Also comes a letter from Sue [Jenkins]. It seems the news has reached Patterson via Jimmy Light. I copy Sue’s account of the circumstances given her by Jimmy, as having been so active an agent in the matter you probably will be interested. “The way it came about is not without interest. About a month ago Liveright, Jimmy and others were at Otto Kahn’s for a week-end. L. had the mss. with him at that time and on the boat coming back he said he had decided not to publish it--that he didn’t care for the poems and so far as he could see, nobody understood them. Then, a little over a week ago, Jimmy and O’Neill were in L.’s office on business and your mss. was on the table. Jimmy asked him if he had stuck to his decision and he said ‘Yes.’ Then Jimmy and Gene both told him they thought he would eventually be ‘proud’ of having published your first volume, so that even if he himself did not care for the poems, as a publisher he was failing to take advantage of an opportunity. So finally L. came around to his old position of saying that he would publish them if Gene would write a preface. (Previously L. had said that he did not want to publish the poems at all--preface or no preface.) Gene protested some, saying that while he liked the poems he wasn’t at all sure he could tell why he liked them, that he was by no means a critic of poetry, and that L. was preparing a fine opportunity for him (O’Neill) to make a fool of himself. But finally it was decided that the preface would be written, L. phoned immediately to the printer and dictated the announcement. And I understand that the preface is already written and in L.’s hands.” Probably I’ll hear something direct from Liveright within the next week; nothing so far has reached me. If the book is really scheduled for fall it will relieve me of numerous embarrassments, especially with the family, who, I think have already ceased to believe any statements from me about my work, publications, etc. Last Sunday I was obliged to go to Havana to consult with a doctor. For the last two weeks I have been suffering intensely from two abscesses, one in each ear, added to which apparently alarming symptoms of fever, and lung trouble had seemed to develop. Of these latter the doctor says there is no need to worry, but the abscesses have not healed yet, and are distracting to say the least. I shall be glad sometime to get a good night’s sleep. Doctor says they were caused by sun-exposure on my boat trip. I have been reading _Quixote_ and _Swann’s Way_. My money is practically exhausted, but I think I can get a hundred by writing to Patterson and having my property there sold. The final 500 from Kahn can’t be solicited until August or later--if at all, for I shan’t ask for it unless I am writing again by that time. Mrs. Simpson has been so kind and altogether gracious that I couldn’t ask for better care.