Dear Elaine:

I have received in the course of the last few days your two letters. One dated May 18 the other May 23. Also two cablegrams from Cummings, each asking me to be in Paris June 8 at the latest. And one cablegram from yourself also asking me to be in Paris by June 15. Of course I understand the difficulty of sending me the information, but you did not in this second letter or second cablegram explain why I had to be in Paris in June.

After receiving Cummings' cablegram to Brown the middle of May, I made a number of important business engagements, with the intention of being in Paris by July. Of course it is most inconvenient to me to change my plans and to pack up at the last moment in order to be in Paris by June 15. I should probably have to leave Brown here to close up my apartment and I should miss the big fight.

In your last letter you speak of the course as closing during the months of July and of the first few weeks in August. My lawyer here, however, says that the courts are closed during August and a part of September. This Lawyer is Monsieur Léon. He was to represent the fish Harper. Léon informs me that July is as good a time to arrive in Paris. At my instance he has last night cabled to his correspondent in Paris asking that correspondent whether or not it will be time enough if I arrive in Paris by July 12th. If this French lawyer reports that July 12th is all right, you will agree with me that July 12th is early enough. I shall endeavor to reach Paris at whatever date he may set, but this information came to me so late that it is doubtful if I can make Paris before July.

Léon gives Harper a very bad name, and says you are lucky to be through with him. He says that such a lawyer is merely an impediment in the case. Of course I understand that with your lack of French you would rather deal with an American lawyer.

Dear Elaine:-

Did you receive the basket of fruit sent to the steamer?

I hope you have written my mother for she is anxious to hear
from you and her constant questions to me make things difficult.
You have not given me very detailed news of the baby's colics and
your ballets. My mother is not completely recovered from her nervous
breakdown, and after several weeks in Atlantic City and a few days
in New York has returned home. Thomas has taken the car to Worcester
with Agnes in it. He is now employed at $35, which, as I wrote my mo
mother is not "brilliant". But as you know Thomas is not after money.
While not like your friend Cuthbert, a Dweller in the Heart of Bo-
hemia, he is a Chauffeur of Heart. My mother expects to be in Edgar-
town a part of the summer. It does not look as if the Elks would
come over with something handsome. Apparently the Washburns are
doomed to flourish all their days in the land. Stewart writes that
you and he are not living together in the Ile St Louis. Mitchell
has ordered his publisher to send me his poems. Do I see your finger
in this?

I noted in this same letter from the Cathedral that the young
Cummings who is psycho-analysed in the current number of Harpers-
a reputable sheet- has taken a room in the rue des St Peres. I see no
harm in it that Edna St Vincent Millay is his neighbour. However, I
learn that my friend and colleague Ezra Pound is in the same street.
This puts quite a different light on the whole situation. But I do
hope that neither Edna nor Estlin will be too much afraid of their
k8nd, though distinguished, compatriot.

Through an error on the part of Brown in the previous letter,
the phrase "he was to represent the fish Harper" should have been
he was to have represented you before we decided to employ the fish,
Harper.

2.

Leon will now represent me in this country, being himself represented by Maitre Verley et de Pachmann. These Parisian lawyers have already cabled that if I arrive in Paris by July 13, barring act of God, and think that if you are there so that there is no delay, they undertake to put the case through by July, so that I may quit Paris by that date and for good. I have understood you are to remain in Paris until November, and the agreement of these Parisian lawyers is that by staying in Paris you shall have our part and the final decision will be granted by December.

If you should want to leave Paris a little earlier, the final decision might be got by November if I returned to Paris. But I thought it would be easier for you to stay in Paris a few weeks longer than for me to return for only a short time in October. Through Cummings you can ask me. I may want to be in Paris at this time, in this case we might get the decision in October.

Mons Leon has written Verley giving as your mail address the Equitable Trust and that you are living at the Hotel d'Iena. Should you change your address notify me through Brown (unless you find it illegal to write me directly).

Mons Leon has no confidence in American lawyers in Paris and has persuaded me of the advantage from your point of view as well as mine of your being represented by a French lawyer. I shall merely mention two important arguments.

1. If you will immediately see Connor and tell him that you have found a more expeditive fashion of handling the situation than the procedure suggested by him, and that Mr Thayer cannot reach Paris by July and that you have decided to take the case out of his hands and therefore desire the bill, for time already given you, and if you will then immediately see Maitre Reynaud of whom I have written you, and if you will put the case in Reynaud's hands,

3.

telling him that I am represented by R dePachmann, Leon and dePachmann promise me to get the case through in quick order.

2. It is agreed between Leon and myself that the complete charges shall be $3500. This means, I understand, that I pay Leon and he pays dePachmann and Reynaud.

You have now just time to write me and for me to act upon it before I leave this country, I therefore urge you to do all I say immediately, as the lawyers here in all probability have, before you receive this letter, already enquired of Reynaud if you have put the case in his hands and will be anxious to know if that part of your job has been accomplished.

Leon feels that the charges of Mr Connor should not at the outside exceed $350. Since Mr Harper behaved so poorly, despite his drawing up a few papers in this country.

At Mons Leon's suggestion I enclose a memorandum. Do not say whence it comes. You will note that in this memorandum Leon displays the French virtue of clarity, and also gives you information of the situation and assurances anent Mons Reynaud, also some arguments for taking the case away from any American lawyer whatsoever.

I hope you will write my mother in order to ease her mind before I go to Worcester to visit. I am not sure that my mother's fears have not already been aroused, and if her suspicions grow it will be difficult to keep her from leaving for Paris. I have already dissuaded her from going so that she light be with the baby. Aunt Rosalyn and Buel are about to leave for Paris and it will be difficult enough to keep them from being suspicious. My mother's health makes every consideration necessary.

Dr Clark is charging Lachaise up to the ears, and I spend most of my time arbitrating between them. We now are trying to arrange for Nagle to stay at Dr Clark's camp this summer, but it is up-hill work. Mr George Nagle shows no interest. Lachaise is suing

4.

the steamship company and the acknowledgement of your payments to the company are the sine quibus non. Through my influence Lady Rothermere has just brought three of Lachaise's lyrical drawings for $300, also through my influence Watson has allowed Lachaise to place some of his work on his mantle-piece. But whether he can be jacked up to the $1000 point I don't know.

Another bit of news. To-day J. Sibley Watson was received into the order of Doctor of Medicine. In my presence and in the presence of Lady Rothermere Tibby said that he would practice if he could find the patients. Lady Rothermere did not take the cue.

To encourage Cummings after what must have been rather unpleasant news, I take the liberty of pointing out that I have been

with his nurses too. Miss Moore came to tea at five and I showed her several hundred of his drawings. She did not get away until nine. She did not see, as she straightly put it, how I could be dissatisfied with so much of the work of Lewis. The only contre-temps of the little party a deux was when Miss Moore turned over one of the nobilities and found on the back those private touches which too often occur behind the most brilliant exteriors.

Love.

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

I. Habsburgergasse 2.

VIENNA.

May 20th 1922.

Mrs. Elaine Orr.

Equitable Trust Company.

23 rue de la Paix.

PARIS.

Dear Elaine,

So many things seem to prevent writing you the letter which I have intended that I take this opportunity to dictate to you an acknowledgement of your letter of April 14th.

I trust you received the card I sent you ten days ago.

I am of course glad to do anything which you desire to be of help to Nancy. But I trust I shall never be called upon to act in the particular capacity you mention. But of course you are right in arranging the matter as you did and I am in accord.

Of course I understand your reasons and approve of them for paying the bill of 385 dollars and the bill of 500 dollars out of the Trust fund.

I had already from several credible sources heard that you were embarking en famille for France. I trust you are now safely ensconced in the spring capital.

You have been misinformed as to me plans. I have always thought it possible that I might return to America in July, but have never told anybody definitely that I was going back at that time. The

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case now is that I have decided definitely to pass the summer in Germany and have indeed taken a house with Dr. von Eddberg on the island of Rügen in the Baltic. I have here upon July 1st, pass through Salzburg and Munich to Berlin where I join Dr. von Eddberg upon July 10th. We then go on to Rügen where he will be with me until the end of August. I then hope to have a visit from my friend Mortimer who will stay with me until the weather sends us back to Berlin. I hope to be in Paris the end of September for a week or so and in London for a couple of weeks early in October. I hope to be back in New York before the end of October. I do not suppose there is any likelihood of your being upon the island of Rügen and so presume that my first chance of seeing you is in Paris in September in case you are then there. It is good of you to suggest I look you up and I shall certainly want to do so.

No, I have written nothing during this time in Vienna, but hope to complete my reading of what is south reading in contemporary German literature during the summer in Rügen and in case Mortimer is not able to join me in September to devote that month in solitude to the composition of a number of essays upon German art and letters. In case Mortimer does join me I suppose the position will as usual be put off until some time in America.

I was interested to receive from Seldes advance sheets of Dummings' book.

I suppose you know that your friend Frederick Pearson has been appointed secretary to the American Legation at Prague and that he is now active there. I understand his wife is joining him later, but perhaps you will be seeing her in France.

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Uncle Ernest and Aunt Rosslind are expected though without certainty here in Vienna. One is agog. Buell is motoring in a Rolls Royce which it appears would make it inappropriate for him to visit this impoverished city. I understand he will confine his efforts this side of the Rhine to the less famished Germany.

Mr. Riccius wrote me that you appeared rather nervous before your embarkation and I hope the sea trip rested you and that you are now feeling fit.

I. Habsburgergasse 2.

VIENNA.

October 5th 1922.

Mrs. Elaine Orr.

Hotel Wagram.

208 rue de Rivoli.

PARIS.

Dear Elaine,

You see I take you at your word!

I was really as expected extremely rushed in Berlin
and ended by so tiring myself out that I caught a bad cold on the
way here and continue more or less laid up from it. So we both
seem to have paid.

I trust you received the cards and the folio I sent you
from Berlin and also the cards from Regensburg and Passau.

Cummings has written something about the June Dial
which because I am not sufficiently au courant with the number of
inversions and of negatives which he is now using to indicate an
affirmative remains quite incomprehensible to me. Apparently
though he liked it or he did not.

Surveying the public from the front seat at the Opera
escorted by my distinguished friends Mortimer and Schnitzler who
should I see looking up at me from a few seats in the rear but the
fair young Alexis. The situation became more acute when he rushed
to greet me and to be presented, since I had forgotten and have

-2-

not yet been able to recall his name. He and Miss Porter with
whom he apparently travels and with whom he is now I believe in
Budapest are to come here to tea on Monday afternoon not to my
enthusiasm. Perhaps they will bring Cuthbert too. I find he was
with your very dear friend Brown in me this summer. Mr. Mortimer
and I have been waited on in Regensburg by a waiter who was so like
him in every respect and so his figure took on some glamour.

Mrs. Onderdonk has just called up to say that she has
something of the utmost importance about which she must speak with
me privately. So I fancy that her daughter who occupies the apart-
ment under Ida Roland has passed on something. Her voice suggested
that of her heir when he returned from America with his little
budget last winter and he too wished to speak with me privately
about something most important. There is nothing like being in-
teresting to the Onderdonks.

Dr. von Erdberg received another black mark when the
doorman at the Adlon, after I had already been stopping there a
few days, pointed to a paper package crushed between trunks in the
vestibule and said "Oh, by the way, Mr. Thayer, that package there
was left in a taxi occupied by a friend of yours last autumn who
was taking it and some other packages away from the hotel. I be-
lieve to keep for you. It was found in the taxi and the driver bro
brought it back here remembering that the things had been handed
into the car here at the hotel. That was last summer, but the
package is still here, if it is anything you care to keep". The
package contained my Beardsleys forth several thousand dollars

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and Dr. von Erdberg upon investigation of the delicate point was
not aware that they were not locked in his safe at the Ministry.
I refrained from commenting to that degree that I myself pronounced
my mastery notable.

I bought perhaps foolishly a lot of pictures in Berlin
some of which I thought extremely cheap and some of which I find now
I got extremely dear, but I suppose if one is not done half the time
one remains solvent. It may interest your friend to know that the
pictures consisted chiefly of five supreme water colours by Chagall
and two oil paintings by Chagall and one oil painting by the greatest
known Parisian artist, a Norwegian Munch and one oil painting by
Bonnard, of a water colour by Derain and of a drawing by the same
master. I also am having made under the supervision of the German
sculptor Kolberg a reproduction in stone of the figure which
Cummings so insinuates. Cummingsesquely referred to in an ancient
number of The Dial as "Lehmbruck's (the name was by Cummings other-
wise spelt) Lean Girl".

The cost of living in Vienna is not only unbelievable
in crowns at present, but is also in dollars at least twice as high
as when I left and at that time it was already twice as high as when
I came a year ago, so that in dollars it costs four times as much
as it did a year ago. The cost of living in Vienna is I should think
higher now in dollars and equal almost to that in Paris and London
and to what it was before the war. Indeed Mr. Mortimer for whom I
engaged a room at an hotel which is supposed to be somewhat more
reasonable than the Bristol pays for his simple room without

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running water more than he will pay for his room in Paris at the
hotel of his choice there. This Paris hotel has also the advantage
of containing Mr. Onderdonk's friend Mr. Santayana.

Despite the rise in the cost of living Vienna is even
more depressing than before and I do not look forward to ten
months here with pleasure. But I suppose there are many chances
that I shall be getting out much sooner perhaps tomorrow.

The theatres here are full of interesting things as
last year and despite my cold I bestir myself to keep my friend
company anyhow in the evening if not during the day. There is much
more doing here indeed than I found in Berlin. There we struck
nothing better than Madame Pompadour so you had to that extent luck.
The Berlin Opera House is ugly and the singers we heard at the only
opera we cared to go to "Cosi fan Tutti" by Mozart inferior. The
fall of the Mark has sent most of the best German actors either
away from Berlin or into the moving pictures. The previous visit
there I saw more good things in Berlin than any time in Vienna,
but now Berlin is really hard-up.

Our last night there we saw Stanislawski and his Moscow
players. This is not the same company that was in Vienna last
year. They gave a superb performance of a play about the Russian
Czar, I forget the title, the Czar having been the son of Ivan
the Terrible and having been written by Alexis Tolstoi, who is I
believe a cousin or brother of Leo. Should these players visit Paris
before going on to New York where they are due this winter you
would do well to see them. I have never seen a better piece of act-

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ing than that of the man who took the part of the Czar. Fascinating-
ly neurotic.

My own chequered story is accepted somewhat phlegmatically
by one who has sailed many chequered seas. I continue, unfortunately
I suppose, in more or less active revolt.

I have written Mr. Seldes to ask Mr. Watson to let us
have the Cummings drawing of the dancers for the folio for which
drawing there is still time and room. But the outcome of my sug-
gestion to Mr. Watson is uncertain first because Mr. Watson may not
agree to send the drawing here and secondly because if he sends it
the drawing may be lost in the mails, thirdly because if I receive
the drawing I may be disappointed in it and decide after all not to
include it in the folio. But from the reproduction I agree with
Lachaise that it is the best thing Cummings has done.

At the last moment Gerasch lost his head sufficiently to
give me his apartment at my former figure so that I am now paying
a not abnormal rent having last year paid double what anybody else
paid in Vienna.

I. Habsburgergasse 2.

VIENNA.

October 19th 1922.

Mrs. Elaine Orr.

Equitable Trust Company.

23 rue de la Paix.

PARIS.

Dear Elaine,

My mother writes me that she wrote me several weeks ago she was coming to Paris and Vienna. I had not received any such letter. Apparently she is sailing today or tomorrow, although she does not set the day definitely. Could you then give to her the 13 pairs of socks in case you have already got them from Charvet to bring to me here. In case you have not get them from Charvet perhaps you might mention my need to my mother and perhaps she would get them for me. I have just written Charvet that either Mrs. Elaine Orr or Mrs. Edward Thayer will call for the socks.

I do not consider it practical to take advantage of my mother's visit in the respect mentioned in your last letter. I await your answer to mine before writing further. I take it my mother will be able to be here in Vienna only for a few days.

I. Habsburgergasse 2.

VIENNA.

October 24th 1922.

Mrs. Elaine Orr.

Equitable Trust Company.

23 rue de la Paix.

PARIS.

Dear Elaine,

I have just received a cable from my mother saying
that she is sailing upon the 24th upon the "Aquitania". As I have
no European address for her I am wirelessing her my wishes to the ship
and am writing her to the ship at Cherbourg. Whether she will re-
ceive this telegram and letter is of course not certain.

I am glad Mr. Cummings' case looks at present more
hopeful. I trust my letter of a couple of days ago will not aggra-
vate the inflammation.

I am by my physician not permitted to leave Vienna and
therefore much to my disappointment cannot visit my mother and
uncle and aunt, etc. etc. in Paris.

Last year I rented an easy-chair from the Onderdonk
family for two dollars per month arranging to re-rent this year.
Mr. Andrew Onderdonk interrupted my conversation with his mother
to say that he thought it would be more suitable were I to pay three
dollars per month. I refused flatly to do so and am the proud occu-
pant of the chair at two dollars per month, "but only because they

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are glad to let me have the chair anyway - no one else could have it
for less than three dollars".

I should be amused to know Mr. Cummings opinion of Mr.
Eliot's new poem "Waste Land" about which some people throw up their
hands. Also about Mr. Eliot's magazine Criterion about which some
people speak with the corners of their mouths down.

I Habsburgergasse 2

VIENNA

May 30th, 1923

Mrs. Elaine Orr,
Hotel Wagram
Rue de Rivoli
Paris.

Dear Elaine,

Although very hurt at the scarcely necessary allusion to the
timbre of my laugh, I write.

I was naturally extremely upset to hear of Constance's ap-
parently unfortunate marriage. Speaking as a philosophical opponent
of marriage in the abstract, I am, however, less ready with assurance
to rate any particular marriage, especially when after all we know so
very few facts and depend for our impression upon Charlottesville and
Miss Antrim. After all, we know Constance's personal disabilities,
and perhaps her situation will not be any less agreeable to her, if
less agreeable to her relatives, than it was before. Anyhow I am sur
you cannot in any respect reproach yourself. After all you could
probably have done nothing even if you had been present. Also if
you had done something you could not have known that it might not have
been rather for the worse than for the better. I am all for personal
freedom. But I am very sorry indeed, for of course after all it does
look unpleasant.

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Thank you for sending me the clipping as to the death of Dr. Webster. A few days later the same event was treated in the Neue Freie Presse. I presume he died the most famous man in Worcester. Small consolation! Subject matter for an excellent study in environment for whoever has the leisure and the energy to do it. Perhaps something adapted to the genius of young Cummins.

Thank you and E.E. for the illuminating letter from the London Mercury. I had cast envious eyes upon their business organization and the perusal of this letter makes therefore against the sin of envy. Reading it I fancied Mr. Craig must have absconded from New York and become the publisher of the Mercury until I found at the bottom the neutral name of Wilson. The business manager is an acquaintance of mine through correspondence, and personally of Mortimer and Rex Carey; he is an American. I wonder whether he is responsible for his circulation manager.

I don't dare send Frank Harris through the mail but when next we meet and you give me back my valuable Oxford Circus I'll let you have this illuminating discussion.

Here it is hot and dusty, which conditions affect both the spirits and the eyes. Mr. Dehn has returned and Miss Spicer, after also returning, has now gone off to Paris where I dare say you have already made her acquaintance.

Speaking of St. Jean de Luz, am I right in understanding that

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this is a French seaside resort between Biarritz and the Spanish bor-
der ? Although I was in Biarritz and over the border I don't re-
member it.

Watson having written me comparatively amicably, I now ex-
pect to pass the summer in Europe and to pass through Paris and London
on my way to New York about October 1st.

The word connect had also reminded me as I used it of Harry
Fortune.

I have not myself had anything done at the dentist since
leaving America and confine my agony in the dentist's chair to dreams.

I am sure that any one of the rules you so carefully follow
will alone ensure the desired result. I see no need of both open-
ing umbrellas and wearing peacocks' feathers, let alone to do anything
so particularly dangerous as to walk under a ladder. The sentence
you failed to envisage is in a tongue/which the author of Puella Mea
is acquainted. Why not apply to him ?

Seldes, chaperoned by Olive Bell, frequents Picasso. In
that gifted gentleman's studio he has just found the greatest picture
that he, Mr. Seldes, has discovered anywhere in modern art.

I am writing several hours a day on an article on the folio,
to appear in the Dial next autumn. The preface and biographical
notes for the folio are, so far as my part of the work is concerned,
done.