you
know, is the most interesting madhouse in the world. But I intend
getting away as soon as possible. Not to Spain, though, for a while. I
want to learn French--and as you know, Mallorca won’t teach me Spanish
either. So the above bank address is good for some time. And please
don’t forget to send me your _Re-discovery of America_ now, as soon as
possible. I need it as a balance against the seductions of Europe, for
I’m afraid I _am_ being seduced by the astonishing ease of life
hereabouts. Paris really is a test for an American, I’m beginning to
feel. And I’m so far from certain that I’m equal to it in my present
mood that I’m quite uneasy. However, things don’t look so bad. --/--/ I
had thought of going to Villefranche, but after last weekend at
Ermenonville I changed my mind. The beautiful grounds of the Chateau,
donkeys and bikes to ride, a whole tower to myself and all the service
that millionaires are used to having--all that is very alluring, and I
would be quite alone except for the gatherings on weekends. But Harry is
highly erratic and nothing may come of it. I may go out to Jolas’s place
in Haute-Marne instead. At any rate I won’t be far from Paris.
I can’t tell you how deeply I appreciate your generous pains in sending
me the letters of introduction. Gide, I heard, left for Africa a few
days before your letter reached me. I haven’t looked up Larbaud yet, but
intend to. I trust that I can use those for Spain at any time in the
future, for I do intend going to Spain, you know, perhaps before the end
of this year. Jolas took me around to meet Soupault and his wife who
entertain a good deal and who have been very generous with me. I haven’t
had a good talk yet with Aragon but have met him several times along
with others. An amazingly handsome fellow, I think, who possesses an
elegance that is rare. I went to see Gertrude Stein despite my
indifference to most of her work. One is supposed to inevitably change
one’s mind about her work after meeting her. I haven’t, but must say
that I’ve seldom met so delightful a personality. _And_ the woman is
beautiful! AND the Picassos!
Margy [Naumburg] has been here but I haven’t yet seen her. Everyone has
been having colds and flu and she didn’t escape. There is no point, I’m
sure, in listing more names, as it might well bore you. Certainly I’m a
bit tired with all the talking and chattering, however interesting it is
at times. I feel a great need to get into myself again, and into my
work. When I consider that it has been over a year since I have written
anything longer than scratch notes for _The Bridge_ I’m almost
overwhelmed. What a year it has been, too! It has been the most decisive
year of my life in a number of ways. But I also find that I now need
more strength than ever. --/--/
321: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK
[_Paris_] _Feb. 26th, 1929_
Dear Charlotte & Richard: First of all--before you read another word of
this--you must swear to me not to repeat to anyone that you have even
heard from me, not even that you know where I am. I hate to begin my
letter so seriously, but in time you will know more about _why_ I don’t
want my family to find my whereabouts right now. I am very serious about
this request, and I’m sure that you have enough interest in my work to
abstain from any action which would cripple me.
It was fine to hear from you--two good long letters--and to know that
all is going along so well in every way. I’m especially glad that you,
Richard, have received such good notice and representation in the
theatre literature which you mentioned. And from the other matters
mentioned, I judge that Cleveland has been far from a cemetery--part of
the credit for which is due to you both, _I know_. The Christmas card
was a beauty, but then, so are all of them that you have ever made!
I scarcely know how to begin to tell you all that’s been happening to me
during the last year. But here’s a brief summary, omitting thousands of
details, all of which, however, are really important.... During my
sojourn with the millionaire in California last winter my mother made
life so miserable for me with incessant hysterical fits and interminable
nagging that I had to steal off east again, like a thief in the night,
in order to save my sanity or health from a complete breakdown. I went
back to Patterson and tried to pull myself together, without money or
prospects of any kind. Then in September, after I had secured a good job
with an advertising agency, my Grandmother died, leaving me the
inheritance which my grandfather bequeathed me over fifteen years ago.
Of course there had been a coolness between my mother and me ever since
I left California. The net result of this was that (being co-executor of
the estate with the Guardian Trust Co.) she held back her signature to
the papers for weeks, pretending to be too ill to sign her name. And
finally she threatened to do all sorts of things if I did not come at
once to California and spend it with her--among which she said she would
write to my father and try to get him to intercede with the bank against
paying me! This could have no effect whatever, but you may gather a
little bit from what I have said about just how considerate and
honorable she was! I can’t begin to tell you about all the underground
and harrowing tactics she employed. Got people who were practically
strangers to write me threatening and scolding letters, so that I never
came home from work without wonder--and trembling about what next I
should find awaiting me. She had, through abuse, destroyed all the
affection I had for her before I left the west; but now she made me
actually hate her. I finally had to consult a lawyer, who directed his
guns on the bank. This finally brought results. In the meantime I had
given up all my plans about buying a little country place in
Connecticut, for her ultimate home as much as mine. There was literally
no other sensible plan but to take my money and get out of communication
as soon as possible.
After having received written promise from the bank (as well as an
advance) that the money would be in my hands by a certain day, I went
ahead and engaged steamer passage to London. But the bank did not even
keep its word, and I did not actually get the money until a few hours
before the boat sailed. You can imagine my state of mind. I got on the
boat more dead than alive. And I have not since had the least desire to
know what is going on in California, and doubt if I ever _shall_ care.
Since my mother has made it impossible for me to live in my own country
I feel perfectly justified in my indifference. I have had no particular
quarrel with my father, and shall write him sometime after _The Bridge_
is done and I don’t fear mental complications. Meanwhile I’m so sure
that she has carried out her threat and written him certain things that
I’d rather keep out of it all. Twenty-five years of such exhausting
quibbling is enough, and I feel I owe myself a good long vacation from
it all. Neither one of them really cares a rap for me anyway. I have
much more to tell you sometime, but this is enough for now....
--/--/ Went to the famous dangerous and tough Limehouse section
expecting some exciting adventures, but found that most of the young
toughs drank only lemonade--and after I had had several swigs of Scotch
they all seemed to be afraid of me! O life is funny! I’d like to go back
to England sometime in the summer of the year. The damp, raw cold was
like a knife in my throat--and the hotels like cellars. I left there on
the 7th of January, and life has been like a carnival ever since--here
in Paris.
I’ve never been in such a social whirl--all sorts of amusing people,
scandalous scenes, cafe encounters, etc. Writers, painters, heiresses,
counts and countesses, Hispano-Suizas, exhibitions, concerts, fights,
and--well, you know Paris, probably better than I do. I had originally
intended to stop here only two or three weeks on the way to a permanent
location at Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands (Spain). But I’ve
fallen so much in love with the French and French ways that I’ve decided
to stay here until summer anyway, and try to learn the language before
leaving.
All sorts of things have happened. Through Eugene Jolas, editor of
_transition_, I met Harry Crosby who is heir to all the Morgan-Harjes
millions and who is the owner of a marvelous de luxe publishing
establishment here. --/--/ He has renovated an old mill (16th century)
out on the ground of the chateau of the Comte du Rochefoucauld at
Ermenonville where I have spent several wild weekends. Polo with golf
sticks on donkeys! Old stagecoaches! Skating on the beautiful grounds of
the chateau! Oysters, absinthe, even opium, which I’ve tried, but don’t
enjoy. I had the pleasure, last week, of spending five days out there
working all by myself, with just the gardener and his wife bringing me
food and wine beside a jolly hearth-fire. And the beautiful forests all
around--like the setting for _Pelléas et Mélisande_! I’m going out again
soon. Meanwhile I dream of how fine they’ve promised to publish _The
Bridge_--on sheets as large as a piano score, so none of the lines will
be broken--and they have already sent to the Brooklyn Art Museum to have
the Stella picture of the Bridge copied in color for reproduction as a
frontispiece! --/--/
322: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN
(Postcard)
[_Collioure, France_] _April 23 ’29_
Nightingales all night and the sound of surf all day! I don’t know what
could rival this spot for form and color. Hope you are alright--you
certainly haven’t wasted much ink telling me!
323: TO SLATER BROWN
_Collioure, Pyrénées-Orientales_ _25 Avril ’29_
Bill: Why the hell don’t you write to me? You used to. And here I am,
sitting by the shore of the most shockingly beautiful fishing
village--with towers, baronial, on the peaks of the Pyrenees all about,
wishing more than anything else that you were on the other side of the
table.
This begins to look as good as the West Indies. Maybe--if I could talk
Catalan it would be better. I began to feel as you predicted about
Paris. Wish you were with me! I don’t know whether you want to hear from
me or not--since you have never written--but here’s my love anyway,
Bill--
324: TO GERTRUDE STEIN
(Postcard)
[_Collioure_] [_ca. April 29_]
There has been too much wind to notice odors. I like it so far, and
expect to stay awhile. Feel quite indigenous since spending last night
out on a sardine schooner. The dialect isn’t so easily assimilated.
325: TO ISIDOR SCHNEIDER
_Collioure, Pyr.-Orientales_ _May 1st, 1929_
Dear Isidor: --/--/ As regards creative writing--I can’t say that I’m
finding Europe extremely stimulating. I left home in a bad state of
nerves and spirit and haven’t exactly recovered yet, so perhaps my
reactions are not as fresh as they might be. Perhaps a few weeks of the
quiet of places like this ancient fishing port may change my mind--but
at any rate I haven’t so far completed so much as one additional section
to _The Bridge_. It’s coming out this fall in Paris, regardless.
-- -- -- -- If it eventuates that I have the wit or inspiration to add to
it later--such additions can be incorporated in some later edition. I’ve
alternated between embarrassment and indifference for so long that when
the Crosbys urged me to let them have it, declaring that it reads well
enough as it already is, I gave in. Malcolm advised as much before I
left America, so I feel there may be some justification. The poems,
arranged as you may remember, do have I think, a certain progression.
And maybe the gaps are more evident to me than to others ... indeed,
they must be. --/--/ I recently have been informed that the 1st edition
of _White Bldgs._ is sold out. There won’t be another for awhile, I
guess. There were only 500 printed, just half the number that I, until
recently, had supposed. But that’s the usual number, I’m told.
I do hope you prevail on L[iveright] to bring out Hopkins’ verse. But I
doubt it. I think he’s a bit thick-skinned to sympathize. Recently a
friend of Laura Riding and Graves, Geoffrey Phibbs, whom I’ve never met,
sent me a copy right out of a clear sky. I was dumb-foundered--for it
certainly is rare when such wealthy bibliophiles as Harry Crosby are
unable through all their London agents to locate a copy. So when I come
back, we’ll have at least one copy “in the family” as it were! whatever
Liveright decides.
London, I can still believe, might be delightful under proper
circumstances. I had incipient flu before I landed, then the raw cold of
the particular season, the bad hotel accommodations, the indigestible
food AND Laura’s [Riding] hysterical temper at the time--all combined to
send me off with no particular regrets. It’s certainly the most
expensive place I can imagine--more than even New York unless you’re
really settled down. I loved its solid, ponderous masonry--and the gaunt
black-and-white streakings and shadings. It’s a city for the etcher. I
must tell you about my excursion to Limehouse sometime--where, expecting
to be blackjacked, etc., I drank so many scotch-and-sodas during a game
of darts in one of the pubs, that I frightened people, actually scared
some of the toughs about--all of whom struck me as being very pleasant
people. I’d like to go there again and stay longer sometime--but not
during the winter!
As for Paris, I’ll have to wait until I see you to touch the subject.
Phillipe Soupault and his wife were about the most hospitable French
people I met, and Gertrude Stein about the most impressive personality
of all. The marvellous room of hers, the Picasso’s, Juan Gris and others
(including some very interesting youngsters) on the walls! Then there
were Ford Madox Ford, Wescott, Bernadine Szold (just back from the
Orient), Richard Aldington, Walter Lowenfels (who has an interesting
book of verse coming out in England--(Heinemann), Emma Goldman, Klaus
Mann, Eugene MacCown, Jolas (whom I like very much), Edgar Varèse, Rene
Crevel, Kay Boyle, (who has decided she likes me) and a hundred others
just as interesting, or more so, who aren’t particularly known. The
Tates are living in Ford’s apartment while he is away, and declare they
never want to leave Paris. I like it all too well, myself, but would
have to live there a long while before I could settle down to accomplish
any work, I fear. And lately--all cities get on my nerves after a few
weeks. I’d never want to settle down for good over here like many do,
however,--town _or_ country. For even here by the blue inland sea, with
ancient citadels and fortifications crowning the heights of a lovely
white-walled, village--I can’t help thinking of my room out there in
Patterson. Silly, I know ... but what can one do about it?
My plans are vague. May stay here two months more or only two weeks.
Spain is very near, but also, I hear, very expensive. I’m crossing over
to a nearby town to see a bull fight in a couple of days. But I may not
explore it much further at the time, regardless of my intense interest.
There are other small ports between here and Marseille which are very
intriguing. I can’t regret not seeing everything this trip--or even
never. You see I like France pretty well! -- -- -- --
326: TO ALLEN TATE
_Marseille,_ _11 June ’29_
Dear Allen: --/--/ I didn’t stay more than three weeks at Collioure.
Since then I’ve been in and about Marseille, a city which has a great
deal of interest to me, although there’s nothing whatever here to
interest the usual type of tourist. Have just come back from two weeks
visiting Roy Campbell and family out at Martigues, a sort of Venice and
Gloucester combined, being built on three islands made by canals joining
the Etang de Berre with the sea.
I have come to love Provence, the wonderful Cezannesque light (you see
him everywhere here) and the latinity of the people. Arabs, Negros,
Greeks, and Italian and Spanish mixtures. The Campbells rent a house and
have a maid for almost nothing, but swimming isn’t good there and there
are other features which might not appeal to you as much as the country
east of here where you are planning to go. Marsden Hartley whom I
encountered here knows the whole coast, both sides of the Rhone, and
prefers it here. I’m coming back to Paris within a couple of weeks but
may take a swift excursion over to Nice and environs beforehand, just to
see what I’ve missed by hanging around here so long. Then maybe my
advice will be worth more than at present.
I’m planning on returning to N.Y. before very long. How soon depends
largely on what I hear from the Crosbys on my return to Paris regarding
their edition of _The Bridge_. I’m anticipating a good visit with you
and Carolyn [Gordon] before many days. Thanks a lot for the money order,
exactly correct in amount, and quite providential at the moment as the
bank has been slow in forwarding me funds. -- -- -- --
327: TO WALDO FRANK
(Postcard)
[_Marseille_] _June 17, 1929_
Can’t get around to that long and grateful letter to you that you so
much deserve. Why?--don’t ask me yet! But it isn’t because I don’t often
long to see you. I have been in an undecided state since before we last
met. I pray for relief.
328: TO MALCOLM COWLEY
[_Paris_] _July 3rd, 1929_
Dear Malcolm: Since reading the proofs I’m certain that the book is even
better than before. And the notes!--When you first mentioned them to me
I admit having trembled slightly at the idea. But since seeing them I
haven’t a doubt. The maturity of your viewpoint is evident in every
word. Humor and sincerity blend into some of the cleverest and adroit
writing I know of, leaving the book a much more solidified unit than it
was before. I haven’t had the original mss. with me for comparison, but
wherever I have noted changes they seem to be for the better. Nor do I
regret any of the additions. I like the added bulk of the book. Really,
Malcolm--if you will excuse me for the egoism--I’m just a little proud
at the outcome of my agitations last summer. _Blue Juniata_ will have a
considerable sale for a long period to come, for the bulk of it has a
classical quality--both as regards material and treatment--that won’t
suffer rejection by anyone who cares or who will later care for American
letters.
I would particularize more copiously except that I’m expecting to see
you within relatively so short a time.... I’ll be back in NY by the
first of September at the latest, and I may be back a month before.
Perhaps it’s just as well that a good part of my money is tied up in a
savings account in New York and inaccessible to me here. As it is, I
haven’t any great regrets about coming back at this time. When I come to
France again I’ll sail direct for Marseille--and it’s certainly my
intention to come again! I’m looking forward to talking it all over with
you--so get a little cider ready for the occasion! --/--/
329: TO CARESSE CROSBY
_Patterson, New York_ _August 8th, 1929_
Dear Caresse: Herewith are the gloss notes that I showed you, now
corrected and ready to include with the composition of the first two
sections of _The Bridge_. You will see where each block of them falls by
the _key lines_ typed at the left. I have kept them narrow as that seems
to be the custom--and we don’t want to crowd our margins. (See
MacLeish’s _Hamlet_ and the version of “The Ancient Mariner” as printed
in the _Oxford Anthology_.) I can’t help thinking them a great help in
binding together the general theme of “Powhatan’s Daughter.” As for the
Columbus note, it simply silhouettes the scenery before the colors
arrive to inflame it....
I’m working on the other remaining sections indicated in the index of
the ms. as you have it, and hope to get a couple of them off to you
within ten days. I haven’t had a chance to see Mr. Fox, director of the
Brooklyn Museum, yet, as he has been away on his vacation, but have an
appointment made with his secretary for early next week. I’m hoping to
see Harry Marks as soon as he returns in order to ask his advice about
having a copy made of the picture, the amount to pay, etc. Meanwhile,
from what Harry [Crosby] said, I judge that you are going ahead with
setting certain sections. Don’t rush along too fast, though--please! If
we get it out by the last of November it will be soon enough. Meanwhile
I’m not negotiating with Liveright or anyone else. I don’t think there
will be any difficulty whatever in disposing of the 250 which you are
printing. I don’t know how many people have already bespoken copies, and
I’ll send you a list of names later on which will be pretty sure-fire.
New York seems better than ever to me. The beaches are wonderful--and
packed with pulchritude. Where are you these days? I somehow can’t
picture you as still in Paris.
P.S. Please ask Harry if he can think of any job for that nice Danish
boy I introduced him to the morning I sailed. He’s without work or
funds--and starving. He’s an expert trainer and keeper of horses (Danish
Royal Artillery) and speaks English fairly well. -- -- -- -- Honest,
industrious, and will do anything that’s honorable.
330: TO HARRY AND CARESSE CROSBY
_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _August 30th, 1929_
Dear Harry and Caresse: I had my first visit with Harry Marks today and
am glad to hear that he has nothing as yet to report about any work of
yours on _The Bridge_. For, as you know, I am anxious to add more--the
“Cape Hatteras” section, at least--before you bring it out. This is now
being worked out rapidly, and the aeronautical sections which you so
much admired have been improved and augmented considerably. However, the
line-lengths are longer than in any other section--so long, in fact,
that to preserve them unbroken across the page I think we ought to
change our plan regarding page size and use, instead of the
previously-agreed-on Perse book for a model, your Mad Queen volume--even
better looking in other respects, too, I think. I hope I can ask you for
this change without appearing too presumptuous!
How did you like the “gloss” I sent you recently? I’m passionately
anxious to hear from you as soon as possible. --/--/
I’m settled at last in a comfortable furnished apartment--not far from
the navy yard. There have been great house-warmings, especially since I
can buy corn whiskey from my janitor for only $6. per gallon! No more
querulous, farty old landladies for me for awhile. Write me from now on
directly at the above address instead of Patterson. Liveright is issuing
a second edition of _White Buildings_--_Vanity Fair_ bestows laurels in
the Sept. issue--Eliot urges me to contribute as well as old Mamby Canby
of _The Sat[urday] Review_, the old enemy camp. So I’m feeling
optimistic to a large extent.
331: TO CARESSE CROSBY
_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _6th September 1929_
Dear Caresse: Just received the first specimen proofs a little late,
unfortunately, as my old landlady out at Patterson had thought they were
“printed matter” and had failed to forward them as soon as certain other
mail. But you’ll be writing me direct to the above address in the future
anyway.
Please go ahead and set up what sections you already have in the large
sized type. I like it much better than the smaller sized Caslon.
Only--don’t you think that page (I’m using it as a model) would look
better balanced, and certainly not crowded, with about four more lines
of verse on it? I think that the extreme depth of the bottom margin
looks awkward rather than luxurious.
I have more to send--and it’s very important. I am working like mad
since I’ve found this apartment where I can keep my own hours, etc. I’m
too rushed to type you out a final copy of this finale to the “Cape
Hatteras” section yet, but you can get some idea of what I’m
accomplishing by the muddled copy I’m including herewith. You’ll have
the final version--including what you read in Paris--within a few days,
aeronautics and all. It looks pretty good to me, and at least according
to _my_ ideas of _The Bridge_ this edition wouldn’t be complete or even
representative without it.
Then the “Quaker Hill” section--and “Indiana,” the final subsection to
“Powhatan’s Daughter” (which won’t require any gloss, I think) will come
in quick succession. I know what to plan on fairly well when I get into
one of these fevers of work. So please be patient. The book must have
these sections and I can promise to have them in your hands by the
second week in October! Then clear steaming ahead! I’m very happy about
the paper, format and all which you have selected. I’ll try to get you
the fresh photo of Stella’s picture within a few days.
I hope you and Harry are still planning on a visit here next winter.
Then maybe I can make up for the kiss I missed when sailing! Do you
really like that little necklace that much?!! My gifts seldom have so
fortunate a reception!
332: TO CARESSE CROSBY
[_Brooklyn_] _Sept. 6th ’29_
Dear Caresse: I forgot to include this new version of “Cutty Sark” in
the earlier letter sent today. I have changed very little--what little
has been only to promote clarity--which includes a more generous
sprinkling of punctuation. So please use this instead of the version
you’ve had.
The same quotation as before is used on the introductory sheet:
O, the navies old and oaken
O, the _Temeraire_ no more!
--_Melville_
Hope this doesn’t put you out!
333: TO CARESSE CROSBY
_Patterson, N. Y._ _Sept. 17, 1929_
Dear Caresse: I sent you, registered, the “Cape Hatteras” last version.
But retyping it for a magazine, I couldn’t help glimpsing some necessary
improvements. So please use this _second_ version, as enclosed. I vow
that you’ll be troubled by no further emendations--excepting perhaps a
comma or so on the proofs.
Since I’m writing I can’t help saying that I’m highly pleased with the
way I’ve been able to marshal the notes and agonies of the last two
years’ effort into a rather arresting synthesis....
Gosh, how I’d like a bottle of Cutty Sark tonight to soothe my excited
nerves! The countryside is the dryest here in years--and nothing to hope
for next year, as frost and this later drowth have ruined the apple
crop! I had to flee the heat in the city for a week’s work up here in my
old farmhouse room. It’s lovely, too. Another week of it--by which time
I expect to have finished the two remaining sections,--and I’ll be back
in city quarters (130 Columbia Hts)....
334: TO LORNA DIETZ
_Patterson_ _Wednesday [ca. October 23, 1929]_
Dearest Lorna: I’ve been _weltschmerzing_ a little bit all by myself
here since last Saturday afternoon, when I suddenly picked up and left
town. I’ve never seen such color as this year’s autumnal shades, but the
storm that began this morning after three wonderful days of sunshine
probably won’t leave so much on the boughs to be gazed at....
Nevertheless I’m staying on at least until next Monday--and maybe
somewhat longer. I feel quite rested already, but I know that I need a
little “reserve” after the way I’ve been acting. I’m _hoping_ also, to
complete the last two sections [_The Bridge_], God ‘elp me! And then to
come back to town and see you again in your sweet, new, cheerful, rosy
little nest! -- -- -- --
335: TO CARESSE CROSBY
_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _December 26th, 1929_
Dearest Caresse: I am hastily enclosing the final version of “Quaker
Hill,” which ends my writing on _The Bridge_. You can now go ahead and
finish it all. I’ve been slow, Heaven knows, but I know that you will
forgive me. I haven’t added as many verses to what you took with you as
I had expected. I had several more, roughly, in notes, but think that my
present condensation is preferable. “Quaker Hill” is not, after all, one
of the major sections of the poem; it is rather by way of an “accent
mark” that it is valuable at all.
By the way, will you see that the middle photograph (the one of the
barges and tug) goes between the “Cutty Sark” Section and the “Hatteras”
Section. That is the “center” of the book, both physically and
symbolically. Evans is very anxious, as am I, that no ruling or printing
appear on the pages devoted to the reproductions--which is probably your
intention anyway.
I have an idea for a change in one line of the dedication “To B.
Bridge.” If you don’t like it, don’t change it. But I feel that it is
more logical, even if no more suggestive. Instead of:
“--_And elevators heave us to our day_”
I suggest
“--_Till elevators drop us from our day_”
I’ll leave the choice to you.
I think of you a great deal. This letter doesn’t represent _me_ really,
at all. But I must get it off for the _Mauretania_ or else risk the
delays of one of the slower steamers, and I fear that you are already
impatient. I shall write you more very soon, meanwhile I hope that you
have recovered somewhat from the exhaustion that must have followed on
your brave and marvelous endurance at the time of your departure. --/--/
P.S. Please send a review copy to Yvor Winters--RFD1, Palo Alto,
California. -- -- -- --
1930
336: TO CHARLOTTE RYCHTARIK
_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _February 11th, 1930_
Dear Charlotte: I shoulda, kinda, gotta, really write you before ... but
how time does fly! No, I’m not in Africa chasing lions and monkeys, but
right here in Babylon hunting jobs. Sometimes I am sure, very sure
indeed, that my days of romance are thoroughly dead and passed. I happen
to be in that mood now--and if money has anything to do with the matter
perhaps I’m right. Friends make a big difference however, and I hope I
may always be expecting another letter from you and Richard.
I almost shed tears when I think of how little I saw of you during my
last visit. My melodramatic departure and the attending circumstances
sent me to bed with a backache for three weeks after I got home. Then,
as you guessed, the terrible shock of Harry Crosby’s suicide threw me
flat again for another week. I had just given a big party for him and
his wife a few days before that happened, and I was with his wife and
mother on the evening when the disaster occurred. In fact it was I who
had to bring the terrible news to those two lovely women. Mrs. Crosby
left for France a couple of days later, just as she had planned to do
anyway. I think she has been a very brave woman to go right ahead and
bring out the Paris edition of _The Bridge_ on regular schedule. I heard
from her yesterday--and by now the edition is ready to be shipped to the
agent here, Harry F. Marks, ----. As I told you, it’s a beautiful job of
printing. The type used is a new French type, very much like the face
which Richard recommended, Garamond. The Liveright edition (ready April
1st) is in Garamond and will be quite handsome also. Great interest has
been aroused in advance and I am sure to get some very laudatory
reviews. I really don’t want to write any poetry for awhile now, but
just the same feel somehow depressed that I haven’t some ambitious
project on hand to take the place of _The Bridge_. I haven’t seen the
dancers that you spoke of, but hear that they are very good. If you ever
get a chance to see the pantomime of Angna Enters in Cleveland be sure
not to miss her. She is wonderful! Humor, pathos, tragedy--the whole
gamut of the emotions. And there have been some wonderful art shows here
this winter, better than any I saw in Europe. The Museum of Modern Art
right now has a marvelous collection of modern French painters, etc.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Marin shows--and I wish you could see the show of a
friend of mine, Peter Blume! --/--/
337: TO WALDO FRANK
[_Brooklyn_] _March 16th_
Dear Waldo: It was _so_ kind of you to have replied so quickly and
generously! I feel quite guilty for not having thanked you sooner. I’ve
really never known so discouraging a time job-hunting. Insomnia has got
me on the rack--and I really can’t envisage just what is in store, but
perhaps after the reviews of _The Bridge_ come out (Liveright’s edition
is due out next week) I’ll possibly be able to rally my confidence and
make a better impression in “the business world.”
Meanwhile the disintegrating forces of N.Y. strike me as pretty severe!
It was reassuring to know that you got your copy of _The Bridge_.
Cummings and one or two others didn’t--quite inexplicably. There’s much
in it new to your eyes, and I am quite tremulous of your opinion, though
perfectly content to wait for the time when you can afford to give it a
good reading.
I’ll try to find you a first edition of _White Buildings_--but I haven’t
much hope of locating one. Among your books somewhere you’ll find the
copy I gave you, inscribed too, for I’m awfully certain I didn’t fail in
that essential courtesy due long ago. Or you may have lost it. I’ll send
you a copy of the second edition anyhow, and if my memory has served me
wrong you’ll forgive me I’m sure. --/--/
338: To Paul Rosenfeld
_Patterson, N.Y._ _April 21st_,
Dear Paul: I’m sorry not to have the “Letter”[62] in your hands by this
time. I’m hoping that a week’s delay won’t afflict your schedule too
seriously.
As usual, when I attempt any sort of technical disquisitions I’m
struggling against the chronic habit I seem to have--of trying to cram
everything into one paragraph! I got clogged up, then paralyzed,--at
least momentarily thrown off. But my intentions are honest and good. And
I’m hoping to make my promise good by next Saturday.
There’s no liquor out here, at any rate.
339: TO HERBERT WEINSTOCK
_Patterson, New York_ _April 22nd, 1930_
Dear Herbert Weinstock: You have my sincerest gratitude for your
enthusiastic review of _The Bridge_. Van Vuren had already sent me a
copy, and I was just on the point of writing you my thanks when along
came your good letter.
I hope I am deserving of such lofty companions as you group me with. I
am almost tempted to believe your claims on the strength of your amazing
insight into my objectives in writing, my particular symbolism, the
intentional condensation and “density” of structure that I occasionally
achieve, and the essential religious motive throughout my work. This
last-mentioned feature commits me to self-consciousness on a score that
makes me belie myself a little. For I have never consciously approached
any subject in a religious mood; it is only afterward that I, or someone
else generally, have noticed a prevalent piety. God save me from a
Messianic predisposition!
It is pertinent to suggest, I think, that with more time and familiarity
with _The Bridge_ you will come to envisage it more as one poem with a
clearer and more integrated unity and development than was at first
evident. At least if my own experience in reading and rereading Eliot’s
_Wasteland_ has any relation to the circumstances this _may_ be found to
be the case. It took me nearly five years, with innumerable readings to
convince myself of the essential unity of that poem. And _The Bridge_ is
at least as complicated in its structure and inferences as _The
Wasteland_--perhaps more so.
I shall remember to write you my exact whereabouts in time to reach you
before you leave for the East and Europe, and we shall meet somewhere in
New York. At present the unemployment situation has me balked for any
definite location beyond the next day or so.
340: TO EDA LOU WALTON
_Patterson, New York_ _April 23rd, 1930_
Dear Eda Lou: I am enclosing an extract from a letter written to Otto
Kahn some time ago explaining my intentions in certain sections of _The
Bridge_. I submit it to you more or less as I did to him, not as a
justification for the poem but as a fairly accurate chart of certain
purposes in the poem which I may or may not have succeeded in
accomplishing. It may interest you. And since you have been kind enough
to include the poem in your course at N.Y.U., it may prove even helpful
in elucidating certain aspects of the poem.
Please keep this paper to yourself, however. I am at present busy with
an elaboration of it into a more or less formalized essay for _The New
American Caravan_. I’d like to have it back within two weeks if it won’t
trouble you too much.
341: TO SELDEN RODMAN
_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _May 22nd, 1930_
Dear Mr. Rodman: Your criticism of _The Bridge_ was very much to the
point, and I am grateful for your enthusiasm. I also share your
admiration for the poetry of Archibald MacLeish, though I feel that at
times he betrays too evidently a bias toward the fashionable pessimism
of the hour so well established by T. S. Eliot.
I tried to break loose from that particular strait-jacket, without
however committing myself to any oppositional form of didacticism. Your
diffidence in ascribing any absolute conclusions in the poem is
therefore correct, at least according to my intentions. The poem, as a
whole, is, I think, an affirmation of experience, and to that extent is
“positive” rather than “negative” in the sense that _The Waste Land_ is
negative.
In a few days I am leaving town for the summer, but I should like to
meet you next autumn if you are in this vicinity then.
342: TO ISIDOR SCHNEIDER
_Patterson, N.Y._ _June 8, ’30_
Dear Isidor: --/--/ That makes me all the more grateful for the evident
care which you took in your review of _The Bridge_. Certainly I don’t
see what more I could ask for--than your generous credit to and
recognition of practically all the aspirations implicit in the poem. I
hope the actual poem is deserving of it all. If you have read Winters’
attack in the June issue of _Poetry_ you cannot have been more
astonished than I was to note the many reversals of opinion he has
undergone since reading my acknowledgment to Whitman in the later “Cape
Hatteras” section.
Had it not been for our previous extended correspondence I would not, of
course, have written him about it. But as things stood I could hardly
let silence infer an acceptance on my part of all the wilful distortions
of meaning, misappropriations of opinion, pedantry and pretentious
classification--besides illogic--which his review presents par
excellence. I must read what prejudices he defends, I understand,
against writing about subways, in the anti-humanist symposium. Poets
should defer alluding to the sea, also, I presume, until Mr. Winters has
got an invitation for a cruise!
I haven’t any work whatever in mind. I guess I can trust my father’s
promise of a small allowance to carry me along out here until fall, when
the gates of employment may prove a little better oiled than they have
for some time past. If you hear of anything, Isidor, please let me know.
I’m aching to get busy at almost anything. --/--/
343: TO ALLEN TATE
_Gaylordsville, Conn._ _July 13th, 1930_
Dear Allen: Your last good letter and the admirable review of _The
Bridge_ in _The Hound & Horn_ deserved an earlier response, but time has
somehow just been drifting by without my being very conscious of it. For
one thing, I have been intending to get hold of a copy of _The Hound &
Horn_ and give your review a better reading, before replying, than I
could achieve at the tables in Brentano’s when I was in town about two
weeks ago. I still haven’t a copy and consequently may wrong you in
making any comments whatever. But as I don’t want to delay longer I hope
you’ll pardon any discrepancies.
The fact that you posit _The Bridge_ at the end of a tradition of
romanticism may prove to have been an accurate prophecy, but I don’t yet
feel that such a statement can be taken as a foregone conclusion. A
great deal of romanticism may persist--of the sort to deserve serious
consideration, I mean.
But granting your accuracy--I shall be humbly grateful if _The Bridge_
can fulfil simply the metaphorical inferences of its title.... You will
admit our age (at least our predicament) to be one of transition. If
_The Bridge_, embodying as many anomalies as you find in it, yet
contains as much authentic poetry here and there as even Winters
grants,--then perhaps it can serve as at least the function of a link
connecting certain chains of the past to certain chains and tendencies
of the future. In other words, a diagram or “process” in the sense that
Genevieve Taggard refers to all my work in estimating Kunitz’s
achievement in the enclosed review. This gives it no more interest than
as a point of chronological reference, but “nothing ventured, nothing
gained”--and I can’t help thinking that my mistakes may warn others who
may later be tempted to an interest in similar subject matter.
Personally I think that Taggard is a little too peremptory in dispensing
with Kunitz’s “predecessors.” We’re all unconscious evolutionists, I
suppose, but she apparently belongs to the more rabid ranks. I can’t
help wishing I had read more of Kunitz before seeing her review. He is
evidently an excellent poet. I should like to have approached him, not
as one bowing before Confucius, nor as one buying a new nostrum for lame
joints. Taggard, like Winters, isn’t looking for poetry any more. Like
Munson, they are both in pursuit of some cure-all. Poetry as poetry (and
I don’t mean merely decorative verse) isn’t worth a second reading any
more. Therefore--away with Kubla Khan, out with Marlowe, and to hell
with Keats! It’s a pity, I think. So many true things have a way of
coming out all the better without the strain to sum up the universe in
one impressive little pellet. I admit that I don’t answer the
requirements. My vision of poetry _is_ too personal to “answer the
call.” And if I ever write any more verse it will probably be at least
as personal as the idiom of _White Buildings_ whether anyone cares to
look at it or not.
This personal note is doubtless responsible for what you term as
sentimentality in my attitude toward Whitman.[63] It’s true that my
rhapsodic address to him in _The Bridge_ exceeds any exact evaluation of
the man. I realized that in the midst of the composition. But since you
and I hold such divergent prejudices regarding the value of the
materials and events that W. responded to, and especially as you, like
so many others, never seem to have read his _Democratic Vistas_ and
other of his statements sharply decrying the materialism, industrialism,
etc., of which you name him the guilty and hysterical spokesman, there
isn’t much use in my tabulating the qualified, yet persistent reasons I
have for my admiration of him, and my allegiance to the positive and
universal tendencies implicit in nearly all his best work. You’ve heard
me roar at too many of his lines to doubt that I can spot his worst, I’m
sure.
It amuses me to see how Taggard takes up some of Winters’ claims against
me (I expected this and look for more) in his article in the
Anti-Humanist volume, especially as that borrowing doesn’t seem to have
obviated his own eclipse according to her estimate of the new
constellation. I have the feeling that Miss Taggard is not only
conducting her own education in public (as someone once said of George
Moore) but also the education of her subjects.... At least she seems now
to have attained that acumen which is a confusion to all.
I’m leaving this week-end for a visit to Cummings in New Hampshire.
After a final row with Addie M. Turner (who is about to sell her place
anyway) I have moved my things down the road to Fitzi’s [Fitzgerald].
Occasionally I am appalled at my apparently chronic inability to
relinquish some hold or connection that has long since ceased to yield
me anything but annoyance--until some violence of fates forces my
release. That’s one of many ways I seem to keep of wasting time. --/--/
344: TO GUGGENHEIM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION[64]
[_Gaylordsville_] [_August 29, 1930_]
My application for a fellowship is prompted by a desire for European
study and creative leisure for the composition of poetry. I am
interested in characteristics of European culture, classical and
romantic, with especial reference to contrasting elements implicit in
the emergent features of a distinctive American poetic consciousness.
My one previous visit to Europe, though brief, proved creatively
stimulating in this regard, as certain aspects of my long poem, _The
Bridge_, may suggest. Modern and medieval French literature and
philosophy interest me particularly. I should like the opportunity for
a methodical pursuit of these studies in conjunction with my creative
projects.
My next volume of poetry will probably be issued by Horace Liveright,
Inc., who has already issued my two previous books, _White Buildings_
and _The Bridge_.
345: TO ALLEN TATE
_Gaylordsville, Conn._ _Sept. 7th, 1930_
Dear Allen: Have you ever had boils? I got my first specimen during my
visit to the Cummingses six weeks ago, brought it home along with
several up-and-coming progeny, and “the loyal and royal succession of
the Plantagenets” (as E.E. referred to them) has not left me yet. Since
the throne room is in my right arm pit, not to mention the chamber and
royal nursery, I’ve scarcely been able to manipulate my right arm to the
meek extent of writing a letter much of the time. I think that I have
now established at least my better intentions!
The pictures of your homestead were much appreciated and widely
circulated hereabouts. It’s my opinion that you now have about all one
could ask for in the way of rural comfort not to mention dignity.
Certainly it surpasses anything owned and directed by any of our mutuals
in this valley. I should enjoy the visit you suggested (many thanks!)
but, boils or no boils, I’ve got to get located in some office as soon
now as possible--or at least be on the scene of interrogation, prison,
palace, and supplication. --/--/
I was glad to get your _Three Poems_. The distinguished diction
throughout reminds me of the little advance I have ever made in
essential flexibility and the finer intonations. These qualities seem
most evident to me in the “Message from Abroad,” which, though it is
largely inferential to me in its substance, is in a way, all the more
welcome as a poem to be re-read for a multiple suggestiveness that may
very well take on clearer perspective with time. “The Cross” keeps me
guessing a little too strenuously. I can’t help thinking it perhaps too
condensed, and, as Bill [Brown] suggested, a not entirely fused mélange
of ecclesiastical and highly-personalized imagery. In which case you sin
no more than Eliot in the recent “Ash-Wednesday.” The “Ode to the
Confederate Dead” is as excellent as ever, I don’t think essentially
improved except as regards rhythm: the wind-and-leaf interpolations
adding a certain subjective continuity.
My summer seems like a blank to me right now. Perhaps my study of
Dante--the _Commedia_ which I had never touched before--will have been
seen to have given it some significance, but that isn’t much to boast
of. --/--/
346: TO SOLOMON GRUNBERG
_N.Y.C._ _Sept. 30th ’30_
Dear Mony: --/--/ Now that I am back in town again, looking for the
needles in haystacks and jobs in limbo,--now that the most monotonous
and familiar situation of _all_ engrosses, nay inundates me, I’m taking
“time off” to answer in the hope that you’ll write me more news and also
be sure to look me up on your next visit to these parts.
I’m most grateful for your continued interest in _The Bridge_. After so
much grandiose talk as I indulged myself in during its interrupted
progress it’s a wonder if most of my friends aren’t appalled at its
ultimate shortcomings. Some of them are. It’s gone into a second
printing, however, which means a sale exceeding the first thousand. If
last spring hadn’t ushered in such a calamitous slump in all books I
imagine I might have been more fortunate; at any rate I can’t complain
about most of the reviews.
My summer was a kind of steady doldrums, enlivened only by a sudden
insight into the values and beauty of Dante’s _Commedia_. Not that I’ve
learned Italian, but that I found a decent translation (Temple Classics
Edition) thanks to Eliot’s inspiring essay on Dante. My recent struggles
with a poem of large proportions and intricate framework, I think, gave
me a maturer appreciation of the _Commedia_ than I could have mustered
ten years ago. Sometimes one feels that one’s neglect or “indifference”
to a great masterpiece is almost justified, pending the proper
development of one’s own powers of perception proportionate to the
opportunity postponed. (I didn’t realize that alliteration was so “on
the job” this morning!) Of course I now realize how much more than ever
I have to work to accomplish anything whatever.
Some conversations with you again would be very welcome interludes in my
present job-obsession. Aren’t you planning on New York before long?
-- -- -- --
347: TO SELDEN RODMAN
[_New York City_] _October 27th, 1930_
Dear Mr. Rodman: Thank you for sending me a copy of _The [Harkness]
Hoot_. The copy that you had previously sent to _The New Republic_ (via
the hands of Slater Brown) had already afforded me considerable
pleasure. Despite the unfortunate sentimentality of Hale’s oration the
issue is amply justified by your essay on MacLeish, if I may say
so,--the most penetrating estimate that he has so far received.
As for Hale, I recommend his perusal of the recent rape of _The Woman of
Andros_ conducted by Mike Gold in the columns of _The N. R._--if he
wants to see himself outdone on his own ground. Not that I care for
Wilder. Never having read a word he wrote I cannot be expected to nurse
sighs or curses. But I _have_ read something of Spengler--and would just
as soon he showed an American visa, for once, before predicting any more
details of “our” future. --/--/
348: TO WILLIAM WRIGHT
_Brooklyn, New York_ _November 21, 1930_
Dear Bill: --/--/ The details of your summer program and the description
of your winter quarters reflect an enviable settled state of affairs.
New York is full of the unemployed, more every day, and the tension
evident in thousands of faces isn’t cheerful to contemplate. It is a
little strange to see the city so “grim about the mouth,” as Melville
might say. Yours truly has been having his grim moments, too; in fact
I’m pretty well convinced that unmitigated anxiety has a highly
corrosive effect on the resilience of the imagination. I am
trying to write a couple of articles for _Fortune_--that deluxe
business-industrial monthly published by Time, Inc.--and I am appalled
at the degree of paralysis that worry can impose on the functioning of
one’s natural faculties. One assignment is a “profile” of Walter Teagle,
president of Standard Oil (N.J.). I managed to keep the oil king talking
far beyond the time allotted, but when I come to write it up in typical
_Fortune_ style the jams gather by the hundred.
I am so pleased that you continue to enjoy _The Bridge_. I admit having
felt considerably jolted at the charge of sentimentality continually
levelled at the “Indiana” fragment, particularly when such charges came
from people who acknowledged a violent admiration for Hardy’s poetry.
For many of his lyrics have seemed to me at least as “sentimental” as
this “mawkish” performance of my own. But I approve of a certain amount
of sentiment anyway. Right now it is more fashionable to speak
otherwise, but the subject (or emotion) of “race” has always had as much
of sentiment behind it--as it has had of prejudice, also. Since “race”
is the principal motivation of “Indiana,” I can’t help thinking that,
observed in the proper perspective, and judged in relation to the
argument or theme of the Pocahontas section as a whole, the pioneer
woman’s maternalism isn’t excessive.
Did I mention my pleasure in reading a very skillful poem of yours about
various types of fur. It came out in _Poetry_, I think. Certainly
Baudelaire would have been charmed by its adept blending of beautiful
names with a world of tactile sensations. The geographical evocations
implicit in the list of animals mentioned were delightful. I see a great
many reasons for you to continue writing, especially since it brings you
none of the pangs that accompany a more professional concern with the
muses. I haven’t written a line for over nine months, and nine months is
not so promising a period in the seven arts as it may be in the physical
sciences.
I’ll try not to be so remiss in writing again. Would I be deemed
insensitive in requesting a temporary loan to help carry me over till a
check from _Fortune_ can be expected. Please be very frank. Money is
“hard” everywhere these days, and if you can’t spare 25 or 50 dollars,
or if you have any scruples against such transactions, I shall remain as
affectionate and as spontaneous a partner to our friendship as ever. In
fact I would prefer to shoulder double my present quandary before
exposing you to any stringencies.
I have applied for a Guggenheim Scholarship (which would give me a
year’s study and creative freedom abroad) and hope to God that I’ll gain
approval. Announcements are made early in March. Meanwhile I’m praying
that I can write well enough on industrial subjects to keep on with
_Fortune_. My room here is surprisingly cheap--a weekly rate that barely
exceeds rooming house costs--and with these articles I’ve had to be
located where messages could be taken in my absence. The requirement of
advance payment is none too comforting, however. --/--/
349: TO WILLIAM WRIGHT
_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _November 29th, 1930_
Dear Bill: Your imagination is evidently as magnanimous as your hand
is.... By ascribing my almost chronic indigence to so Nietzschean a
program as the attitude of “living life dangerously” infers, you make me
blink a little. For my exposures to rawness and to risk have
been far too inadvertent, I fear, to deserve any such honorable
connotations;--and my disorderly adventures and peregrinations I regard
with anything but complacency. However, it isn’t everyone who can lend
help with such graceful tolerance of evident shortcomings; and your
euphemisms make me doubly grateful.
The Teagle article is now awaiting approval. I hope to know more about
my immediate fate early next week. If that doesn’t eventuate in a check
and another assignment, then my best bet lies in the direction of
book-selling in one of the many Doubleday-Doran shops in the
metropolitan area. I know someone who may succeed in insinuating me
there. In normal times, of course, I should have been located with an
advertising agency months since. No, teaching isn’t a solution for me,
Bill. I haven’t any academic education whatsoever. You may have
forgotten that I left East High without even a diploma--in my junior
year. Mirabile dictu!... Noblesse oblige!... Pax vobiscum!... Nunc
dimittis est ... so who am I, therefore, to rule a class!
I’m hoping that I won’t need to cash your second check, a contingency
which I’ll do my best to avoid. You’ll hear from me again very soon.
Meanwhile I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness.
350: TO ISIDOR SCHNEIDER
_Brooklyn, N.Y._ _December 2nd, 1930_
Dear Isidor: --/--/ As for the “Hymn Against Violence,” I’m all for it!
It is beautifully sustained, amazingly compact; its imagery is often as
startling as Rimbaud’s:
“--then overhear
reiteration’s tremor drum
upon your brain the changeless diaries of fear.”
and “Harder curds
the cloud. Waking in us no ease,
night comes of terror darkened infinite, of dying herds.”
A strange and sombre metre. Biblical as it is, and owing something
perhaps to Hopkins’ exclamatory use of violent internal stresses, it is
still highly original and by all odds the best poem of yours that I have
yet seen. It’s a poem that I imagine Eliot would be very glad to have
for _The Criterion_. But you probably got much better remuneration from
_The Menorah_; besides, Eliot is apt to deliberate a year or so before
informing one of his decision. --/--/
351: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN
[_Chagrin Falls, Ohio_] _December 29th, 1930_
Dear Sam: To make partial amends for my neglect of you, I am, as you
see, giving you the full, blazing benefit of the official stationery!
Of course, had I been consulted, I should never have permitted so
harmless a slogan as “The place to _bring_ your guest.” The fourth word
would still have begun with “b,” but there would have been more action
implied in the order of the other letters substituted, or I’m no
befriender of monks and monkery.
However, that might belie the nights hereabouts. As I have just written
to B---- A----, _la vie sportif_ continues its reckless pace hereabouts
without any too great abundance of absinthe, gobs, apple-vendors or
breadlines. It’s too bad that all this drouth and quietude should have
produced, so far at least, nothing better than a maidenly complexion and
a bulging waist line. Gone is that glittering eye of Sands St.
midnights, erstwhile so compelling; and the ancient mariner is facing
the new year with all the approved trepidations of the middle west
business man, approved panic model of 1931. So much for resignation. It
brings me at least a little more sleep than I was getting in New York.
For about ten days I was busy at my father’s store on Euclid, near
Higbee’s [Cleveland]. Driving in from the Falls here, wrapping Xmas
parcelpost bundles, and driving back at night, I lived in a veritable
whirl of excitement. Now that the Xmas “rush” is a memory only, I am
casting about for some connection or other with what remains of the
direct mail advertising business here. So far it doesn’t look promising.
But unless I manage to turn a few honest pennies I mayn’t get back to
your skyline for many months. Of course I knew that when I came out
here, but I had borrowed all I felt justified in borrowing and the
situation in NY looked, and still looks, hopeless. As you had no doubt
observed, it had gotten considerably under my skin. --/--/
PART FOUR
Mexico
(1931-1932)
1931
352: TO SOLOMON GRUNBERG
_Chagrin Falls, Ohio_ _Jan. 10_
Dear Mony: --/--/ I got terribly run down with the worry of it all--and
since my father had expected me out here for the holidays anyway I felt
I owed him the courtesy of complying, especially since he had been so
generous with me for some time past. Since the Teagle (Standard Oil)
article proved to be a flop there wasn’t much use in persisting
longer--in the face of the bread lines.
This humiliation, severe for awhile, doesn’t seem to have ruined me,
however, and in view of certain recoveries and gains in poise, I don’t
seriously regret my move. My father, of course, expects me to remain in
this locality permanently. I of course keep all contrary plans very much
to myself, including the secret of a bank balance sufficient at least to
my carfare east again, whenever my return seems advisable. But enough of
such explanatory details!
I’m anxious to hear from you--and what your plans are, etc. This is dull
enough around here to encourage a good deal of reading--which I am
enjoying. Spinoza (Einstein’s grandpop) furnishes plenty of discipline.
Cleveland has one of [the] best libraries in the country, admirably
conducted and with shelves practically wide open.
No writing is being done yet--or even in prospect. Can’t fool myself
that way, as you know. An old thing of mine from my West Indian days in
a forthcoming issue of _The New Republic_ which you may like, however.
-- -- -- --
353: TO SAMUEL LOVEMAN