Mr. Kahn was keenly interested in what Waldo Frank and Eugene O’Neill had said about my work, and it makes me very happy indeed to have this recognition from a man who is not only extremely wealthy and renowned on that account, but who is also very astute and intelligent. I am very tired now--with all the strain and effort of the last two months, but I shall probably pick up as never before when I get into the quiet of the country and have the first real opportunity of my life to use my talents unhampered by fear and worry for the morrow. If you are not too prejudiced about me by this time, you may also be interested in this turn of affairs. Let me hear from you sometime soon. I certainly hope you and Grandmother are feeling better. 224: TO CHARLOTTE AND RICHARD RYCHTARIK [_Patterson, New York_] _New Year’s Eve ‘26 [25]_ Dear Charlotte & Ricardo: Here I am at this date and sixty-six miles from a drink. Isn’t it tragic! And there will not be a whistle or a shout to tell me it is a new year. I shall probably be fast asleep, unless I get scared and stay up blinking over a book--for it must be a bad omen to be asleep at the switch of the new twelvemonth. But tomorrow night I shall make up for it. That is, if certain friends come out from New York with all their bottles on them. Life out here so far has been ideal--even if it has been below zero much of the time. But I came prepared for all kinds of weather and dress every morning in boots, woolens, and furs. I shall have my picture taken and you shall see how very impolite I look. Imagine paying only ten dollars a month for the rent of a whole house (8 rooms)! I share it with Allen Tate and his wife and have a suite all to myself on the second floor--1 room I do not use at all, a bedroom with a fine old “sleigh bed” and a study, spacious and light, in which the sun streams every morning. My pictures and nick-knacks look wonderfully jolly on the simple kalsomined walls and the books fairly glisten on the shelves. This room is kept well heated by two oil stoves. Downstairs we cook and heat with wood-burning stoves which means enough daily exercise to keep us glowing.