Dear William: However much boredom you may find in Warren--I assure you, it will not be as strenuous as the hot water I am stewing in. The Pittsburgh Water Heater surely has been on my mind the last three weeks, and the burden is still unshifted. I am growing bald trying to scratch up new ideas in housekeeping and personal hygiene--to tell people why they need more and quicker hot water. Last night I got drunk on some sherry. Even in that wild orgy my mind was still enchained by the hot water complex,--and I sat down and reeled off the best lines written so far in my handling of the campaign. All of my poems in the future will attest this sterilizing influence of HOT WATER! Nothing happens here, either. I am grateful only for wine. I have neither women or song. Cleveland street car rides twice a day take out all hope of these latter elements. I think of New York and next summer when the present is too sharp (or is it dull!). But the main faults are not of our city, alone. They are of the age. A period that is loose at all ends, without apparent direction of any sort. In some ways the most amazing age there ever was. Appalling and dull at the same time. --/--/ PART TWO New York (1923-1925) 1923 124: TO GORHAM MUNSON [_Cleveland_] _Jan. 5th, ’23_ Dear Gorham: I cannot remember a more hectic month than the last unless I recall some of the old bivouacs of New York days, when I ricochet-ed “from roof to roof” without intermission. Two rush campaigns to write, gifts and remembrances to buy and send to far too many people--suppers, parties and evenings--much tossing of the pot,--“prison, palace and reverberation”! That is why I’ve been so slow in writing. At present I’m flabbergasted and dull. But my carousing on New Year’s Eve had one good outcome; it started the third part of “Faustus and Helen” with more gusto than before. When I catch my next breath I hope to carry it on to the end. --/--/ Waldo Frank wrote me a very cordial letter in answer to my written praise of “Hope.” I should like to be in New York now and hear his lectures at the Rand School. I am hoping to make my visit along in May or June when the weather is mild and some of the shows are still going. I shall appear with a new cane that was given me for Christmas. Despite my objections to cane-carrying last summer, I find it very pleasant. Puce-colored gloves complete the proper touch.