A few words of caution about some of the conclusions to be drawn from the letters are in place. The editor has expanded space and tried his publisher’s spirit, in order to include every important letter. But he has, of course, selected. Therefore, no ultimate conclusions, particularly those involving the personalities of Crane’s contemporaries or the nuances of relationships, are implied by the arrangement which follows. Further, the poetry of Hart Crane ought not to be hastily judged by his life or letters, though the latter should no doubt be studied to support an understanding and appreciation of the poetry. Art is not subservient to the man; it has a life of its own which may be related but never subordinated. For example, the Brooklyn Bridge as conception and poem will be seen to have occupied a compulsive position in Crane’s experience and thought. Granted that _The Bridge_ was a failure as a unified, major epic; this should not lead us to conclude that Crane failed as a poet too, even though he did not succeed as a latter-day Dante or Virgil. Various sections of _The Bridge_ are individually magnificent; in addition, Crane wrote other poems before, during, and after his work on _The Bridge_ which suffice to give him first rank among contemporary poets. Nor should we, at the same time, assume that Crane’s poetic gift was gone because he said so, or because he didn’t write much in his last years. “The Broken Tower” was completed little more than a month before he died in the Caribbean Sea. With only one such poem to his credit, a poet would deserve and gain the immortality predicted for Crane. Finally, Crane was admittedly not a thinker, rather a creative being who depended on sensation, intuition, taste. It would be unwise to characterize his poetry as valueless expression simply because he was neither a logician nor a pundit preoccupied, sensibly or otherwise, with questions of ideology and systematic knowledge. In his own valid and fruitful manner, Crane illuminated recesses of the human mind and heart with pregnant clarity.