<table><tr><td>THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS</td></tr></table>

121 Bank Street,
New York City,
July 29, 1935.

Mr. Cleanth Brooks, Jr.,
Managing Editor, The Southern Review,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Dear Mr. Brooks:

Thank you very much for your letter of July 23rd.
I enclose herewith the MSS, with revised foreword. It seemed to me
that the most practicable thing was to omit some of the matter en-
tirely - as it brought up a lot of issues which could not be developed
without resulting in two articles quite different from each other.
In fact, I even wonder whether the first two paragraphs of the new
foreword might be dropped also? If this were done, I should think
that the first sentence (of the remaining text, paragraph three)
should be changed to read: "The following article is an imaginary
speech by Antony." If I don't mention the other matters at all
(justification, appeal, guilt, tragedy, history, etc), no one will
miss them - but if I do mention these matters, I suppose that every-
one, like the editors, will miss the expansion of them unless I deal
with them at considerable length. And as I have said, I could not
expand them without making a whole of two parts totally different in
modality. I hope you will agree with this diagnosis.

I have been reading the first number of The Southern
Review, which contains a great deal of very sound workmanship, and
covers a wide range of interests. Judging by section one, I expect
to be particularly interested in following the thesis which you are
developing. Mr. Warren asked me to send some comments and some
names - and I hope to be able to do so shortly.

Should it turn out that your readers took enough
interest in the "Julius Caesar" item, I should like to try my hand
some time at similarly retelling "Coriolanus."

121 Bank Street,
New York City,
November 5, 1935.

Mr. Robert Penn Warren,
Managing Editor, The Southern Review,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Dear Mr. Warren:

Thank you very much for your letter of October
23rd.

Unfortunately, none of the material on which I
am now at work is in presentable form. But I shall be glad to
show it to you as soon as any portion has enough organization or
coherence to make editorial judgment possible.

The nearest approach to a readily manageable pro-
ject I have at present is in some ideas for an article, "What to
Look For." It would be a kind of critic's credo, presenting the
key "possibilities" one might have in mind when asking himself
about literature and about history. What sort of things might one
look for, for instance, if approaching the culture of Assyria, and
if he wanted to lay out an advance campaign before knowing a thing
about Assyria? The article would "prove" nothing - but it might
put down a few coordinates at least serviceable to others as some-
thing to depart from.

Perhaps it is not in accordance with the policy of
The Southern Review to order general ~~articles in advance.~~
if this is not the case, and if the editors were willing to take a
wild gamble on me for four or five thousand words of such tenor, I
could try "What to Look For."

Meanwhile, I am eagerly looking for the second number
of The Southern Review. And I am very happy to know that my Antony
piece is scheduled to appear in it.

121 Bank Street,
New York City,
January 6, 1935.

Dear Mr. Brooks:

Your three articles have interested me a great
deal. And they made me want to write you letters of various
sorts. But I did not see how I could say a little bit without
saying a whole lot. And that got me around to wanting to get
up the nerve to offer you a copy of my "Permanence and Change."
Particularly because, in the second part, I try to consider the
matter of incongruity at some length. And so I am wondering
whether you would let me send you a copy - I basing my suggestion
on the somewhat slovenly notion that my interest in your treat-
ment might foretell your interest in my treatment.

From some of my own <u>unprincipled</u> experiences
during the recent <u>political</u> political emphasis in criticism, I
have felt that the whole matter could be approached through the
metaphors of "piety" and "impiety." I have often found a situa-
tion like this, for instance: I would run across a kind of
argument which has been used in the past, let us say, to justify
private property. I would think I saw a way of manipulating this
same argument as a justification for communal ownership. But if
I tried to use it, even before people who agreed on the need of
communal ownership, instead of commending me for taking an
argument against them and turning it into an argument for them,
they would simply reaffirm their original resistance. In other
words, the argument had an <u>absolute</u> meaning for them, acquired
from previous contexts. And when I tried to give it another
meaning, by putting it into a different context, the previous
meaning prevailed nonetheless. And they voiced objections purely
on the basis of the meaning it had had before, without regard
for my usage. I felt that I was really being "impious," from
their standpoint; I was violating their piety; my argument
was as incongruous as any metaphysical's bold metaphor.

I thought of an analogy to help me out: Let
us suppose that one had become a confirmed pacifist, living
among confirmed pacifists. And let us suppose that one began
working on some mechanical contrivance, let us say something so
peace-loving as a dishwashing machine. In the course of making
this machine, one found that he needed for one part a piece of
metal that happened to be shaped very much like a pistol. He
remembered having seen an old pistol in the attic. He found it,

121 Bank Street,
New York City,
February 25, 1936.

Dear Mr. Warren:

The review of the Proletarian Anthology continues to be in an unpresentable state, but I hope to be able to get it to you within a few days. I am having considerable trouble in ordering and condensing.

Meanwhile, I happened to come upon an essay that I wrote several years ago, at the time when the sense of impending calamity was newest and most intense - and on rereading it now, I was so moved by it that I wept at my own piece. Perhaps the editors will not join me in this orgiastic delight (caused doubtless by the fact that some symbols of the work awaken purely private echoes in the author) - but in any case, I feel that the work has gained, rather than lost, a short aging.

I thought that you might be interested in its mixture of experimentation and fear, and its way of putting subjective and objective elements together.

121 Bank Street,
New York City,
May 8, 1936.

Dear Mr. Brooks:

Herewith is my revised article, which I am sending
by special delivery in the hope that it will reach you by the date
you mentioned.

I admit that your friendly but undemonstrative
letter makes me a bit uneasy about the editors' opinion of the
essay. I can only say feebly in my defence that I worked very hard
over it, trying to strike some happy balance between specific
analysis and compendious mention.

With best regards to you and Mr. Warren, I remain

121 Bank Street,
New York City,
November 20, 1936.

Dear Mr. Warren:

Thank you very much for your recent letter asking
that I show you some material from my new book. Herewith I am
submitting to you the first of three sections.

Obviously, you would at most want but pieces of
it. But I thought that I might better show you it all. I am,
quite frankly, looking for someone who would be willing to publish
a sizable chunk, as I fear that the thing does not divide well
into isolated articles. Hence, if you don't like it, all you'd
have to say is that you could publish only a little - and that
would function as the most humane of rejections.

Should you want to publish excerpts (and each of
the *SECRET* items on specific categories could easily be shortened,
if only *something* on each were retained) I think that a brief
introduction, of a paragraph or two, would be in order. I shall
knock one out, and mail it to you in a day or so.

Could I ask that, if possible, you give me a quick
decision on the manuscript? For exigencies of book publication
require me to get something done about periodical publication soon,
or not at all.

My return address, for the time being, is Andover,
New Jersey - and the manuscript could be returned to me there,
express collect.

THE COMPANY WILL APPRECIATE SUGGESTIONS FROM ITS PATRONS CONCERNING ITS SERVICE

1201-S

CLASS OF SERVICE

This is a full-rate Telegram or Cable-gram unless its deferred character is indicated by a suitable symbol above or preceding the address.

R. B. WHITE
PRESIDENT

WESTERN
UNION

NEWCOMB CARLTON
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

(19)

J. C. WILLEVER
FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT

<table><thead><tr><th colspan="2">SYMBOLS</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>DL</td><td>= Day Letter</td></tr><tr><td>NM</td><td>= Night Message</td></tr><tr><td>NL</td><td>= Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td>LC</td><td>= Deferred Cable</td></tr><tr><td>NLT</td><td>= Cable Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td>Ship Radiogram</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

The filing time shown in the date line on telegrams and day letters is STANDARD TIME at point of origin. Time of receipt is STANDARD TIME at point of destination.

Received at 132 Third St., Baton Rouge, La. 7 A.M. to 12 Midnight

1936 DEC 6 AM 10 21

NSU51 10=PB NEWYORK NY 6 1046A

ROBERT PENN WARREN=

MANAGING EDITOR THE SOUTHERN REVIEW

RECEIVED LETTER SUNDAY SUGGESTIONS SATISFACTORY RETURNING

MANUSCRIPT EARLY MONDAY GREETINGS=

KENNETH BURKE.

THE QUICKEST, SUREST AND SAFEST WAY TO SEND MONEY IS BY TELEGRAPH OR CABLE

Andover,
New Jersey,
August 25, 1937.

Dear Warren,

The other day I learned ~~I~~ to my great disgruntle-
ment that, because of an administrative error, copies of "Attitudes
Toward History" were not sent you. So I bestirred the authorities to
pack some off to you forthwith.

Here's hoping that the delay will not cost me an
evaluation in your pages. Particularly because I have not been
getting a very penetrating brand of comments from the local writers-
in-haste, I think fondly of the possibility that someone of your ex-
perts might do some examining of my thesis. My reviewers so far have
considered it enough just to grade the paper, while keeping its con-
tents a strict secret. So I have felt as silent as the pebble from
which a properly meditative man can extract a sermon.

53 West Eleventh Street,
New York City,

December 8, 1937.

Dear Warren:

I have been reading "The Folklore of Capitalism,"
by Thurman W. Arnold. This reading is in preparation for a 1000-
word review.

The sad thing is that the book, to my way of thinking,
merits several thousand words. I consider it one of the best books
produced in the genre of "pure" debunking. It thus offers the most
profitable kind of text for an article devoted to a description and
evaluation of the genre, its powers as barrister pleading and its
limitations as lexicography.

So I wondered if the Southern Review would be interested
in letting me do an article first presenting Arnold's book in its own
terms, then proceeding to a discussion of its omissions (as regards a
picture of human motivation), and concluding with some generalizations
about the basic difference in strategy between religious and natural-
istic vocabularies of motivation. Some lecturing, and much haggling,
in the last couple of years, has finally enabled me to trim and clarify
my thoughts on motivation (and the different kinds of "command" implicit
in different kinds of vocabulary); and if you could extend me a space
of about 5000 words at the maximum, I think I could give you a pretty
clear summary of my speculations.

The Arnold book would serve very conveniently as the
"way in," but if you have already assigned it, or would prefer a purely
general approach to the subject, I could manage that way too. And if
the whole notion seems too zealous, please forgive.

With best wishes,

Kenneth Burke

53 West Eleventh Street,
New York City,
March 16, 1938.

Mr. Albert R. Erskine, Jr.,
Business Manager, The Southern Review,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Dear Mr. Erskine:

Thank you very much for sending me proofs
of my Mr. Parkes' interesting review.

I am sending you herewith my answer. I
realize that it is very long; but Mr. Parkes raised so
many points that could be stated in a sentence but required
at least several sentences to answer.

However, I realize that I have no grounds
whatsoever for asking the editors to publish a reply of
this length. Hence, if they want to exclude it, or to
select only certain passages from it, I cannot bleat, and
won't bleat. What I have tried to do, as a possible way
of overcoming resistance, is to write something that might
stand as a statement by itself, independently of its function
as a reply to a critic, and then take up a few addition
points in a postscript (somewhat after the analogy of my
"Twelve Propositions" and letter in the recent number of
Science and Society). And whereas the total item is offered
on the basis of a communication, its publication would not
be justified unless the editors felt that it had sufficient
value in itself to lay claim upon their readers' attention.

53 West Eleventh Street,
New York City,
March 23, 1938.

Dear Warren:

Many thanks indeed for your generous letter. I
am delighted to learn that the editors like my "Virtues and Limita-
tions" - and as for your suggestion that they'd like to look at
something else, I am enclosing herewith an item, "Questions for
Answers," which I offer not wholly on its merits, but rather on
the grounds that it might start something. I have interlarded
these Questions with affirmative statements, largely for a stylistic
reason. At first I had an article almost wholly in the *ah* inter-
rogative form, and I found that the steady drive of its quizzicality
wearied people. It goes without saying that I shouldn't object to
cuts, if the editors considered some section or other two arbitrary.

Incidentally, now that my letter in answer to Parkes
is written and sent, I shall be satisfied if none but the editors and
Parkes see it. I have no desire to try loading you up with an author's
hagglings about his own book. I did feel, however, that I should test
myself explicitly by seeing what, to my mind, could and should be
answered (as indeed I should also have done with reference to Tate's
article had I not felt that, through no fault of Tate's, the issue
would look different after "Attitudes Toward History" was out). But
when I tried to answer Parkes, I discovered that his review was ex-
ceptionally full of points. So I tried to be exhaustive at the risk
of being exhausting - and if the editors think that the discussion
in my letter is too local to reviewer and reviewed, that's O.K. with
me.

My present plans are to leave for Chicago around
June 18th, returning around the end of August. If you are about
New York before or after those times, here's *keeping* extending you
a cordial invitation to spend some time with us at Andover. And I
shall regret it exceedingly if our schedules are so at odds as to
make this impossible.

2

..."

Also, you could drop the two introductory pages.

And on page 4, the par. beginning "Theoretically, however

And footnotes on pages 15 and 20.

Wouldn't said deletions amount to somewhere between
five and six pages?

And if there are any others that occur to you, I'd
be glad to try them.

Returning from my fling in Chicago, with exactly eight
things to begin at once, I have obviously been sitting for three weeks
without a choice (or rather, revising with axe, ~~lawn mower, and~~
brush hook, to sublimate my literary frustrations into action). I
now dare hope that your letter, by starting me on a minor task, has
started the jam moving. So should I, at a more limber moment soon,
think of a more limber paragraph on Chase, I'll send it along.

78 Christopher Street,
New York City,

March 22, 1939.

Dear Warren:

Here enclosed is an attempt to characterize and
evaluate some of the basic patterns in Hitler's "Mein Kampf." I
fondly tell myself that it belongs with the Debunking and Meaning
articles, and petition the editors and the heavens to please agree
with me.

it over,

However, on looking at the article I realize that I have
foolishly cluttered it with footnotes, thereby greatly lowering the
chances of getting the article "swinging." Accordingly, I wonder
if the editors would please ride through it without reading any of
the footnotes. And then, should it have any chance of acceptance,
I should like to offer some of the notes I have checked, as candidates
for embodiment in the text.

On the other hand: should the article be looked upon
with editorial dubiety, but with enough favor to get it admission in
an abbreviated version ... that too were O.K.

But I would be grateful if I could get let in or
thrown out as quickly as possible. For though I believe that the
processes I am here considering are not merely "timely" matters at
all, there is an added timely element now in my favor - and I need
all the lucky accidents I can get. However, I should be
very grateful indeed if, were the editors not kindly disposed to this
item, they would please conspire with me, against other editors,
by letting me know betimes, that I may knock at other doors.

Best greetings,

Incidentally, the comments of the NY Times reviewer on the reminiscence
episode (Proudfit) were, I think, quite undiscerning. The episode does,
it is true, seem to have arisen independently of the novel. But it
seems to me an excellent recapitulation charter (the same quality of
plot in other matter). It introduces a pause precisely where one was
needed, and thus greatly enhances the effectiveness of your close.
If you'll encourage me to do so, when I get to the country I'll send
you a copy of my forlorn novel, where I think I did much the same
thing, for much the same reasons, but alas! without the same effective-
ness.

I noticed that episode itself is a whiff, with a remarkable folk quality. I was
I led to surmise that you must have got it by reworking an anecdote you had at some time heard. In any event,
a lot of it, one gets completely the feeling of it being spoken.

Incidentally, the comments of the NY Times reviewer on your
reminiscence episode (Proudfit) were, I think, quite
undiscerning. The episode does, it is true, seem to have
arisen independently of the novel. But it seems to me
an excellent recapitulation chapter ( the same quality of
plot in other matter). It introduces a pause precisely where
one was needed, and thus greatly enhances the effectiveness
of your close. If you'll encourage me to do so, when I get
to the country I'll send you a copy of my forlorn novel,
where I think I did much the same thing, for much the same
reasons, but alas! without the same effectiveness. Incidentally,
that episode itself is a whizz, with a remarkable folk quality.
I was led to surmise that you must have got it by reworking an
ancedote you had at some time heard. In any event, as one
reads it, one gets completely the feeling of its being spoken.

--Kenneth Burke

78 Christopher Street,
New York City,
April 18, 1939.

Dear Warren:

I wanna make a request, in case it fits in with
your policies. Scott, Foresman are getting out an anthology (for
schoolroom purposes) of contemporary writings. The editors had
selected a piece out of my "Permanence and Change," but the publishers
cried out, in anguish, that it was too hard for tender minds. And
since one of the editors had seen my Hitler piece (without reference
to the publisher's bleat, which had not yet been uttered), they now
want to put this item in place of the P&C culling.

However:

Plans are to have sample copies of the book ready for
distribution some time in June. The book, of course, could not go
into classroom use before fall. The advance distribution is simply
to teachers who might, on seeing it, be persuaded to order copies
for their classes next year.

So I am wondering whether the inclusion of the Hitler
piece would be n.g., as falling afoul of your own schedule, policies,
etc. And as they want to know soon, I am enclosing a stamp, with the
request that you please let me know, if ~~in~~ convenient, by air
mail, as to how all this would fit or not fit.

And I have to be still more troublesome. It turns out,
by a series of vicissitudes, that I now have no fair copy of the
Hitler piece containing the various discarded footnotes. So I wonder
whether, when the piece has been set up in type, it would be possible
to return my original copy to me. Also, if there is an extra set of
galley sheets that you have no use for, I'd be darned grateful to have
them. I am thinking of slapping together some of my essays, for
possible publication in a book. So here I am quite a nuisance, bothering
you with:

Request for info. about possible use of the Hitler
piece in an anthology

Request for return of original typescript of article

Request for extra set of galleys, if they are lying
about unused.

2

I am mailing you today a copy of T.B.L. And I am enclosing herewith a little editorial job, a set of "arguments" tracing the midrib of plot in each chapter. I had originally intended to do something like this for *The Man Who Was* (inclusion in the book itself. But alas! the "secretive" element which you, in your novel, treat so clearly, was (in the "hermetic" esthetic of the 20's) frequently ingrained into a writer's very *style*. Hence, it was not until several years later that I found it possible to divulge this secret, by knocking out a certain minimum of guidelaws for the assistance of an occasional victim whom I could wangle into reading my dismal "ecclesia super cloacam" sort of novel.

You may, if you do get around to going through it, wonder why I like it to yours. Yet, though its differences are so manifest (and always to your advantage) I think it follows the same "to the end of the line" modes of thought (the search for Nirvana by being burned out, etc). "To prohesy the worst, that one may hope for something a little better." "To immunize by infection." "To rot, that one may sprout."

Maybe you had better not read the introduction (one critic wisely told me that, if I wanted to use it at all, I should have reserved it for an epilogue - which was, after all, the order in which it was written).

In any case: all that I have later developed, seems to me present in germ in this book. What I later discovered was that whereas I here presented the observations in the accents of fear, envy, vengeance, and general bellyache, I could lop off all this operatic baggage and say the same things in the accents of the "taken for granted." I had, in other words, adopted a manner of pointing that was unnecessarily burdensome, bringing up too many purely internal stylistic necessities, somewhat as though one were trying to write a financial statement in the accents of a Greek tragedy (though, come to think of it, my finances did call for a certain tragic note). But I'm talking too much.

Best greetings,
K.B.

Andover,
New Jersey,
December 1, 1939.

Mr. Albert R. Erskine, Jr.,
Business Manager,
The Southern Review,
University, Louisiana.

Dear Mr. Erskine:

Thank you very much indeed for your letter
of November 28th, in which you so cruelly demand that I
say exactly what I have in mind.

And that made me wonder exactly what I do
have in mind. Some time back, I had been putting together
various essays written over the years - and it was then my
intention to get these published, possibly under the title,
"While Everything Flows."

But after I had assembled them, they seemed
a bit too disparate.

Since then, I wrote the piece on Literary
Form, which I had not intended to write at all. But since
it has unexpectedly put in its appearance, I now think that
it could be used as the leading item in a book that would
include but a few of my previously published articles.

This item itself, I think, should be called,
not "The Psychology of Literary Form," but "The Philosophy of
Literary Form," since the amended title more accurately
suggests my attempts to revert to earlier modes of thought
when psychology was treated less as an independent subject and
rather as a subdivision of philosophy in general.

I should propose that this be the title for
the book as a whole - and of other articles, I think of
including only the following:

from The Southern Review:

The Rhetoric of Hitler's "Battle"

The Virtues and Limitations of Debunking

Semantic and Poetic Meaning

Antony in Behalf of the Play

from The American Journal of Sociology:

Freud- and the Analysis of Poetry

2

from Direction:
Literature as Equipment for Living

from The New Republic:
Caldwell: Maker of Grotesques

from The Kenyon Review:
The Calling of the Tune

I also thought of an appendix (possibly in smaller type)
containing about ten book reviews that I considered to have
a certain representative or summarizing quality.

These other items would, I think, add up to
about the same length as the Literary Form item. By my very
rough estimating, this should make, all told, something around
75,000 words. Whereat, there enters the next hesitancy, thus:

At what minimum figure might a pleasantly
manufactured book, of such contents, sell? I.e., how much
cheaper could the book be made, by knocking out how much
material?

If, however, the line-up as here suggested
seems viable, I should be delighted.

Also, I was very happy to learn that Mr.
Brooks is considering some portion of the Literary Form article
for The Southern Review. I suspect it is not easy to find
portions that are at once representative of the whole and
capable of isolation from the whole; but I should certainly
rely upon his judgment if he feels that he has found such.

Andover,
New Jersey,

December 21, 1939.

Dear Brooks:

Thanks for yours of Dec. 15th. I was very glad to learn that you selected one of the three or four passages I was most in favor of. I have great hopes that the introduction of the synecdoche business (further implications of which I have since been tracking down, in work on which I am now engaged) will be the quickest way of revealing the flimsiness of the whole debunko-semantics school. I am now applying some stuff on synecdoche and metonymy as a way of testing idioms of reduction - and I think it completes the speculations on metaphor in P&C. (I.e., the Four King Tropes: Metonymy, Synecdoche, Metaphor, Irony - with all sorts of surprises once you start looking for the interrelationships among the four - noting above all, the close correspondences:

metaphor .... perspective
irony ......... dialectic
metonymy ....... reduction
synecdoche .... representation.)

Should be glad to undertake the Parkes-Lerner review, though I should rather that it be for the Fall issue than for the Spring, as I am pretty thoroughly involved in some theorizing on the nature of constitutions at the moment, and should rather get that cleared up before doing the review.

Sorry indeed I can't be sojourning in New Orleans, and at the gatherum omnium. Someday, when the youngest is a little older, maybe we'll all pack into the car and roll down that way for a time. In the interim, should you ever be about N.Y., you should arrange to stop over with us, in case our shaky house has still staved off collapse.

June 25, 1940

Mr Kenneth Burke
Andover, N.H.

Dear Burke:

This is a brief note to remind you that we are
still counting on your review of H.B. Parkes'
**Marxism: an Autopsy.** We don't mean to hurry you
unduly - the book is hardly topical. But we are
counting on it and are much interested in seeing
what you will have to say.

We had a card from Dean Mowrer the other day. She
arrived in Mexico safely and we hope that she is
going to find it pleasant and interesting. The card
was too brief to give any details; perhaps I'll
have a letter later.

I don't suppose that there's much chance of your
getting so far south this summer. We would certain-
ly enjoy meeting you this time the flesh and having a visit
from you. Occasionally we do have friends from the
east who pass through here on their way to Mexico.
By the way, I am going to be in the east early in
September at the English Institute at Columbia. I
wonder if there will be any chance of meeting you
there. By the way, Red Warren is safely back from
Italy and is now at North Bennington, Vermont.

Melbourne Beach,
Florida,
December 21, 1940.

Dear Brooks,

Am uneasy lest, what with all my various hastinesses
and movings about, something may have gone amiss to do with my
symposiac comments. So I decided that I'd go to the post office armed
with this letter, and would send it off this morning did I hear no not
one little peeplet out of ye editors.

On receiving your telegram at Andover, I reversed all
the arrows, stopped in my pre-tracks, and sitting among our half-packed
luggage, knocked out, or bumped off, an article. Shipped it to you via
air mail - and then started again to depart, feeling very professional
and very virtuous.

This being the first time I ever undertook a long drive,
I discovered on the way down that one goes on and on, without a thought,
without even an identity - which made me feel that I came pretty close
to conceiving what kind of motives must have driven the Arabian Lawrence
to his fast driving. (As for me, I have discovered by a process of
elimination that I must love my identity, for at least I didn't like the
alien feeling that I got after driving for several hours.)

Arriving here after no mishaps, we found a place near
the splendid beach here, and I celebrated by smashing a tail light,
when far from all traffic. Sent a note to Mr. Wilkerson, giving him
my address here, asking that he pass it on to you (and now, it suddenly
occurs to me, maybe holiday vacations are already on, etc.).

Anyhow, just in case - am sending this to you.

100

Melbourne Beach,
Florida,

January 6, 1941.

Dear Warren:

Thanks indeed for your recent note.

It was very good of you to invite us to visit you -
but boy, if we descended, and with our two young whirlwinds, you'd
be surprised. I'm not so cruel, ever. Trouble is that the younger one
is just at the point where he is very accurate in knowing what he wants, but is completely lacking in words for making any of these wants explicit. Consequently, every slightest velleity produces a revolutionary situation - which is not helped any by the fact that the older one, who has been quite articulate for some time, finds it exciting to imitate the ways of the younger one.

Also, I shall probably linger here until I go back
north in the spring. Few people dislike driving more than I do,
especially with our Blunder Bus.

Was glad to learn that 'twas not me, but others, who
sinned as regards the symposium. What I am drear now about is in
wondering whether, if there were but something that I could do if I but
knew of it, I might do it and so expedite the business of proof, etc.,
anent my book. Gadzooks! how it doesn't come out! And after I had seen
those good-looking galleys! And then I have sighed too at the thought
of how there was a bit of it that had been nipped out for inclusion in
the So. Rev. (I mean a bit of the titular item) - and then how all
that seems to have been forgot, like an earlier wave.

Meanwhile, with the turn of the year I formally began
work on the book On Human Relations - trying to start it off with my
act-scene-agent-agency-purpose business, which I am attempting to dis-
cuss in such a way that it will make a self-sustaining monograph. I
think I can show that, by looking long and hard at these five terms,
one might finally construct everything that somebody might say as to why
somebody did something.

You speak of "leaving" for the next school term. Are
you going to teach elsewhere, or are you taking more time off to finish
your book? Meanwhile, thanks again for your generous invitation - I
wish I could accept it - and maybe some time later ... And I still owe
you a letter which I am going soon to send you.

<table><tr><td>CLASS OF SERVICE</td></tr><tr><td>This is a full-rate Telegram or Cable-gram unless its deferred character is indicated by a suitable symbol above or preceding the address.</td></tr></table>

WESTERN
UNION

(17)

1201

R. B. WHITE
PRESIDENT

<table><tr><td colspan="2">SYMBOLS</td></tr><tr><td>DL</td><td>= Day Letter</td></tr><tr><td>NT</td><td>= Overnight Telegram</td></tr><tr><td>LC</td><td>= Deferred Cable</td></tr><tr><td>NLT</td><td>= Cable Night Letter</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2">Ship Radiogram</td></tr></table>

=NSH142 8=TDNK NETCONG NJ 30 912P

CLEANTH BROOKS JR=

EDITOR THE SOUTHERN REVIEW

1941 NOV 30 PM 9 25

SENT ARTICLE AIR MAIL TODAY SUNDAY 5500 WORDS=

KENNETH BURKE.

NETCONG 5500.

CLEANTH..

On "Must" and "Take Care"

Reply to Mr. Parkes's review of *Attitudes Toward History*

I recall once having seen, in a geographical history of North America, a map showing the routes of early western migrations. Any individual migrating west had been, of course, "free" to take any route he preferred. But when looking at this map, one was immediately struck by the fact that such breaks in the Appalachians as the Cumberland Gap were a tremendously important factor in channelizing the general "curve" of these migrations.

Nor, as a matter of fact, would the recognition of such a determining factor imply any attack upon human rationality. The fact was that such breaks in the mountains as the Cumberland Gap provided the easiest route. And unless an individual had some special reason for taking a harder route (as for instance, if a more difficult route had the special advantage for him of bringing him nearer to someone he wanted to see on the way) we could say the Gap was a determining factor in shaping his course precisely because he was rational. Even professional mountain climbers, who are deliberately courting obstacles, will seek to find the safest and easiest route up their mountain—and were they to avoid this route because it had become hackneyed, going up a more difficult slope instead, here again they will, as rational planners, try to find the easiest way up this more difficult slope. And if they gauge the situation correctly, you will again find a correspondence between human rationality and environmental determination.

I always think of this story when writers incline, like Mr. Parkes, to assume that there is some basic conflict between ideals

On "Must" -3-

rational choice at odds? On the contrary - the consideration of re-
sistances is the *very basis* of rationality.

Let us take a further step. The Germans have a proverb: "Wer
*A* sagt, muss *B* sagen," which I take to mean that one step leads to
another, and that the second step is affected somewhat by the first
step. Had the early settlers of America, for instance, installed
here a different kind of property relationships than the kind that
dispossessed many of them in Europe and so stimulated their migration,
surely we should today be facing a different kind of problem than
the one we are facing. It might, if you prefer, be an even worse
one. I do not have to concern myself with that at present. The
point to be emphasized here is simply that it would be a *different*
one. Whatever *A* those settlers said, would affect our *B*. This
obvious platitude is all I have in mind when trying to chart a "curve"
of Western history.

We might put it another way: In *Attitudes Toward History* I
make much of the fact that each generation must "earn" its world. We
may inherit from past eras an equipment, in the form of institutions
(productive techniques, knowledge, values, etc.) but we must make
our own adjustment to all this, must say our own creative B in accor-
dance with the A they said for us. To say that we *must* earn our world
might strike Mr. Parkes as deterministic. But what if I add the
by no means contradictory notion that we *can* earn our world?

How? By taking the real obstacles properly into account. By
gauging properly the complicating factors in our own particular his-
torical situation, which is in many ways unique (as every historical
situation is in many ways unique). This requires some tinkering
with the structure of meanings inherited from the past. For this

On "Must" -4-

traditional structure of meanings was developed with its own tests of relevancy in mind. In times of flood, one is mainly concerned with flood-emphases. In times of drought, one is mainly concerned with drought-emphases. The two are by no means "contradictory." But there is necessarily a difference in stress. The Catholic structure of meanings, for instance, was perfected to chart and adjust a preponderantly agrarian mode of life, with certain corresponding rigidity of social classification. Out of this A grew the B of handicrafts, and later the C of industrialism, and now the D of monopolistic interferences. Each succeeding era "earned" its world by making some kind of an adjustment to the state of the "obstacles" contemporaneous with it. These successive adjustments must have had a considerable measure of rationality, since otherwise we shouldn't be here. But to say that "circumstances alter occasions" seems to me an attack neither upon rationality, nor upon freedom, nor upon realism and objectivity, nor upon the notion that there is an enormous amount of permanent overlap surviving as a continuity throughout the varying emphases of thought. Nor need one be denied a basis of reference to motivate a search for the "one philosophy." For we have the general continuity of man's neurological structure (the "original economic plant, the human body") maintained throughout the changing emphases of historical environment. We have lungs and heart and liver and gonads and muscles, a generally similar periodicity in "the seven stages of man," an intimate, pre-political, intimate childhood followed by an increasing awareness of impersonal relationships. The generalizing genius of speech, "owned collectively," operates again and again to single out the same "type" of social relationships as significant (thereby making it possible for us to see as much relevance

On "Must" -5-

in Aesop's fables today as could be discerned at the time of their
collection). So there is the permanence and there is the change;
there is the general underlying pattern of continuity, and there is
the uniqueness of any one period in history, being its own unique
combination of events quite as every individual is his own unique
combination of events (a fact that necessarily guarantees his indi-
viduality, whether he likes it or not).

In summarizing my book, Mr. Parkes says: "*Attitudes Toward History* may be described as an anatomy of the nonrational factors in social change. ... This general sketch of social psychology appears to be largely true, and it offers a convenient framework within which one can place specific phenomena. What is open to criticism in Mr. Burke's scheme *is not what he says but what he omits to say*. (My italics) What he fails to do is to lay any stress upon the element of rational choice in human affairs. The rise and fall of 'frames of acceptance' is apparently determined by factors which are beyond human control."

As author I should prefer that, instead of this inert descrip-
tion, he had attempted to summarize the book from the standpoint of
purpose. For had he done so, I think, he would not so easily have
been led into the feeling that what I didn't say implied a purely
deterministic attitude toward history (he himself would apparently
agree that there is no passage in which what I did say makes this
kind of assertion). Characterizing briefly from the standpoint of
purpose, I should prefer something like this:

"*Attitudes Toward History* may be described as a work of social-
ist exhortation, in which the author tries to plead for his perspec-
tive by offering proof of its relevance. The author holds that a

On "Must" -7-

chosen them partly because he likes the sound of the letters, ' Burke's
confession about his liking for their tonality may mislead one some-
what - for an attempt to select and clarify certain foibles or charac-
teristics of social relationship that seem to the writer basic is
quite in the spirit of comedy, as that word is ordinarily used."

Well, that was very nice of me, thus helpfully to revise Mr.
Parkes's review of my book. But I hope I have not thereby given the
impression that I don't think much of Mr. Parkes's review. For as a
matter of fact, I think it very keen indeed; and I think that his
summarization of my general scheme, in section II, is an exception-
ally good job.

So I have read his review carefully several times, to see
whether I could locate somewhere the exact watershed, where he seems
to roll off one side and I the other. And I believe I have found
it, in his remarks about my concept, the "Malthusian principle."
(I am honestly trying to locate something here, not to be merely
polemical.) I shall quote from Mr. Parkes:

"A 'frame of acceptance,' however, carries within itself
the seeds of its own destruction. The habits which it encour-
ages eventually reach their 'Malthusian limits' and can go no
further. It normally involves resignation to certain forms
of injustice, and individuals tend to 'move in on' that resig-
nation and take advantage of it. The result is that men find
it increasingly difficult to regard society as rational, and
they begin to suffer from 'alienation.'" (Incidentally, this
last sentence is a strange way of characterizing a work that
is felt to slight the importance of rationality - or, to use
the equivalent word I employ at several points in my book,
"reasonableness.")

In the first place, I would not wholly agree with the state-
ment that a frame of acceptance carries within itself the seeds of
its own destruction. It tends to make the process look too much like
a purely internal development, whereas there is a "dialectical" fac-
tor operating here. Part of the trouble arises from the fact that,

On "Must" -8-

"while the frame of acceptance is training people to walk on one tightrope, history is stretching a tightrope elsewhere." That is, a frame does not destroy itself by purely internal causes, but because it focuses attention upon some factors and so deflects the attention from new factors or obstacles that have arisen in the interim. Or, even if it does consider these new factors, it considers them from an inadequate frame of reference, and so does not take them properly into account.

But in my search for the watershed separating Mr. Parkes and me, I came upon another passage in his review where he is part with me and part against me:

"Why must habits have 'Malthusian limits'? What were the 'Malthusian limits' of medieval Catholicism? It is not even certain that individualism today has reached any 'Malthusian limits.' The history of capitalism for the past half century has to a large degree been a history, not of the proliferation of individualism, but of its thwarting and checking by monopoly and state interference. The notion that a ruling class 'moves in on' some form of resignation is more intelligible. Finance capitalism has undeniably 'moved in on' laissez-faire individualism, and the functionaries of the Church 'moved in on' medieval Catholicism. But if this were the sole reason for the breakdown of a 'frame of acceptance,' the obvious remedy would be not to change the frame but to check the process of 'moving in.'"

My first temptation was to encounter these passages on a purely polemical, or refutational, basis. To say, for instance, that habits have limits because everything has limits. Or to point out that you can't check the process of "moving in on" without adopting a point of view that would itself be outside the current frame. But I think that we can do something more profitable by trying rather, at this point, to collaborate somewhat with Mr. Parkes.

Mr. Parkes, you will note, accepts the concept of "moving in on" while he rejects the concept of the "Malthusian principle." I personally had thought that they were aspects of the same thing, the latter

On "Must" -10-

conduct. It gets you into a rut, that works 'dialectically' like a
vicious circle, keeping you in the rut and driving you further into
the rut, until finally you run into the objective limits of such con-
duct. Then you're caught. Then you're done for. People will rebel
against you. Why, here's the example of Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. Such-
and-such" (which you select from history, case history - or perhaps
Mr. Parkes will not even permit one to say that what was, had to be?).

On the other hand, suppose he is your friend, and is already in
a bad way. Then you say to him, "Cheer up, old man. Never too late
to mend. You are a free agent. True, you'll carry some scars for
the rest of your days. But there is something you can save. Reform,
and save it."

Now, my account of history's foibles is perhaps more in line
with the first of these proverbs. I don't think it should be handled
as a dishonor to rationality and dignified freedom and wise choice.
As a matter of fact, both of these proverbs are intended for horta-
tory purposes. There is an element of truth in both. And both, in-
terestingly enough, are said with the notion of free will in mind,
though one stresses the aspect of limits and the other does not.
Mr. Parkes seems to feel that the second does greater honor to human
rationality---but as regards the kinds of situation they are taking
into account, I question whether there is a choice to be made between
them. They are hardly other than "styles."

Applied specifically to my book: I am discussing certain foibles,
or tendencies, in people. I am doing so for the direct purpose of
assisting in rational discussion of our contemporary issues. I
am trying to find a roundabout way of telling people (and one could
take his illustrative stories from Aesop or from Mommsen) that certain

On "Must" -11-

policies, if carried too far, leading to "alienation" through the
"moving in" of a privileged group, will entail revolution, the stage
at which "repentance comes too late." I am backing this by the se-
lection of similar cases from the past. That is all. And I do not
even feel called upon to agree with Mr. Parkes in his statement that
my version of history is too "Spenglerian." For I do not accept his
statement that, by my picture, "the rhythms of cultural death and re-
birth are thus likely to be perpetual." The implications are too
absolutistic. There have been many revolutions and semi-revolutions
in Western history since the rise of Catholicism. But I should cer-
tainly not say that the result has been "cultural death." There have
been cultural <u>changes</u>, eventually matched by corresponding changes
in political structure - and poets have tended to respond to such
changes in consciousness through the symbolizing of death and re-
birth. Each revolution has signalized a state of affairs whereby a
class has "moved in on" the privileges to be derived from the given
mode of life and thought, and in the course of time this process has
reached its "Malthusian limits" (the revolution itself being the ob-
jective evidence of this eventuality). But there can certainly be
revolutions other than violent ones. There can also be revolutions
in thought, or shifts in legislative technique that have revolution-
ary implications without being "formally" revolutionary at all. But
surely, if such changes are now necessary (and I believe that nearly
every thoughtful person will grant the necessity of some important
changes) the best that thinkers can do, in trying to mitigate the
rigors of such necessities, is to increase the documentation of the
"take care" sort, by telling citizens of all sorts, the over-privileged
as well as the under-privileged, what sort of human foibles are involved

On "Must" -13-

to consider these works essentially different) - there is always the
possibility that people can only carry a principle far enough by car-
rying it too far (or, to revert to parables, more seeds must be
sown than grow). "Nil nimium" is a wise rule of conduct, though his-
tory has repeatedly lived out willy nilly the Blake formula, that
"the road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom." Mr. Parkes's
well justified liking for "nil nimium," as a "Confucian"test for
evaluating human conduct, should not blind him to the fact that it is
an ideal, a rule prescribed precisely because it is generally vio-
lated.

It will seem, by Mr. Parkes's way, that one would automatically
pledge himself to an "abdication of the will" in the sheer act of
admitting that in the past there have been excesses of exploitation
carried to the "breaking point" where a radical reorientation becomes
necessary. And he would by implication assert that the mere act of
charting such a process, or "curve," is an insult to human rationality.

He would seem to be saying that one should never attempt a gen-
eralized, over-all description of the interacting psychological and
economic processes eventuating in revolution. Presumably the mere
search for terms broad enough, or general enough, to characterize
all such "curves" would in itself imply an "abdication of the will."
Maybe Mr. Parkes's ultimate quarrel is not with me at all, but with
the generalizing resources of human language.

On "Must" -14-

P.S. To consider a few of the major points still left unconsidered, either directly or indirectly:

Mr. Parkes suggests that, by my reasoning, "the British system, which separates magical from real authority," would offer the best safeguards against dictatorship. One could not arrive at this conclusion if he believed, as I do, that the present structure of property rights throughout the British Empire merely employs the remnants of feudal magic to back the magic of capitalist authority.

"Conceptual definition may precede the realization of a 'frame of acceptance'; aesthetic expression never does." The respects in which I would agree with this are explained in my article, "The Relation Between Literature and Science," printed in the reports of the Second Writers' Congress (The Writer in a Changing World). When saying that the "natural" tendency is for the imaginative expression to precede the critical formulation, I had in mind the tendency of legend and myth to precede organized and sophisticated conceptualization (if only because "illiterature" precedes literature). But I explicitly granted that, once literature has arisen, the symmetry of this progression becomes obscured, and even reversed. The matter is more complicated than Mr. Parkes seems to realize, however. He considers The Divine Comedy as the culmination of Catholicism, but it might with as much justice be treated as the emergence of Protestant nationalism (as in the *new* turn from Latin to the vernacular as the essence of poetic dignity, while the philosophic justification for this change was phrased "conservatively," in Latin). Obviously, any point in a progression may be treated either in terms of its out-of-which or in terms of its into-which. Maybe we can get together on this basis: poetry can properly deal with the new, the emergent, *but only insofar as these emergent factors are already*

On "Must" -14a-

present in the poet's contemporary world. "Speculation" about the
future is philosophic, conceptual, critical.

"Mr. Burke goes out of his way to deny the possibility of finding truth. He likes to regard even scientific discoveries as symbolic expressions of emotional drives." On the contrary, In accordance with my theory, I always seek to disclose the complicating factors in an assertion, and to warn against the tendency towards an uncritical migration of perspectives whereby a truth for one purpose is taken as a truth for another purpose (as when the results of experiments with animals are taken as sufficient basis for generalizations about people). But while noting the symbolic nature of scientific inventions, I hold that this symbolic feature requires objective efficacy. For instance, to take an arrant instance where "symbolic drive" and pragmatic efficacy seem to be combined,, one could say that Hitler's drive to unite Austria, the land of his birth, with Germany, the land of his leadership, is "symbolic" of his attempt to unite childhood and adult elements of his life.--yet obviously, in saying so, one would not deny at all deny the necessity of an objective test here. Hitler's "symbolic invention" would have to "succeed" in order to satisfy his own requirements. It is only in such inventions as perpetual motion machines that the symbolic element prevails at the expense of the realistic test.

On "Must" -15-

present in the poet's contemporary world. "Speculation" about the
future is <u>philosophic</u>, conceptual, critical.

"The difference between a true 'transcendence' and a false one
is, he says, an indefinable qualitative <u>je-ne-sais-quoi</u> about which
nothing can be said." When one is trying to illustrate the process
per se, one seizes whatever examples may be handy, without regard
for their relative validity. To test any given one, it is neces-
sary to "round it out" by applying it to a total structure of meanings,
conduct, and situation. Thus, if you "by transcendence" saw the fight-
er, the ant, or the communicant as the "essence" of man, I could
select all three when <u>illustrating</u> the process. To <u>evaluate</u> among
them, I should ask to see how each could be filled out, and then should
compare them to see which one, as so filled out, seemed to take into
account the greatest number of factors relevant to charting the social
situation at hand.

"Rejection of capitalism should be based not merely on an act
of will but also on a study of economics." I agree with this com-
pletely. I should only suggest one possible subtilization: that the
necessary "study of economics" may be qualitative rather than quan-
titative. In other words, that a little of Marx may go much farther
than whole libraries of the orthodox economic cameralists.

"The truly moral individual ... no longer needs to identify
himself with paternalistic symbols; and he is capable of rational
choice." For me there is no such opposition. I take a structure of
rationality to be itself a "paternalistic symbol," or at least a
"parental" one, in identifying the individual with a "line" or "gene-
alogy" of thought. I simply distinguish between <u>comprehensive</u> father-
symbols and <u>restricted</u> ones. As for the part that individual integrity

On "Must" -16-

plays in such membership, even those few individuals who become tyrants must make compromises with the human and economic materials in which they embody their decisions. And insofar as they fail to modify their purposes into ways for taking these resistances adequately into account, they must fall. And as for basing a morality upon action, I see nothing exclusively pragmatic in this, particularly if one so uses the term that the ordering of one's philosophy and the composing of a good relationship with one's intimates both come under the head of action.

"Mr. Burke appears to believe that the principles of communist society were laid down by Marx, but this is not true." I don't know why Mr. Parkes got this impression. I characterized Marx as "pro-realist, or pre-realist," and referred to the fact that he was a realist only as concerned the realities of the interregnum. But I believe that the general sociological basis of his writings (Mannheim calls him the founder of sociology) provides the proper criteria for a state founded on a humanistic, as contrasted with a supernatural, basis of reference.

"If by communism is meant the system established in Russia, what reasons are there for supposing that it will ever develop into the kind of society which Mr. Burke considers desirable?" Communism, as I explicitly grant in my book, is consistent only with an era of peace. The extreme cult of the dictator-hero is maintained under the aegis of war (as even in democratic countries, the most popular symbols of integration are usually chosen from the group of military commanders). I believe that the rigors of party dictatorship will abate if the threat of war abates, because there is nothing in the socialist structure of property to stimulate such ambitions to the point that they are "naturally" stimulated under capitalism. I believe that, if you

On "Must" -17-

would resist the suggestion that socialist motives would be more "virtuous" you might
at least consider the possibility that
won't believe in any more virtuous factors, ^ people are too lazy to
keep building productive plant atop productive plant, and new needs
atop new needs, when the property structure permits of the opposite
course (lessened working hours) without such dislocations as are
introduced by the needs of finance under capitalism.

## Part One

I. General statement of antinomian philosophy. And of his discomforts therewith. Reference to a trip with the friend to whom these "epistles" are addressed. Concern with death (as he meets a man "while traveling south alone"). "Foreshadowing": thoughts on destitution. Attack on friend to whom he is writing, and whom he considers as the lucky antithesis of himself. Close: statement of antinomian arts poetica.

II. Opening complaints on "la vie," and its injustices. States his envy of friend. Recounts incident at farmhouse, when his friend had become intimate with girl there. Peroration of complaints.

III. Recalls his trip through the woods with "Florence," and their sitting on a rock together. Describes play in which Florence and his friend were acting (notes how they flattered themselves and gave themselves an exciting fiction by carrying over their parts from the play to real life). Envy of Florence and the friend (Anthony); leading to compensatory boasts of his own, as he tells of his mastery over a girl "Genevieve."

IV. Memory of pre-adolescent delight. Thence: the furies of adolescence. His attempts at cynical "calm" thereafter. Further account of his resentment at the way Anthony and Florence have built a happy myth. His confusion in trying to attack this myth (how his attack was invalidated in the eyes of others by Anthony's statement that he - Anthony - had the money to carry out the plans for the colony). Closing grimnesses.

V. He tells of another man who, jealous like himself, killed himself. Incident happened while all were celebrating the success of the play. Considers this man's suicide as symbol of his own release ("he died for me"). How he thereupon decided to squander what money he had left (on the hunch that things would turn out well). But in the end, must steal from Florence. In his own state of gnarledness, he gives a catalogue of other gnarled people he has known.

VI. Tells of how, by giving Anthony and Florence keys to his apartment (without telling either that he had given a key to the other) he set the scene for their union. His jealousy at the success of his own plan. Of his gloom as an "outsider" when he followed Anthony and Florence to the hotel on the island. The "insight" of money vs. the insight of poverty. His "N'importe où, hors du monde" escape. The dog barking behind the mist.

## Part Two

I. Grimly "at home," after having settled in his new country setting. Reminiscences of Florence. Compensatory "use" of Genevieve. Peroration: his ill-natured philosophy of calm.

II. Continuing the era of "composure" (composure with reservations). Contrasts earlier period of grotesquely intense suffering (as on the night he gave them the keys) with his present anchorage. We gather that he has married, and by reason of the marriage, has property. In keeping with "composure," he gives reasoned arts poetica. Also tells of a scholar he had met (who represents an aspect of his own weakness).

III. His sudden alleviation. He recites details of his attempts at settling - even writing a trivial play for the local school. How his activity with plays led him to make arrangements for a troupe of barnstormers. Among them is Florence. Their incidents together. His elation and boastfulness (he is now no longer one with the oppressed).

IV. Paean to the excitements of love, due to Florence's reappear-
ance. He thinks of various people whom, for one reason or another,
he could include among his band.

V. How chemicals bring solace. But how love is superior to
chemicals. "Good things have been brought to me on a platter."
Plans for the future-- enjoyment of nature. Amused recollections of
the past. Caps his delight by a tirade against any that would
belittle it.

VI. Admits that he has been giving false impression. He had not
been intimate with Florence. But now tells of union at hotel. His
subsequent disinterest and cruelty. He is named. She tells him her
unsavory life since the time of his disappearance. His dismissal of
her.

Part Three

I. He is prepared for the "next phase." Exstatic pilgrimage with Genevieve. The spontaneous artist. The devourer of all experience - but hectically. Stages: (1) cult of stone; (2) natural places; (3) cities; (4) N. Y. City - and vision of it sunk; (5) music in N. Y.; (6) Bach's Passion music in particular. How he induced Genevieve to accompany him. Rhetorical combats with those who had befriended him.

II. Jealousy of Genevieve. His "experiments" to test her fidelity. Jealousy "flowers" in his symbolic infidelity with "mad girl in white." His perverse dismissal of Genevieve, and his curse upon himself.

III. Progress of the curse: meets "Alter Ego," who deserts him. At end, returns to country in night, but learns that he has been erased there. Lonely return to city.

IV. Progress of curse: told indirectly by the story he writes about a lonely man and a dummy policeman. Written around quotations from Blake, particularly towards end, we see close interweaving of the real and imaginary stories.

V. Account of his life, with fabrications.

VI. Jottings.