MICHIGAN STATE COLLEGE
OF AGRICULTURE AND APPLIED SCIENCE
EAST LANSING

DIVISION OF LIBERAL ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

February 4, 1936

Mr. Robert Penn Warren
The Southern Review
The Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, La.

Dear Mr. Warren:

I want to thank you for your very kind letter to me. I
appreciated it worlds.

I have one or two things out at the moment that I'll ply
you with as soon as they come limping home.

For more than a year, I've been working on a projected
book-length study of Colby. At the present rate of speed, the
manuscript will be ready for loading on to the trucks in about
fifteen years.

Right now, I have rather definitely in mind a twelve- or
fourteen-page thing on the decline of serious reading in America;
one on the whole duty of a college English teacher in these days
(how very dashingly provocative and foundation-shaking this
would in all likelihood turn out to be); one in homage, with ser-
ious reservations, of course, to T.S. Matthews; one on the need
for really vicious literary criticism; one on the sad case of
Edmund Wilson; and one on Allen Tate as a literary critic (based
on articles and reviews written since 1925).

Inertia, together with occasional intimations of decency
and good taste, will probably take care of most of the indiscre-
tions premeditated above.

As to the reviewing, I'd certainly be more than interested
in doing some for you.

Congratulations to you and your associates for the damned
excellent job you are doing. You deserved every bit of Basso's
praise--and then some.