Chapter IX: Part III: Tragedy, War (the eternal soldier), Résumé, Ecstasy, Final Declaration

There is an organization and symphonic rhythm to III that I did not think I could do. The last three evenings have been wonderful for me, anyway! A kind of ecstasy and power for WORK.

III doesn’t seem half long enough to me now--but I’m too much with and in it to know.

127: TO CHARMION WIEGAND

[_Cleveland_] _Jan. 20th, ’23_

My dear Charmion: It didn’t take me long to decide that Buschor’s _Graechische Vasenmalerei_ is a book that I shall always carry about with me, even though it has taken me an unforgivably long time to tell you so. You and Hermann [Habicht] have my sincerest gratitude for such an unexpected and beautiful holiday present.

With a few exceptions I prefer Egyptian sculpture to the Greek, and this book makes me feel that the Greeks had more to express in line and design than they had in the third dimension. In pottery you get the less ambitious and less “cosmopolitan” aspiration and expression of these people. There is an intimacy and rusticity to the pottery which especially appeals to the literary instinct. The famous Nike of Samothrace always left me somewhat cool. Lady Milo is a bit imposing (Jove’s too near around the corner) and these idealized human dolls all stand too much on their dignity. O I know how they prostrated Heine and Pater et al., and I do respect them--but give me these lovely vase intaglios and arabesques--and maids and naughty satyrs with their rank lustful lives and leaves and brine and wine!

--/--/ I think it is a credit to Munson’s platform and writing that so much attention has already been proffered _Secession_. I was very lukewarm in the beginning and urged him not to “waste his time” on any magazine project. But after his visit here last summer I quickly switched about, especially as _S_ has contained such new and suggestive material as the last 2 numbers included. _Secession_ gets away from the “temperamental” editorial attitude of _The Little Review_ (good in many ways as this has been) and bases its judgment on more tradition while at the same time being far more daring in its experiments than such magazines as _The Dial_. It has been discouraging to see how very “safe” _The Dial_ plays sometimes, despite its protests to the contrary.

I find that I have derived considerable stimulation from _Secession_. Without it there would be only the vague hope that the steady pessimism which pervades _The Dial_ since Eliot and others have announced that happiness and beauty dwell only in memory--might sometimes lift. I cry for a positive attitude! When you see the first two parts of my “Faustus & Helen” that comes out in _Broom_ in Feb. or March, you will see better what I mean. I’ve about finished the third and last part now, and am pleased at the finale. --/--/

I’m rather worn out with the incessant activities of the last two weeks--last _month_, in fact. I can’t stand much “society” even with interesting people, and my acquaintance in Cleveland has somehow increased so extensively during the last two years that with work, reading, writing, etc., things are becoming entirely too febrile. You’ll excuse my mention of such “ailments” I hope, as part of my excuse for delay in writing. But I have already probably exhausted you beyond “resentments” of such nature by this lengthy gust. -- -- -- --

128: TO GORHAM MUNSON

[_Cleveland_] _Jan. 24, ’23_

Dear Gorham: I’ll wait for your next letter before sending any other versions of “F. & H. III” The last two days have been occupied with the enclosed strange psychoanalytic thing. I can’t quite justify the title in words, but it came to me quite freely as _the_ right thing. Let me know how you like it.[28] --/--/

129: TO GORHAM MUNSON

[_Cleveland_] _Feb. 6th, ’23_

Dear Gorham: Everyone writes me such encouraging notes about “F and H” that I am doubly sorry that I ever sent any to _Broom_ for publication. Frank wrote me a very shrewd appreciation of Part II which he probably repeated to you. Untermeyer’s mention of me among the New Patricians prompted me to send him a copy after reading his article on Eliot in a recent _Freeman_. I disagreed with him openly on many points, but the substance of his last paragraph made me think he would be interested in reading the poem. I was rather foolish to follow such an impulse, but his answer was quite decent. He made the charge of a new type of “rhetoric,” however, which is just what Frank took pains to mention as fully absent. Untermeyer comes here for a lecture on March 11th and says he wants to have a talk with me if possible. This is all right, but I am not keen about argument. Allen Tate writes me the most glowing praises possible, calls me the greatest contemporary American poet, etc., etc., so I feel about ready to deliver myself of my memoirs and expire in roses. And then, your appreciation has especially been enjoyed. You “get” the form and arrangement of the “Stark Major” poem much better than Frank does, but he is right about the second paragraph being too complicated and vague and you are wrong about the last verse being redundant. When I get the second verse worked out to suit me I’ll send you another copy. In the meantime I am ruminating on a new longish poem under the title of _The Bridge_ which carries on further the tendencies manifest in “F and H.” It will be exceedingly difficult to accomplish it as I see it now, so much time will be wasted in thinking about it. Your news about _Broom_ is discouraging in view of the fact that I had just sent part III of “F and H” to Matty last week. Everything has been bungled all the way through. I hope I can get enough material together during the next few months for a small volume where things can be arranged in proper order. I am so deadly sick of manipulating things with magazines, _The Dial_ included. This latter refuses my “F and H” and then takes such a silly thing as that Apleton or what’s-’ername woman contained this month in its covers. I have been so rushed around with too much society that I have not yet got at the review for your study, but it will be done within two weeks anyway. It was much easier to rap out this enclosed review for Fitts. Let me know what you like or don’t like about it. I am very awkward at reviews, mainly, I suppose, because the procedure is strange to me. I am through doing things for Sommer until he cooperates better. He has received notice and photographs from _The Dial_ I learn from second hand. Ten days ago this was. I had especially asked him to phone me as soon as he heard anything definite from them, certainly a small task, but he never peeps or comes near. I shall not send back the photographs to you to show to anyone until he returns them to me. He knows I paid twenty dollars for them and that I want to keep them circulating, etc. He knew that I would be the one to write to _The Dial_ and blow ’em up if they failed to keep their word on the reproductions, and naturally want to know the facts of the situation, yet he keeps his stolid distance. What’s the use? It’s too much trouble with all the rest I have to do, though I’d be only too glad to keep it up indefinitely if he’d show a little interest. --/--/

130: TO ALLEN TATE

[_Cleveland_] _Feb. 6th, ’23_

Dear Allen: I can’t seem to get around to write you a decent consideration of your recent poems, “Yellow River,” etc. When I get time to write, as now at the office, they are not by me, and you have already had evidence of my state of mind at other odd moments. Meanwhile, do not think me indifferent, please.

I’m afraid you will have to postpone your kind proclamations in regard to “F and H” until the three parts appear in book form and in proper sequence. The inadvertency of “The Springs of Guilty Song” in the _Broom_ is too complicated to explain fully. Josephson is most unscrupulous in his editorship, and it takes so long to get word back and forth that I shall probably not send anything more to _Broom_ even if they finish “F and H” with the other two parts. This is quite unlikely as Munson writes me doleful presages about its financial straits. Two more issues and it will probably expire. However, in case they do print the third part which I sent about two weeks ago, it will include a note at the bottom of the page explaining the sequence, etc., and correcting the misnomer “The Springs of Guilty Song.” In regard to this latter I had a very fine appreciation from Waldo Frank who was quite astonished at it. Then with your fine praise and Munson’s I feel more encouraged than ever about my work. I’m already started on a new poem, _The Bridge_, which continues the tendencies that are evident in “Faustus and Helen,” but it’s too vague and nebulous yet to talk about.

In the next _S4N_ I have an amusing parody of Cummings and have asked Fitts, the editor, to send you a copy. Don’t be puzzled by the name of this magazine, it’s taken from the insignia of a mosquito fleet during the war, I think. I wish I could partake of the genuine Tatian Theory, but it’s not so universal in its application, I fear, as it used to be. Sherry and bad Port are about all one succeeds in safely absorbing around here. When am I to expect that promised portrait of you?

131: TO WALDO FRANK

_Cleveland, Ohio_ _Feb. 7th, ’23_

Dear Waldo Frank: I have not been so stimulated for a long time as I was with your letter and its exact appreciation of the very things I wanted to put into the second part of “For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen” or its misnomer, “The Springs of Guilty Song.” The fact that its intention was completely evident to you without any explanations or “notes” from me, has renewed my confidence and made me quite happy. It has also made me doubly anxious that you should have a copy of the entire poem to read. This is enclosed, and, of course, is yours to keep if you want it. It has been very discouraging the way _Broom_ has handled the publication of this poem. The mails are slow and unreliable, and Josephson is hasty, to say the least, in his methods. At best now, it will come out in broken sequence, and a final Note with part III cannot much repair the situation. I want at least a few of my friends to have the thing in decent shape.

A few planks of the scaffolding may interest you, so I’ll roughly indicate a few of my intentions. Part I starts out from the quotidian, rises to evocation, ecstasy and statement. The whole poem is a kind of fusion of our own time with the past. Almost every symbol of current significance is matched by a correlative, suggested or actually stated, “of ancient days.” Helen, the symbol of this abstract “sense of beauty,” Faustus the symbol of myself, the poetic or imaginative man of all times. The street car device is the most concrete symbol I could find for the transition of the imagination from quotidian details to the universal consideration of beauty,--the body still “centered in traffic,” the imagination eluding its daily nets and self consciousness. Symbolically, also, and in relation to Homer, this first part has significance of the rape of Helen by Paris. In one word, however, Part I stands simply for the EVOCATION of beauty.