Chapter XXI: Part THREE: West Indies-Europe (6)

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.