1447 North Dearborn Street
Chicago, Illinois

February 3, 1931

Dear Gertrude:

I hope you pardon this typewriter. It is very difficult for me to be intelligible or legible by hand.

I was glad to get the blanks and will make use of them, but I am sorry the edition is moving so slowly. Do send me a copy of the book and I shall take great pleasure in showing it to a critic or two here. We may wangle a bit of publicity out of the papers about it.

I have been ill and hence my return to Paris has been retarded. I, long to be there, but my return depends on my health and other things, so do not know just when I can come.

I am quite as thrilled as you are, I think, by the news from Spain. It will be grand to see *The Making of Americans* all wrapped up in a vicious gaudy shawl and earrings in its ears, and a rose between its teeth!

My poor Bridget Asphodel was turned down by Harper's because she has no commercial value. Mr. Saxton wrote that he thought it "brilliant and endowed with what he called "phenomenal irridescence" and suggested that I hold her, do another book that would sell, and then slip Bridget in as number four. But I refused to do that. So the poor dear is at large.

Chicago is still full of soot and gangsters and people are throwing themselves out of windows all over town because of economic depression. Not very gay...nor cheery.

Not long ago I went to Janet Fairbank's to a party and Mrs. John Alden Carpenter was there. She admires you and your Picasso. She is president of the Arts Club here and has bought one of two of Picasso's things for it. We talked about you and if Ixx can manage to see her before she goes to New York this week, I shall slip her one of the blanks.

Mr. Stinson, the music critic on the Daily News, who wrote the little piece about you (by the way did you get the little piece?) always asks if I have heard from you when I see him. He is quite excited about the Opera.

I often think of you and Alice and Basket and the big room plastered with Picasso. It is one of the very first things I think of when I think of Paris. What is the gossip? I am dying to hear some...smudgy or otherwise.

I saw Mary Wigman dance (the German, you know). She quite thrilled me except she nearly frightened the wits out of me with what she thought a witch was.

Do write and do send Lucy by return boat. My love to all three of you.

Ellen

1447 North Dearborn St.

Chicago, Illinois

March 8, 1931

Dear Gertrude:

I've been ill and still am...but I couldn't resist sitting down to tell you that the book came and it is beside my bed, where I am spending most of my time these days.

I remember you said once that one of your ambitions was to have your books bedside books. Well, I want to assure you that Lucy Church *very amiably* is my bedside book!

I am enclosing a rhyme that may amuse you as you are in it.

I find the romantic beauty in Lucy ... just the way romantic beauty should be approached.

I feel like Picasso when she talks of pears ... and go Cezanne when it's apples... and Lawrtine everywhere else. I hope you get what I mean.

And don't I know that "feeding nettles to ducks and chickens does not make graduation?" *I know that* feeding nettles to ducks and chickens does not make graduation?

I was born on a farm.

I hope to do something with it all later. Just now I can do nothing but read with what brain I have... and that is *nt much. However the brain is still here and Lucy is here... so we may get together one of these Spring days. I wish you could see the spring day we are having today... snow tearing through a leaden sky on a forty miles worth of wind.

My love to Alice ... my love to Basket... and my love to you... and once more thank you so much for the book and the affectionate *and* inscription.

As ever,

Tunis, May 25, 1931

Dear Gertrude:

I have just returned from Biskra. I wrote you from there, I think. I had a stack of letters awaiting me here, and one of them was from Fanny Butcher, Literary editor of the Chicago Tribune. I had written a review of Lucy Church for her and sent it to her from New York just before I sailed. She said she would use the review so you will be reviewed in Chicago at any rate! (and it is *nt a dinky little review either!*)

In some ways I dread having you see it. Perhaps it will sound silly to you. But you encouraged me by saying that the reactions I wrote you were just the reactions I should have toward the book. So went ahead and did a review along those very lines. So it is your fault if I've been silly or anything! And I did get something very definite and charming and intriguing from the book and I still have it beside my bed. In fact I took the liberty of reviewing it and extolling it as an ideal bedside book! This should make restless, sleepless Americans want to own it! Why turn on the radio? Just read Gertrude Stein when you can't sleep....

I did what I could for the good of the cause in Chicago. You saw the interview in the Daily News which I sent you, did *nt you? And now there is this Tribune thing. I would have done something with the Post too, but they went bankrupt and changed hands and fired the literary editor that I was most friendly with and things were in chaos when I left.

Then I have been ill too. In fact if this review is silly and futile it is because I really was ill when I wrote it. I thought I would never make the boat.

I am feeling better now. The last two or three days since my return from Biskra have made me feel that I am almost my old self again. Not that there is anything particularly exhilarating about being my old self!

I think of you all three often. I wish I could prance in on you and gossip a little. I have a lot to say about America now after this visit, which was illuminating in more sense than one, I can assure you.

I like it down here too. I even think the dirt is nice... so clean and white. And the Arabs are lazy devils, which makes me who somehow contrive to make laziness very picturesque and attractive.

Everything down here is up the sun and Allah. So I have resolved to allow everything to be up to the sun and Allah too.

Do write me... write me gossip and tell me I am a nice girl. I need to be told I am a nice girl.

I think you are both nice girls and that Basket is a nice boy. I do wish I could see you all and prove it.

If you write within the next week or so, address me Ellen du Poy care Thos. Cook and Son, 108 rue de Serbie, Tunis, Tunisie. After that Bankers Trust, 5 Place Vendome, Paris, as I don't know where I am going from here.

My love to you both.... As ever,

ST.Georges Hotel

Tunis, June 12, 1931

Dear Gertrude:

Your letter came this morning and it made me feel so much better, as I needed to hear from some one like you. Voilà!

I am better than I was last week. I was feeling pretty low last week. Of course, I know I would feel better if I were not here alone. But being ill and being alone like this is not amusing.

I had a note from Mr. Leland Smith, the American consul here, and he has offered to help me see Tunis and to do anything he can to make my stay in Tunis "enjoyable and instructive" (his words). I saw him yesterday. He is a tall, weedy, straw colored Yankee who talks nasal French through the most nasal nose I have ever seen. But he is nice. All Yankees are nice.

He gave me a letter of introduction to Pere Delatre of the Peres Blancs, who have a monastery at Carthage. He has done some interesting work along the line of excavation there. They say he is an interesting old fellow.

I have been haunting the "souks". I bought you and Alice each a queer fan woven of straw, which is rather nice. It is the kind of fan the Arabs all carry on the street. Funny I bought them; those fans this morning and was thinking of you both and when I returned to the hotel, here was your letter awaiting me!

About my plans.

I had a note from Jenny Bradley saying she wasn't going to Brides-les-Bains this summer, but that we might meet in Paris and make plans about going somewhere else.

Now here is what has been churning in my mind. I thought I might leave here and go to Marseilles and from there take a train to Belley. I have a trunk, a big one. Now can you tell me this? Is it possible to leave my trunk at Belley or somewhere until I go to Paris? And is Bilignin quite near Belley? I mean is it possible for me to get a room or something in Belley, as I might be there a week or two and then dash over here so often to see you?

What about Bilignin? Is it off the main line? I judge it is.

Now I may dash to Paris first. And then come to Belley later. In some ways I should be in Paris now. I left my things at loose end there when I left last May. But I would like to have all this information so if I suddenly decide to leave here I would know what to do.

I am simply not up to leaving here this week or perhaps not next. And besides I do want to see Tunis. I have not seen it yet, really.

I am so glad about the Plain Edition. It must be exciting, getting orders and all that. No, I didn't know Harry was no longer a publisher. I hear from Harry occasionally but he is very vague about everything. Harry needs somebody to prod him or he simply does not get certain things done.

It will be so nice seeing you. We have a lot to talk about.

I have given up all idea of working at present, but my brain still
runs on and I often wake up in the night, having written a whole novel
during the night!

I feel that my first concern should be my health. I cannot do much until
I regain that. I am hoping this summer will fix it.

Fanny Butcher may come over this summer. I had a nice letter from her
the other day and she said if she did she wanted to come to Bilgin to
see you. She is very anxious to meet you, as she has always admired you and
your work very much. She is crazy about your *Three Lives*...talks about it
all the time. She is aix literary editor of the *Tribune*, as you know.

I still read Lucy. Sometimes I wonder how Lucy likes Tunis? She has a good
view of a date palm from my window and flat white roofs with bright colored
washings drying on them in the sun.

Well, it is time for cous-cous.

My love to you both and Basket tooo....

P.S. Do let me know right away about Belley and Bilgin...about what
I shall do about my trunk and myself and so forth, as I might want to stay
there two or three weeks.

Juan-les-Pins

August 25, 1931

Dear Gertrude:

I wrote you last from Marseille, did I? I think I did and
that I told you I was on my way here. Well, I am still here and I have
been quite ill. In bed flat on my back some of the time.

I am planning to come to Paris whenever I can leave here, which may not
be until well into September. When are you returning to Paris? Will you
still be in Blignin in October?

I have not been entirely alone here. Have you ever met Madame Michaelides a friend of Jenny Bradley's? She is a Scotchwoman, born in Michigan, educated in England and met a Greek poet there and married him. The poet is dead, but she lives on and has her married children around her...a vital, gay old girl. I have met some rather charming people at her villa in Antibes, which is the resort next this, as you know.

Then, too, I have tried to frequent the plage...but it is, for the most part, under the bare feet and bellies of Germans and Spaniards. There seems to be a bit of everything here, including a smattering of French.

I have a room in the villa of a nice French widow named Madame Blaise. I take my meals in the little hotel which joins her garden. I have a view from my window of the sea and the tops of a few desiccated palm trees.

I have tried to work a little but gave it up to get well. I know I shall never get well unless I conquer my nerves. Therefore I am trying to conquer them. Nerves are the very devil. You think you have them beaten... then they coil up and spring at you again.

I must stop now, as I have a headache. It always makes my head ache to write anything nowadays.

Do let me have a word from you.

I send my love to you all....

Continue to address me care of Banker's Trust, 5 Place Vendome, Paris...

Banker's Trust
5 Place Vendome
September 9, 1931

Dear Gertrude:

Your letter was a bit delayed in being forwarded to me because you had spelled my named Dubois, so the bank wrote me about it and asked me if the letter was for me. It's my fault because I did used to spell my name du Pois but last summer my family discovered that the original name was spelled *du Poy* and that is the way we spell it now.

I am still in Juan-les-Pins, but I may leave any day, so if you write keep addressing me as above.

I was reading about you this afternoon. I got a book at the Library here called "Relations and Complications" by the Dayang Muda of Sarawak. And toward the end of it she speaks of meeting you and Alice and seems to be quite an admirer of yours. I remember I met her once at Bradley's and thought her a strange creature. Is she as strange as she looks?

I am glad Fanny Butcher saw you. She was looking forward to it so. I think she is a nice person...genuine and everything like that.

I am having tea with Lila Michaelides tomorrow afternoon and shall give her the message you sent. I am sure she will be pleased as she, too, is an admirer of yours. I have met some rather interesting people through her. The other afternoon I met Aurore Sand, George Sand's grand daughter there. Have you ever seen her? She does her hair after the fashion of the famous George and looks exactly like her. All she needed the other afternoon was either Chopin or de Musset and the picture would have been perfect. She has quite a romantic, wistful lxxx slant on life.

I also met the rather aged sister of HenriBATILLLE who is a sharp old girl with a tongue and a mind like a rapier. One meets everyone at Lila Michaelides' and it is rather fun going there for that reason.

I have had two short letters from Jenny Bradley. They are at Talloires. I would have gone up there to join her had I felt better. I have been and still am really ill. I manage to get out occasionally, but when I do, it means I have to spend several days recuperating in my room. It's very depressing, especially as I am more or less alone.

I have been reading some biography...all sorts of biography. I am sick of novels, utterly sick of them. But I must say that Lucy Church is still my companion. I get a lot of fun out of her and she is on the little table beside my bed. I never pick her up that I am not amused and elevated and sometimes she gives me an aura for the day. I know you are going to hate me for that word "elevated"...but it does express what I mean... and I don't mean it in a silly, sugary sense either.

I have been tottering on the edge of another novel. All sorts of ideas are racing through my poor brain. One thing that has depressed me so this past year is the fact I have been too upset and too ill to work. But it does console me to realize that my brain is still alive, for to my amazement I actually do think, sometimes!

HOTEL JOSSE

TOUT CONFORT

BORD DE MER
GRAND PARC

TÉLÉPH. 0-65

R. C. ANTIBES N° 2.295

J. MEERLOO, PROPRIÉTAIRE

BOULEVARD DU CAP

ANTIBES

Antibes, le 10 Septembre 193

Dear Gertrude:

Your letter was forwarded to me down here, where I came so as to be convenient to Marseille in case I had to go to America. In fact I thought I would probably have to sail the ninth, which was yesterday (and I only arrived here day before yesterday), but a cable from homw (the first reassuring one I've had for months) made me decide to stay here ... at least for the present.

I have been ill too and I needed air and water. I feel better already although I have been here but two days.

Yes, I did write you. Did'nt you get my letter, in which I told you how thrilled I was with the proofs and everything...and how, although I was ill and mentally deficient (at least temporarily!), I read them with eagerness and pleasure ? I am rereading it all more carefully now and there are some things that strike me with great force. In fact every time I open the book I am stimulated in a new place! I shall write you more fully a bit later, giving my reactions more in detail, for honestly I have been so mentally deranged the past months with all this uncertainty about whether or not I should have to go to America, that I have been good for nothing.

Then it suddenly dawned upon me to come down here and sail from Marseille and rushed down...and here I am. I shall probably see you all (if I don't have to go to America) in the not very distant future.

I am anxious now to see the book in its dress or its manteau. I love some of the things you say in it...they stick in the mind. For instance one phrase..."narrowly arrayed"...That exactly expressess something that has never been expressed for me before and as you are striving for just that sort of thing in your work, you ought to be pleased.

I shall write again soon. In the meantime, give my love to Alice and Basket and yourself, and please know too, that while the blue waters of the Mediterranean are banal enough, your book IS'NT! And that is another reason for gratitude.....

In fact, I find your book a good antidote for all sorts of banalities which seem to be rampant down here...although I am not down here for those. I'm here for sun and air and a bit of salt...all of which I need. And your book has salt...and spice.

I am here at this hotel where I was last year. Do send me a line. I always love having news of you all.

Antibes, October 21, 1931

Dear Gertrude:

Your letter came a day or two after it was nice having news of you all. It sounded so pastoral and peaceful...what with Basket frelicking about like one of Mary's little lambs in an Italian primitive...and cows grazing on hillsides and so forth.

I am so anxious to see the new book. Perhaps I can review it for the Tribune. At least I can do something with it and it will fun doing it.

I am getting better although I am far from well yet. This country seems to be perfect in point of view of weather...the sun shines twenty-four hours a day somedays. This hotel is charmingly located and the people who run it are charming too...so I am staying, I think, until spring perhaps. Maybe not. I do long to see Paris and you and Alice and Basket and other friends. I have friends down here too, friends like Lila Michaelides...but she is going up to Paris this week to be gone until Christmas and I shall miss her. It has been such fun going to her villa for tea...one always meets some one interesting there. Sometimes there is a funny countess or an odd marquise or a tragic Russian princess...and so on...all very diverting.

There is an American here at this hotel and his name is Harrison Williams. Do you remember him? He is an excellent musician...plays the piano divinely. He says he knows you and has been often to your studio and admires you tremendously. He was a friend of Hemingway's at one time in the early days. The poor man is suffering with rheumatism which is tragic, because it may affect his future as a musician. He looks quite depressed and I have taken it upon myself to try to cheer him up. I find playing the piano cheers him up and as it is a joy to listen to him, we all profit.

I spend most of my time sitting on the terrace soaking up violet rays from the sun. I sit there with Svevo's "La Coscienza di Zeno" in my lap and rarely trun a page. It is a book of five hundred pages, and I started it weeks ago and am at present at page twenty-seven. I sit there all sorts of things run through my head. Sometimes I write a whole book there at a sitting!

Sometimes I think that is a good way to write books...just let them come and go like that without being guilty of trying to put them down on the printed page. However, I have not given up my book and hope some day to feel well enough and strong enough to finish it. I have been really seriously ill and still am ill. I didn't realize how ill I had been until I began to get better.

Tell Basket there was a nice French couple here with an adorable Basket... sheared in the most fantastic fashion. It was an adorable Basket but not as adorable as the real Basket. There is but one REAL Basket. I wish I could see the real Basket silhouetted against the blue Mediterranean. He would be very effective.

When are you going back to Paris? I suppose so. Another summer gone and I have not seen you in Bilignin. But it wasn't my fault. It was the fault of my health. I was simply too ill to leave here.

I must look for you in the English Harper's Bazar. It sounds exciting. So Transition is starting up again....What about this magazine of Titus? Have you seen it? I see it advertised occasionally in the Paris Herald.

I have been rereading the essays of Montaigne...he was a canny old boy. I have been keeping him on the little table beside my bed next to Lucy... and they seem to like one another.

I found an indigent little Russian princess here who made me a charming white dress and an embroidered cap to go with it. I hope to appear in it sometime in the rue de Fleurus.

You asked where I was and what I was doing and I think I have told you. I do wish I could tell you I would see you in Bilgin before you, leave it, but I can't. I think Paris with the weather up there would be unwise now. Later perhaps....

In the meantime, my love to you ALL.

P.S. I have taken the liberty of putting you in my book...I have a delightful character in it, who appears for a few pages called Gudrun Strang... do you object to this? I simply could not help doing it, but if you think I should not, I won't. I would not dream of doing it unless I told you first and you approved. And if you do approve, do you like my name for you? I rather like it.

Hotel de la Paix
29 Quai d'Anjou 4
Paris, May 5, 1932

Dear Gertrude:

I knew you must have gone, for I called up and there was no
answer. Then I saw Mr. Bradley and he told me he had talked with you and
that you were leaving (By the time he told me you had left). I was so glad,
however, to get your letter.

I have made several inquiries as to the lady who edits Harpers Bazar.
Nobody seems to know her name. Then I went into Bretanto's and looked at
a copy of Harpers and got the address of the magazine, although the name of
the lady was not given in the magazine. However the editorial offices are
located at 9 Stratton Street, Piccadilly, W, I, ... London.

I am working every day and seem to be making progress. Some days it
is dubious progress...but still progress.

I went to the country Saturday. Visited Auxerre, Chablis and Tonnerre.
I ate some good food and drank Chablis from a pichet and the fruit trees
were in full bloom, so my trip was a success. This time of year I detest
the city. I want to be a bud too....

I met an interesting American woman the other night at a dinner.
Her name is Chloe Owings (is it that a name?) and she did some distinguishing
work during the war and knows Tardieu quite well. But that is not why she
interested me. She interested me because she went to Kansas as a little
girl in a prairie schooner and later worked her way through college by
washing dishes. She has since gone for social work and is now studying
some social problem or other in Germany. She is Irish and has a keen sense
of humour. I enjoyed hearing her talk.

I also went to a concert the other night. Heard Mengelburg conduct.
It was not good because the program was not good. They played a terribly
bad thing by Franck and one of the worst things Strauss ever perpetrated.

I saw a German film called "Madchen in Uniforme" which was remarkable.
Everybody is talking about it. I hate films as a rule, but this one was
really excellent.

I am wondering how literature is with you. Do keep me informed about
the progress you are making and I would love to see a copy of one of the
new letters Alice wrote. If I can ever be of any service, please call on
me. It flatters me tremendously to be of service!

How is Basket? Frisking about sans diseases, I hope. I think he
needed a bud in his life too.

I am not reading anything. When I work I find that reading things
doesn't help. I read the headlines of the papers and keep up with crime
and corruption that way...but that is all.

I am hoping that I'll see you this summer. I may stop on my way some-
where. I have not decided yet where I shall spend my summer, but I feel
it won't be spent in Paris. I think Paris in August with the shutters
all on is depressing. Even the trees seemed shuttered somehow and the river
isnt anything.

I have a tree outside my window here at the hotel and every morning
a bird sings in it and wakes me up. This makes me think for a minute that
I am in the country... but only for a minute. I have to have something
more substantial than that.

Do write me.

Give my love to Alice and my love to Basket.

As ever,

If I come across anything exciting, I'll send it to you or write it
to you.

American Express
Constitution Square
Athens, Greece, July 14, 1933

Dear Gertrude (and Alice and Basket too):

I had a letter from a friend of mine in Chicago this morning and something she asked me at the end of her letter made you pop into my mind with sudden vividness. She asked me: "By the way have you seen the Stein autobiography?" Now does this mean you have been holding the story of your life out on me? I simply had to sit right down here and find out.

Did you ever get the letter I wrote (in fact I wrote you two letters one right after the other from Spain) in which I begged you to send me a copy of your last book because the maid in the hotel where I was threw out all the proof sheets of it that you had sent me and I was in the middle of doing an article on it. It was going to be a swell article and that damned Conchita threw it all out...the proof sheets and what I had written and everything. This was _months_ ago.

Since then I have been ill and in no condition to do anything. I came here in April and proceeded to get an infection in my throat which put me to bed for several weeks and if there is anything more perilous than Greek medicine I have yet to meet up with it. I don't think Greek medicine has progressed one pill's worth beyond Aesculapius, which means it is still in the herb stage. I had a doctor and he managed to keep me prone for weeks because I conscientiously swallowed the contents of the battalion of bottles that he put beside my bed. His medicines did not kill me and they did not cure. They just kept me lying there and when I rebelled and threw it all into the slop jar I began to get well.

Then the dollar started its degringolade. The result is that I'll probably have to take a column in the Parthenon and live on top of it like a stylite or take a tree in the Vale of Tempe and try my hand at being a dryad.

I like Greece, however. I like the country and the language and the people. This in spite of a lot. The country is devilishly uncomfortable. The beds, for instance, are something invented by one Spartan for another-- wooden slats with a hard, pallet-like mattress on them and a pillow stuffed with sand. There is very little running water here. Mine is all carried up to me mornings in lovely earthenware jars. The food is funny. I have learned to eat the innards of everything. Nothing is wasted here in Greece. They give you excellent sausages made of lamb's lungs and are quite deft about serving things like entrailles a la minute.

The language is maddening. It cannot make up its mind whether to stay ancient or go modern, but it is rich and I am plugging away at it doggedly. I can now go into a Greek restaurant and order a meal and not eat the above mentioned entrailles if I don't want to. I am wading through Homer a word at a time (in modern, not ancient Greek).

The people cheat you even when they can't get away with it but they do it so gently and charmingly that half enjoy it. And they are so restful. None of that feverish running about. They just still and run a string of amber beads through their fingers and wait for victims. It is really the only way to live.

I have been to Skros (where Rupert Brooke is buried). It is a lovely island. I lived with a Greek family (there is't an inn or hotel on the island), and visited all the Greeks on the island and had a grand time. They don't know what the crisis is all about. They live there on their tight, fertile little island and don't worry. They eat fish (which comes from the sea) salads made of aromatic weeds gathered from the sides of the mountains; and yiourti. And they all look as if they had lived to be a hundred years old, or would live to be a hundred years old.

And now that I am feeling better I am finishing my book. In fact it is entirely finished except for a chapter or two. Then I may do a book on Greece and thus earn enough money to get away from it eventually.

In the meantime, do write me a line about yourself and Alice and the dogs and everything. I am simply in a feverish state over the possibility that you have written your autobiography. I also would like to do something about you again, for a magazine maybe.

It is hotter here than the hinges of Hades, but you can stand it if you stay out of the sun. It is hotter than it was in Africa when I was there in July two years ago.

I am fortunate to be in such a cheap place as Greece. France right now must be ruinous.

I had a letter from Jenny Bradley urging me to return to Antibes because she was there, but I simply didn't have the money to get there, nor to live there after I got there.

I wish I could see you both and have a talk. I always liked the talks I had with you. I think of you often, often.... and I do hope that I'll see you in Paris when you return there this Autumn. I am sending this to Belley.

My love to you and to Alice...yes and to Basket too....

As ever,

Address me American Express, Constitution Square, Athens, Greece.

P.S. There is a woman in the room next to mine who is what the Greeks call "trelli". She sleeps all day and raves all night, giving her big fat Greek husband the devil. I keep my room because listening to her is good for my Greek.

Athens, Greece, December 18, 1933

Dear Gertrude and Alice too:

I am so tickled about the success of the Autobiography of Alice and I'll bet Basket is too, to say nothing of everybody else.

By the way, did you see the review of Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded *friendship Faded* that Fanny ran in the Chicago Tribune a few weeks ago? That was part of that historic review I wrote two years ago. Remember? The part they didn't use.

I am sending two photographs that may amuse and interest you. They were taken in the island Mykonos by an archeologist friend of mine and I had them enlarged for you. One is the church in the town (the whitest town in the world. They whitewash it every Saturday afternoon) and I think it is an exciting example of modern architecture. The other is a corner of a street near the street which took the Nobel Prize for architecture several years ago.

I am sending them to you both with the warmest wishes for a nice Christmas and a nicer New Year.

I wish I could talk to you. As you know I have wanted to do a special mix of an article on you for some time now. I wonder if you would mind if I went ahead with it? You see, I have been thinking and thinking that I *should* be in Paris any time but the dollar has kept me here. In fact I would have been in France long ago if it had *nt* been for the degringolade that the dollar pulled and kept right on pulling.

I like Greece but I *should* like to be back in Paris where things happen. Everything happened here that could happen here long before Christ and while that is thrilling enough yet I find myself growing more and more future-minded.

I may be able to make Paris before long. I am going to try.

In the meantime do drop me a line about the article. I think doing an article on you under the shadow of the Parthenon would be piquant. Not only that, it might even make the Phidias sit up and take notice. Let us try it.

I send you both love. I also send love to that agile lamb, Basket.

As ever,

P.S. Address me now in care of

Morgan et Cie
14 Place Vendôme
Paris.

It might amuse you to know that my sister is giving a talk on you and your works before the University Woman's Club in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in February. She is one of your keenest admirers and readers and has been for some time.

P.S. Something just occurred to me which would thrill my sister nearly to death. Could you drop her one of your cards with a "Rose is a Rose" on it and a few words with your autograph? She wouldn't dream of asking it, but there is nothing she would like so much.

She has been having a glorious time talking about you....

Her address is:

Mrs.Howard Plank (or Miriam P'Plank)
862 North Sixth Street
Manitowoc
Wisconsin
U.S.A.

March 16, 1934

Dear Gertrude,

I wonder how you and Alice and the dear dogs are? I often think of you.

I had a perfectly painless voyage back here, so painless in fact that I felt I wasn't getting my money's worth. And Athens is the same. Of course, it always has been. That's one reason why it is so satisfactory.

If they only wouldn't illuminate the Acropolis when the cruises come in! Looks like Coney Island suddenly gone Phidias or something. And aren't we having fun with Old Roy Insull these days? He disappeared day before yesterday and they caught last night aboard a Greek freighter on its way to Port Said and are bringing him back. There is a rumour that he tried to commit suicide when they caught him but I don't believe it. Of course everybody knows that there are two camps here on the Insull question. One camp wants him to stay (it is the camp whose bread he has pretty richly buttered with cash) and the other wants to get rid of him because they feel that relations in the matter of wine exportation, for instance are strained because of his presence here. Human nature is at the bottom of both attitudes, which is financial gain. In the meantime they are bringing him back and Heaven knows what they'll do with him when they get him. All sorts of rumours are flying about. They might make him prime minister or something and then again they might lynch him. With Greeks you can never tell.

I had a letter from my sister and she enclosed a clipping about you which I am sending on to you. It may amuse you for a minute. My sister's speech about you in Manitowoc was written up in the Milwaukee papers. You are being a riot in Wisconsin from all I hear.

I am working, seriously, for the first time in three years. Let us hope I hatch something.

The weather here is too divine to stay out of. It is like summer. The pavements are littered with violets as big as cabbages and every window is a fruit tree in full bloom. I have never seen such flowers as they have here in Greece. They flourish everywhere. One can even see anemones budding in the very ears of the donkeys. I wish you were all down here. They say the road to Delphi now is a a miracle of color. Better all hop into the Ford and swim down.

Do write me a line giving me a bulletin about yourselves and the Opera and other Works. Is your Celestial still with you making succulent dishes out of transparent spaghetti? And do give my love to the dogs. If I should by a miracle see anything which looks like a wife for Pepe, I'll abduct her and send her along up by Air Mail.

My love to you all and do let me have a word from you....

Ellen

American Express
Constitution Square
Athens, Greece
May 30, 1934

Dear Gertrude,

Your letter caught me in Arcadia. Caught me, in fact, taking a shower bath under one of the waterfalls in the River Styx. Solos on the Styx is even more mythological than it sounds and lovelier than any other village in Greece which is saying a great deal. Rampant fertility topped by barren magnificence and the icy, jade colored water which comes tumbling down from Mt. Cheiron is precisely the thing Ponce de Leon was looking for. It rejuvenated me at least a decade and I'm going back.

All Arcadia is beautiful...almost too beautiful. It's so overhwelmingly beautiful that one finds oneself constantly mired in bad poetry, for it's the overhwelmingly beautiful places which make one guilty of just that. For instance we heard shepherds piping to their sheep on the mountains and nightingales singing in trees from which pomegranates will swing later and could anything be worse than that?

I escaped just in time to save my sense of humour.

I've been thinking about you and Alice and Basket and Pepe (is that the way you spell him?) and Trac. Are you still an intact quartet? I do hope so for that will mean that life is moving smoothly and in a rhythm which will enable you to fill those notebooks of yours.

By the way my sister was thrilled to get your letter. It meant a great deal to her and I want to thank you for writing her.

I had a letter from Fanny Butcher and she sent me the proof of the article I wrote about you and your works. She said she liked it and I hope it sells some of the Plain Edition for it is mostly about your book Operas and Plays.

Everybody here in Athens has been reading your Autobiography and talking about it and you and some of the more intelligent ones are also talking about your other things. The leaven seems to be working and we'll have a nice constructive mass of dough on our hands before long. It'll make a grand loaf.

I was so amused by your description of your trip to Versailles with Trac. I think there must be a real philosopher in Trac somewhere. He cooks like one anyway. Give him my best regards and tell him that I've never forgotten the heavenly spaghetti and chicken we had that day. I lunchet with you.

After all stomachs are important and one cannot have a brain without one and what goes into it does somehow and eventually get to the brain and then there is either hell or heaven to pay.

That's one reason why my brain is happy here in Greece. It likes the olive oil and garlic and strange vegetables which delight my stomach.

I helped a peasant woman in Magouliana cook our supper one night. We squatted in front of the open fire and tossed the lamb in the copper pot I saw a whole bibliothèque of herbs. Then when I thought it was finished she tossed in a marvelous sauce made of lemon and eggs and more herbs. We washed this down with some wine which her brother had made from grapes from their own vines and then wound up with a generous slice of pheta (a heavenly cheese made of sheep's milk) and thick slices of brown bread (if bread is any good it should be served in nice crumbly thick slices) and let me tell you Brigitte Savarin had nothing on us.

Traveling in rural Greece costs very little too. One week we paid for our lodging just two nights out of the seven. These peasants simply won't take anything. They seem to get their money's worth just having strangers about. It's their form of theatre. Every morning when I dressed I'd have a female audience. They enjoyed everything from the cut of my coat to the hooks on my brassiere.

I learned a lot more Greek and love the Greek people more than ever and as for the country I might as well die here as anywhere else. This doesn't mean that I'm going "arty" and dance at dawn in grottoes in my sandal feet and trail dusty white robes about the streets of Athens. I'm an American and shall continue to be one, but just now I feel I can be more American here than anywhere else...more American than I could be in Chicago, for instance. The Greeks enourage Americans to be themselves. They adore us. It's so charming and such a relief....

I must stop now and get to work on my book. At last after four years I'm working again--really working. It's a wonderful feeling.

I send you all love ...

P.S. Of course you are all down in Bâliquin now. You must be. But I think I shall send this letter to the rue de Fleurus in case you aren't. Do give me a line about yourselves. I'm always so interested. Tell me what you and Alice are doing and how the dogs are and what the garden is like if Lucy Church still stands there under her spire and whether or not she is sun there. The sun is here with a vengeance. One doesn't court it down here this time of year. Shadows are at a premium. The thrifty Greeks even rent them during the siesta hours between one and four.

Athens, Greece

August 28,1934

Dear Gertrude,

I suppose you are all being peaceful and happy under the
shadow of Lucy Church. I do wish I could see you.

As for me, I'm doing the galley slave on the island of Mykonos. Every one else down here is relaxing on the sands in next to nothing while I sit up here in my room overlooking all this dolce far niente, garmented to the eyes, pounding a typewriter. It ain't fair..but what is?

I am writing for two reasons. One is a cosmic urge to communicate and the other is to ask you if you'd mind sending me the name and address of that literary agent you spoke to me about when I was in Paris last winter. He sounded as if he might be my sort of person and I have some short things I would like to have placed in New York.

Coming back to Mykonos. I do wish you'd set a magic carpet in motion and waft yourselves down here. This is your sort of island---white and peaceful with mountains and sea behaving in complete harmony and food which not only tastes good going down but is good after it is down. No noise either, except an occasional donkey being vocal about the sun.

I'm leaving here in about a month and my plans after that are nebulous (I suppose all plans should be). I may return to America. If I do, it will not mean that I shall stay. I couldn't stick all these N.R.A.'s and R.F.C.'s and X.Y.Z.'s they are pulling over there. I do wish they'd let the alphabet alone. It does seem that they ought to run the country without that.

Living in a country where there isn't any crisis has spoiled me. I'm simply not interested any more. There are advantages about living in a country where the very air is a comestible. For instance the other day I was talking to a Greek peasant here. He was driving a herd of cattle down to the pier to be loaded on a boat bound for Athens. They were fat and sleek and I asked him what they ate to make them so, as there isn't a spear of grass on the whole island and he replied that it was the air. This is not only a typical Greek answer but it is true. One can fatten onself in more ways than one on this air.

I'm reading Greek--modern not ancient-- and it's a maddening language. But I like it. Having an affair with a Greek verb is one of those emotional experiences... there's no end to it except mutual suicide. I became acquainted with a young Greek poet down here and he gave me some of the work of the modern writers to read. Some of it, especially the poetry, is not at all bad. Greek is a poet's language anyway.

How is your own work progressing? I'm interested. Fanny wrote me that they are planning to give the Opera in Chicago this Autumn or winter. If I am in America I shall hear it.

I must stop now and go down to the terrace for lunch. They are having moussaka-- a complicated affair made of chopped meat, egg plant, onions, tomatoes and olive oil. Over the top is spread a souffle made of eggs and the whole browned in the oven. In Athens they make with butter instead of oil. It's a nice dish and very nice to the insides.

C/O H.G. Plank
862 North Sixth Street
Manitowoc, Wisconsin

April 21, 1939

Dear Gertrude:

I am enclosing two clippings which may amuse you. One (the large one) is from the magazine "Look" and the other is from the "Chicago Tribune".

I was in Chicago a week ago and attended several parties. At one of them I met John Pratt, "the tall blond young artist" and we talked about you. Incidentally he's in love with a very beautiful and glamorous negress (tint : cafe au lait) who was in the WpA "swing" Mikado" for which he designed the costumes. Resultt so far: A very worried mother who thinks it might mean marriage.

I also ran into your friend and admirer, Mrs. Goodspeed at the Arts Club and later we ran into each other at a cocktail party in the office of "Poetry, a Magazine of Verse". She said she had heard that you had another "Basket". I hope so. Our mutual friend, Fanny Butcher, has been very ill. She caught pneumonia and was put under an oxygen tent. Then her husband took her to Florida. The day before I left Chicago she returned. I saw her. She's looking very well and was quite thrilled to learn that I had lunched with you in your new home. I gave her a description, which was very inadequate, but which seemed to please her.

By the way, I called at "Random House" when I was in New York and there were no more copies of "Everybody's Biography". Sold out. Therefore I could not translate part of it into Greek. I did want to. It would have been rather fun for us both.

I am at present visiting my sister here in this little Wisconsin city. They know about you here too. My sister gave a talk about you and your work before several clubs here and a certain Mrs. Rose Schuette Babcock, who

is Manitowoc's first lady and a keen admirer of yours. She has your book on Picasso and thinks it very sound stuff. So do I....

How is the novel coming? Mine is still in the hands of a publisher who can't seem to make up his mind.

I am glad to visit America but I could not stand it as a steady diet. Its three R's get on my nerves--- Radio, Rumpus and Roosevelt. Somehow they are all synonymous which makes them worse.

If there isn't a war you may see me before many months. Will you go to Bilignin? Of course you will....

I passed three or four sleepless nights last week worrying over the possibility of Mussolini's wading through Greece. Couldn't bear the idea of all those fascists swarming through over what was left of the Parthenon.

My little dog, Mando (Pepe's future wife) is in good health, but I think she, too, prefers Europe. Manitowoc is situated on Lake Michigan but it doesn't satisfy her. She wants salt in the air.

Do dash off a line to me when you get this. I'd like news of you and Alice and Pepe and the new "Basket". Do you call him "Basket"? Address me here care of H.G. Plank, 862 North Sixth Street, Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

If you have anything you think would go into Greek, send it along.

Love to you both,

C/O Poetry Magazine

232 East Erie Street

Chicago, June 16, 1939

Dear Gertrude:

I was delighted with the card you sent. Delighted too about the new Basket. I suppose you are all at Bilignin. I read your charming story for children in "Harper's Bazar". It really is charming--charming and much more than that. I feel as you do about the name "Rose". I remember once when we were talking you said you liked names. Well, so do I...

I had luncheon yesterday with Fanny Butcher and she's looking extremely well after her bout with pneumonia. You know, they had her in an oxygen tent for awhile. This happened last winter but even so I think it's quite remarkable how well she looks. We talked about you and she's excited about your children's book.

Day before yesterday I made a speech and most of it was about you. I spoke before "The Friends of American Writers," who were having their annual garden party at the Oak Park Country Club. They wanted a speech on "trends" in American literature and I could do no better of course than talk about you. And I did. They were pleased and "encored" me.

So I stood for ten minutes longer and answered questions and they were all questions about you. I think it would have pleased you to see how interested they were, for they were really interested.

I sent to Heinemann for "Everybody's Biography" and have not heard a word from them. I do want to do part of it into Greek. Somehow the way your mind works has something Greek about it. If you'd go to Greece and stay there six months you'd see what I mean.

I am working and quite happy. I have my little dog, "Mando" with

me--Pepe's future wife-- and while she prefers Greece yet a run along
the Lake is a fairly good substitute. She misses the salt in the air.
The air on the Aegean is full of salt.

I am at present doing some articles for "Poetry: A Magazine of Verse". Your friend, Bobsy Goodspeed, is one of its backers and a nice young poet named George Dillon is the editor. When you write me (and I hope you'll answer this letter) address me there.

I am wondering about Europe. Sometimes I feel that a war is inevitable and again I don't see why it should be. One thing I do know and that is that the people here in America are more frightened about the possibility than the people in Europe.

Well, the King and Queen have come and gone. Nobody was very excited.

I expect they were more excited than we were. Imagine seeing a sky - someper and eating a "hot dog" for the first time!

I must stop and take Mando out for a run. I wish our dogs could get together. And I wish I could step in and say "hello" to you and Alice.

It would be very nice...

As ever, Affectionately as ever,

Ellen

It is reassuring for France
as long as you are in it.
I feel nothing but very cataclysmic
can happen as long as you
and Alice and the dogs vibrate
placidly between Paris and
Bilbao!

1217 North State Street

Chicago, Illinois

August 3, 1939

Dear Gertrude,

George Dillon, who is as you know, editor of "Poetry" showed me the "Meditations." They are _good_. Everybody is quite excited.

I found a copy of "Everybody's Biography" in the library at Manistee, Wisconsin where I was with my sister but I don't think of course/would not let me bring it down here. A friend of mine here has one but she uses it for bedside reading and won't be parted from it! I have haunted the second hand book shops with no results. Que faire?

And it would sound so well in Greek. I met a young Greek poet the other day and he has read you and likes you. I do so want you to appear in Athens in the "Neoellenika Grammata".....

In the meantime do what you can and I will do what I can...

I am glad that Baby Basket is such a success. How I envy you all and your peace there with Lucy Church! We have nothing here but noise--super-heated noise...I can't get accustomed to it. If there were sense in it I might...

And of course there's also the War. We are more at war than you are over there. We really are at War.... And I am so fed up with Roosevelt's charm, which I find charm masks an ego hellbent to get what it wants regardless. If he runs a third term I shall protest by becoming a Chinamen and letting the Japanese walk over me. It would be better.

I am reading Thoreau's "Walden." It's very soothing.

Do try to snare "Everybody's Biography", and I shall do my utmost at this end.

Love to you all, Ellen

1217 North State Street
Chicago, Illinois
October 15,1939

Dear Gertrude:

Your card followed me to California, where I went to lecture. I lectured on Greece and it seemed to be a success. I thought of you and Alice while I was out there because in a way you are both from California.

When I got home, the two books were here and I was glad to have them. I am writing immediately to that magazine in Athens and making arrangements to have a section of "Everybody's Autobiography" appear in it in Greek. I have made the acquaintance of a young Greek here who will help with the translation. I'm quite excited about it all.

I am also quite excited about "The World is Round." The format is delightful too. Congratulations. They all looked at it at the office of "Poetry--A Magazine of Verse" and were intrigued, all of them.

I try not to think of the war and succeed pretty well except when I wake up in the morning. I'm always a prey to war or what have you before I've had my coffee.

I liked the West. I had never been in California before. I especially liked San Francisco. I did not like Los Angeles. I had a feeling that it was made of paper machine and would all disintegrate if it rained.

I stopped by in Santa Fe to see and artist friend there-- a transcendentalist named Raymond Jonson. He is better than his pictures. Lots of people are like that. I don't know whether it's unfortunate or not but it's true.

I liked Santa Fe too. It reminded me of Spain. It seemed nice to hear Spanish spoken on the streets. I was there during their great Autumn Fiesta and the Indians danced. I like Indians. I was brought up with them in Dakota.

I am enclosing some clippings which may amuse you.

I would like to have news of you. Is everything as quiet in Paris as the papers say it is? It doesn't seem possible.

My love to you both.

As ever,

Tohickon Meadows

Kellers Church, Pa.

September 14, 1945

Dear Gertrude,

If I hadn't caught La Grippe in New York I would have met some one in Princeton who has seen you recently--one Donald Sutherland. A very good friend of mine (I met her in Greece) Margaret McMahon lives in Princeton and I visit her often. She asked me to come a week or two ago and if I had gone I would have met the above mentioned man, who as I say, has recently seen you. He called on Peg and they had a long talk. She immediately sat down and wrote me all about it. I was very sorry to have had the La Grippe but even more sorry to have missed him. It would have been very warning to have talked with some one who would give me direct news of you and Alice to say nothing of the dogs.

I am enclosing some clippings which I have collected now for months, intending to send them on to you. You have doubtless seen all of them but perhaps you can use extra copies. Anyway here they are.

I also want to tell you that I was in New York when you "Wars I Have Seen" came out and I immediately rushed down to Double-day Doran Book Shop and bought it. Since then I have bought many copies for friends--friends all the way from Philadelphia to Hollywood. One of the most enthusiastic readers was my friend, Knowles Entrikin, who directs a radio show called "Mayor of the Town" starring Lionel Barrymore. I thought you would like to know that you have been and are being read in Hollywood. It is a good sign --for Hollywood.

My husband is still in Greece. The troubles on the Bulgarian border keep him there. He may not get home before next spring. The war isn't over yet for me, you see. I am here on our farm raising vegetables, waxing browns under the fruitful sun and being very lonely in the sterile moonlight. Speaking of vegetables, I have a very green thumb. My lime beans have climbed the poles my hired man fixed for them and are now waving fronds at me three feet above my head. Very disquieting but the beans are good.

Do let me hear from you. I remember you asked me before the war to send you some pictures of my husband and the farm. I shall do that if you still care to have them.

I think of you often. I wish I could go to France but feel guilty about the food situation. I wish I could dump some of surplus tomatoes and beans and zucchini on your doorstep.

My love to you both and do let me have a word from you. I would like it very much.

As ever,
Ellen

Tohickon Meadows

Kellers Church, Pa.

October 4, 1945

Dear Gertrude,

Here is a clipping that you may have seen and
then again you may not. Had a letter from Fanny and she
was full of paens about your book.

Another interesting thing; my friend, Knowles Entrikin, who
directs a radio show in Hollywood, starring Lionel Barrymore,
used you on the air one week ago Saturday. I had already
given him your book to read on the train between New York
and Hollywood. This amused me no end and I think it will
amuse you.

As I think I wrote you, I keep giving your book to friends
and they like it.

I was in Princeton last week and stayed with Peg McMahon
(a friend of Donald Sutherland's). She said Don told her that
he helped you walk Bakset 111. Is Basket 11 no more?

My husband writes from Greece that he, too, has another
dog-- a mongrel bithh not unlike Mando, the little Greek dog
I had with me in Paris the last time I was there. Remember?
We talked of her as a possible wife for Pepe. Well, Peter
has this dog and he has named it "Dorka". He is afraid he is
going to be very unhappy if he can't bring her home with
him. I hope he can.

I think of you and Alice very often. I would like nothing
better than a visit with you both. I'd like to see the new
Basket too.

Do let me know if you'd be interested in having some
snap shots of our farm and ourselves. I would be glad to
send them. You spoke of wanting them in your last letter to
me, which was just before the Germans took over in France.

My love to you both as ever,

Tohickon Meadows

Kellers Church, Pa.

November 28, 1945

Dear Gertrude,

I was delighted to have your letter to hear that you are doing well. I had already heard about the G.I. book in the press. The other day when I was in the Pennsylvania Station in New York, waiting for a train to bring me out here, I bought a copy of "Vogue" from the newstand and you were in it. It was nice what you wrote about Pierre Balmain and he must be nice too.

I am sending you the snap shots of "Tohickon Meadows" and of us. They latter is not very good but it is all I have. By the way, "Tohickon" means driftwood and it is an Indian name. Rather appropriate for a creek that runs through the property of two people who rove as we do. Not that I have done much roving now for three years or even five, but then roving is as much a state of mind as anything else.

I had planned to go to Mexico this winter but Peter writes from Athens that he may be home any time now and I want to be here when he arrives. He is slated to become a Lieutenant Colonel, which sounds ominous. Not that he is going to stay in the army. He is an archeologist and wants nothing more than to be digging around in B.C. mud, but it may mean they'll keep him longer. When he last wrote he was going on an inspection tour in the North of Greece and he said it would take a month. He is very upset about affairs in Greece and no wonder.

I like hearing from you and Alice and Basket II because you are three stable things in this atomic world. I feel that not even an atom bomb could change you very much. I think it would change me because inside I'm still in a state of flux.

By the way, I have written on the backs of the snapshots what they are.

Do let me hear from you again. I often think of the walks we used to take with Basket I and the good talk and food with you and Alice. It may happen again. After all, the airplane has in a way made us neighbors.

Love to you and to Alice and to Basket II...

Ellen

Tohickon Meadows

Kellers Church, Pennsylvania

March 5, 1946

Dear Gertrude,

Here are two more clippings which you may not have seen and which you may be able to use even if you have seen them. By the way, did the snap shots arrive? I never know nowdays if things arrive. It is the same in this country now too. So many things sent out and so few arriving.

My husband is still in Greece riding up and down the snow-clogged Pindus mountains in his jeep. I think from what I hear that he is on love with that jeep, although he did say in one of his recent letters that the only rival I have had in his affections since he went to the wars is a schooner! Did I tell you that he commanded a fleet of ships which ran supplises and personnel into Greece when the Germans were there? His headquarters was the island, Cyprus where he excavated when he was an archeologist. He had one or two very narrow escapes.

I had a guest out here this past weekend who is a very warm admirer of yours. When she wants to give somebody a gift she gives them "Wars I Have Been". She said one young man to whom she gave it (He was seeing action in the Pacific) said he hadn't been the same since! One time in Paris you gave me "Before The Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded. I keep in a conspicuous place on my library table. Esther Cowles (this is the name of the guest who was with me this past weekend) picked it up and read it through. She read some of the poems aloud as we sat by the fire. I was darning my last pair of presentable stockings...

Spring is imminent. Even the cobblestons of my terrace have a green tinge. The crows are very active and sinister. It would not be spring if there wasn't something sinister. I take it as one of the signs and don't worry.

I wish I could run in and talk to you and Alice and Basket 11. I often think of it. I used to enjoy walking down to the rue de Fleurus and knocking at your door. I do hope this finds you all well.

Love as ever plus the usual admiration which goes on and on, thanks to you...