Blake-ian theme, I fear. I have gone through a great deal lately,--seen love go down through lust to indifference, etc., and am also, not very well. This, I blame mostly to overwork. In fact the most of last week I spent at home mending an incipient rupture caused by the incessant heavy lifting at the factory. The possibility of such a thing made me furious with resentment against all those concerned in the circumstances of its cause. But I am quieter now that the affair has not been so serious as I at first suspected. I am back at it again today,--but shall in the future take more precautions against strenuosity. Your letter breathed an equanimity which it seems is more [than] in your late surroundings. The change must be doing you good. 43: TO GORHAM MUNSON [_Cleveland_] _May 25th, ’20_ Dear Gorham: --/--/ Your story in _The Plowshare_ was good and in the right direction, I think. Somewhat in the Chekhov tradition,--but a little too slight to leave many foot-marks. Work up to a few more complications in plot and treatment, and you will give us more of a chance for a grip. But the main point for praise strikes me in the evident fact that you have attained an hygienic attitude (“naturalism,” or what you will, but the only foundation left for serious and interesting modern work). I’m, I fear, a little obscure, but I need a conversation with you to get at the root of the matter. I am plugging along in a very sodden way, planning as much as I dare on a chance to work a little in the New York office for a few weeks this summer by way of a change. After a recent conversation with my father the move seems rather more probable than before,--so, it may be that I shall see you within six weeks from now of a hot evening. Have been reading Stendhal’s _Chartreuse de Parma_, _Noa Noa_, _Way of All Flesh_, and Landor’s _Conversations_,--a strange mixture. Anderson wrote me very much the same criticism of my “Episode of Hands” poem that you did. I haven’t done anything more with it in spite of frequent attempts. The new version of “Garden Abstract” I enclose for your criticism. _The Dial_ has rejected it, but that doesn’t mean much to me after reading in their last number that vacant lyric of Alter Brody’s. This “business life” is getting me in a terrible way,--and I am beginning to feel that I must contrive a jolt for myself soon. If it were only myself concerned in the “jolt” I wouldn’t have delaying qualms,--but,--perhaps I am fated to a life of parental absorptions. My interests are as keen as ever, though, and so I suppose I need not worry about myself,--as long as I keep worrying. 44: TO GORHAM MUNSON _Cleveland_, _June 8th, ’20_