Something is happening. Some kind of aristocracy of taste is being established,--there is more of it evidenced every year. People like you, Matty and I belong here. Especially Matty, who was doing better work last summer before he got in touch with the Paris crowd than I suspect since. --/--/ His present crazes are, frankly, beyond my understanding. They are so much so that I have still a great deal of confidence that no matter how wild and eccentric he becomes, it’s just a phase which will be a practical benefit in the end. But, on the other hand, if one denies all emotional suffering the result is a rather frigid (however “gay”) type of work. Let us watch & pray! --/--/ 97: TO GORHAM MUNSON [_Cleveland_] _Same evening (May 16th)_ Dear Gorham: I forgot to mention that the art books reached me and how pleased I am. Derain is one of my favorites--more even than Matisse & Picasso--and Vlaminck I have long admired. Marie Laurencin is amusing--but no more than any febrile female. Have you seen the amazing satires of Georg(?) Grosz and the beautiful metaphysics of Chirico? My friend Lescaze has put me in touch with a lot of moderns that I fear, off here in Cleveland, I should otherwise never have heard of. I’m at work on a metaphysical attempt of my own--again I mention the familiar “Faustus & Helen” affair which has received a little stimulus lately. The trouble is--I get so little _expanse_ of time undisturbed for it, that it’s hopelessly fragmentary so far. Here is a tentative beginning. -- -- -- -- [See Weber, _op. cit._, p. 175] I wish you would tell me how you like my translations from Laforgue’s “Locutions des Pierrots” in the current _Double Dealer_. You will notice below them a very interesting poem by Allen Tate. This poem interested me so much that I wrote him a letter and his answer reached me along with yours today. --/--/ 98: TO ALLEN TATE _Cleveland_ _May 16th ’22_ Dear Allen Tate: Being born in ’99, I too, have a little toe-nail in the last century. You are not alone in all your youth and disgrace! But perhaps the umbilical cord made a clean margin of it with you, for I am reminded that it is 1922 and there is a chance of that. I popped on the scene shortly after Independence Day! and consequently have always had a dread of firecrackers. Despite all this desperate imminence, I want to thank you for your answer to my letter. It has thrown me clear off the advertising copy work I brought home with me (yes, I’m one of the band!) as I feel more like putting that off until tomorrow, than this. But on the other hand there are so many things I want to say that I don’t know where to begin. Letters are sometimes worse than nothing, especially for introductions, so if I am chatty and autobiographical you must pardon it.