ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL

EDNA MILLAY, FAMED POETESS, WINS
BATTLE WITH DEATH IN DESERT RETREAT

SANTA FE, N. M., Jan. 3(Spe-
cial)—The frail little woman who
bravely wrote:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends

It gives a lovely light!

is winning a battle with death in
this Arcadia of artists.

After an illness that darkened
her existence for many months,
Edna St. Vincent Millay is recover-
ing her health. Her presence in
Santa Fe, where many painters,
poets, novelists and such now con-
gregate, became known only re-
cently, as she has been in the
strictest seclusion.

Now, strengthened by the dry
climate, she is hard at work, fin-
ishing what is her most ambitious
effort, the libretto of "The King's
Henchman," an opera with music
by Deems Taylor, another Ameri-
can, which will have its premiere
at the Metropolitan Opera, New
York, in February.

In Santa Fe Miss Millay is the
guest of the Arthur Davison
Fickes. Mr. Ficke is noted as the
author of "Sonnets of a Portrait
Painter" and other poems.

Miss Millay, classified as one of
America's greatest verse-writers,
and the winner of the Pulitzer prize
with one volume of her work, prob-
ably will devote less of her time to
pure poetry, however. She is an
artist in prose, too, and, it is said,
will turn her attention to produc-
ing novels. Under the name of
Nancy Boyd she is known as a
satirist, essayist.

Miss Millay (she belongs to the
Lucy Stone league) came here with
her husband, Eugene Boissevain.

Edna Millay With Arthur Davison Ficke In Garden of the Ficke Home In Santa Fe

(Note-- This astonishing letter reached me at Hillsdale just three weeks after I wrote the note on the preceding page. Nothing about the whole matter is more incomprehensible than the length of time it took her to make up her mind.)

Steepletop, Austerlitz, New York, Sept 23, 1937

Arthur darling:

This will be one of the most unpleasant letters you ever received, and I'm sorry. But it's time I got this matter off my chest and onto yours, where it belongs,-- for it's all your fault, my dear, for persisting in asking such shockingly indiscreet questions. The sonnet was not written to you.

When you came at me like a prosecuting attorney the other
night in the La Branches' gun-room, asking me so casually--
and I at least six cocktails off my guard-- "To whom did
you write that sonnet, Vince?", I glibly and immediately
countered with the only name which in the circumstances it
would not be indiscreet to mention: your own. To keep my
loosened tongue from folly,

That's all. Except that this is by no means the first time
you've done that sort of thing to me. I remember your saying to
me once, in exactly the same off-hand sort of way-- only with
a little chuckle, too, that time, suggesting that whatever my
reply might be the thing was just a joke-- "Vince, was I....
ever your lover?"

My only reply was to rebuke you for your indelicacy in
asking such a question. But the rebuke must have been a
gentle one.

Knowing as you so well know, my dear friend, how reticent,
both by nature and by taste, concerning my own private affairs
and the affairs of other people, I am, it is wrong of you to
do these things to me. But quite aside from that, and looking
at it from your own angle, if you love me as you say you do,
it is very foolish. But don't you see, Artie darling, that in
the circumstances it is impossible for me to feel at ease
with you, and that eventually just out of self-protection I
shall avoid being with you whenever possible?

I know that I must have hurt you. I'm so sorry. But it
was no good letting it go like that. Because it couldn't
stop there. Our two distinct and incompatable memories of
that moment in the gun-room, would have twisted out of shape e
every word we ever said to each other again.

With love

Vincent

6

Note

In November 1912 a collection of one hundred poems by various authors was published by Mitchell Kennerley under the title of "The Lyric Year." At that time, my old friend Witter Bynner, (who will sometimes be referred to in these letters as "Hal"), was visiting me in Davenport, Iowa. (It may be noted in passing that Bynner's and my friendship began in 1900, when I was a freshman at Harvard, and that it will end only when I draw my last breath.)

Since both Bynner and I had poems included in the book, copies of it were sent to us. They reached me at my down-town office, where I was earning my living as a lawyer. Late in the afternoon Bynner came in to fetch me. We started to walk homeward, glancing at the book as we walked. Bynner read aloud some passages from it as I obligingly guided his footsteps up and down curb-stones. The prize-poem seemed to us very poor, and the other bits we encountered seemed not much better.

We were mounting the long Main Street hill and had just reached the grotesque Soldiers Monument near my father's house when Bynner began to read--

"All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood...

...And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky"...

We stared at each other. We nodded to each other. We sat down on the curbstone, with the fantastic Soldier looking down on us from his granite pillar, and, with our feet in the gutter, made our first acquaintance with a long strange poem called "Renascence" by one Edna St. Vincent Millay. Bynner's fine reading voice did the poem full justice.

..."And he whose soul is flat--the sky
Will cave in on him by and by."

"Well!" Bynner said. "Well!" I said. We walked on homeward, stunned. We agreed that this was not the work of any of the well-known poets, and not the work of a woman, and not the work of an American. Yet we could not understand why the author of this surprising and original creation had cared to conceal his identity behind so fantastic a name as Edna St. Vincent Millay.

That night we read the poem again. It seemed to us then--as it seems to me still-- a work of unmistakable genius-- the product of a rare and remarkable personality. In a state of considerable excitement-- for both Bynner and I have the fortunate faculty of being almost as happy over somebody else's fine work as if it were our own-- we wrote to Ferdinand Pinney Earle, the editor of "The Lyric Year", asking him who the author of this beautiful poem really was, and enclosing a letter of mingled jeers and admiration to be forwarded to "Mr.E.St.V. Millay."

The day we wrote was Thanksgiving Day,

1912.

7.

FERDINAND EARLE
MONROE, N.Y.

December third
Nineteen twelve

My dear Mr. Ficke:

Your very kind letter, while very pleasant to receive, afforded me no little amusement.

When I discovered RENASCENCE amongst the piles of disgustingly awful rot that was submitted to me as poetry last Spring, I wrote to "Mr. E. Vincent Millay" to express my amazement at the beauty of his piece. Imagine my feelings at receiving a photo of a mite of a girl, and a saucy letter of thanks.

It is only after months of correspondence and inquiry that I am convinced that the author is really Miss Twenty Years, saucier and more attractive than ever, tho' poor as a church mouse and living in a little village in Maine. She is to be sent next fall to Vassar by some well-to-do friends.

I hope I may have the pleasure of meeting you personally someday. Thanking you for your splendid poem and for your several courteous letters, I am

Yours faithfully

Ferdinand Earle

8.

Camden, Maine, Dec 5, 1912

Mr. and Mrs.

To Arthur Davison Ficke and to Witter Bynner:--

You are dear people. This is Thanksgiving Day, too, and I
thank you.

Yery truly yours

Edna St. Vincent Millay
(Apparently this is all she intended to write; but then she
turned over the sheet, and went on.--)

To Mr. Ficke and Mr. Bynner:

Mr. Earle has acquainted me with your wild surmises. Gentlemen I must convince you of your error; my reputation is at stake. I simply will not be a "brawny male." Not that I have an aversion to brawny males; au contraire, au contraire. But I cling to my femininity.

Is it that you consider brain and brawn so inseparable?--
I have thought otherwise. Still, that is all a matter of
personal opinion. But, gentlemen: when a woman insists that she
is twenty, you must not, must not call her forty-five. That is
more than wicked; it is indiscreet.

Mr. Ficke, you are a lawyer. I am very much afraid of
lawyers. Spare me, kind sir! Take into consideration my youth--
for I am indeed but twenty-- and my fragility-- for "I do
protest I am a maid"-- and-- sleuth me no sleuths!

Seriously: I thank you also for the compliment you have unwittingly given me. For theo I do not yet aspire to be forty-five and brawny, if my verse so represents me, I am more gratified than I can say. When I was a little girl, this is what I thought and wrote:

Let me not shout into the world's great ear

Ere I have something for the world to hear.

Then let my message like an arrow dart

And pierce a way into the world's great heart.

You cannot know how much I appreciate what you have said
about my Renascence.

If you should care to look up the April, 1907 number of
Current Literature, you would find a review of my Land of
Romance, (near a review of Mr. Bynner's Fair of my Fancy.)
And you might be interested in Mr. Edward Wheeler's comment:
"The poem which follows (by E. St. Vincent Millay) seems to me
to be phenomenal. The author, whether boy or girl we do not
know, is just fourteen years of age."

E. St.V. M.

P.S. The brawny male sends his picture. I have to laugh!

(There was enclosed a snap-shot showing a grinning little
wench in a hideous sun-bonnet, with an ugly barn as background)

Bypmer may have it still.)

(As a retort to the horrible photograph she sent me, I sent her a loathsome caricature of myself which my friend Tom Metcalf had made. I also sent her my book of poems, "The Earth Passion.")

Camden, Me., Dec. 15, 1912

My dear Mr. Ficke--

Ever the "dulcet phrases!" You deserve them.
And I make it a point always to "gie the deil his due." XXXXX
I can with impunity, since you have called me "the limit", say
that you are a ridiculous thing; and I will add that your home-
life is mild in comparison to what I had imagined it, and that
Mr. Metcalf's portrait of you is no doubt a flattering likeness
-- but I must, out of justice, admit that I love the little
book. Indeed, I cannot tell you how much! But I can and will Xx
 tell you the things in it that I like best. First of all
what The Other Sculptor says. That is one of the very finest
things I ever read. It seems to me quite perfect. And its
simplicity is breath-taking. Then the shepherd's song. Did you
ever herd sheep, Mr. Ficke? I do not see how otherwise you
could have XANX done it.-- "This year winter was not bad", and
"Such a pair as thee and me", and this, loveliest of all
"many a day and many a day." Truly I do not see how I ever got
along without the Shepherd-song! And I love the page beginning
"I will remain till my last line is writ". And, oh, the first
stanza of that "Monody in April"! You need not wish to be a
painter, my friend; you are one. And truly a poet. I am very
glad you wrote me. And very, very glad to have "The Earth
Passion". I have always had that. Perhaps that is why I love
the book so well. I thank you for it-- and for the scribble on
the fly-leaf.

If by "Do you read Coleridge?" you mean, "Is Renascence
done in imitation of "The Ancient Mariner"-- no, it is not.
I have read Coleridge, of course; but not for years. And I
never even heard of William Blake. (Should I admit it, I
wonder?)

As to the line you speak of-- "Did you get it from a book?"
indeed. I'll slap your face. I never get anything from a book.
I see things with my own eyes, just as if they were the first
eyes that ever saw, and then I set about to tell, as best I can,
just what I see.

And I have an idea that there are vastly fewer "accidents
of composition" than one might think.

But I will answer honestly, as you bade me. I did see it,
yes. I saw it all, more vividly than you may suppose. It was
almost an experience. And it is one of the things I don't talk
about easily. All of my poems are very real to me, and take a
great deal out of me. I am possessed of a masterful and often
a cruel imagination.

All this is just the wee-est bit confidential, you know,
and just because you asked me to be honest.

When I bring out a volume (save the mark!) you shall
certainly know.

I was interested in your book's dedication. "Cambridge days and nights!" T.N.M. is of course Mr. Metcalf. And is Witter Bynner H.W.B. or W.H.L.B.? If the former, I am convinced that his first name is Hezekiah. If, as you predict, you fail to get back the snap, I will send you another.

I wonder if I may be remembered to Mrs. Ficke?

Sincerely,
Edna St. Vincent Millay

"( Bynner had "accidentally" put the snap-shot of Miss Millay among his papers, and couldn't find it. The "Mrs. Ficke" referred to is my former wife, Evelyn Blunt Ficke.)"

(This letter is written on the most horrible, grey-and-gold-edged small note paper imaginable!)

Camden, Me. Christmas, 1912

Dear Mr. Ficke,--

I am christening, in your honor, a Christmas
fountain-pen and a Christmas box of note-paper. (Just by accident
I had three boxes of Crane's Linen Lawn, and you have no idea how
super-swell I feel. Aren't these envelopes sweet?) And I
christened a paper-knife in the pages of The Happy Princess.
I wonder if you are duly impressed. All this honor is heaped upon
you just because you have been so very, very nice to me. I haven't
had time yet to read the books you have sent but I'm sure you
have no idea how pleased I am to have them. I received the
enclosure from Illinois,-- how you Harvard men do bounce around!
I have never been out of New England. But then of course S
Springfield isn't far from you. When I have had time to read
things I will tell you what I think of them. I imagine you're
dying to know. But I am prejudiced in your favor, anyway, by
the first one you sent. (I cannot conceive of a man as
successful both as a poet and as a lawyer; and I have about
decided that you must be a poor lawyer. Is not the compliment
subtle?)

I will send you some manuscripts as soon as I get them
back from (ahem!) from the Poetry Society of America, where
they are to be read Friday night. (I shake in my shoes.) If you
please I have been elected to membership in the aforesaid
Society. I could hardly believe it; but it's true. If you play
Hedda Gabler with my manuscripts it will do you no good, for I
shall always have an extra copy. (If you have to look up that
allusion, be honest and confess. It will even up about William
Blake and I shall be delighted.) Won't it be great about Mrs.
Ficke's sister. I feel as if I'd made another friend already.
I'll write you a real letter and send the snap I promised. But
this is all the paper that goes with the envelope and I simply
can't begin wasting envelopes yet.

N.B. This pen doesn'talk because it isn't a very nice one--
for it is. It's just that I wield it amateurishly, being a
novice in fountain-pens. (Another shameless confession)

(The allusion to the "sister" must be to Dr Katherine Blunt,
who was then professor of Chemistry at Vassar.)

12

(This letter encloses a very amusing snap-shot of the
young devil. She looks just like any other fool-child of
twenty. Her dress is badly fitting, her posture awkward, her
expression one of ironic amusement. A small farmhouse and
an elm tree are in the background.)

Camden, Me. Dec. 27, 1912

My dear Mr. Ficke,--

The little book of Blake has come. And I take it all
back, just as you said I would, about slapping your face. I
haven't the heart. I am going to like him as well as even you
could wish. And, strangely enough, I find that I have always
known and liked one little song of his without even knowing
that he wrote it. It is the first of the *Songs of Innocence*,
the one that begins "Piping down the valleys wild," you
know. And the music is by a Mr. Gilchrist who is, I suppose,
that very Mr. Glichrist who is spoken of so often in the
introduction. Now isn't that interesting? Did you know it had
been set to notes?

The lines I like best in it so far, (in the book, I mean)
even better than *Sunflower*, are these, the fourth stanza of
*The Birds*:**--

"Dost thou truly long for me?
And am I thus sweet to thee?
Sorrow now is at an end,
O my lover and my friend!"

Now I truly and absolutely love that. Do you? And I love the
little song in the front of the book beginning "How sweet I
roamed from field to field." Especially the last:**--** he
"stretches out my golden wing, and mocks my loss of
liberty." Can't you *see* that? The picture is perfect in my
mind.

I have had very little time to read since the X books
came. But I have, of course, skum them. (Forgive me! That
isn't just the way I do it; but the word is so expressive.)

There are two and a half lines in *The Happy Princess*
that I wish to speak of right this minute.

..."I will not press
On you one breath of its great tenderness
If thus it stirs your pitiful sweet tears."

I think you have said that wonderfully well. It is so
simple, yet somehos so big. You might have dedicated to me
"The Poet X 松 Yōshi," for indeed your songs have found in me
a heart that loves them. But then of course a great many
people must do that, despite your suggestions to the
contrary.

You may have another sheet of paper this time. This
isn't Christmas stock.

I am enclosing two or three manuscripts that I
happened to have on hand. Don't hesitate to tell me you
don't like them; there is every possibility that you won't;
they are very unlike Renascence. But don't be afraid to tell
me. I shall bear up wonderfully well under the shock. That
word is "shock"-- mercy, I can't write it. I always want to

3

put a "c" in the first part. Shock; Shock; an electric thrill.
There. Please criticize frankly. I want you to. They're not my
best things. They're just "something I wrote"... This letter is a
sight. I'm scribbling terribly and can't seem to stop.

Please tell me the top-notch line that owes that quality to
an accident.

And please reassure Mrs. Ficke as to her doubt as to my
doubt as to your sanity,--(example of a periodic sentence!) I
am sure that you are quite, quite sane,-- in so far, that is, as
a poet can be sane, for the poetic temperament is a kind of
monomania, I think. The unspeakable" gifts", even, caused me
nary a shiver,-- I could understand so perfectly the mood that
caused you to send them. You are unconditionally forgiven. But
are you siezed often by those spells? For I imagine that people
who did not understand might be very much offended, and then you
would get your face slapped.

(I cannot recall what Miss Millay alludes to-- I must
have sent her some absurd objects that I considered
funny. I think that one of them was a strand of white
wool, labeled as a lock of my hair.)

I do not go to school, old man. XXXI I was honorably graduated
from the Camden High School nearly four years ago. It is only XXXI
because you are so XXXI very old that I seem to you a child, old
man. But even if I were still attending, and should be late
subsequent to the perusal of your epistle, (Keep it up, dear,
you're doing fine!) even then you need not feel so compunctious,
for I should without the slightest doubt have been late anyway.
I have been registered at Vassar for next fall. I do hope I
get in. I shall look up Miss Blunt one of the very first things
I do. I am awfully glad you told me about her. I am even crazier
than ever now about going. Does she look like Mrs. Ficke?

This letter is too incoherent even for the fact of _me_ to
excuse it.

I am nevertheless,

P.S. This very minute the P.S.of A. is vivisecting my
verses! Happy thought to go to bed on. "Sleep well, sweet angel!"

(On the back of the snap-shot is the inscription: )

A.D.F.-- His Picture.

Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of
the law.

Per Order
E.St.V.M.

15.

(Postmarked Camden, Maine, Dec. 29, 1912)

Saturday night.

Dear sir: Behold me walking into your parlor for legal advice. I am in receipt of a letter from a lunatic who wishes my autograph on the one-eighty-eighth page of his copy of The Lyric Year. Keep's ~~AAX~~ a'! Are you in receipt of a similar request and what are you going to do about it? They won't do it, will they? He seems quite sure of my acquiescence-- perhaps because he thinks I will be flattered by his request-- and he encloses a stamp and a somewhat premature thank-you. Do you remember in the Mikado, "the literary nuisances who write for autographs?" I never got a letter just like it before. Is it usual? Do be indulgent and explain. There are more things than William Blake that I never heard of. I am a dreadful bother, I know. If your other clients clamer (Sic! sic! Editorial note by A.D.F.) too clamorously postpone me, do. But don't waste-basket me, please, for I am in earnest. (I am not XXXXXXXXXXXX so afraid of lawyers as I used to be. They are lambs in wolves' clothing.---

E.St.V.M.

(Written on horrible, XXXXXXXXXXXXX; XXX grey-and-gold-edged
note-paper--- almost too much too bear.)

Camden, Me. Jan. 12, 1913

My dear Mr. Ficke,--

Your unstinted admiration of my Escaped-nun
stationery has led me to submit to you a second specimen.-- You
described the other as " a nun in a diamond dog-collar."

(Editorial note by A.D.F.-- If I really did say this, it is
the supreme literary achievement of my whole life.) Very well,
I raise you one. This severe white envelopewith its brazen border
border represents the Mother Superior-- with "an edge on!"

(Editorial note by A.D.F. -- Like many other remarks in
these letters, the phrase "thissevere white envelope withits
brazen border" merits thoughtful attention.)

Don't let anyone who'se the least bit respectable know that
I said that, will you?-- As far as you yourself are concerned,--
after that comic-Valentine episode of our early correspondence,
you are not in a position to say a word!)

(Editorial note-- I do not recall what this refers to.)

It is quite true that I have yet to learn the A.B.C.s of my
art. I am hoping that college will help me;-- but if I should
come back a suffragette instead of a poet wouldn't it be
dreadful?

(I am not sure whether it is Vassar or Smith to which I am
going. If I were your grand-child, say,-- now which do you
think you would prefer for me?)

(Editorial note: As Miss Millay then knew very well, I was
thirty years old.)

Potpourri belongs in that division of my verse which I
classify as "bull-doggerel"; that is to say, "I was determined
to write a sonnet." "The Little Bush" needs pruning. (But I am
much too busy in another part of my garden to bother with it
now. It will doubtless die for want of attention.) "Tiny Bird"
was pure inspiration.-- I had no typed copies on hand, you must
remember, of the things I would have liked best to send you.
They have not even yet been returned from the P.S.of A. (You
didn't really think, did you, that I, myself, was going to read
them aloud to the assembled deities? Keep 's a'!-- O, my
fluttering heart! I am quite content for a while yet to be
nothing but just "The Littlest Member." I imagine it will be
some time yet before I get right up and "speak in meetin".)
When I get them back, I am, with your august permission, going
to send you something else. I have gratefully ansorbed into my
system all you said about the others.-- And I hope they didn't
spoil our smoke.

I thank you very much for sending me Mr. Untermeyer's review
in the Chicago Evening Post. My appreciation of your kindness
is in no wise dimmed by the fact that I had already-- and now
don't be getting jealous, will you?-- had already received a XXX
copy from Mr. Untermeyer himself, with whom also I am
corresponding. I saw your little mark under XXXXX Blake.

17.

It is funny. I see, too, that Wm. Marion Reedy and Miss Rittenhouse (Secretary of the P.S. of A.) have both likened my style to that of John Masefield. And that's funny. Dead funny. Do you suppose he would feel even-- even mildly amused if he knew it?

(You were disappointed in my manuscripts, weren't you? I
I knew you would be. And I don't know why I sent them-- I knew
they were inferior. But think of the atrocious puns and all the
ungrammaticisms of Shakespere, and the many many times when
Browning stops to vaudeville stunts-- and don't quite lose faith
in me!)

"Queen Mab in the Village" is indeed charming. Somehow, I
can't tell why, the lines I like best XXX in it are these two,
near the end, "Bowing to a maiden in a pansy-velvet gown."
Somehow that-- that just"gets me!" The whole thing is
bewitching-- I wouldn't dare to read it on Hallowe'en just before
going to bed! So it was Mr. Lindsay's thumb-print on the
envelope,-- not yours! I wondered.-- I have found Miss Blunt
in my Vassar Bulletin,-- Miss Katharine Blunt, Ph.D.-- Dr.
Blunt: What is Mrs. Ficke's name, please tell me? It's not
Helen, is it? Please tell me.

Sincerely

Vincent Millay

18

135 E. 52 St. New York City. Feb 9, 1913

My dear Mr. Ficke, --

Shall I give your regards to Broadway,--
now that I am here within hailing distance of it? To any
question that you might raise concerning my presence in this
locality I could only answer, "I'm here because I'm here
because I'm here." And I might add that I expect to take a
few courses at Columbia this semester.

Yesterday I got a note from Sara Teasdale, inviting me to
take tea with her. Whaddayouknowboutthat! The news of my
arrival has <u>spread</u> <u>clean</u> from here to East 29th Street!

How do I like New York? O, inespressiblY! Yes, the
Public Library is! No, the subway isn't! O, the St. Patrick
Cathedral! -- Quite too sweet I, I assure you! And the view--
charming, charming! So many roofs and things, you know;
warships, and chimneys, and brewery signs-- so inspiring!
Yes, to the Madison Avenue Presbyterian! Dr. Coffin is
wonderful! O, my dear, -- tremendous!

I have learned to glare with a wild hunted expression all
about me at a corner, to elbow fiercely on occasion those
fellow creatures whom I love as myself, and to run and grab,--
literally grab a street-car! I have been here since
Wednesday and I am become a hardened citizen of a heartless
metropolis.

Adamantinely,

Vincent Millay

P.S. That is the name I am called by. I didn't think how odd
it would seem to you. V.M.

19

New York City, Mar. 6, 1913.

Dear Mr. Ficke,

I think you are very, very nice. And I wish very very much that you were here in New York and that some of the people who are here were out in Iowa.

I am not being a Bohemian. I am not so Bohemian by half as I was when I came. You see, here one has to be one thing or the other, whereas at home one could be a little of both. And whereas hereofore I have amused myself in idle moments by the diffusing of indiscreet letters which I would now give the half of my kingdom to recall, I am at present (unless indeed that confession has made this letter also indiscreet) prudent to the point of Jane Austen. I left all my bad habits at home, -- bridge-pad, cigarette-case, and cocktail-shaker. I brought with me all my good habits, -- diary, rubbers, and darning-cotton.

This is not intended to be humorous. So please believe that this whole page is true, and take it seriously.

Tuesday, at the luncheon given by the Poetry Society to Alfred Noyes, I met, among others, our friend Witter Bynner. He was one of the speakers, and he spoke very well.

What do you think of Anna Hempstead Branch (if that's the way to spell it)?

Miss Rittenhouse is to have a Literary Evening (don't you hate the expression!) Sunday. I'll tell you about it later perhaps, -- it may be a lot later, you understand. I am sure that no one in New York has time to write letters. This is quite an effusion for me now. I hope you didn't ask me any questions.

I am quite settled down. I run in my rut now like a well-directed wheel. Sometimes, it is true, I feel that I am exceeding the speed-limit. But I seldom skid, and when I do there is very little splash.

Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

Very sincerely
Vincent Millay
( Editorial note -- The lower left-hand corner is cut off this letter. )

P.S. That wasn't an indiscretion that I expurgated. I am really sensitive on the subject and I was afraid you might think so. It was a repetition. -- V.M.

20.

135 East 52nd Street, New York City, Friday, Mar. 14, '13

Dear Mr. Ficke,--

You are making fun of me, which is wrong, because I really wasn't spoofing you at all. I did write you a queer letter, I know, but I didn't do it, to use your own phrase, "out of cussedness." Someone had said something nasty about me, and I just took that way to work it off. Which perhaps wasn't fair to you. But it is preferable to "going out and killing a man", isn't it? The next time you feel in that mood, write a letter to me. I shan't mind at all. (Now don't you feel bad?) I am using a card because I am all out of plain paper and dassent use the giddy kind on you again. I like Witter Bynner very much indeed. What light does that throw on me? --Please, the light of your favorable glances! You were so disgusted with me.

I am not going to ask you to tell me what he says about me, if he says anything, for I know you would be just mean enough to tell him that I asked you. You'll probably be mean enough now to tell him why I'm not going to ask you.

You mustn't let my crazy letters bother you. (I forgot your profession; you have probably seen through and through me long ago.) But I am really very nice. You'd like me. (When I get some different paper I'll write you; but not until you answer this.)

Sincerely,
Vincent Millay

P.S. Your letter goes beautifully on the pianola.