Dear Gorham: I am delighted to hear about your sudden appreciation of D’Annunzio’s novels. In fact, I get a picture of you running with them under your arm, (one arm, I should say,--the other being occupied with other cargo,--) away from the, as usual, glaring M. Schopenhauer who stands in the doorway of your erstwhile quiet ivory tower waving his arms and shaking fists at you. I would rather, and more truthfully, I think,--think of you thusly than as another picture, more common to humanity, that always obtrudes upon me when anyone announces “an engagement”--“The Storm”.... You will remember seeing it in a thousand “art store” windows:--a curly youth partly in a bearskin trotting amiably with a barefooted flaxen lady away from something that evidently hasn’t taken the starch out, as yet, from a rag that they are dragging along above them. It is all “too lovely” and pink. I am sure there is more of a “rouge et noir” cast to your surrender. Well,--betrayal brings memories and wisdom (to the male, anyway), and so I congratulate you on your splash even though I suffer from unaccustomed silence. One word before we close the subject, though:--you must not expect me to read D’Annunzio. Did I tell you that I have been enjoying the letters of Henry James? Also, Aldous Huxley’s “Limbo,” and the Noh plays of Fenollosa and Pound. Conrad’s _Nigger of the Narcissus_ seems to me all polyphonic prose, plus the usual quality of Conrad characterization, etc. Then I’ve read most of the tales in James’ _Better Sort_ vol. and that is about all I’ve been able to cram into the exhausted evening hours since New York. I’ll chuck in a page of the Akron poem that I struck off the other evening just because I want an opinion on it from you.[12] Hustle back to the ivory tower and put on your specks for a minute, please, and tell me what you think of this uncouth trifle, sir. In view of my attitude toward what Akron so strongly represents, I have been thinking that it might be amusing to call the whole series “Porphyro in Akron.” I don’t much care whether anyone will care for it or not. What I seem to want to do more and more as time goes on, is to preserve a record of a few thoughts and reactions that I’ve had in as accurate colors as possible for at least private satisfaction. --/--/ 47: TO GORHAM MUNSON _Washington, D. C._ _Sept. 13th, ’20_