Chapter I: E. P., White Plains, New York

Your magazine is rubbish, disappointingly insipid, heavily stupid. I fear it has gas on the stomach. Retract! Give us the unperverted, the natural, the “sincere.” Our eyesight and pocket-books will not endure _The Emperor’s Cloak_ (see H. C. Anderson). This vapid trance pose, this vaporizing makes us wonder why you are attempting to loop the loop. And again the “atmosphere” of your paper seems as well compassed as a spider’s journey on the ceiling. We have the same feeling of wanting to help you both by poking you off with an umbrella.