BAGADUCE FARM
WEST BROOKSVILLE
MAINE

Dear Mr. Horton,

How depressed you
How depressed you
How depressed I hope you
are neither of those things, and if you are it has now passed. I am sorry
that you will not be able to come here I do hope if it should ever be pos
sible able you will. Now about Mr. Hart having any money at all while he
live with us in Brookhaven, I am sure that he did not have any at all,
I remember Hal Smith saying to me before we left new York to go there--
"We have got to take him, hell( starve if we dont--" I think later--
about the end of the summer his Mother must have forked up, because
he had then enough money to get back to New York and be independant of
us. It was after that I think that he got the Job trying to get
ads for the "little Review", he somehow got his Father wheedled
into taking a full page for his Mary Garden Chocoaltes, and I can remember
Hart laughing with great glee at his Fathers rage when he saw the sort
of magazine he was advertising in, his Father cancelled the add at once.
No I dont remember about Harts' illness, but his Mother yes' she always
seemed to take to her bed in any emotional crisis-- I remember art
telling how he had brought food to her time and time again and she had
always refused it, then to his horror he found out that she had been
getting food behind his back, he went out then and got drunk, and that
I think was the only first or at least one of the first times he ever
did such a thing-- then he went back up to his Mothers room and they had
a terrible scene, he told her just what he thought of her, and also how
he thought she was a fool to dance the way she did, (she was taking
lessons then with a Florence Fleming Noyes) it was very arty. but this is
all heresy----

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that is, he told me he had said so and so to his Mother-- he may
of course thought some of it up after-- as one often does.

I do remember Hart mentioning the remarriage thing and as I remember
he seemed to think it was all rot, now I cant be too sure, but I do
know that he told me they wrer always trying to make fresh starts that
wrer always flops.

I never heard of the Poem you mention "Stark Major" was it in either
of his books?--- I have just this minute looked in White buildings
and there it is,-- so ignore my question...

I wish I could be of more help-- I feel I could perhaps, if I could
see you to talk to, my memory if very poor for actual facts but I feel
that if we talked and you asked questions it might bring back lots of
things I think I have forgotton, could you not spare time to come here
for even a week end? ---will you please not take what I am going to
say amiss-- merely-- that if you are perhaps hard up and find the train
trip expensive, I should as much for Hart's sake-- out of kindness to
Hart as friendleness toward you, be most pleased and happy to send you
a ticket for the trip here and return, do let me know, surely you
can spare a little time, and its lovely here-- if you agree-- I will
write you all particulars-- and make arrangements and meet the train.
I know that in a Job of this kind you must have many tedious expenses,
and I should feel so much happeir if you came and got nothing out of
it I could at least feel you wrer not out of pocket on my account,
please take all this as it is felt, very humbly and simply I assure
you-- Mean while, the best of luck to you.

Very Sincerely.

Dear Mr Horton:

First of all I am very sorry that I have not written-to you sooner, but one thing after another seems to have kept me on the hop, and added to this is the feeling that there is really very little of any use I can tell you, but look I dont feel at all that Peggy Cowley was bad for Hart, I think the thing might have been reversed, and one could say that he was equally bad for her, its so easy for people to try and blame someone else for what happens, I have a feeling that the forces in ones self are much stronger than any other person ever could be, in this case I feel that if Hart could stand Peggy in the first place, and if Peggy could stand Hart then in some way their faults or virtures wrer agreeable one to the other.

Hart did say however, when I saw him in Mexico, that "IF you had not come I dont know how I should have stood it any longer--- I was desperate---"

Now I had not seen Hart for about five or six years, so that his remark did not affect me personally, I only felt that something was wrong-- and I thought I knew what it was,-- namely that he-- living as he was with a woman --was not entirely at ease or-- you must know what I mean--or not satisfied, it seemed to me that the fact that he was mixed up with Peggy proved that he was a sort of split personality-- at least sexually-- there werer all sorts of plans that Peggy should go with me to Taxco wher I was going to stay with Bill Spratling-- but when we had lunch together next day, Peggy decided to stay, I was not over anxious to have her for one thing-- the whole thing seemed very mixed up and

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and crazy. I did not see them again before I left Mexico, I heard from them
though wanting to know what boat I was sailing on, they wanted to try and be on
the same one. Later in New York Peggy, said that they had or rather she had
been very anxious to sail with me( here I must say us, since Katie Seabrook
and I were together) she also said that she thought Art would have been all
right if we had been along, but in the next breath she said that Hart had
been drunk for three days, and never in the world would have jumped over
had he been sober' of course I know that that is silly in a way, since the
obvious question is 'Why was he drunk--- why was he in such a state--
I have always felt that Hart's conscience was his great destructive demon.
I know it weighed on him terribly that he had done no work to speak of in
Mexico, after all he had a Guggenheim, he was there to work-- I think he hated
to come back for that reason, this I judgeg purely by the way he threw abuses
at America-- and the Guggenheim in particular. I think Art had one of the
felt very inferior all the time, I think he was very ambitious, not in
a vulgar way, but to justify himself. I always felt that all faith in himself
as a poet or a person had been so shaken by his Mother first of all, and then
by his Fathers treatment of him, that it almost paralyzed him at times. I know
that he was starved for confidence--- I am talking now about him when he
was younger-- that is when I really knew him well, but even so I don't feel
that he had changed at all---. I think his Mother was a vampire as far as he
was concerned-- I know this more by how he talked of her, rather than what he
said, no matter how upset he used to get about her, he always seemed
to have a curious admiration for her-- she played on his affection all the

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time-- she was as I remember her either weeping or flirting-. I remember
one time-- when she was playing sickness, for some reason or other-- they —
Hart and his M other werer living in rooms on C gramercy park, and "art was car y
in food to her on trays that she would not eat, he discovered though that
she was in some intricate way or other getting plenty to eat,— this discovery
was so horrible to him— that he went out and deliberately got drunk— and
almost battered her door down— there life together— was as far as I could
see— one thing like this after the other. I think he was definately in
love with his Mother—I think he was corrupthed in childhood— she was that
sort of a Mother,— she couldent help it—. all his later Homosexuality
and his worry about it could be traced back I am sure to his mother—
I feel that he remained faithful to her— by becoming a H omo— I think his atte
mpt with Peggy—peggy- Peggy was a torture to him purely because he was
another
betraying his affection for his mother by touching another woman.

All this may seem rot to you-, and most of it will seem an old story but I
am in a way trying to lead up to what comes next,-- because its almost the
same thig really. before I was married to Hal Smith, H art and I played
around together-- that is we went to the Movies— we used to go and dance
together-- but as far as I was aware or if I thought of it-- there was no
special attraction between us-- we werer very familar one to the other-- and
when we wrer not either at the movies or walking about new fork we wrer
disagreeing violently about something, Lord knows what-- we had a great bond in
common in as much as we both had hated Cleveland and had both managed to get
away from there. When I got married we saw a lot of him, mostly because he

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was so desperately hard up-- it was nice for him to have somewhere to eat-
he often used to bring large very shop soiled boxes of chocolates, that
his father made, they had usually been in some shop window, so that the
chocolates inside of the sun faded boxes were always pale grey in color.
that summer we moved to the country, Hart came with us, we had found out that
he would be absolutely stranded in new York with out food almost. Hal
at that time had rented a room to work in and Hal was living in it I cant
remember the address, but I know it was in the same brown stone house
where the "Little Review-- was being published -- or rather where Jane Heap
and Margaret--I cant remember the name-- lived, oh by the way-- There was
a book of essays written by Charles Brooks, one of them was called "The
Poet" and was supposed to be atar Hart-- the book is named "Chimney
Pot Papers": it was very stupid and cruel-- but typical of the attitude in
Cleveland toward art and his poetry then-- Charles Brooks- lived in
Cleveland most of the time. Well we all spent the summer together-- and
since I had become pregnant at that time I was a suppose more on edge than
usual-- anyhow-- art and I fought all the time-- and the time Hal mentioned
silly to was a think-- after an especially fight-- art decided to move in the midd
le of the night -- and I woke up hearing the thud of his trunk on the
stares as he pulled it down after him-- I got up and made friends and we both
wept and everything was smooth again-- and art was not to go-- but then he
kept a diary and he was always leaving it around open at certain pages so that
a would be tempted to read-- it would be put on my dressing table or some plæ
ce like that-- he usually had some rather critical thing to say about me,
this special time-- he described my behaviour-- ended up by saying that I had

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been so sweet and apologised so nicely and begged him to stay-- so that
he as much out of kindness to me as any thing else decided to stay and
forgive-- and that after all the fact that I was pregnant explained
my rudeness to some extent-- Well' you can imagine how I carried on after
that-- it ended up by Hart going two weeks or so later-- and I dont think I was
saw him again for quite a while-- then less and less-- in fact the time
that I remember seeing him at all-- although I know he was about the house
a great deal-- was about three years later-- and the reason I remember
that time especiall was because of what he said-- First of all he came into
the house with a chip on his shoulder-- and almost the firt thing he said to m
me was-- "I wont come herer any more-- because Hal dosent like me to--"
I said "dont be silly "Hal is very fond of you--"

"No he isn't he is jealous--" he answered.

I was truly astonished-- and said so-- then Hart told me evrything about
himself-- about his having become a Homo,-- the gist of it was that he
blamed me entirely-- 'its your fault-- we should have got married-- you are
the only woman I could have anything to do with-- you betrayed us both when you
married Hal-- I remember saying-- I never was in love with you and you never
wrer in love with me either--" but he insisted-- ye saying yes you are-- you
simply wont be honest about it-- then he went on to say that if I had not
made such a mess of things he would have not become a Homo. Of cours what I
think he was doing then was putting me in his mothers place,-- nothing like
this was ever brought up before-- and after all I did know him very well
before I married-- he would have mentioned it if it had been so----

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I asked him I remember-- "Dont see why you should become a Fairy for
any other reason except that you are one---"

He answered-- and I remember that he was on the point of crying--

"NO one has ever told me I was beautiful before--"

I answered-- "But I know you are not beautiful-- you know that-- I don't see
why it should please you to be told you are beautiful when you know you are
not---" then of course we quarreled again-- he saying-- "That's the sort
of thing you always say " and my answering somethin equally stupid.

The only reason I tell you this is not to inform you that Hart was in
love with me-- because honestly I dont believe it-- I think he always
made excuses to himself, which is of course natural-- it is easier to say
I am perverted away from my natural desires because that woman turned
me down, rather than-- I love my Mother and will not be unfaithful to
her with any other woman. One thinks of course about Peggy, but
Hart was at the end of his rope, when he and Peggy wrer in Mexico,

he had betrayed his love for his Mother, it was all part of his feeling
of failure, there is nothing as bad as suppose for a true Artist and one
as sentive as Hart to feel that great things are expected from one-- it
is a hundred times worse than a mean belittlement of ones genus-- I think
that had as much as anything to do with his failure to write, I think
Peggy must have encouraged him and bolstered up his vanity as much as
she knew-- she is very kind and motherly, and very honest and not taken in
by anything for a minute, she has a curious abstract tolerance and
understanding. I am saying now that those are good qualities and that

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Hart was probably attracted to her for something like that-- all I am trying to say is that in her way Peggy, if she is kindly handled can give you more about Hart than anybody else because in her fashion she understood him better-- I gathered than from her the few times I saw her after she returned from Mexico, she is generous and kind and was I know both of these things to Hart, and I don't think she expected anything from him which must have been a blessing.

I am afraid I have given you nothing at all-- I have had lots of letters from Hart-- that is long ago-- but I am afraid I did not keep them-- I did have also many of his poems which he sent me as he wrote me,-- those I knew enough to value but in the disturbance of divorce and moving I am afraid they are lost-- most of them or perhaps all were published ten years later in his first book of poems. I think it must be a terrible job you have on your hands, the job of writing out Hart's life, Myths about him have not had time enough to grow up-- and the truth perhaps is not dramatic enough-- although I see a much sadder and more tragic thing in the fact that he was destroyed-- rather than that he destroyed himself, he was vital and smelt strongly of life such people do not kill themselves, they are killed in battle, and always a battle started by other people. I have not seen his Mother for years-- but one of the times I was in new York I got a note from her saying that she was staying at such and such a Hotel and since art had been fond of me-- she would like to have us meet--. it was a very tender note-- I could see that she was getting a great kick out of his death, I felt so strongly that I could not answer her,-- after all-- she was very well off, when Hart was hungry.

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in new York. Hart said once, that, his mother and his grandmother treated him as if he wrer a servant, when he stayed with them in the Isle of Pines forcing him to work around the place like a hired man-- more or less throwing up in his face the fact that they wrer feeding him and keeping him-- I may seem very bitter to you about this,-- but looking back the thing that I remember most about Hart is~~ honestly~~ his Mother,-- in one sense that is,-- I dont try to say that she was more of a person than he,-- but only that she~~ was~~ always seemed to be at the root of his trouble. I have no patience with her because she always seemed to me to be a silly vain woman,-- if she had really been capable of nursing him~~ when he was a little~~ one would forgive her a lot but she wasent, she was neither capable or willing.

My husband begs me to tell you that we should be very happy to have you come and see us here any time you should feel like it. I wish I could give you more, but I am stupid about dates and actual scenes, but I do feel Hart as a whole, although I seem to have forgotten much of the incidental music. My Best wishes to you.

Sincerely.