It becomes to my mind a kind of diminutive model of ambition, simply pointing a direction. S’much for this endless tirade, but write as usual and keep me cheered and momentarily thrilled. Maybe J[osephson] has already started on his novel, burlesquing the Americans in the Quartier, that he intended. Tell him to send me some poetry, anything he is writing. It’s sure to be better than anything the magazines offer here. 83: TO GORHAM MUNSON _Cleveland_ _December the tenth_ Dear Gorham: Your letter in French (which innovation I like) reached me yesterday, a welcome evening stimulant after the day’s work. For I am, in a way, very glad to announce that I’ve been busy for the last two weeks at selling books in a store here during the seasonal “rush.” This is, in all probability, entirely a temporary tent for me,--but it has enabled me, though intensely occupied, to get free of the money complex that had simply reduced me to ashes. This item added to a total lack of any sex life for a long period had left me so empty that I gave up insulting you with a mere heap of stones for a letter, and though I haven’t more to offer you now, I have sufficient interest again in the activity of writing to make my meagreness seem less obvious. Erotic experience is stumbled upon occasionally by accident, and the other evening I was quite nicely entertained, in _my_ usual way, of course. And thus the spell is broken! I can’t help remarking also that this “breaker of the spell” is one very familiar with your present haunts, “La Rotonde,” etc., etc., only of a few years back. You see, then, that one may enjoy a few Parisian sophistications even in Cleveland! The _Ulysses_ situation is terrible to think on. I shall be eternally grateful to you if you can manage to smuggle my already-subscribed-for copy home with you. If this will in any chance be possible, please let me send you the cash for purchase, etc., at the proper time. I _must_ have this book!