My--but how the wind is blowing. Rain, too, on the window now! There was a wonderful fog for about 18 hours last week. One couldn’t even see the garden close behind the house--to say nothing of the piers. All night long there were distant tinklings, buoy bells and siren warnings from river craft. It was like wakening into a dreamland in the early dawn--one wondered where one was with only a milky light in the window and that vague music from a hidden world. Next morning while I dressed it was clear and glittering as usual. Like champagne, or a cold bath to look [at] it. Such a world! 193: TO HIS MOTHER [_Brooklyn_] _Nov. 26th, ’24_ Dear Grace and Grandma: --/--/ Paul Rosenfeld, the critic, of whom, as you know, I am not especially fond, has just called up and invited me to a sort of reception he is going to give on Sat. evening for Jean Catel, a French critic formerly on the staff of the _Mercure de France_. When Rosenfeld gives this sort of party--whatever you may feel about it--you at least know that everybody (spelled with a capital E) in modern American painting, letters and art generally--will be there. Well, I’m not only invited, but am urged to give a reading before them all from my poems. Alfred Kreymborg and Miss Marianne Moore will also read from their poems. So far I have declined to read anything--as I am no vocalist, and I certainly fear the stage fright. But on the other hand, I probably shall essay a poem or so, if I’m feeling at all assured at the time, as I hate to be known as too shy a wall flower to speak to even such a “picked” audience as that will be. While I lack almost no assurance on the value of my poems, taken generally, I admit that I am considerably flattered at this invitation occurring, as it does, before I have published a single volume. (The other two have been known for years.) And so, pray with me that the tongue be less stubborn than usual in conveying my intentions from the written page. --/--/ 194: TO HIS MOTHER [_Brooklyn_] _Nov. 30th, ’24_