Dear William: Your letter came this morning, so you can’t deny my promptitude. Dash haberdashery! I hope you have more freedom in writing your next letter,--the note of pain caused by the watchful eye of the floor-walker was too evident. It was like a hurried lunch. I felt your situation and rushed from line to line in trepidation of the next moment. And then you asked such very vital questions that you have set me thinking a good deal. No:--at present I am not a Christian Scientist. I try to make my Mother think so because she seems to depend on that hypocrisy as an additional support for her own faith in it. So,--mum’s the word to her. If it weren’t very evident how very much good it has done her I should not persist in such conduct,--lying to both Lord and Devil is no pleasure,--but as I frankly was very much interested in Christian Science at the time of my exit from home, I have not made any distinct denial of it to her since, and for the aforementioned reasons. However, Bill, I have unbounded faith in its efficacy. Not that a normal optimism will not accomplish the same wonders,--it is a psychological attitude which will prevail over almost anything, but as a religion, there is where I balk. I recommend it to you if you are nervous, etc., though, as a cure, and the best and only one to my knowledge. What it says in regard to mental and nervous ailments is absolutely true. It is only the total denial of the animal and organic world which I cannot swallow. I don’t quite understand your criticism toward my “attitude of mind,” and sincerely wish you would particularize more in detail. We have had so many good talks that I wish you were here right now to tell me. But when you come to New York next autumn we shall have an opportunity. I am laying many plans for your coming, and you will enjoy meeting some of my friends here, I am sure. My advertising work for _The Little Review_ is coming a little slower than I expected. You have no idea how hard it is to even break into some of these huge and ominous mechanisms, New York offices. It ought to toughen me a little and perhaps that it what I need. It is a very different matter when one approaches with the intent of selling, and selling the appealing article,--space. However, _The Little Review_ has the possibility of affording me over four thousand per year on commissions if I can fill up the allowable space, and perhaps I am not wasting my time after all. --/--/ 22: TO WILLIAM WRIGHT _New York, New York_ _May 14, 1919_ Dear William: --/--/ At present I am under the spell of the first wave of rose fever! My reading lately has been rather diverse as is evident from any such list as Chaucer, D. H. Lawrence, Cervantes, Henry James, Plato, and Mark Twain.