From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

1922

ELIZABETH MADOX ROBERTS
SPRINGFIELD, KENTUCKY

My dear Monie:

We have the most glorious weather, wild and wind-blown
every day -- gales taking off treetops and setting the world
to rights generally. The grass is green and the March lilies
are in bloom, all out in the high winds. Or else it is
cold and wet, scarcely missing freezing. I go to my garden
every day and a few days ago I set up a bird house on a high
post. Or else I grub at the poison ivy that has been my
evil hant ever since last summer when It bit me so viciously
on my two arms, or else I make a note of the progress of the
iris -- coming along fine -- and the pflox not dead, and the
hollyhocks. I know what is the matter with me. I am a
ground-grass-sky-sunshine-rain-wind person. When winter
comes and shuts me in doors I go quite mad. And the
butterbeans are all-out-doors and almost never come in the
house. And my novel is all out in sun and wind and clods. (sic)

If you want to see some of it I will send you the part
I sent the folks out west -- with certain revisions made since
the copy returned. I am making a duplicate manuscript. I
sent the only extant one to New Mexico but that was taking a
risk I dare not take again since if it were lost I could
never reproduce it. And

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/ /22 )

(page 2)

so, if you have time for it now, Ill (sic) send you a copy
to see. It measures about fifteen thousand words, this
first chapter, and fifteen thousand words is no small amount
of reading if one is busy. And so if you had rather wait
till later say so quite frankly.

I simply can't see myself ever finishing it. It
lies out before me forever. It is a difficult story to
write, and I have much yet to do, having just now found out
my method. I have assembled material for about half of the
entire "work", but no part is so well strung together, so
completely rounded out, as the first chapter. (There would
be about nine such chapters).

I have been rather happy all week typing it, the
gales going over at night, blowing down churches and taking
away trees. One of the little churches which appears in my
story was blown to ruins. This brought the reality of the
outside in on my consciousness very poignantly. I had been
down to the little churchyard with its old graves -- in my
story -- only the night before. I live a curiously lonely
existence -- you would not endure it a week, --thinking all
my thoughts to myself.

Yours with love,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Glenway Wescott

January 16, 1922

Dear Glenway

Arthur says you and Monroe will probably leave
Germany - have left, perhaps, by this time - for Austria,
following the low mark. By the time this reaches you, you
will be hearing nightingales in a village out of Prague - if
it even reaches you. One never knows what letters arrived
until journeys are over. Janet and I wrote you and Monroe
a monster letter while she was here. We addressed it to
Wiesbaden, "Poste Restanto". If you wandered away in
search of the low mark you'll never get it, I fear. We
sent you the music to "Christmas Morning", carefully written
by Janet, sent all my new poems, (as grouped for the Carolinas)
and thanked you and Monroe for the Holbein (which I am reading
now with much joy.

(page 2)

I get through the winter very badly. I suffer much
with the cold- Neuralgia and neuritis. Our house has but
two warm spots, my room and another. I have to go through
cold rooms to reach the other warm spot, or to go to the
kitchen where the food is. If I could persuade myself to
dress like an Arctic explorer every time I leave my room
perhaps I could avoid some of the pain, but I will never be
wise, and anyhow I hate Arctic clothes. I must not spend
another winter here.

The hills were very beautiful for Janet. The curves

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1/16/22

)

increased in beauty with her presence. It is two weeks now
since she left me... I must tell you about my grandmother's
gown, which I am restoring to its 1860 estate. I will send
you a piece of it. It is a very gorgeous gown — wide skirt
and long shoulders. I do not have to bother about being
authentic for authenticity is present in the old seams,
which are ripped apart, my task being mainly to sew them back.
(page 3)

Hoops and pantelettes are probably indicated, but I shall
not wear them.. I shall wear it with an old lace mantel
which I have, but I shall wear it only in most kindly places,
where it will be loved and understood. It will be a
beautiful dress to wear when your sideburns are present......
Janet is going to Santa Fe in the spring. She talks of
taking me there. I will go if I can make some of the expenses
of the journey by reading poems to people who want to hear
poems read. It is beautiful to read but it is not
beautiful to try for engagements. I should have a robust
commercial sense to shield me, or, lacking that, I should
have an agent.

Janet sent me some records which sing Shakespeare
songs. "Blow, Blow", and "O Mistress Mine," "Come Away
Death," and the songs of Ophelia's madness. The old tunes
haunt me and the words cling to my thought, and then I go
back to Chaucer, driven back by the strength of the old
words. And so I read much Chaucer in

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(page 4)

these cold days, listening to the low, deep tones, and then
I wonder why we pitched our vowels higher when we shifted
them. We must be more hysterical than we used to be. With
our westward ho! and the Cabots we uttered a great scream,
and we have not quieted our pulses yet.

I grow quite discouraged over the book, my book,
which Huebsch keeps forever in his hands, saying nothing.
I would wrathfully order it sent home, only I want very much
for him to take it. It is neither fish nor flesh, and
nobody will take it to print.

Will you come north through Italy and France, or will
you wander on into far countries which are spelt with a
great many j's and x's?

The moon, round and full, is a very beautiful honeycomb,
deep yellow, coming up the sky a little north of east.
After a while, when I have slept,

(page 5)

and when I have waked in the deep middle of the night, it
will be a small silver bowl, very cold and very high, holding
a drink for I know not what gods for I will close my eyes
and let the gods have their portions, for I have a drink of my own.

Some day I will have called all my songs in from the
air and the sky.

With love for Monroe and for you

January 16, 1922

Springfield, Ky.

Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Glenway Wescott

January 16, 1922

Dear Glenway

Arthur says you and Monroe will probably leave
Germany - have left, perhaps, by this time - for Austria,
following the low mark. By the time this reaches you, you
will be hearing nightingales in a village out of Prague - if
it even reaches you. One never knows what letters arrived
until journeys are over. Janet and I wrote you and Monroe
a monster letter while she was here. We addressed it to
Wiesbaden, "Poste Restanto". If you wandered away in
search of the low mark you'll never get it, I fear. We
sent you the music to "Christmas Morning", carefully written
by Janet, sent all my new poems, (as grouped for the Carolinas)
and thanked you and Monroe for the _Holbein_ (which I am reading
now with much joy.

(page 2)

I get through the winter very badly. I suffer much
with the cold. Neuralgia and neuritis. Our house has but
two warm spots, my room and another. I have to go through
cold rooms to reach the other warm spot, or to go to the
kitchen where the food is. If I could persuade myself to
dress like an Arctic explorer every time I leave my room
perhaps I could avoid some of the pain, but I will never be
wise, and anyhow I hate Arctic clothes. I must not spend
another winter here.

(2.)

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1/16/22

)

(3.)

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(page 4)

(page 5)

Elizabeth

January 16, 1922

Springfield, Ky.

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

February 23, 1922

Dear Monie:

I wrote G. a letter about a month ago, being quite sure
you would never receive the Christmas letter, and telling
you over much that I had to tell at Christmas, perhaps. Now
I shall try to catch you while you are still restant. Janet
had it "restanto" and she wondered what language that was.
I said "probably Esperanto."

I have been greatly grieved for Janet's disaster. You
know of her illness. I am bereft. Of course I expect her
to get well, but this is a new order of things, an order in
which Janet is incapable and in danger. I have leaned upon
her this long while as one always full of vigor and health,
a stay for my frailties. She writes me today that all goes well.

I am compiling a small "anthology" of poems for children,
thinking it may get published somewhere and that it may fill
the need of gift-book and school reader at once, and bring
in a little money. If I can induce a publisher to take it
its publication would relieve my own book of the necessity
of supporting me and I could plan differently for it. The
"anthology" is to be called The Poetry Book, which is just
the name children would call it, whatever else it might be
named. I shall use about ten or twelve or more from other
persons. In many of the western states the books for the
entire school system are bought Egrthe state and furnished free

(2.)

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2/23/22 )

to the children. I have some information about Texas and
many other states use a similar plan. I should like for
this group of selections to be used as a supplementary (sic)
reader in the second or third

(page 2)

grade. Please tell me what you think of it? And if you or
Glenway know of any pleasing poems which I might include I
shall be glad. It is to be a book of truth and joy -- no
sentiments and no sermons, and so it may never sell. The
Baptists run America nowadays.

It pleases me that you like _A Child in a Garden_. I have a
great affection for it. I have discarded "Manibozho" as a
title. It was never the title of the poem (sic) really. I
merely set it at the top to serve me until I had worked out
the real title, which was to have been some sort of basket
or box. I have since taken the poem out of the group
altogether and I wish that you would do so when next you see
*Passage* and throw it away for me. Your warm phrases of
appreciation were very kind, and your letter, together with
your chance mention of *Orpheus* (the opera) was a spark in
the powder, and I wrote *Stranger* that same night. It is
not finished, but I think I shall send it along. I have
been thinking of refrains for some time, wishing to incorporate
that element in my Interlude, but always in an organic and
true relation to my material. Ballads are quite legitimate for
me. My grandfather sang ballads in a great roaring voice that

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)

scared me half out of my life. He sang *Bangum and the Boar*:

"Bangum drew his wooden knife,
Dillom dom dillom!
And swore he'd have the wild boar's life.
Qum qui quiddle quo qum!

Bangum went to the wild boar's den,
Etc . . . . .
And he found the bones of a thousand men.
Etc. . . . . . .

You perceive that this is good roaring material. He sang the one about Sweet William and Liddy Marget.

"Liddy Marget died like it might be today,
Sweet William, like it might be tomorrow."

(page 3)

It is a joy to find that these are sung in the back countries
today. They came from England with us long ago. And I am
glad that I have them in the marrow of my bones and in my
flesh. That they have the marks of our back woods country
upon them makes them all the more precious. Liddy Marget is
surely Lady Margaret or "Fair" Margaret, and "like it might
be today" is our own speech. I find other versions of these,
without the Kentucky imprints, in scholarly, English
collections, Oxford editions, etc. Of course I have no
wish to be aware of all this matter that lies in my own flesh,
and then let come what may. And therefore *Stranger*. It has
some lines which I shall work over. Criticise it as a whole,
not in detail, since I am still working at it, and be as
rought (sic) with it as you please. Have I omitted to say
that it is for the Interlude?

Janet and I were planning to go West in the spring, myself

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)

singing my way. I do not know yet what will come of that.
I have some half promises of engagements here and there --
Rockford, Colorado Springs. It is difficult for me to get
engagements for myself. I need a manager. And I should
make a truce with Vachel. My letter to the institution in
mind must necessarily be a mere statement that I will do this
thing, and for how much, and when. Where my work is known
the reply is cordial, often warm, stating that Vachel
Lindsay has been there recently and there is no more money.
I want to get ahead of him next year if it is humanly
possible to do so. But I shall have to have some one to
write the letters for me.

Spring has come here. The morning is full of birds --
cardinals, Carolina wrens (and Jennie wrens of course) and
robins. The day before yesterday the grackels came, and
today came the doves. A rose bush with little new leaves
looks in at the window, and the daffodils are in bloom
tomorrow. The hills are faintly lit with the fairest of
fair, faint greens, and they have forgotten the cruelties of
of the winter; but I have not.

(page 4)

I thank you very much for your offer about the books.
I shall be going to Chicago some time soon, but I shall
wait until Janet is better, so that I may not disturb her
routine of rest. I shall probably stay in a hired room
somewhere. And whether I go to Colorado Springs remains yet

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2/23/22

to be seen. One or two "enthusiastic admirers" are working
there for me. If I go there I may run down to Santa Fe for
a week just to look around a bit, and I may not.

You write such nice letters that I hope I may get
another some day. It was fun to have your letter at noon
and to be writing *Stranger* by evening. That is the good
of the world.

s/ My love to you and Glenway

s/ Elizabeth

P.S. Do you know that in the Kentucky backwoods the
visitor to the community or to the farm is called
"Stranger"? The greeting is usually, "Howdy, Stranger,
won't you light and stay all night!"

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

April 14, 1922

Dear Monie:

Your delightful letter followed me to Oak Park. I
thank you much for the pictures of German places. Your
mother and Richard and Helen Evans came to my Oak Park
reading. It was a joy to see them there. Your mother was
very very pretty that day (and all days) and it was a joy to
read for Richard. I could see that he, knowing always what
was coming next, watched the others to see them respond.
Helen Evans brought me a copper candlestick, the shape I
(page 2)

so much love. I had many big violets to wear and a good
room to read in -- it made my voice large and comfortable
with no effort on my part, and when the purse was given me
I found about ninety dollars in it. I felt like a troubadour
to whom a king had flung a purse. I am going to read at the
Lincoln Center, or rather for a Lincoln Center group, in a
drawing room -- the center reading hall was not thought
large enough -- on Friday next at
(page 3)

10:30 in the morning. I have been told that Mrs. Moody
wants me the next week after that, but I do not know about
that yet — whether it is for the ______ or for her
drawing room, and then the week of the first of May I will
read on the campus, at the Ida Noyes theater, for the benefit
of the day nursery, and twenty-five dollars worth of benefit

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4/14/22

for me. I gave the nursery my lowest possible price because
the money is for the babies. Mrs. Stevens asked me what I
thought of giving this in

(page 4)

Mandel Hall, and I said "Oh, no, not in Mandel." I should
be lost in Mandel, and maybe nobody would come and what a
lot of empty seats an empty Mandel would make! I can't
imagine how the butterbeans would last a Mandel experience.
I fear they would perch up on the high rafters and weep.

I wish you and Glenway were here to help me be a
montebank.

Just at the moment I am ill and my hand is wobbly.

(page 5)

I am sitting up in bed. I have not said a word to anybody
today and nobody has said a word to me. I am "rooming" at
5558 Drexel in a very pleasant room with a large bay window
looking to the south. It is the best room I have ever had in
Chicago, but I am going to move as soon as I am able to go,
for these people were cruel to me yesterday when I was
frightfully ill. They refused to do anything for me though
I offered them money for service. My nice little garret
where Jen and Mary live is rented

(page 6)

else I'd like to go there. But there are lots of rooms.
You had best address me at Springfield since I do not know
where I shall be at any time in the future. I expect to go

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)

to Evanston sometime later and I shall be delighted to have
some of your books. When I am through with engagements here
I may find a room up there and stay a few days or a week.

Janet looks wonderfully well. She rides around in
automobiles now and offers, the doctor says, only a
scarcely audible bubble to the stethoscope. She
(page 7)

and I had many pleasant moments during the three weeks I was
there. We could not stay together very much for I could not
stand the cold of her sun room for very long at a time. She
and her mother came, with Mrs. Hamilton who owns the nice
drawingroom in which I read at Oak Park, to see me one
morning this week, and she will come again before she goes to
the north.

I wish very much to go to the mountains of Kentucky this
summer and I think I can save enough money from this experience
to finance such a trip. And then I want to go to New York next
(page 8)

winter. One should for a little while.

I am glad Glenway is to, or has, replied to Brounell's
stupid inaccuracies. H.M. has asked me to take part in her
Anthology. I do not think she really falls very hard for me,
but she is afraid she might overlook something. Your Wiesbaden
must be a fascinating place with the season on. You are
luckier than you know. I asked the powers of the air if I
should ever ride in a ship and they told me no, that ships
were not for me.

(4.)

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4/14/22

)

I see Gladys Campbell since I am on the South Side, and
John Toigo

(page 9)

and Jessica, with whom I consult about the Country Club
Anthology. This collection has much bad work in it and
many spots in it are so thin that it all but breaks in two,
but on the whole, for a collegiate collection, it is quite
impressive. We are wondering if Glenway will allow it to
use his Natives of Rock from the Dial. Please ask G. and
tell me. It joys me much that you are writing and that G
is writing. By the way, I have thought of poems from
*The Little School* for my collection, but

(page 10)

I find them too difficult for a child to read. I have tried
them on sharp little Hollie of Kentucky. Perhaps an English
child might read them but they are a strange speech for an
American child, lovely though they are.

I have not tried to be coherent. I have poured out all
my pent-up chatter of two ill days upon you. Please say to
Glenway that I love him

(page 11)

much and that I miss him utterly.

The postmistress in Springfield assured me that only two
cents were required to carry a letter to Germany.... "Oh,
yes," she said, "we have a new treaty with Germany." And I,
who have not followed the war this side of the armistice,

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am overwhelmed when such evidence as a treaty is offered
by a government employee. You probably had to redeem my
letters at a rate

(page 12)

far in excess of their value. I am sorry.

Much love to you, Monroe my dear

Elizabeth

April 14, 1922

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Glenway Wescott

June 13, 1922

Dear Glenway:

I am writing a novel, too. I have done much since I came
from Chicago three weeks ago. In less than two weeks I had
set thirteen thousand words on paper. Then I fell ill and
that was devastating. The story lived on through pain for
two days, an entity which I could touch with my mind and
love with my heart, but in the weariness and apathy of
convalescence (sic) I lost it, and when I was well once
more I could not make my puppets dance. And how do you
think I brought them back to life? I wrote you a long
letter about them, a letter I did n't send, two letters.
I told you about them, and then again I could make my
Sallie May march down life ways, and Homer with her and
Grannie and the Stigalls, a family that live in a sort of
Wuthering Heights (sic) place. I told you about my phantasy,
named Blondetta, shoddy and illiterate but somehow lost
beauty, and I told about a troop of old hounds that Judge
Rowan, fox hunter and gentleman, left when he died, and
Miss Bell, his wife who keeps the old hounds about her still
though they are half crazed with age. And then there was
the boy who pushed over the pillar on Hallowe'en night and
had to run away the next day because the village wrath was
upon him. (He joined the army and then the war came all at
once and he was killed at Chateau Thiery, and now his picture
enlarged in crayon, hangs in the court house among the judges --

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they enlarged in crayon-- and his body was brought back
and buried last summer on the hill above the town with all
the people present and the bugle blowing taps.

(page 2)

If the aldermen and the mayor and the judges could have
caught him the morning after he pushed over the pillar he
would never have had a chance to be at Chateau Thiery. He
would have gone when the other draft men from here went and
he would not have seen service at all and his portrait would
not be hanging up among the judges.)

My garden is a joyous place. It is much more of a
garden this year than last, when it was largely a vision and
a thwarted plan. This year I have a bench and a chair
under one of the locust trees. And along the north fence,
a high wire fence, that looks into a neighboring vegetable
garden, I have planted cinnamon vines and morning glories
and climbing cucumbers and a rambling yellow rose, to try
to get a wall of green to keep the neighbors who own the
vegetable garden from seeing me when I sit under the tree
with a book or a pen. (They, poor dears, never sit under
a tree with a book or a pen. They play songs on Sundays that go

Tum tee tum tee tum tum tum tee tum
all day long.) I am walled in happily on all sides but
on the side of this primitive tom tom music, and I trust
the vines to grow. And so I sit under the tree and the
ladybugs walk over me, and a phoebe bird comes to the grape

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6/13/22

)

arbor and his mate sits on the wire fence making little
silver talk out of her throat, looking about with anxious,
searching head, feeling into the air for his presence. In
the dusk the fireflies, and overhead the night hawks in
the sky all night.

(page 3)

Sallie May and her people are less than an essence out
of the soil. They are a word out of clods.

I tell nobody of her but you and Monroe. . . For she may
be only dream-strife, a useless endeavor - myself on
endless stairs that hang over precipices, clutching at
balconies that become bottomless, running unclothed in
public places, hurrying through unfolding streets in
nakedness and shame . . . . dream.

I merely want this clod-woman, Sallie May, this animated
soil, to emerge a little, become for a brief moment an
essence and a vapor that is aware. Then the moment is
done and she goes back to the soil again, and she does
not remember what it was that happened. But she faintly
knows that something happened. That is all there will be
to my novel.

I thank you for Magnolias and the Intangible Horse.

You will have a happy time at Bonn. I am glad you
are there.

I send you my love and all this chatter

about my story.

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Glenway Wescott

June 13, 1922

Dear Glenway:

(2.)

(EMR to GW
6/13/22 )

(page 2)

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

Christmas Day, 1935

Christmas Day
1935
1432 St. James Court
Louisville, Ky.

My dearest Monroe:

I am most pleased that you will come to me here. I think your train would arrive at about seven in the morning - Pennsylvania line. I will want you with me all the time possible. These vague plans suggest themselves to me: I am never up until about ten, and our house is often chilly before that time. You would be more comfortable thus: Arriving at the station, Tenth and Broadway, you might leave all your baggage more than a light briefcase or newspaper. Go east on Broadway to Fourth, six blocks, by streetcar, or walking, or cab. You can get a breakfast at the coffee shop of the Brown Hotel, Fourth and Broadway. Then you could loaf and rest in the lobby of the Brown (second floor) or stroll about Fourth, our busy street, if the weather is good.

Come out here at ten, arrive at ten or very soon after. You can come by streetcar out Fourth - south - and ask to be let off at Magnolia Street, walking then one short block west to St. James. I live just opposite the fountain. Or by cab, direct, about one mile.

If there is any bag that you want later we can pick it up when we are out driving. I will take you out around

(2.)

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12/25/35 )

eleven, if it is not too cold for me. You can stay here the rest of the day, and I will delight in giving you lunch and dinner, since my hostess (I am a "paying guest") manages food very well. I will have to rest in bed most of the afternoon, but you can rest too, or amuse yourself outside in the little park.

I will tell you all the rest when you are here.
I am in a trance of delight that you will come.

My greetings to your mother and father.

Your delighted,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

Christmas Day, 1935

Christmas Day
1935

My dearest Monroe:

(2.)

(EMR to MW

12/25/35

)

Your delighted,
s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

Christmas Day, 1935

My dearest Monroe:

(2.)

(EMR to MW)

12/25/35

)

Your delighted,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

Christmas Day, 1935

My dearest Monroe:

(2.)

(EMR to MW)

12/25/35 )

)

Your delighted,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

May 20, 1936

Elenores

May 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

I came back to Elenores about a month ago to find
a slow spring started. The hard winter had frozen the
shrubs and so there was no flowering, but now there are
lush leaves everywhere. Bird nests are crowding the house
for space - four or five on window ledges and gutter tops
- and the peonies are in bloom. (You remember that we
accent the o-syllable. . .)

I had your letter shortly before I left St. James
Square and thus knew of your Robinson Crusoe island in
the Gulf. I remained in Louisville throughout the winter
and became quite a little stronger, and more-so since
coming here although I do not walk quite so well as I
should like, even yet. But I am almost back to where I
was before the sharp decline of two years ago, and I am
going to spend the summer trying for more strength. I am
pretty good on my mat exercises, and I am letting everything
else go in favor of health.

There was sent to me a brief account of your
exhibition, from some journal, and I was delighted that
it was going off well and was being well appreciated. And
now I have the beautiful book you have sent, and what

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5/20/36 )

delight it gives! (I have everything to learn over
again, of the little everything that ever I knew.) After
you left Christmas I began to amuse myself making
drawings, making lines on paper. And later making little
things out of clay. The pots are still in the kiln and
I do not know how well they are holding together. Sometimes a pot - in firing - flies into a rage, they tell
me, and flings shards at all the other pots near.

Back to this beautiful book, how I can pour over
the treasures in it. I thank you for it indeed. I have
enjoyed and made capital of the editorial preface which
is clearly and gracefully stated.

Do you still contemplate a motor trip south? Do
tell me. I shall be most happy to see you, and Glenway,
and to have you both for my guests. If not in my house
- for my family will be here in droves - in some little
inn in the town.

With my love, as always,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

May 20, 1936

Elenores

May 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

(2.)

(EMR to MW)

5/20/36)

)

delight it gives! (I have everything to learn over
again, of the little everything that ever I knew.) After
you left Christmas I began to amuse myself making
drawings, making lines on paper. And later making little
things out of clay. The pots are still in the kiln and
I do not know how well they are holding together. Some-
times a pot - in firing - flies into a rage, they tell
me, and flings shards at all the other pots near.

With my love, as always,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

May 20, 1936

Elenores

May 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

(2.)

(EMR to MW

5/20/36

)

With my love, as always,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

May 20, 1936

Elenores

May 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

(2.)

(EMR to MW

5/20/36

)

With my love, as always,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

September 24, 1936

Elenores

September 24, '36

My dear Monroe:

Here it is late September and the country green
again after being bitten and blighted by drought and
wind and beetle. I wish that you could come down to see
me before the leaves fall. Can't you?

I spent last week in Lexington visiting the city
at large, seeing beautiful old houses, some of which I
entered. The people at the University gave me many
attentions and finally a tea at which I - taken by
surprise - agreed to read from the verse and one of the
novels, the first public reading I have given for nearly
three years. It went off splendidly and I was delighted
with myself that I was able to do it without faltering
and without hurt. I very much want you to see Lexington
and to know the old grandeur of it as you would now see
it in the old places. And I have several excellent
friends there.

I got on excellently myself through the summer.
The heat was
(page 2)

most extreme. I worked up a capacity for sun-bathing
and that brought my skin to a pitch of health it has not
known for several years. Each day I lay in the sun, even

(2.)

(EMR to MW)

9/24/36

)

when the register went near to a hundred degrees. I get
but a very pale and mellow tan. I am stronger in every
way than I was last winter. I have begun to work a short
while each day at my desk, writing in the middle of a
prose book which was begun several years ago.

No plan has been made for the winter. I wish that
I might go to a warm climate but many things hold me
here. Mother is very much dissatisfied away from here
and so what to arrange for her is the problem. I may
make a plan as the autumn advances.

And now at this moment I have this delightful book
from you. My new book is to have a ballad singer in
it, and here comes in the nick of time, the Minstrelsy
of the Scottish Border. I thank you for it. I have a
friend who gathers Kentucky songs and ballads. You must
(page 3)

know him and before too long a time has passed. I
shall read the Minstrelsy in this beautiful book which
much outweighs any other ballad collection I have.

I had a letter from Janet about two weeks ago in
which she gave news of all her family. Did you know
that the old house in Oak Park has been razed? Her
novel, which she wrote or finished about a year ago,
was rejected by her publisher, and she has not sent it
elsewhere. A housekeeper, she has little time for
writing, but hopes when school begins and the child is

(3.)

(EMR to MW
9/24/36 )

occupied with kindergarten she may have time again for
this. The house in Oak Park taken away, and now Miss
Monroe gone, all this is as if some of the props were
taken out from under one's memories.

To Glenway my affectionate greetings. I hope his
books go well in the writing.

With my continual love,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

September 24, 1936

Elenores

September 24, '36

My dear Monroe:

(page 2)

(2.)

(EMR to MW)

9/24/36

)

(3.)

(ENR to MW

9/24/36

)

With my continual love,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

September 24, 1936

Elenores

September 24, '36

My dear Monroe:

(2.)

(EMR to MW)

9/24/36)

(3.)

(ENT to MW)

9/24/36

)

With my continual love,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

September 24, 1936

Elenores

September 24, '36

My dear Monroe:

(page 2)

(2.)

(EMR to MW)
9/24/36 )

(3.)

(EMR to MW

9/24/36

)

With my continual love,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

September 24, 1936

Elenores

September 24, '36

My dear Monroe:

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

September 24, 1936

Elenores

September 24, '36

My dear Monroe:

(page 2)

(2.)

(EMR to MW)

9/24/36

)

(3.)

(EMR to MW
9/24/36 )

With my continual love,

s/ Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

December 20, 1936

Elenores

December 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

Are you passing west this Christmas? And will you
plan to stop at Elenores on your way back? I should like
very much to have you. But I wish you to plan to stay a
week, not the quick away visit of other years.

We are having, as yet, a mild winter. I can
promise to keep you warm with many fires and a furnace
that is behaving

(page 2)

very well. It would be lovely if you could come about
the twenty-eighth and stay a week.

You will be amazed to see me so much stronger than
I have been in the past years. (My skin reacts
perversely to the cold, but in spite of that I am
stronger.)

Please remember me to your family in Evanston, and
to Glenway if he is by. And let me hear that you can
come.

My lasting devotion -

Merry Christmas

Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

December 20, 1936

Elenores

December 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

(page 2)

My lasting devotion -

Merry Christmas

Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

December 20, 1936

Elenores

December 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

(page 2)

My lasting devotion -

Merry Christmas

Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

December 20, 1936

Elenores

December 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

(page 2)

My lasting devotion -

Merry Christmas

Elizabeth

From: Elizabeth Madox Roberts

To: Monroe Wheeler

December 20, 1936

Elenores

December 20, 1936

My dear Monroe:

(page 2)

My lasting devotion -

Merry Christmas

Elizabeth