I’m eating like a horse, losing my becoming tan, and getting fat, I fear. How I would like--at the present moment--to step into a grove of royal palms, doff these woolens--and have a good glass of Cerveza with you! The storm is increasing, howling loudly. It looks as though we were to be snowed in for the rest of the winter. Really!--And I may be a good time getting this letter to the PO if mail delivery is delayed, as usual under such circumstances. Don’t work too hard! --/--/ 267: TO ---- _Patterson, N.Y._ _Dec. 16 [1926]_ Dear ----: I’m laid up with tonsilitis--but must somehow thank you for your pleasant N.Y. letter and wish you as amusing a New Year as possible. As for myself--I don’t expect much. Nothing but illness and mental disorder in my family--and I am expected by all the middle-class ethics and dogmas to rush myself to Cleveland and devote myself interminably to nursing, sympathizing with woes which I have no sympathy for because they are all unnecessary, and bolstering up the faith in others toward concepts which I long ago discarded as crass and cheap. Whether I can do it or not is the question. It means tortures and immolations which are hard to conceive, impossible to describe. There seems to be no place left in the world for love or the innocence of a single spontaneous act. Write me here. P.S.--have you read Norman Douglas’ _South Wind_? It almost makes one jolly-- 268: TO HIS MOTHER _Patterson, N.Y._ _Dec. 22 ’26_ Dear Grace: -- -- -- -- Yes--it is a very melancholy Christmas for all of us.... I am certainly anything but joyful. Insomnia seems now to have settled on me permanently--and when I do “sleep” my mind is plagued by an endless reel of pictures, startling and unhappy--like some endless cinematograph. Am making as much effort as possible to free my imagination and work the little time that is now left me on my _Bridge_ poem. So much is expected of me via that poem--that if I fail on it I shall become a laughing stock and my career closed. I take it that you would not wish this to happen. Yet it may be too late, already, for me to complete the conception. My mind is about as clear as dirty dishwater--and such a state of things is scarcely conducive to successful creative endeavor. If it were like adding up columns of figures--or more usual labors--it would be different.... Well, I’m trying my best--both to feel the proper sentiments to your situation and keep on with my task. _The Bridge_ is an important task--and nobody else can ever do it. My _White Buildings_ is out. A beautiful book. Laukhuff has been instructed to send you out a copy as soon as he receives his order. --/--/