_Patterson, N. York_ _Jan. 18th ’26_ Dear Waldo: I am not through working on it yet, but I thought you might care to see this last part of _The Bridge_, oddly enough emergent first.[42] It is symphonic in including the convergence of all the strands separately detailed in antecedent sections of the poem--Columbus, conquests of water, land, etc., Pokahantus, subways, offices, etc., etc. I dare congratulate myself a little, I think, in having found some liberation for my condensed metaphorical habit in a form as symphonic (at least so attempted) as this. The bridge in becoming a ship, a world, a woman, a tremendous harp (as it does finally) seems to really have a career. I have attempted to induce the same feelings of elation, etc.--like being carried forward and upward simultaneously--both in imagery, rhythm and repetition, that one experiences in walking across my beloved Brooklyn Bridge. I’m now busy on the Niña, Santa Maria, Pinta episode--Cathay being an attitude of spirit, rather than material conquest throughout, of course. I know I can depend on you to mention the flaws and shortcomings. This section seems a little transcendental in tendency at present,--but I think that the pediments of the other sections will show it not to have been. --/--/ 229: TO HIS MOTHER _Patterson_ _Jan. 26_ Dear Grace: It _is_ a good thing I got your letter yesterday--or I _should_ have been sore. I was so tired last night I simply fell into bed at 10. We had spent most of the day shopping in town and I later built me some bookshelves which are very simple but extend to the ceiling--the kind I have always wanted. My study now is a picture to enjoy. When I was in New York I bought some beautiful and rare Congo wood carvings--and added to my Sommer paintings and your photograph they make a marvelous room. My hands are so stiff from wood-cutting that my writing looks funny. It is very, very cold today, was yesterday and promises to continue. We all go about shivering most of the time and I’m sorry to say get too little freedom for our writing. Certainly the spring warmth will be unusually welcome to all of us.