The forefinger of my left hand—I was holding the letter in my right hand—touched my nose, mouth, forehead, eyes, chin, neck, shoulder, arm, hand and then tapped the letter itself. No doubt I fully intended, from the first, to drop it. I had been doing the work of an artist. Well, artists are always talking of destroying their own work but few do it, and those who do are perhaps the real heroes of life. And so down into the mail box it went with a thud and my fortune was made. The letter was received by my aunt, who was lying abed of an illness that was to destroy her—she had, it seems, other things beside hay-fever the matter with her—and she altered her will in my favor. She had intended leaving her money, a tidy sum yielding an income of five thousand a year, to a fund to be established for the study of methods for the cure of hay-fever—that is to say, really you see, to her fellow sufferers—but instead left it to me. My aunt could not find her spectacles and a nurse—may the gods bring her bright days and a good husband—read the letter aloud. Both women were deeply touched and my aunt wept. I am only telling you the facts, you understand, but I would like to suggest that this whole incident might well be taken as proof of the power of modern art. From the first I have been a firm believer in the moderns. I am one who, as an art critic might word it, has been right down through the movements. At first I was an impressionist and later a cubist, a post-impressionist, and even a vorticist. Time after time, in my imaginary life, as a painter, I have been quite swept off my feet. For example I remember Picasso’s blue period ... but we’ll not go into that. What I am trying to say is that, having this faith in modernity, if one may use the word thus, I did find within myself a peculiar boldness as I sat in the hotel writing room at Madison, Wisconsin. I used the word breasts (in the plural, you understand) and everyone will admit that it is a bold and modern word to use in a letter to an aunt one has never seen. It brought my aunt and me into one family. Her modesty never could have admitted anything else. And then, my aunt was really touched. Afterward I talked to the nurse and made her a rather handsome present for her part in the affair. When the letter had been read my aunt felt overwhelmingly drawn to me. She turned her face to the wall and her shoulders shook. Do not think that I am not also touched as I write this. “Poor lad,” my aunt said to the nurse, “I will make things easier for him. Send for the lawyer.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ “UNUSED” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ “UNUSED” A TALE OF LIFE IN OHIO