distracted to realize its better and more imposing aspects. Yes, this location is the best one on all counts for me. For the first time in many many weeks I am beginning to further elaborate my plans for my _Bridge_ poem. Since the publication of my “Faustus and Helen” poem I have had considerable satisfaction in the respect accorded me, not yet in print, but verbally from my confrères in writing, etc. Gorham has made the astounding assertion that that poem was the greatest poem written in America since Walt Whitman! Malcolm Cowley has invited me to contribute about a dozen poems to an anthology that he is planning to bring out through a regular publisher, and I am inclined to assent, as the other contributors are quite able writers and it will be some time before my _Bridge_ poem is completed and I bring out my efforts in individual book form. --/--/ 184: TO HIS MOTHER [_Brooklyn_] _June 19th ’24_ Dear Grace: The “wind-up” of your last letter was far from gratifying and I am sorry that anything so common as my usual lack of time for writing should have given you the impression of indifference or ingratitude on my part. Now--lest I get no other seconds before Sunday in which to write you, I’m going to get this off--for tomorrow evening I’ll be tied up with a kind of picnic to Coney Island that the office is giving and there won’t be a moment before midnight for myself. --/--/ I wish I could be more interested in politics, but I guess it takes a different kind of mind than mine and a different education. You, however, seem stimulated very much by the spectacle and it makes me almost wish that you would become more active in some work of that sort. As for myself this last week--I’ve been most unhappy. My uric acid resulted in urethritis which has been very painful and nerve-wracking. A steady diet of buttermilk has finally relieved me, however, and I am going to continue it for some time yet. I’m looking better now than when you saw me in Cleveland but get neuralgic immediately as soon as I deviate the slightest from my diet. I was in a perfect panic for several days, fearing I had a venereal disease, but a complete examination of my body and urine disproved any trace of that. I know now, however, just how one is paralyzed with fear at any such suspicion. Believe me, it’s awful! --/--/ 185: TO GORHAM MUNSON [_Brooklyn_] _July 9th, ’24_