1.
E.S.S.

35 E. 31st St.,
New York,
9 June (1915)

Dear Miss Sergeant,

I threaten to be as bad a correspondent as I thought you
you said you were going to be. And my only excuse for not answer-
ing your letter sooner is my distraught situation, with friends
going away at end of college year, and some literary plans buzzing,
and wondering where I shall go for the summer, and a general rest-
lessness at the city, and an inability to seize the work that I
am constantly thinking I might do. You never can tell how ideas
are going to turn out, and you will work away at a world-shaking one
only to have itself get itself expressed in the most conventional
way, while an utterly unimportant one turns itself off in the easiest
serenest manner. I have yet to discover a method of stimulating in-
spiration, or of bringing yourself up to a luminous and God-like con-
trol of your ideas, when you feel like a helpless nobody. It always
seems as if one could be inspired somewhere else -- "dort wo du nicht
bist." Just now it is the country that appeals to me. The city os
incredibly dusty and acts like a huge sounding board for all the din
and children's cries. I have a home set in New Jersey in what used
to be a country town, but is now surrounded by a thick blanket of
un
cities. We have an old, dull and very/comfortable house, and every
my
summer I have spent there I have vowed would be the last. I don't
want to be forced back now, but no other chance seems to offer it-
self to get away from New York. I seem very queer out there and all
my friends seem very queer. My family conveniently puts the corrupt-
ion to the account of Europe. I am constantly confronted there by
the immeasurable gulf between my outlook tna theirs and I feel a
constant criticism of my futile highbrowism and Godless pursuit of

E.S.S

2.

strange philosophers. My young sister is almost a passionate vul-
garian, and takes with really virtuous indignation any deviation from
the norm of popular music, the movies, Chamber's novels, Billy Sunday,
musical comedy, tennis, anti-suffragism, and the rest of the combina-
tion that makes up the healthy, hearty, happy young normal person of
the well-brought up family of the day of the middle-middle-class. I
find her an index to current America, but we scarcely get along. I
envy you your being as firmly and happily placed in a stimulating
family, with backgrounds and connections and responsibilities and a
place in things. My relatives are quite hopeless, and I feel at times
like a homesick wanderer, not even knowing where my true home is.

2.
E.S.S.

335 East 31st. St.,
New York
25 ¤ June 1915

Dear Miss Sergeant,

Ixthruztxexhexxhadxexrespondent It is very
good of you to take thought for my summer. I must have unconsciously
made it seem more important than it really is. I hope I didn't really
fool you myself about that inspiration. It gets to be an excuse that
one makes to oneself when one can't get on top of the situation and
feel really in command of one's soul. I drift so horribly pulling
myself up with a start, only to slip the ear again somehow. Place
I think would help, but it would have to be people too and then some
smashing victory, which just to think of would give me a feeling of
power. Those people who want to create things oughtn't to have too
much critical power, ought they? What I really have been hoping for
the summer was to find some slightly furnished cottage near New York,
on the Sound or anywhere, that I could go to with a friend or two and
live mostly outdoors. Mr. Croly suggests dimly coming into edi-
torial conferences once a week, and there is just enough advan-
tageous in the sound to make me think I had better do it for a while
instead of going far away from New York. I had almost decided,
since I knew no way of finding what I wanted, to stay in New York
all summer, but I know a few warm days will make me miserable. Mrs.
Fernandez suggested Mrs. Mc Rae's at Cos Cob, and it must be very
pleasant, but, for me, expensive. I cannot think of being contented
anywhere without friends, and I put no trust in American hotels or
cheap boarding houses. I am really grateful to you for thinking of
the house at Woodstock. It sounds most appealing, but would be
too far away, wouldn't it? I wish I had had your long letter, or was
it all about the house? Do you know attractive and inexpensive places
in New England where one might go with the expectation of meeting
somebody interesting? The horror of getting with uncongenial
people who freeze one up is, as you guess, what would keep me from
making adventures of my own. If it was Europe one could start and
travel endlessly and always be amused and caressed, with scenery
and towns for companions. As I reread your letter it disquiets
me again. If you did find me the place and if my ideas didn't sprout,
and I am not confident that they would, then I should have
most desperately deluded you, and the working of your wits would have
been worse than in vain. However, it would perhaps be a challenge
that I would have to meet. You are absolutely the first friend who
has given my case thought, and I am really grateful.

I have spent a week trying to make a book out of my Gary art-
icles, floundering most dreadfully and getting myself surrounded by
a mass of loosely connected notes and reflections in all stages of im-
portance. Houghton, Mifflin have agreed to look at it, but I
think they will demand something less impressionistic than my articles
I find it almost impossible to say anything without assuming that my
readers knows all about the details of the organization I am
supposed to be explaining. Some of my friends even had trouble with
the articles. Is it really possible to combine facts and figures
and the tone that you feel the thing in? If I let go of my tone for

32

moment I drop into something worse than flatness. I am really having
a difficult time, and I can hardly feel that labor will hekp me out.
xxx Even an orderly outline won't do much, for in this school idea,
which I really believe is the biggest thing in the country to-day,
everything is significant of everything else, and won't be cut off
into pieces and still live. I know I will seem too poetical for the
publisher and will have wasted a summer, in working at the futile
thing. I admire order and precision immensely and it makes me angry
not to achieve it in a subject about which I am so enthusiastic, And
there is every motive to do the book -- that of spreading a good news,
and the sordid one of ,aking a book that will appeal. I cannot think
what I have done with my winter. It is discouraging to look at one's
self objectively. All I can find is my having written 31,000 words
for the "New Republic" that got printed, and about half as much more
that didn't; two or three long articles that either weren't paid for
or didn't see the light; and some scattering shots of dubious value.
My Western trip was a brightness, though I was scarcely responsible
for it myself. And besides this there is scarcely anything worth
remembering. And there is nothing at all of permanence. There was
much reading of Nietzsche with a high fervour and a sense of illumi-
nation (would there have been in any winter but the war?) -- and a
tracking down of Dostoevsky, and a discovery of Sanine, and a samp-
ling, with many wry faces of Robert Herrick and Henry Sydnor Harrison
and Mrs. Watts. And I should not forget "O Pioneers!" which you recom-
mended and which was so sincere and wistful. Do you remember the poem
"Prairie Spring" at the beginning? There was a girl from North Dakota
up at Barnard who was exactly that poem, so glowing and earthy and
passionately intelligent, one of the most beautiful persons I have ever
looked upon. Disentangling such people from one's emotions and
playing the piano and sleeping and dropping in on people, and adjusting
one's self to a startling change of levels and circles, and feeling
very amateurish and unconnected, made up the rest of the winter. I
say to myself that my next one may be very different, but I wonder how
I shall discover the way to make it so. The girl at least is tragically
gone home for good, and Nietzsche is read, though not assimilated
enough to issue in ideas. But the piano and the people and the
amateurishness are still here to tempt me, and I remain, as Miss
Rudyard said, "a promising young author."

Yours sincerely,

Randolph Bourne

3.
E.S.S.

Ulster Park,
24 July 1915

Dear Miss Sergeant,

I have been up here for a week on the farm of my friend Carl Zigrosser with whom I live in New York, and only received your kind letter yesterday. You have done yeoman work in my behalf, and I am very grateful for what you have done to get me a summer. Of course the Dublin appeals to me most, and would be exactly what I have dreamed about. The only consideration would be now how closely the New Republic wants me, and whom I could get to go away with me. Most of my friends are busy, but I shall work on them as soon as I get back to New York next week. All the people sound delightful, and the whole setting very rare. I had thought of the Macdowell colony, but gave it up because I seemed to be needed nearer New York. Boarding houses would not appeal to me even with the careful character-analysis of your friend's letter. Because I have an unhappy knack of finding myself dumb with the most excellent people. I should like very much to see you at Medfield, and will probably take a New England trip anyway later in the summer, whatever happens. I cannot think why you devote as much time to me, and can only be devoutly grateful for my blessings. Could we go suddenly to the Dublin camp, or will your friends want to know definitely in case of other deserving or undeserving people who might like it? Will you thank them very much for me? I will let you know as soon as I can what I can manufacture out of this rich material of possibilities you offer me.

Hastily for the R.F.D.

Randolph Bourne

4.

E.S.S. Ellen Adams, Medfield, Mass.

335 E. 31st St.
New York.

30 July (1915)

Dear Miss Sergeant,

Mr Greene very kindly telegraphed me saying that the small house at Dublin was at my disposal, and I have sent him word that I would come next week. I have found a friend to go with me who can cook a little, and there seems to be no reason why we should not get along, although I am not used to pioneer life. The people who have been there tell me the region is enchanting, and I can scarcely wait for the pines and the high air. I want to leave Monday or Tuesday on the night boat to Boston, see my friends and then go to Dublin next morning. If you were free, I would run down to Medfield in the afternoon for a call, and take my chances of finding you.

I can hardly thank you enough for working out a summer for me. I am sure it will be the happiest I could have found. My friend is the original of Fergus by the way. I have asked Mr. Greene for directions, but perhaps you can give me some too. Your letter makes me very well acquainted with the sociology of Dublin. I hope I can meet some of the delightful people you mention.

5.
E.S.S.

Dublin,
5 August 1915.

Dear Miss Sergeant,

We have been here about two hours, and already feel much at home. We have seen Mr. Brush in the barn and somebody has dumped a fine load of wood in the stable. It is still raining and very gloomy, but I'm sure we shall be very happy when the sun comes out. The intricacies of a patent stove confined outlunch to eggs and bacon, but Edward is studying the situation now and will doubtless evolve a technique. He was marooned yesterday in the Museum until they turned him out at five o'clock. I found him peacefully sleeping when I returned, and to-day we are both none the worse for our ship of weather. My train was very promptly late, and I found the Boston downpour as indefatigable as I had left it. I had such a delightful time at your home that I wince when I think that I almost let the weather scare me from coming. If you don't like to be thanked, you must at least know how much I appreciate coming to see you in perfect old houses, and becoming endowed with cottages.

It looks as if we were more secluded and in the woods than I expected. But we shall not mind that, and I hope the will inspire me to much work. The school business doesn't seem exactly appropriate, but it must be done. Perhaps I will find time for other things too.

6.

E.S.S. Medfield

Dublin,
9 Aug. 1915

Dear Miss Sergeant,

I hope you are not worrying about us any more, for we are quite settled and happy. The weather is annoying, but a great aid to staying indoors and working. It has turned warm, and there is so much moisture in the air that our matches won't strike, and our salt and sugar are almost liquid. Friday afternoon tried to clear, and we walked around the lake, but almost before we reached home, it had closed in again with another deluge which lasted all night. Yesterday was lovely, however, with soft sky and clouds, and we spent the morning on the little dock where I found I could write, though not spread my Gary things. Gerald Thayer and his wife called Friday, and we went to see them yesterday afternoon. He is a pleasing, simple soul, and she, I think, is quite charming. The little boy is very sturdy, but the baby a sad, thin little thing with such deep, wistful eyes. There was quite a deluge of visitors, some Misses Taber and a Mr. Sumner and a gigantic thunderstorm coming straight over Monadnock caught us all there at supper time. Dublin will perhaps learn that Fergus and I never refuse a meal. Everybody stayed and Mr. Thayer showed us all his color diagrams and demonstrations and told a great many stories, and everybody was delightful. Gladys Thayer was steadily sociable, and we were all very much at home. After supper they unearthed an antique piano brought over from Germany after 1848, and a fiddle, and Fergus and I played Schubert songs for an hour out of an old Liederbuch. Mr. Thayer's appreciation was almost embarrassingly ecstatic, and he proffered sketches and dinners and thanks if we would come often and do it again. I liked his simple emotional ways and his telling us we had "watered his soul." We are to go again Wednesday. He took us down to the road with the quaintest of lanterns, and spoke constantly of the music. Fergus' gallantry took us to the village with the young women through oceans of mud, but he talked a great deal and enjoyed himself. He likes to walk better than to practise, and is thoroughly pleased with the place. His slight cooking prestige soon disappeared, and canned things have been our salvation. After three hours on breakfast the first morning, he was ready to go home, but I suggested improvements in the technique. The stove is perfect, but there seems to be no way of accelerating wood-fires. One merely feeds their voracious jaws with wood for half an hour and then has a stove that will cook anything. Miss Monroe came in to see if we were all right, and I went up to see Mrs. Upham Saturday afternoon. She was a delightful experience, talking in long, polished sentences and remembering much about old Dublin and her neighbors. The house is perfect with the view of the mountain through the pines and the big open rooms and porch. I looked at the encampment and decided that we were much more comfortable here, though we have none of that delightful view.

Mr. Brush I have seen several times on the road. He is living very near, but I have not decided to drop in on him. He seems a little dry and unadvancing though one of his daughters was very pleasant. The Smiths are away. Mr. Greendet has solemnly conjured me to deliver a letter to Miss Lowell, which I shall, though one hears much here of her enormities. We shall have plenty of society, and all of it so