I have never been able to live _completely_ in my work before. Now it is to learn a great deal. To handle the beautiful skeins of this myth of America--to realize suddenly, as I seem to, how much of the past is living under only slightly altered forms, even in machinery and such-like, is extremely exciting. So I’m having the time of my life, just now, anyway. 261: TO WALDO FRANK [_Isle of Pines_] _Aug. 23_ Dear Waldo: I feel rather apologetic about sending you so many photographs--but the last seemed to be more what I wanted you to think of me--than any others heretofore. Work continues. “The Tunnel” now. I shall have it done very shortly. It’s rather ghastly, almost surgery--and, oddly almost all from the notes and stitches I have written while swinging on the strap at late midnights going home. Are you noticing how throughout the poem motives and situations recur--under modifications of environment, etc? The organic substances of the poem are holding a great many surprises for me.... Greatest joys of creation. Forgive me for telling that anecdote about G--. I don’t want to seem stubborn or prejudiced, but you, on the other hand, are one who ought to know more or less _why_ it is hard for me to maintain a steady sort of whole-hearted confidence and enthusiasm with such constantly recurring “obscurations,” if you will. I’m not saying that these ultimately or “aesthetically” matter, but they enter the moral picture of the personality. Did I tell you that M. Moore has taken the Dedication?--needless to say, without alterations. 262: TO WALDO FRANK [_Havana, Cuba_] _Sept. 3 ’26_ Dear Waldo: I’m having my last bottle of “Diamante” before leaving for la Isla tonight. A pestulant[52] Abbe is gulping olives at the next table, and my waiter is all out of patience with him. But I cannot conceal my mirth--cheeks bulge and eyes strain at suppressions. “F---- la Cubana!” says the waiter who is Spanish. Well I never had such a fiesta of perfect food and nectar in my life. Furthermore, if you were St. Valentine--well, maybe you are! So here goes--even if you call my little story stale. Perhaps you have also experienced the singular charm of long conversations with senoritas with only about 12 words in common understanding between you. I allude to A----, a young Cuban sailor (most of them are terrible but A---- is Spanish parentage, and maybe that explains it) whom I met one evening after the Alhambra in Park Central. Immaculate, ardent and delicately restrained--I have learned much about love which I did not think existed. What delicate revelations may bloom from the humble--it is hard to exaggerate. So there have been three long and devoted evenings--long walks, drives on the Malacon, dos copas mas--and a change from my original American hotel to La Isle de Cuba, sine commotion, however.