80 Washington Square East
New York City

March 13, 1924

Mr. Thomas Craven,
Hillendale Ave.
Little Neck, N.Y.

Dear Craven:

I look forward to your article on Matisse.

Dr. Barnes has deluged us with letters of the
usual sort for two weeks. Eventually Dr. Buermeyer also
wrote, although in a not so wholly and obviously illegit-
imate manner. I believe that he did honestly feel that
he had a moral right to reply to your criticism of his
article. It therefore seemed not unjust and certainly
much easier for us to print his a communication his reply
to you. This we are doing in the April number of the
DIAL. We cannot continue this controversy and the fact
that we print this letter of Dr. Buermeyer as a communica-
tion and not as an article shows sufficiently that this is
a protest insisted upon by Dr. Buermeyer and not a contri-
bution behind which the DIAL editorially stands. We there-
fore trust that you will be satisfied to allow the matter to
rest here.

I wonder could you dine with us at the DIAL on
either Monday or Tuesday evening at 6:30? Could you either drop me a line which I may receive in my post here in my apartment Monday morning, or telephone me here at Spring 3231 either Saturday or Monday morning between nine and ten?

Hoping to see you!

Sincerely,

Arlington, Vermont.

March 29, 1925.

Thomas Craven, Esq.,
The Dial.

Dear Mr Craven:

The Dial and your name and the very fair
tone of your criticism of "Wilderness" and "Voyag-
ing" carry, to the cultured reader, such authority
that, desiring his friendship, I ask you to let me
correct certain errors of fact that occur in your
review. You are, perhaps, yourself so thoroughly
a writer by vocation as to be temperamentally un-
sympathetic with those to whom the occupation of
self expression is at most less important than the
adventure of living. Otherwise how could you
quote so dull a comment as that of Renoir upon
Gauguin's emigration to the South Seas? "Pourquoi?
On peint si bien à Batignolles."

Does the fact that one paints or writes bar him, in
your opinion, from possessing the very human feeling
of unrest, or the love of adventure and of travel
in remote lands? It is surely too severe a comment
upon contemporary American character to brand as sen-
sational the desire of any man to escape for a time,
mow and again, the civilization of New York, or even
of New England. You have read "Voyaging" and have
chosen not to believe in the reasons I there gave
for going to the wilderness; how then can I hope for
credence now? And yet so thoroughly do I despise
the motive that you have attributed to me that I beg
you to permit the readers of The Dial to hear my
protest:

I went to Alaska and to Tierra del Fuego
because I liked the wilderness; because I liked cold
countries; because I liked the sea and snow-topped
mountains; and because, living most of the time
where there were other people, I liked occasionally
to go where there were none. I proclaim such ad-
venturing as sane and salutary. I believe that it
would do a lot of you people good.

I pay no dividends to stock-holders; I
have no stock-holders. I am not incorporated.
I was not incorporated when I went to Alaska, nor
when I went to Tierra del Fuego. I am fortunate
in that I do not have to sell my pictures; I can

Arlington, Vermont.

March 29, 1925.

Dear Mr Craven: