Letters to Louise: Theodore Dreiser's Letters to Louise Campbell [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512801248

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Letters to Louise

Letters to Louise Theodore Dreiser s Letters To Louise Campbell Edited, with

Commentary, by

Louise Campbell

Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press

© 1959 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Published in Great Britain, India, and Pakistan by the Oxford University Press London, Bombay, and Karachi Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 59-6698

Printed in the United States of America

Letters to Louise

1 IT ALL BEGAN IN

1917.

I WAS READING, AND ENJOYING

IM-

mensely, Theodore Dreiser's A Hoosier Holiday, that delightful account of a two-thousand-mile motor trip from New York to his home town in Indiana. Incidentally, the book is even more enjoyable today because, having been published in 1916, it recalls a time when motoring any great distance was an exciting adventure instead of a hazard. Dreiser, on that journey, was actually awed and thrilled when the speedometer once or twice climbed to forty-five. Anyway, I was savoring with gusto the charming illustrations by Franklin Booth and the author's comments on the scenic beauty of Pennsylvania when I came to his reference to the "non-celebrity of its population," after which he went on to ask: "What Pennsylvanian ever did anything?" T h e hyphenated word I thought rather peculiar but presumed that famous writers were permitted to juggle the English language. What irritated me particularly was the disparagement of my native state. Bristling with resentment, I wrote and told him that he was, in effect, talking through his hat. Then, by way of establishing the fact that mine was no dim-witted fan letter, I confided literary aspirations of my own and went so far as to predict that our paths would probably cross some not too distant day, at which time we could go into the matter at greater length. A few days later came his reply: 165 West 10th St., N.Y. Feb. 27, 1917 My dear Louise Campbell: Why wait until you are famous. While I hope that may be soon it might turn out to be a long time (time and

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chance you know). A n d here I am meanwhile, calmly working at above address and you might just as well stop in some afternoon or call me u p to be sure I'm in and then come and thereby cure yourself of any further desire of that kind. Yes? It is just possible that I may go away for six weeks beginning in about two weeks but I'm not sure and anyhow after that I'll be back. If you want to do that let me know. In regard to Pennsylvania, I think if I remember my words I said that w e — F r a n k l i n Booth and m y s e l f — couldn't recall anyone of import at the time. T h a t ' s a little different to saying there are none. I saw an article in the Philly Record giving a long list of celebrities but most of them I had never heard of. My ignorance, yes? I admit it. As for Philadelphia, I like it very much—parts of it. I lived there once for six months, wrote over there at another time for three. I have often thought I would return there for a time to do some additional work. Yours is a clever letter—pleasing to me of course, and I think it very nice of you to want to write me as you did. T h e o d o r e Dreiser

I h a p p e n e d to b e i n N e w Y o r k a b o u t a m o n t h later a n d c a l l e d o n h i m . T h e s h a b b y red-brick r o w house i n G r e e n w i c h V i l l a g e s e e m e d to m e at the t i m e the p e r f e c t e n v i r o n m e n t f o r a w r i t e r . H e a n s w e r e d m y r i n g of t h e d o o r b e l l a n d l e d m e t h r o u g h the v e s t i b u l e i n t o a f a i r l y large r o o m o n t h e first floor f r o n t . T h e first t h i n g I n o t i c e d was a v e r y large desk s t a n d i n g b e f o r e o n e of the t w o f r o n t w i n d o w s . H e e x p l a i n e d later it h a d o n c e b e e n a square p i a n o a n d h e ' d h a d the inside workings r e m o v e d . I was to see that desk t h r o u g h o u t t h e f o l l o w i n g years in every w o r k r o o m that D r e i s e r o c c u p i e d . A b o w l

filled

w i t h oranges stood o n t o p of it. T h e m a n l i k e d color, I dec i d e d . I was r i g h t , because later w h e n I p u l l e d a r e d h a n d k e r -

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chief out of my bag he asked me for it. He would like to paste it on the wall; it would be an effective decoration; the large white circle in its center made it resemble a target waiting for a bull's eye. But something else on the desk stopped me in my tracks. There was certainly no explaining that on the score of aesthetic taste, for it was a box-like wire cage containing a lively little grey mouse. When questioned he said he had trapped it several days before and then released it on discovering it was caught only by the tail. It was such an attractive little mouse— probably a female—that he just couldn't bring himself to destroy it. And by this time it had so endeared itself to him that he hated to part with it. However, he planned to take it out to the country one day soon and let it loose. I protested. This was a city mouse and perhaps would be unable to defend itself against the perils of the countryside. He agreed that might be true but was still inclined to offer it another chance of survival. As I gradually emerged from a state of near-shock—even a picture of a mouse makes me cringe—I looked around the room. T h e decor, I concluded, was properly "bohemian." T w o of the walls were lined halfway up with shelves filled with books. T h e wood floor was dotted with small rugs. There was an old-fashioned, coal-burning fireplace under a white mantelpiece on which stood a wooden clock with a little farmhouse painted on its glass door, the kind of clock collectors now treasure. I later learned it had ticked away the hours of Dreiser's childhood in Indiana and I was to see it often in other, quite different, surroundings. Through the open sliding doors at the back of the room I glimpsed another room. T w o paintings on its wall caught my eye, one an abstract in brilliant colors and another a large painting of a nude woman being offered a tray of fruit by a Negro serving maid. A n upright piano against a side wall I learned was one of Dreiser's prized possessions. His brother

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Paul had fingered its keys as he worked out the songs he composed: My Gal Sal, Banks of the Wabash, and many others. I must not forget one other piece of furniture in the front room, a rocking chair. I discovered later that Dreiser could never be entirely happy without a rocking chair somewhere in the house. He sat in it that day as we talked, continually folding and refolding a large clean white handkerchief until it was a tiny square. Almost every biographical account of him mentions this habit. The handkerchief as well as the legend has worn threadbare through the years, but the description of him so engaged is characteristic and true. At one point in our conversation I said I was thinking seriously of coming to New York to live and work. He teasingly questioned my ability to withstand the swift tempo of New York after being conditioned by Philadelphia's slower pace. This then led him to reflect on a conclusion he'd arrived at regarding Philadelphia women. He sensed in almost every one he met, he said, a certain intangible quality that might be termed a leaning toward domesticity. Even the most careerminded females who came from there were no exception. There must be something about the City of Brotherly Love, its reputed dullness and slow-paced rhythm of daily living, that engendered this praiseworthy characteristic. This was interesting but I preferred to talk about his work. When I asked him about his current activity he handed me a short story he had just finished. I don't remember the story but I do recall that I found several things wrong with it. (I knew so much about everything in those days and now I know only enough to realize I know so little.) I had read somewhere a reference to his "prolixity" and I remember I flashed that word before him, along with ideas about controlling the flood of words that poured from his pen. He seemed interested in my comments and then suggested we go out and have lunch at the Brevoort. I was delighted to agree to that. I remember

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we paused outside on the front step to look up at an airplane in the sky. This was 1917 and people really did that. Over the luncheon table we talked about everything under the sun. Dreiser was a person who inspired and stimulated one to talk freely and better than one thought oneself capable of doing. He asked evocative questions and was a good listener. Of course, we talked about books. He was amused by my statement that after finishing his Hoosier Holiday I had turned to Kathleen Norris, with in-between dips into Gibbon's Decline and Fall, an item in my bathroom library. Startlingly interesting, if true, he commented. But it was true. I really did read everything and don't remember having to learn to read. It is not too surprising that my youthfully brash opinions appealed to Dreiser but his suggestion at this first meeting that I take home and critically analyze the short story he'd just finished is less easy to understand. It was true, as I discovered later, that he attached no great importance to professional criticism, though he did consult Mencken in the early years of their friendship and Floyd Dell blue-penciled The "Genius." But I had had no practical experience at the time. Later, of course, I drifted into jobs in the literary field—newspaper and magazine writing and editing—and our association from a literary standpoint could be more logically explained. Undoubtedly, however, my obvious appreciation of him as a great writer impressed him from the start. He must have felt I understood his intention and the intensity of feeling that enriched his work. It's just as likely he was interested in my forthright criticism of his style, for he had no egotism whatever concerning his writing. Anyway, without the slightest realization of its significance, I'm sure, on the part of either of us, there was inaugurated that day a working relationship that endured until the day he died. Condensation and clarification—directness of approach, unraveling of tangled situations, elimination of repetitious

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phrases—constituted my main purpose from the beginning. W e had some arguments over the years and I was successful occasionally in eliminating lapses into banality and disorderly phrasing. However, my respect for his genius prevailed at all times and I never lost sight of the importance of content in his mind. I also never wavered in my admiration for his perception of life, as exemplified in his novels. As for his philosophical writings that's a different story. With the greatest respect for his continual gropings in search of a key to the enigma of life I still felt that his speculations were at times naive and muddled. Elegance of style, of course, was never one of Dreiser's strong points. Perhaps it was just as well that my limitations prevented me from striving to remedy that defect. Even then, however, I recognized that his awkwardness of style and expression was not to be indiscriminately tampered with. In his case it was rather a distinguishing asset that marked his integrity of purpose. His method and manner of writing remained forever Dreiserian and, in fact, eventually earned for him the reputation of being "the world's worst great writer," a distinction conferred, surely, on no other author. But what's the use of trying to explain my working relationship with Dreiser? His initial gesture toward me might have been prompted to some extent by "chemical attraction," a favorite phrase of his to account for an inexplainable situation. But his own conception of our association he expressed years later in a few words he inscribed in one of his own books: "For Louise—my literary side kick—any old time, any old year."

2 THE FIRST MANUSCRIPT DREISER SENT M E TO WORK ON H E HAD

tentatively titled The History Of Myself. It consisted of several hundred handwritten pages. (The final version of this book was not published until 1931, and then its title was Dawn.) In an accompanying letter he set forth his ideas regarding our proposed working relationship:

165 West 10th St., N.Y. Oct. 20, 1917 Listen Louise Sweet— I want to turn over the 1st volume of History Of Myself to you to be copied—only I don't want to pay for it now—right away. I want first a single rough copy which I can correct, and then I want an original and a carbon of the corrected copy and later I'd like to talk to you about selecting enough material (not too revealing or disturbing to frighten off the public) to make a volume which I can publish now. Are you in position to do it? And will you make the whole thing a secret between you and me—never to be talked about until I'm dead. Yes? I liked your letter—and that you thought enough of me to write. You're such a wild kid but I wish often that I could see you more. It's cool and clear this P.M. and I'm all alone here at 6—scribbling away. And here I've been all this day. What about that visit to N.Y. No more? James Fenimore Cooper

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Fanciful signatures were common with Dreiser. I have known him to sign letters, and even postcards, "Louisa May Alcott," "Laura Jean Libbey," "Harry T h a w , " "Dr. Crippen," and there were others I cannot remember. I agreed wholeheartedly to meet all of his requirements because this was exactly the kind of work I wanted to do. I loved words and working with words and had been groping for such an opportunity. I tackled the job enthusiastically and he was evidently pleased with the result, because copy went back and forth between us continually after that. He would mail me several chapters at a time as he finished them. I would make one exact copy of his pages, then another with my suggested cuts and changes, and mail it all back to him. That, of course, was only the beginning; there were three or four revisions of everything. Dreiser never used a typewriter and never dictated. He wrote with a pen, the lines evenly spaced on white paper. His penmanship wasn't always easy to decipher, being on the small side and rather cramped. When, in later years, I saw him actually at work I noticed that the words seemed to flow from his pen with a slow, easy rhythm; he paused only occasionally to do any pondering. Sometimes he had material typed before he sent it to me but these pages were always a maze of crisscross insertions and revisions. It seemed as if he could go on forever elaborating his original conception because the final working script of one of his books piled up to an appalling volume. Later, when I worked on An American Tragedy there were times when I was literally knee-deep in paper. Besides working at home I went to New York occasionally to discuss proposed changes. A t such times there was luncheon at the Brevoort or dinner at Romany Marie's or some other Village bistro, and maybe a show afterward. Dreiser was no easy taskmaster. He chided me quite frequently for allowing social engagements to interfere with

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work. According to him, I was too much inclined to work with posterior poised on the edge of my chair so as to lose no time in leaping to answer a possibly interesting telephone call. "Put it all the way back and keep it there!" he commanded. T h e following rebuke, though veiled and somewhat mild for him, obviously refers to some such lapse on my part: 165 West 10th St., N.Y. July 17, 1919 It seems to me that at sometime or other I turned over three chapters of a book to someone with a view to having them rearranged but I may be wrong. It's been so long and I am now so old that possibly my heirs and assigns will receive or discover them in my posthumous works. But I'm not sure—I'm not sure. Methusalum In 1920 Dreiser left New York, first traveling through the south and eventually settling down in California for an indefinite stay. T h e few letters I received from Los Angeles indicated he was contented and happy. One reason for that, he finally admitted, was a new romantic attachment. He had met the girl in New York and she was now with him in California. Helen Richardson, however, was more than a temporary interest. She was with him to the end of his days, despite his occasional involvements with ardently active rivals. I did not meet Helen until 1926. He had continued working on A History on February 16,1921, wrote me about it:

of Myself

and

Dear Louise: A word of advice, please. You recall that volume about myself—Youth, I think I called it. It is as I probably

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told you volume one in a four-volume work—The History of Myself. Last spring I finished volume two, which I called Newspaper Days. It is now typed and in the hands of Liveright. Being about grownups and principally newspaper life, it has little in it to shock the puritans. But what I need to know is this. Harpers, who have also seen this second vol., are most keen to undertake the entire set—a volume a year. They want to make a great fuss about it. Now comes the question. What about volume one. Can I show it as it is. Ought it not be edited before I let anyone see it. Please give me your advice. You read it and I recall your saying that you thought much of the stuff would have to come out. Do you still think so? If I gave you a key to a trunk in my studio, would you go there and get the volume out and look it over and give me your opinion. There is no immediate rush about it but I would like to know what you think. I would like to know just how much of the stuff I would dare to use in my life. Would you advise my letting Mencken see it as it is? Please give this your serious consideration and let me know. No one has ever seen the thing but you. Dreiser

I worked on this manuscript only intermittently throughout that year because I had accepted a job as associate editor of a magazine and a great part of my time was devoted to that. T h e n during most of 1923 I was in Europe and when I came back I went to Hollywood. I saw Dreiser there, b u t only a few times. My reason for going there was to get into the movies— as a writer, not as an actress. And in a comparatively short time I landed a job at one of the major studios. My first assignment was a script to mull over while waiting for its director to get out of the hospital; he was there with a broken leg. Weeks went by and I sat alone and apparently forgotten in the little adobe hut assigned to me. It was set in

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wide open spaces miles away from the main administration building. My only neighbors, and they were fairly close, were animals. Lions, tigers, and elephants—the company zoo— were quartered nearby and their roars and moans only intensified my feeling of frustration and bewilderment. When I tried to find out what the future held for me, I was passed along from one person to another. Nobody seemed to know. Why worry about it, they said, the director would show up some day. So there was nothing to do but wait. But waiting gave me time to be homesick. After a month, with nothing happening, I could endure it no longer and walked out. Nobody missed me, not even the director, though he probably knew nothing of my employment to begin with. I called u p Dreiser to say good-bye and got a severe scolding for what he termed my exceedingly childish behavior. He tried to persuade me to stay, but I had had enough and went back east on the first train I could get. T h a t Hollywood venture, as I look back on it, was jinxed from the start. One of my fellow passengers on the train going out to California was cross-eyed Ben Turpin. Dreiser came back to New York soon after my return to Philadelphia and our correspondence started up again. He began it by writing me on January 10, 1924, from his new address, 118 West 11th Street:

This silence on your part looks ominous. But still— What I want to know is this. Couldest thou make inquiry in two or three of the leading bookstores of Phila. —or appeal to someone who would—and find out for me in several worthwhile instances how many copies of the new issue of the Genius were sold by said store up to Jan. 1st last. I have a very particular reason for desiring to know. I do not want a wild guess on the part of anyone but fairly accurate figures.

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Now as to this silence— WellMay Benedict himself intercede for you at the proper time. Father Kelly

And again he writes on February 27,1924:

Dear Louise: Well, why don't you blow over some day. We'll walk in the park and dine somewhere uptown. You have more time than I have, I think—at the present writing, anyhow. I got the little valentine. And glad to get it. As crusty as I be, little reminders are always in place. The Color Of A Great City has done better than I would have thought. It's a $3.50 book and so far has sold over 4000. Not so bad for that sort of thing, I think The novel goes apace. Lend me your prayers. I need them. Did you know that I have a book of 150 poems awaiting publication. They are on the order of those that were in the first issue of the American Mercury. Regards. Regards. Regards. Tom T h u m b

Dreiser was now devoting all of his time to work on An American Tragedy. About a third of it was already in typed form when I first saw it, this having been done while I was out of the country or working on another job.

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118 West 11th St., N.Y. April 4, 1924 Dear Loweez— The mss. goes same time as this. 2 copies please. So you're showing up Tuesday. If you're going to deign to grace this cell I'll save dinner time for you. We can eat in a Greenwich Village Hell Hole. Gracefully M. Doheny

But that New York visit was only partly concerned with editorial chores. While my interest in them was still predominant, I had long cherished a strong desire to be part of the theater and decided now to take steps to satisfy it. T h e world of revue and musical comedy, for some unexplainable reason, appealed to me most and on this trip to New York I was successful in securing an interview with the fabulous Mr. Ziegfeld and a promise of a f u t u r e call for work. T h e following undated note followed soon after my return home and refers to An A merican Tragedy:

Dear Loweez— 20 - 23 - 24 of my duplicate set (not the one you took with you) are missing. Are they by any chance over there? You are a capital editor. I respect your skill more and more. I truly do. If I send you sixty bucks will you consider that sufficient—now. I certainly wish I could afford to employ you steadily and at once—at decent wages. You'd be a great help. T.D.

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Later' that month I was in New York again, but this time in response to a call for a chorus rehearsal of the new Follies. Dreiser and I had lunch together at the Brevoort, discussed new chapters of the Tragedy he was handing over to me, and then we took a taxi to the theater on Forty-second Street to keep my appointment. There he left me, obviously intrigued by the picture of his editor carrying his manuscript into a rehearsal hall. By the time I'd gone through several rehearsals I began to be filled with misgivings, one of them the realization that a theatrical career would mean the end of my work with Dreiser. I even considered the idea of combining the two activities but had to conclude that would be impossible. In the end, the stage lost out to the typewriter. Words, after all, were to me the most interesting things in the world. My motivating impulse toward the stage, to begin with, was probably a combination of vanity and a determination to prove to myself that I could do it. Dreiser was amused by the whole thing, though not unsympathetic with my desire to venture into another field of artistic expression. And he seemed to be as happy about my final decision as I was when our work on Tragedy was picked u p again.

118 West 11th St., N.Y. May 2, 1924 You Very Dark Flower: I predict that if you can combine chapters 1 and 2 in one morning you could at the same rate combine the other 28 in 14 days or less. And have only 14 chapters to recopy all told. By the same process of elimination the whole thing might be done in a day. However, I would not like to encourage you too much in that direction. After all I am writing a novel. But kidding aside I wish you

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could see your way to either cutting out or at least indicaing proposed cuts. If you were to retype one copy—cutting as you went—it would be easier to shorten it and it would assist yours truly immensely. For they are yelling for the book and there is a deal of labor ahead of me yet. Nevertheless—and thou kinst not—thou kinst not. And I'm deeply grateful for the work already done. In token of which I am sending you by registered mail 1 Rolls Royce Tom Thumb size. Be on the lookout. T.D.

Dreiser had only a sketchy knowledge of German but he amused himself occasionally by fooling around with it.

118 West 11th St., N.Y. June 14, 1924 Dear Lucy— Da mit ein chapter. Ess iss to go mit der odders. Read. Entwader gifts schlagen und knocken kraachen. Hurst du? Mach mir kein spass. In ein augenblick kan alles zusammen kommen. Friedrich Nietzsche

These were days of the most intensive work for Dreiser. Almost all of his waking moments were devoted to getting ahead with Tragedy, which was being delivered piecemeal to his publisher.

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118 West 11th St., N.Y. June 30, 1924 Dear Louise: Donel I mean I will gladly (joyously would be more poetic) pay said fare to and fro (cash in hand on delivery). Have just turned over Prt 1 to B. 8c L. Threw out the last chapter entirely—freight car stuff. Think it adds pep to do so. My regard for you—as an editor—grows apace. (As an editor.) Nevertheless, love, affection, good will, kind feelings, interest, pleasant thoughts. Heaven will reward you. T.D. I am sending Chapters 30 & 31 which please condense with others. 118 West 11th St., N.Y. Nov. 20, 1924 You seem to be perking up. Just what is the family state at this writing—as twere? And I am not lecturing in Philly. T h e guy who got up that course an' announced me is in jail (and rightly). T h e course is being continued by an assistant Dist. Atty. (Fact.) Why do all crooks fall for me? I have endless penitentiary also many other delinquents. Christ had nothing on me. But— Thanks. I have some stuff over here I want you to read. Send Mrs. Mullanphy by slow freight—at once. Sanacherib I am also booked to lecture in Sinai Temple—Chicago— in Jan.!!

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T o Mrs. Louise Campbell R.S.V.P. 118 West 11th St., N.Y. Jan. 9, 1925 Dear Louise: I owes juice several apologies. Here they are all nicely wrapped up. I got your card and letters and on receipt of each I said now I'll write Louise a nice sweet note today which she will prize highly and file among her archives. (What the devil are archives?) (Hives—chives—archives). But as you may have noticed by now I didn't. Still, Louise, I've been working hard and have had many worries. Ah, my worries. And I still have a few worries and much work. I average 8 worries to the hour, normally. Work—not so many. But I have thought of you (thanks, Theodore) and wished I might see you. It's the gods. But I haven't seen you. Once—between Xmas and New Year—I was just on the verge of getting off at Philly and saying hello. And I may be over this month yet. There is an article that calleth. Soon—I want you to read Part II and tell me about it. I'm actually through with it. (This book will be a terrible thing.) And are you ever coming this way soon—or at all. And if so—wiliest thou kindly look up the author of the Song of Songs. Do. Due, due, due. T.D.

In February of 1925, Dreiser, with his Helen, moved to Brooklyn, with a view to escaping from all possible interruptions to his work on the Tragedy. At the same time he rented an office in the Guardian Life Building in New York, in which he secluded himself, minus a telephone, for several hours every day. But there was one interruption he never seemed to be able to guard against, and that was the recurrent attacks

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of bronchitis that plagued him throughout his life. A letter dated March 12,1925, refers to this:

Dear Louise: Yes, I had a slight relapse. Went on perspiring and coughing until yesterday, really. And very weak. Staid in bed three days more. But I'm up now and once more doing. The ant, the bee, and myself. Have completed chapters 1 and 2 of Part III. Looked over all your corrections line by line. Decided they were very intelligent and advantageous—done in the spirit of the book itself. It was fine of you to come over and help me out. Decided also that with three or four chapters rewritten I could just block out your cuts and let the ms go as you fixed—which same I am doing. Hope to turn it in tomorrow. Please make a novena for the success—not the repose—of the completed book. And when you blow the $500 you've won, think of how I would like to be doing it for you. Regards—respect—undying love— T.D.

T h a t was a lucky year for me. T h e five h u n d r e d dollars Dreiser refers to was only one of a n u m b e r of prizes I won by entering a n u m b e r of contests: crossword puzzles, slogans, essays, etc. T h e total sum realized was a little over two thousand dollars, after which my luck, or my skill, gave out.

1516 Guardian Life Building New York, March 31, 1925 Listen Loose— In a few days I'm going to send over Chapters 1 to 6 of Part three. Wiliest thou examine with care and pencil

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your proposed cuts and improvements. I want this third part to come out right. Thanks for the notice of the retreat. It fits in with my present prayerful mood. "Spiritual inventory," that's me. "Particular commemoration of the Seven Last Words." You bet, I'll say. "Obligations to God and Society." I long to think on that. Thanks. Come over. D.

Brooklyn, N.Y. April 22, 1925 Dearie: Don't destroy the original set. I want it with your corrections indicated. The retyped sets may not suit me exactly although I assume they will. Sorry I'm not to have it tomorrow (Wed.) but you can't do more than you can. I know that. The first six chapters came to hand this A.M. and I'll tackle them tonight—if I have the strength. My compliments. My gratitude. My nicest thoughts. T. Don't feel a bit good these days. Very tired.

Brooklyn, N.Y. May 1, 1925 How you do love Atlantic City! If every inch and detail weren't so confounded familiar I'd go there oftener. Got the ms. and glad you approve. Five more should reach you next week (Tuesday). It's a swell day here—oh, very. But I'm working hard when I should loaf—by rights. Yes I should.

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Well, love and—well—take your choice. I think of you often. T.D. Are you going to read Mrs. Wharton's The Mother's Recompense. If so report. And what about that list of 100 books with your opinion attached. Some speed, I'd say.

Dreiser was generous with his time in the matter of granting interviews to aspiring young writers. Far too generous, I thought, because all too often they left manuscripts for him to read and all too often he passed these on to me. H e was equally generous with his appreciation of ambition or endeavor in any of the arts. Merely wanting to sing or wanting to paint or write evoked his sympathetic interest. H e was resentful of my impatience with what I considered wasted time or effort where genuine talent was obviously lacking. It was his contention that a strong desire, of itself, to do these things enriched any personality. T h o u g h critical of others, I confess to being guilty of imposing on him many times for a reading of my own literary efforts. H e was always keenly interested. A short story I'd written evoked this reply from him:

Brooklyn, N.Y. May 25, 1925 Dear Louise: This is a good story, it strikes me—honest and direct. It has all the natural warmth and appeal which all that you do has. If you don't sell it to a magazine reserve it for a book of short stories. I think that will sell. As a matter of fact, I am positive that as soon as you settle down to

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this job you will achieve success and in a fine way. I have often thought—and still do—that you could do a forthright series of sex stories—laughing, a bit sardonic, probably, but true. With your natural sympathy, warmth, humor and understanding, they positively could not fail. I'm sklaving. Have quite a little to show and will send it on. T.D.

W i t h Tragedy nearing completion Dreiser began planning for his f u t u r e work. O n e of his ideas was to revise The Financier. It had been published in 1912. According to him, he never felt entirely satisfied with the book, one reason being that it had been written u n d e r pressure; rushed for delivery to the publisher in order to get money to live on. H e gave it to me to look over and make suggestions. Another project he had in m i n d was re-examination of a novel he had already finished and p u t aside. It was titled The Bulwark, and he wrote me about it:

Brooklyn, N.Y. Nov. 25, 1925 Dear Louise: Here is the outline of The Bulwark. In a separate package I am going to deliver what has been done. Make me a copy of this. Although the book (Tragedy) is done I am very much rushed and tired. Want to come over Saturday if I can but may have to put it over. I want to see you, sure. T.D.

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1925, AND WITH An American Tragedy FINALLY completed and delivered to the publisher, Dreiser and Helen went to Florida for a change of scene and rest. DECEMBER,

The Ridgewood, Daytona, Fla. December 28,1925 Dear Louise: Here I am at Daytona and I know a lot more about Florida at this writing than I did before. Blew in here Saturday from St. Augustine. There's a charming place— historic and beautiful. The Ponce de Leon and Alcazar hotels occupy something like a large New York block. And the Spanish fort brings back the Middle Ages and the Inquisition. It's enormous This burg is all talk. It has the climate—most days. Saturday and Sunday were warm and delightful. Today cold. Take a tip. Don't come down this way without winter things. You can wear white and silk undys one day but you'll need a fur coat the next. Cold at night. Occasionally cloudy and rainy. Have had but a Xmas card from you so far. There's a mail crush at Jacksonville. 50 cars undistributed. Outside the P.O. at St. Augustine a large vanload of mail lay unopened when I left. There's a mail queu (how the hell do you spell queue?) at St. Aug.—40 people all day long. And only 1 clerk on the job. Rooms are high—four to $8 per person. The restaurants here are nothing. I haven't found a smart one. But cars by the hundreds (thousands

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I might say). Palms, flowers, live oaks. And things stealing all California house designs and names, "San Jose," Santa Rosa," "Santa Barbara," etc. I'm going on down to Miami now. What about The Financier. If you're coming down send me your address. If I leave I'll leave a forwarding address at Ft. Lauderdale. This hotel is the best here in the city. It's very palmy and flowery. Ormond Beach, about a mile or so from here, is marvelous. 27 miles long 200 feet wide. Hundreds of cars ride up and down the sands— as hard and smooth as concrete. I went along it yesterday and stopped at a club. Cocktails $1.50 each. But you can still get a hot dog for a dime. And a cup of coffee ditto. Wheat cakes and sausage are still 50 cents. Yours respectfully, T.D. The real estaters! They occupy every third store and deal in clouds, rainbows, and castles in the air and Spain.

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. January 14, 1926 Dear Louise: Regards—compliments. Since my last letter I've toured the entire state. Nixl Nix! Nix! I fear you would die down here. Millions of realtors and all hickdom from Wyoming and Texas to Maine—moving in California not a patch. Beauty here—but not to my taste—yet. Not enough romance. I liked California, oh, ever so much better. But Miami. A swarm of realtors shouting about their subdivisions. Boca Raton, Coral Gables, Indrio, Hollywood by the Sea. Mere realty divisions—and except for Coral Gables and Hollywood nothing done—mere plans on paper. The bunk. And Coral Gables advertises 40 miles of water front and has no water front at all. Believe it or not. But I can't stand it. It's cold. Very. Today,

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ass that I was, I left my fur coat in N.Y. I'm coming back in about 15 days to little old N.Y. where I can get warm in a hotel. Do you know of a nice studio in Philly that I could lease by the month. I may stay there for 3 months. But here—nix. In about 10 years one might come back and find something—maybe. But if the hicks are going to fill it up with Methodist churches, Rotaries, Kiwanians, etc., etc.,—nix. Mail address here up to the 30th will probably get me or be forwarded. After that, 61 W. 48th. Have had a lot of excellent letters about American Tragedy. Liveright wires me that it is selling well. Do I see you on my return. If so, I'll take The Financier along. I think I'll drop The Bulwark and finish the Titan trilogy. T.D. Notwithstanding his "Nix!" on Florida real estate and realtors, one of the latter was successful in persuading him to part with four thousand dollars of the rapidly mounting returns from An American Tragedy. T h e piece of ground he bought was subsequently washed away, as, in fact, was the whole transaction from his mind. Material losses over which he had no control Dreiser accepted without much grumbling. But when it came to money he considered justly due him, no matter how small the amount, he fought for it to the bitter end. Back in New York he turned his attention to revision of The Financier. His publisher was anxious to get out the revised edition. 61 W. 48th St., N.Y. Jan. 28, 1926 Dear Louise: Back in N.Y. I'd like to see you and incidentally talk over the revised Financier. Are the corrected parts typed.

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Also I'd like to decide about T h e Bulwark. Drop me a note—or telegram—61 W. 48th. And don't go to Florida now. A slump is setting in and it may be worse before it is better. T.D.

61 W. 48th St., N.Y. Jan. 30, 1926 Dear Louise: I have secured for you and will inscribe and deliver to you when I see you one of the limited editions of An American Tragedy. It is very beautiful I think—and priced at $12.50—and I want you to have it. A small payment of a big debt. Let me hear from you. T.D.

Hotel Empire, N.Y. March 1, 1926 Dear Louise: I have been and still am ill. Five days flat on my back so far. High fever for a while. Today I'm crawling out to write this. You are right about Fine Furniture. It's not important and I'll drop it. As for the article you did excellent work. I thought you cut Coral Gables too much and so I restored some of that. And I added something about Miami Beach—as separate from Miami—since it is—and the oldest and most successful development down there. Otherwise it stands. And I'm much obliged—as will appear a little later. T.D.

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On my next visit to New York Dreiser gave me an enormous package. It contained handwritten manuscript of two almost complete versions of The Bulwark, which he had written some years before I met him. Even reading the closely written pages looked like a formidable task and I p u t it aside, hoping he'd t u r n to another project. Hearing nothing from me about it he wrote to spur me on to action:

Hotel Pasadena, New York March 17, 1926 Where do you think The Bulkark ought to start? What about the start in the real estate office? Might that not be best—and then revert back to the marriage, etc. No, I'm not at the Empire but at the Pasadena, 61st & Broadway. I'm sticking around because they're making a play of the Tragedy and there's something else in the wind. Why not come over some day when you're strong for a party? Hj T.

I remember I thought The Bulwark needed a lot of revision b u t nothing f u r t h e r was done at the time. At this point I injected a sample of my own work into the picture by asking him to read the synopsis of a novel I planned to write. After reading it he wrote me:

April 26,1926 Dear Louise: Unquestionably Career would make a fine book. Good title. Excellent. It's the story I was interested in—

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but done as a novel it would do wonders for you. So to work. Shall I show it to Liveright first and get an opinion. Or do you want to march in plot in hand. I await your word. Also my stuff. But congratulations. You'll come through. T.D.

W e were all happy and excited at this time over Patrick Kearney's excellent dramatization of An American Tragedy. H e and Dreiser conferred continually during this time. T h e play eventually had a most successful run, with Miriam Hopkins receiving rave notices for her fascinating portrayal of Sondra. But even during these busy days Dreiser found time to work on a group of short stories he had had in mind for a long time. H e always enjoyed the short-story form. H e sent them over to r- " ->r editing.

128 Waverly Place, N.Y. June 8, 1926 Dear Louise: Here is that check. Incidentally, where are my short stories? It looks now as though I would depart for Europe on June 23rd and shall be gone for several months. Many capitols and publishers do I see—royalty and pheasantry. So if thou hast ought to succhest—speak now, etc. That means I miss the Sesqui, I fear. Oh, Lord, be merciful to me, a singer—I mean— T.D.

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June 16,1926 Hearken: A complete set of proofs of The Financier —together with the original ms (your corrections) will be sent to you by B. & L. in my absence. You are to see that all corections (the ms as you revised it) have been made— write in any new changes—and hold—or forward (the proofs—not the text)—to any address which I may cable. And you are to write me and acknowledge this. Janeshad-Sulieman And I will pay you for all this 100 seeds.

128 Waverly Place, N.Y. June 19, 1926 Dear Louise: It turns out that my boat sails Tuesday noon June 22nd. So long. Wish I might have seen you. Enclosed is my route. I'll see you in the fall. And please—please— revise Financier and Chains galleys most carefully and register insured to me at whatever one of the enclosed addresses seems most like to reach me. T.D.

What shall I send you from Europe. When I come back in the fall, if things are still moving right, I think I'll make you my permanent chief of staff—if you still want to be. Why couldn't you move over to N.Y. Anyhow, write to me—to onct—and come over here then—or I'll come over there. T.

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Dreiser and Helen sailed on the S.S. Frederick J u n e 22,1926, and his first letter came from Oslo:

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Dear Louise: Safe and sound at Oslo. We're passing between Scotland and the Orkneys now and if you get this it will prove that we reached Christiansand and Oslo. A delightful trip. Did they send you a copy of Moods and the proofs and original of The Financier. If so, let me know at Berlin. I'm now among the Swenskis and without a word of their tongue to go by. But I'll manage. T.

H e was obviously very anxious to speed publication of the revised Financier, for he wrote me from Europe again on August 1:

Dear Louise: Please prepare and forward short comprehensive synopses of both Financier and Titan. Lengel suggests it might be done by giving first principal characters of Financier in their order with their part in story. Next same for Titan. Publishers agree it will be a good thing. All ms to 45 inc. received. How much did that cost—express. Have changed 1st chapter or rather have made chapter 3 and chapter 1 into chapter one. Also cut out much of the romanticism. Seems very effective now. Regards. T.D.

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Grand Hotel, Vienna Aug. 27, 1926 Dear Louise: Thanks for your several letters. Since I wrote you last I have been here and there—Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, and today I'm leaving here for Budapest. I have been intensely interested by the changes since the war. A new democratic era has set in and America is now the little tin Jesus. They want to be like America—but still not like America—themselves, for instance, with American improvements. But they're all nervous at times and jumpy. This city Vienna is really a shell. No doubt it was swift and gay in 1913. Today it's a weak shadow. T h e socialists are in charge. You can get a studio for $13 a year. A morning breakfast—coffee with cream, 1 egg, rolls, marmalade, butter—costs about 16 or 17 cents. T h e Austrian shilling (our quarter) is worth about 14 cents. Only the Americans at the big hotels pay. T h e rates for a room with bath American style averge $6 to $8 and all hotel service in proportion. So if you want to come over here and live cheaply take a studio. But a dyed in the wool American couldn't live here or anywhere in Europe permanently. There isn't enough doing. I haven't seen Paris yet—but I hear that even there eventually it palls after N.Y. Glad you're so well and strong. I'll be back around the 5 th or middle of October. I was about to cable you to send the revised Financier to me at Paris but have decided to wait and clean it up finally in N.Y. When I get back I'll see you there and we'll talk things over. Enclosed is f 100.

4 WHEN DREISER RETURNED FROM EUROPE HIS LIFE BEGAN TO

change. An American Tragedy was having a tremendous sale both here and abroad. Patrick Kearney's play based on the novel was playing to packed houses, and on top of that Dreiser sold the motion picture right to Paramount for ninety thousand dollars. Dreiser himself never changed, as to ideas, manner, or outlook on life. His favorite neighborhood was still Greenwich Village. But as to that he finally broke down under arguments put forth by Helen and his publisher. According to them, he needed surroundings befitting his increasing fame and finances. So on December 1, 1926, he and Helen moved into an impressive duplex apartment on the thirteenth and fourteenth floors of the Rodin Studios, 200 West 57 th Street, New York, with furniture and decorations of Gothic splendor. One wintry afternoon not long after that Dreiser took me there for a look at his grand new home but mainly to meet Helen. I shall never forget her entrance into the cathedral-like living room, where I stood leaning against the grand piano. Coming toward me was a tall, auburn-haired, blue-eyed, fairskinned, strikingly attractive girl, trailed by an enormous Russian wolfhound. She had something of the look of Garbo. At a time when almost every woman was wearing her hair cut short, this girl's hair hung loose to her shoulders. Her white silk dress was an arty-looking creation, its loose full sleeves and gathered skirt bordered with red and black Russian embroidery. Hollywood in all its glory was my first thought as I prepared myself to deal with the standard combination of artificial personality and mannerisms I so heartily depised.

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In addition to that, Dreiser's own attitude as he got ready to introduce us surprised and annoyed me. He obviously couldn't resist pretending he was "on the spot"; in other words, a helpless male facing two female rivals. Assuming the stance of a referee for a prize fight, he ordered us to go to our corners and come out fighting. Helen, I was glad to notice, shared my embarrassment, because she gave me an understanding smile. With one look we silently agreed to let him have his fun. After that my first impression was dispelled completely by her utter naturalness of manner, the genuine sincerity of her greeting, and her warmth of personality. In fact, this meeting initiated years of close friendship that ended only with her death in 1955. Helen's book, My Life With Dreiser,1 reveals her temperament and personality most graphically. She was a strange combination of realism and mysticism. (She later made a serious study of Oriental philosophy and claimed to have found in the law of Karma the inner peace she was so desperately seeking.) With little more than a high school education, though inherently intelligent, she had an almost reverential regard for literary talent. This, in effect, was what originally prompted her to approach Dreiser, together with the fact that he was a family connection, a second cousin, I believe. He apparently was unaware of the relationship. According to him, she practically hung up her hat and coat and decided to stay the first time she met him. This statement is, of course, slightly exaggerated, but there is no question as to the seriousness of their immediate attraction toward each other. She had been married and divorced, though still only in her twenties at the time. She had had some stage experience and while they were in California together worked as an extra in Hollywood motion pictures. Later she played parts in pictures starring Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino and a promising ι My Life with Dreiser (World Publishing Co.), 1951.

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career was in the making. But when Dreiser decided to go back to New York she gave it all up to go with him. His work, his interests, his well-being were always her first consideration. Helen's life with Dreiser was unquestionably exciting and interesting, but not always smooth sailing from an emotional standpoint. I was her confidant on several occasions when his vagrant heart went straying. These involvements were sometimes disturbing, sometimes amusing. When I once chided him for a particularly flagrant exhibition of interest in another woman, he told me not to worry about it, Helen would be there at the end to close his eyes. How right he was! Despite all the emotional turmoil, she remained in the picture, even though at times on the verge of severing the relationship completely. T h e deterring factors, however, were too strong. She found herself unable to relinquish the day to day association with a challenging personality, an interesting mind, and most of the time a delightful companion. There was happiness enough to compensate for occasional heartaches. She came into his life in 1919, and became Helen Dreiser in fact when they were married in 1944. Almost immediately following their installation in the Fifty-seventh Street apartment there began a continual round of entertaining that went on for the five years they lived there. Thursday afternoons at Dreiser's came to be an accepted feature of New York intellectual and artistic society. Crowds of people milled around in the enormous wood-panelled room, pausing in their chatter only long enough to lift a cocktail from a tray. Writers, actors, actresses, opera singers, dancers, Hindu swamis, even scientists, lawyers, and business tycoons—anyone of public interest in the period from 1926 to 1931. My recollection brings back too many names to include here, but among them were Fannie Hurst, Lillian Gish, Miriam Hopkins, Nina Koshetz, Alma Clayburgh, Martha Ostenso, Mary Fanton Roberts, Libby Holman, Wharton Eshe-

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rick, Burton Rascoe, Sherwood Anderson, Karl Bercovici, Samuel Hoffenstein, George Luks, Jerome Blum, W i l l y Pogany, Horace Liveright, Otto Kahn, Arthur Garfield Hays, Count Karolyi. There were evening parties galore. I remember one featuring a group of Nigerian head hunters, equipped with drums and wearing only scraps of beads and feathers. T h e i r war dance looked and sounded authentic, though I had a sneaking suspicion they hailed from Harlem. That rousing performance had repercussions: some of the tenants of the building lodged a complaint. L i f e in the Fifty-seventh Street apartment was indeed far removed from the Greenwich Village days. Some of those who used to drop in to enjoy intimate soul-searching sessions with Dreiser while they warmed themselves before the fireplace in the shabby but cozy Tenth Street room never found their way to his new home. T h e place was too big and too splendid to be a cozy spot for interchange of ideas, gossip, and confidences. A n d forty-seven squares was a long way to go, especially when all they'd find at the end of the journey was a "salon."

5 NEW YORK WINTERS, FOR DREISER, USUALLY MEANT BRONCHITIS.

H e tried almost every potion recommended to him, in addition to those his doctor prescribed. But anyway, he collected medicines. W h e n he traveled they filled one good-sized special bag. It so happened that my mother was a fellow-sufferer and he was continually suggesting she try his latest remedy. Concerning one recommendation I apparently misunderstood his instructions, because he hastened to set me straight via special delivery:

200 West 57th Street, N.Y. January 8, 1927 Dear Louise: For God's sake don't talk about getting the "castor oil." I said Cod Liver Oil, Patch's. And take one tablespoonful of the green medicine and one teaspoonful of the cod liver oil 3 times a day. Do you want to kill your poor old mother? T.D.

I n the belief that he would improve his health by exercise and exposure to fresh air, he started out on a walking tour in the spring of 1927. H e came to Philadelphia first and I rode on the train with him to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which was his starting point. H e wrote me when he got to Virgina, from the George Washington Hotel, in Winchester:

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"Porgy" arrived at Martinsburg and I read it at a sitting. It's one of the few American novels I really like because for once it is colorful and revealing. We know so little about the intimate life of the blacks and this somehow conveys a breath of it—and the fine natural dream of life itself. It's a book to keep, I think. Since Lancaster, well, miles and miles. I walked 27 in one day to York. Then 23, out of 32 the next day to Gettysburg. Then a lazy 10 to Emmetsburg because I stopped to go over the battlefield. Then 32 to Hagerstown, 21 to Martinsburg, 23 here, and so it goes. This morning I am off for Woodstock—30 miles away—and then New Market, Va. This is the Shenandoah Valley. Along the road I go today Sheridan rode that alleged ride. The signs say so. Missed you after the train pulled out—but will see you in N.Y. one of these days soon. It has rained and snowed days at a time but today it is perfect. And so was yesterday. T.D.

Those of us close to Dreiser all agreed that he cherished the hope of one day receiving the Nobel Prize. In fact, the year that it was awarded to Sinclair Lewis there were rumors spread round that Dreiser was to be the honored recipient.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. April 14, 1927 Dear Louise: Here is $15—for your fare and some stamps for those letters to the dealers. It has nothing to do with the work. Please rush that address list book to me. Sent my address list—list of booksellers—250 sheets of paper, 250 envel-

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opes, all in one package, today at noon. I hadn't any change so you pay the charges—45 cents. Come over some evening and we'll go to a show. We had a nice time, don't you think? T. Do this. Write to F.P.A. of N.Y. World—or Broun—and suggest me for the Nobel Prize this year. I might get it.

I don't remember whether or not I wrote as he suggested, or, rather, commanded. I probably did. In the summer of 1927 Dreiser bought a tract of wooded countryside in Westchester County, N e w York, thirty-five acres bordering the Croton chain of lakes and Mount Kisco. H e called the place Iroki, Japanese for Spirit of Color. There was a fair-sized cabin on it, which he enlarged and fixed up for weekends. Later, a large house, which took over a year to complete, was built. T h e actual building of it was a nightmare for Dreiser, combining frustration, delay and argument. T o begin with, it was a most unorthodox architectural combination of wood and stone. Its high slanting roof looked as if a demented child had playfully tossed rough-hewn logs, the bark still on them, hit or miss, to cover the space where a roof should be. But that was the way Dreiser wanted it to look. H e had seen such a roof on a house in Sweden and this was the nearest approach to his recollection. T h e house was on two levels, with one entrance from the ground in back that led into an enormous stone-walled room. This was his workroom and the focal point for large parties. T h e lovely things of metal and wood that added so much to the atmosphere of the room—table, desk, andirons,—were the work of Wharton Esherick, the noted sculptor who was a treasured friend of Dreiser's. T h e iron gates at the entrance to the place were likewise an example of his highly imaginative work.

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T h e floor above was approached by a flight of steps at the front of the house and contained a large dining room and music room, with wall panels painted by Hubert Davis. A ship's ladder led to the bedrooms above. Ralph Fabri, a Hungarian artist friend of Dreiser's, designed and supervised the building of a beautiful wide porch at the side of the house, from which a rustic bridge led to a fair-sized guest house containing a library and several bedrooms. Henry Varnum Poor designed and placed the lighting fixture throughout both houses. Several natural springs on the place were diverted into a lovely tree-shaded, rock-bordered swimming pool. In addition to a log cabin, some distance away from the main house, Dreiser later built another little gem of a cabin with a thatched roof, Dutch door, and stone fireplace. It wasn't easy to find a thatcher in this country, but thanks to Wharton Esherick, who designed and supervised its construction, the search was successful and the final result was a most attractive feature of the landscape. Iroki was far removed from any conventional conception of a country estate. Ideas were a dime a dozen throughout its planning and building. Dreiser invited suggestions from his many artist friends, in addition to which his own fertile brain was far from idle with a house and thirty-five acres to play with. One day, after the main house was finished, he decided that a tent on the grounds would add quite a picturesque touch to the whole set-up. Presto, a tent, erected on a rise some distance from the house. Not a Boy Scout type of tent but a large circus-like affair, its canvas surface decorated with brilliantly colored figures and symbols. Next, someone suggested that a totem pole would be just the thing to stand beside the tent. No sooner said than done. A tall, interesting carved and garishly painted totem pole was put up. Just another conversation piece and not a bit incongruous because the whole place was the realization of a mad, glad dream. Mention of the tent brings to mind an incident that

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occurred during one of the many weekends I spent at Iroki. About eleven o'clock one night I watched Dreiser stroll down the path to spend the night bedded down on the strawstrewn floor of the tent. He was most appropriately dressed for the occasion, wearing a hooded, monkish-looking camel's hair robe, long and belted with a knotted cord, and sandals on his feet. He also carried a lantern. Diogenes in search of . . . merely the fulfillment of a long cherished desire to sleep in a tent. Weekends at Iroki were memorable affairs. One never knew what form the entertainment would take. There were outdoor dance recitals, swimming parties, impromptu operatic arias sung under the stars on a summer night, and always talk, much talk, stimulating and sometimes not so stimulating. Dreiser usually enjoyed immensely any gathering of kindred spirits and contributed much to the gaiety of such occasions. Because of his strong convictions and wide interests, he evoked from his listeners a responsive expression of their own ideas. If he liked the person who was talking he would lend a patient ear to the most trivial discussion. On the other hand, if the black mood of boredom descended on him, and it certainly did at times, he would wander off and leave the crowd to their drinks and chatter while he settled down in another room to play a game of solitaire. This game he played by the hour, the familiar Canfield system, rejecting with scorn all my offers to teach him more complicated and what I considered more interesting variations. Sometimes, instead of resorting to cards, he would pick up a broom and start sweeping a dusty corner of the porch. Anywhere and everywhere Dreiser was always himself. He even dunked his doughnuts in public. Dreiser was working at this time on sketches of various women he had known. He planned to include fifteen in a volume titled A Gallery of Women. Sidonie was one of them.

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Mt. Kisco, N.Y. Aug. 9, 1927 Dear Louise: Thursday I mailed you some more Sidonie. Did you get it? I would like a note once in a while but the sea is too much for me, I suppose. Anyhow, I'm here working and incidentally fixing a woodland shack which I want you to see sometime. For now—and in order to get a reply —I'm enclosing sixty with my blessings. I'm sorry about your short stories but I still have faith that one of these days they will hook on. Sometime you might get all of them together and let me see them. I might get an opinion. Affectionately, Al Smith

His reference to the sea in that letter had to do with my summer visit to my sister's seashore house and my love of ocean bathing. He was equally fond of it. I remember a weekend visit he and Helen made there. It was almost impossible to get him out of the water. Early in the morning I would walk down to the beach to tell him breakfast was waiting and discover him standing only far enough out in the ocean for the water to reach his chest. Practically motionless, he seemed to be communing with earth and sky and sea, unaware of anything or anyone else around him.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. Aug. 20, 1927 Dear Louise: Here is Sidonie once more. But you know how these things are. The first six pages need not be done over. I

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have a duplicate set here, remember. And there are other pages. If you can save yourself work do so as I take any unchanged pages from this second set I have to fix up your record. I am hoping to come over. But this is a rush season. Four lawyers—count 'em—Hume, Steel, Robin, and Goldmark. How's that? Besides up at that country place a house is being wired and piped for heat, light, plumbing —besides being worked on in a score of ways that need watching. And I am writing or trying to. If only you lived here I would take you on permanently. As it is I have to run here and there. And am always behindhand. Say three litanies for me and help me with your best thoughts. Maybe I can manage next Tuesday. I'll see. T.D.

A Gallery of Women continued to grow in length until at the end it had to be published in two volumes. M y copy is inscribed " F o r Louise: this here bunch with w h o m you have so long consorted—editorially. Später gifs a l u x u r copy. Yah? . . . Yah. from T h e o d o r e von Dreiser, Schrifter."

6 IN OCTOBER OF 1 9 2 7 , DREISER WAS INVITED BY T H E RUSSIAN G o v -

ernment to come over and observe the achievements after ten years' functioning of the Soviet experiment.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. October 14, 1927 Dear Louise: Have just received a cabled invitation from the Russian Government to come over and inspect progress during 10 years past. All expenses to and fro and for six weeks of stay there. Am leaving Wednesday at midnight on the Mauretania. Expect to return about Jan. 1st. Will write you again Monday. And will see you when I get back. In present rush this is best I can do now. Will I get the ms Saturday? T.D.

W i t h promises to Helen and me to bring back a caracul fez and a pair of Russian boots for each of us, he left New York while Helen stayed in Mt. Kisco to supervise the various details of building contruction going on there. T h e first letter I received from him came from the Hotel Adlon in Berlin and was dated October 25, 1927:

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Dear Louise: Regar-hards. I'm sick in bed in that dear Adlon but I'll be better tomorrow I hope. The doctor just left. The enclosed will give you a little idea of what's doing. I was met by a delegation of German Muscovites last night and addressed, etc. Flowers for your Uncle Dudley among other small incidents. Leave Sunday or Monday (if I'm up) for Moscow. (Two long days.) What I wish to say is shortly I will send you an article which I agreed to write for Max Elser of the Metropolitan Syndicate of N.Y. It's not so good—but you shape it up. (You ought to know.) And send one copy to him and keep one copy for me. And please do a good job. It's on the restlessness of women these days. Incidentally, send me a few kind thoughts up there in the snow. All I'll have is vodka and borscht, I fear—maybe cabbage soup. But that's not enough, as you know. This meeting people though—that's why I'm sick this day. And of course Berlin bores me. Paris on Wednesday was delightful—perfect fall day. And how many people I saw. So long. Love and kisses. The Nubian Sinclair Lewis and Ben Huebsch are due here to sit and smoke I suppose at 9.30.

Hotel Adlon, Berlin, Germany Nov. 2,1927 Dear Louise: Here I am in Berlin and leaving tonight for Moscow. I am enclosing copy of an article which after you fix it up is to go to Max Elser, Esq., c/o The Metropolitan Syndicate, N.Y. But I have lost his address. So please write Carl Brandt, care Brandt & Brandt, 101 Park Ave., Ν. Y.,

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and ask the number or just as well send your revise direct to him and tell him to give it to Elser. And this is the copy I want you to revise. There will come along another— marked No. 2. That is in case this one is lost. In that I have placed instructions about what to do with it. But if this comes first destroy No. 2—and save one of your revises for me. Am returning via Odessa and Constantinople It is gray and damp here today. Don't care much for Berlin.

T.D.

H e landed in New York on February 20, 1928, and wrote me the very same day:

Dear Louise: Just in on this boat—SS Hamburg. And what a trip. Obviously I have work to do. And wouldst like aid. With both feet on the gangplank I pause to inquire how art thou sitting at the moment? Chained or free? If free wire saying so and I will wire back because I shall need you right off. This is not my ghost. Yet I have been traveling almost uninterruptedly from Samarkand to here. That's 600 miles east of the Caspian Sea—about 400 from Afghanistan. Regar-hards. Lenin Trotzky Stalin, S.J.

Dreiser immediately began preparing a report of his reactions to the Russian visit. H e first wrote an article for the New York World and the following months were devoted to work on the book which was finally titled Dreiser Looks At Russia.

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200 West 57th St., N.Y. Feb. 27, 1928 Dear Louise: You are not the eighth—but the 1st wonder of the world. They made a mistake. It seems to me the article is perfectly arranged and has great force. I expect to wire you Wednesday. Love. T.D. And remember—chemic strife—nothing more.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. June 9, 1928 Dear Louise: You are the best and always will be. The catalogue description is brilliant. It will go in unchanged. Now they want dummy material—i.e., the first 16 pages of the text. Can you give me that? The table of contents reads fine but if you find reason to change it that can be done. The N.Y. World used the title Dreiser Looks At Russia and B. 8c L. lean to that. I think it is as good as any. T h e Caucasus and Georgia deserve a separate paper—as does the Transcaspian land but after all I can't write a history of the land. And yet I never saw anything more strange or moving really. How's about a weekend at Mt. Kisco one of these days. From July 1 to Aug 1 I am at Woods Hole, Mass., mussing around with 180 American scientists. Then back here. T.D.

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200 West 57th St., N.Y. June 21, 1928 Dear Louise: The magnum opus arrived and I am reading and revising. So far I have revised five chapters and am now on the sixth. Much retyping is right ahead of you. I like what you have done, particularly in setting forth new chapters and am taking those and building them up. However, the GPU stuff will have to be set off by itself in a separate chapter. It concerns a kind of thing which the Russians love—terrorism—and will have to have the psychology of that discounted on. It is all over Russia—fear of the secret police. Also I feel that a new arrangement of the chapters should be made. On the enclosed slip I am showing you. Apart from this I think of nothing to change. The work so far as I have gone is supremely intelligent. The only thing I can think of is this—that you should be over here. There is so much to do and no one but you appears to be able to do it for me. How is mother dear? I hope no more scares. And how about moving up to Mt. Kisco? Don't forget that as soon as this is over the entire Gallery of Women is to be dumped on your table for final examination and revision —16 separate studies. They have to be made by September 16th. So don't plan any distant trips until that is over. I now eat 1 meal a day and weigh stripped 178. Have no trouble holding that. T.D.

Dreiser's questioning mind led him into an investigation of diverse fields: medicine, religion, archeology, science. H e

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yearned to explore the whyness of everything that motivates the trudging humans on this planet. Anything bordering on the mystic likewise appealed to his imagination. Even fortunetelling, in his opinion, was not to be scoffed at. One of his sketches in A Gallery of Women deals with an interpreter of dreams and reader of tea leaves and coffee grounds who lived in the Village. He was fascinated by the flow of her thoughts and maintained that many of her predictions as to future happenings in his life were verified. In fact, according to him, she had predicted the very day and hour that I made my first appearance, together with an accurate description of me. My look of scepticism when he told me this elicited a most condemning comment, something like "Oh, ye of little faith. . . ." I am sure that if Dreiser were alive today he would be tremendously excited by our interest in atoms and electrons. As for flying saucers and explorations into outer space, he would have been in seventh heaven, dreaming of future possibilities and expounding theories of his own. As for a trip to the moon, the idea would have held no surprise because he had believed for a long time that it would one day be a certainty. He was an ardent disciple and close friend of Charles Fort, who wrote The Book of the Damned and several others dealing with cosmic phenomena. Fort was a frequent visitor to Mt. Kisco and Dreiser always looked forward to their long hours of discussion. Scientific research interested him profoundly and he valued highly the friendship of Jacques Loeb, Dr. Calvin Bridges, and Dr. Boris Sokoloff, of the Rockefeller Institute, as well as that of Dr. L. V. Heilbrunn, Professor of Zoology at the University of Pennsylvania. When he received an invitation from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to spend a month there observing things at first hand, he was naturally delighted.

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Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hole, Mass., July 9,1928 Dear Louise: Ms arived safely. I have gone over the revised parts and think it O.K. Made no changes of any importance— mere words here and there and am sending it in. I hope it is as good as you think it is. Will send you a check about the 25th. And I'm sorry about your mother but hope that is all O.K. now. You are a brick to stick by as you do. Write me when you move to A.C. Here all is charming, the most sea-ee place I have encountered in America. Actual sea weather—sunshine, rain, clouds, fog, moonlight and clear weather—again, all in 24 hours. And the salt air of the mid-Atlantic coast. Beautiful roads and beaches—dozens of them. And smart little towns—Hyannis, Barnstable, Falmouth and Falmouth Heights. I pass up Provincetown. The cape is only about 70 miles long and 18 wide. Below here lies Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. I am surrounded by nearly 300 biologists (ouch!) each one with a microscope or more. Wish you might come up here and see. T.D.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. July 15, 1928 Dear Louise: It's all right about not getting over. I will send you some of the stuff piecemeal with instructions. I think the first will be A Daughter of the Puritans. I wish you to reconsider and retype it and change the name to—well, let me see—I am wavering between Johanna and Althea— but believe Althea is best, with possibly Alia for short.

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What do you think? And perhaps I had best lay the scene in Boston if it is not too troublesome to change. T h e stock and banking region is about Milk Street in Boston. Enclosed is your check. But I wish you could see my first revise of the galleys. B. 8c L. should pitch me out. T.D.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. August 20, 1928 Dear Louise: Hot and weary. That's me. We have gone up to the place several times but it's not much cooler there. T h e ideal spots as I can tell you are Woods Hole and Nantucket. Also Vermont and New Hampshire. T h e next time I plan a trip up through New Hampshire—it's usually a 3 or 4 day affair—I'll give you a bid. Credo, as you typed it, reads fine but I added what seemed a necessary interlude—had it typed and sent off. I haven't had a word as yet but my feeling is that it's interesting. One of the reasons for quiet over here is proofs. I have all the proofs of A Gallery of Women and am editing or revising all day long. It's only about 200,000 words but they're splitting it in 2 vols, and charging $5.00. In England and Germany it will be 1 vol. and will sell for about .13.00. Wish I could see and talk with you. For me at least you have the ideal temperament—except when you get mad and won't work. T. I am going to send you a check one of these August days— about the 15th.

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200 West 57th St., N.Y. August 31, 1928 Dear Louise: I'm sorry to scratch up this grand work of yours in this rather ruthless fashion but so it is. T h e sketch will be the better for it. Besides I note that you grow more and more—not moral but publicly squeamish—a bad sign. I fear the worst. You will rejoin the church. In God's name, why cut out the little youthful stuff in the wretched family parlor. I'll put it all back in the galleys. Fie! Fiel Shame! Shame! T h a t life zest and courage should so depart one! Oh, how reducing to my spirits! Otherwise grand work. And today came additional bits of Sidonie. I clean it all up and forward it very presently. Maybe Monday or Tuesday. Love. T.D.

Mt. Kisco, N.Y. Sept. 5, 1928 Dear Louise: Here is the Russian book with all corrections in. Those who have read it seem to like it. Only one critic— a woman reader for T.R.Smith—insists that it is full of badly constructed sentences and "an inexcusable superfluity of words and parenthetical clauses." So there you are. Take another look and see if you agree. It is not too late to make some improvements. I am here at Mt. Kisco working at a table between two trees. For once it is not raining, the sun shines. If ever you trouble to see this place I think you will like it. I hope you are all nicely settled in Philly. If you come

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to N.Y. come out here and I'll put you up for the night. You can wire P.O. Box 480 and I'll meet you.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. Oct. 18, 1928 Dear Louise: I'll send you a check Nov. 1. It seems crazy not to do it before but a combination of demands makes it necessary to adjust dates. On second thought I'll get Pell of B. & L. to send $100 and I'll send the balance and arrange with him Nov. 1. But why not come over next Saturday or Sunday and spend the day. I mean come straight through to Mt. Kisco. If you come Saturday to the house here you could go up with us. The Hoffensteins, Roberts, Horace Kallen, Bercovivi's daughter Rada, and maybe Bercovici, and so on are coming. But you and I could wander off and talk. I never expected poor old Yvonne (Gallery of Women) to evoke such a burst and I still feel I haven't portrayed McKail. He had had a hard grim youth. I think for a time he was an apprentice to an iron moulder and ran away. He had been hungry, too. I think Yvonne was crazy about his iron courage—his calm ability to wait— and on so little. By the way, he's a success now—a real one. John Ferguson is his name. But she has walked off and entirely discarded 250 canvases. She is one of the really amazing incidents of my life. T. The Russian book will be out Tuesday. At least I'll get 6 copies and will send you one. I'm reaching Insull direct. If you come Saturday you can have a nice room all to yourself. Also you can stay over Sunday to Monday.

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By the way, do you know of any old antique shop in Phila. which might have an old Revolutionarly flint lock gun. I want it for my cabin. I can get one here for $30 but in Phila. I might do better.

T h e r e were, of course, differences of opinion between Dreiser and myself at various times during our relationship. T h e following letter indicates I must have expressed my resentment in writing. T h e reason for it escapes me now.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. Feb. 2, 1919 Dear Louise: Aren't you ashamed to talk back to me in such an unseemly fashion. I thought you yourself told me you would be done with those remaining sets by Wed. or Thursday of this last week. Anyhow, you should not sass me. And here is $125 on account. Later I will send you something more. T.D. Shame! Fie! Tchk! Tchk! Tchk!

A day or so later he followed this with a short note. I had returned his check because it was unsigned.

O.K. Sorry I forgot to sign. But that sassy note—the first in all our history. Yet forgiven. T.D.

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One thing Dreiser brought back from Russia was an enthusiastic admiration for the ballet performances he had seen at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. He came away determined to make arrangements for the company to appear in the United States. It took some doing but he finally secured the consent of the Russian Government. Of course, the principal requirement was the raising of sufficient money to defray expenses. For one thing, the poor dancers were penniless and ragged; they would have to stop off in Paris on their way here to outfit themselves with proper clothing. In the meantime, the machinery was set in motion. H. S. Krafft, an experienced theatrical publicity man, was engaged and an office rented in New York for a fund-raising campaign. Lists of likely subscribers were drawn u p and letters sent to them. There was a big party in Dreiser's apartment to publicize the venture, with Otto Kahn as honored guest. I was, of course, drawn into the hurlyburly.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. Feb. 5, 1929 Dear Louise: I don't believe I sent you a copy of this Kraft letter. It is interesting. The other suggestions as to letters, etc., will be worked out. It has been fine of you to take so much interest. My personal desire is to raise the necessary money and step out as I cannot possibly attend to all the associated let alone the minor details. I was thinking of suggesting you to Kraft, only if I step out he will have other advisors whom he will need to consider. I have spoken to him but presently—if you are interested in the national side—you might come over and call on him. Already, as I understand, he has Ivy Lee of John D. Jr.'s office, lined up for general publicity and organization—

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but even if you got in on a piece of it it ought to be good. I'm going to have Kraft carry out your other instructions, merely using my name. By the way, I like the foreword form of Albertine the best of all. How am I to get four more copies. I changed the name of Vermilye to Oakley Lloyd. The Vermilyes are still here in society. The other changes are so slight that they can be made on the text or shall I send you the yellow with my few pencil changes to work from. I need a rest—Lord how badly—and think I shall have to knock off a week or so and get on a boat. This ballet business is the crowning straw if there is such a thing. T.D.

200 West 57th St., NY. March 30, 1929 Dear Louise: I agree absolutely concerning the interview about the ballet. And the title is ideal. Only an hour ago Roy Howard, President of the Scripps Howard papers and of the United Press, said this, "I think you would get farther raising money and general interest if you broke the story now." And then he suggested running an interview in all the Scripps-Howard papers and excerpts from it over the United States. Do you want to act on that? It ought to go next week. More, I think you ought to come over here now and establish yourself in the Ballet office in the Shain Building. I need you and so does the damn ballet. I need you to go to certain people direct for me. You really must come and help straighten me out. I'll break down if you don't and no one but you can lay hold of all my stuff. I trust no one else, anyhow. Please write or wire what you

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can do. Why not come Monday, get a room at a hotel and stay. T.D. Thanks for letters from J. Howard Reber and Stokowski.

Arrangements for bringing over the Russian Ballet became more and more complicated. More and more people kept injecting themselves into the picture. Every day there was another finger in the pie. Then, to make matters worse, with the advent of summer the soliciting of funds struck a snag, because most of those persons likely to be interested were out of the city. This, of course, discouraged everyone connected with the project. But even before that point was reached Dreiser threw u p his hands. By that time he was appalled by the detailed work considered necessary to conduct such a campaign successfully. At the sight of a map dotted with colored pushpins to indicate progress in soliciting money he actually shuddered. Why, it was like selling soup, he exclaimed! Impossible! He was a writer, not a salesman! Finally there was no escaping the realization that further efforts were useless; there was nothing else to do but return the money already subscribed. And thus ended all further negotiations as well as Dreiser's career as an impresario.

7 IN SEPTEMBER OF 1 9 2 9 , AFTER TRYING FOR YEARS TO OVERCOME

my resistance to the idea, Dreiser succeeded in inducing me to come to New York for an indefinite stay. H e was trying to finish Dawn and his correspondence was becoming so heavy that his secretary had more than she could handle. H e rented an office for me in the Manufacturers T r u s t Building on Columbus Circle. T h o u g h included in his salary offer was bed and board at his Fifty-seventh Street apartment, I chose to live in a hotel nearby. Something told me it would be easier that way to control my working hours. As it turned out, however, that arrangement was only partially successful. His apartment was within easy walking distance of my hotel and office and he insisted that I join the parties there as well as the weekend visits to Mt. Kisco. T h e n if I stopped at his place in the morning to discuss the work we were doing, it might be lunchtime before we finished. T h a t meant only an hour or two for work at my office because he wanted me to come back again for a tea in the afternoon in honor of some visiting celebrity. Evening parties kept me u p so late that often I'd stay at his apartment instead of going back to my hotel. In the morning Helen and he and I would get u p late and most likely he'd prefer to have me hang around until he went over his mail. O n these occasions experience had taught me never to forget to lock the bathroom door, because Dreiser just might think of something he wanted to talk over and saw no reason why one couldn't or shouldn't discuss it while sitting in one's bath. But most of that New York venture was f u n . Just being with Dreiser was stimulating. And also there were evenings

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with Helen alone that were always enjoyable. Sometimes we'd go to the theater together, she and I, while he took himself off elsewhere—sometimes we knew where and sometimes we merely suspected. She and I often had dinner together in the apartment in his absence and just talked the hours away. Occasionally I spent them commiserating with her over his latest infatuation. Once I had to restrain her from tossing out the window a plaster head of Dreiser which had been sculptured by a girl he admired. It wasn't the wanton destruction of a work of art that concerned me most. I was thinking of the heads of the passing pedestrians thirteen floors below. On top of all this, the weekends at Mt. Kisco were far from restful, though that was their announced purpose. In fact, the whirl of this mad merry-go-round finally made me so dizzy that I decided to jump off before I fell off. So I left—or, as Dreiser put it, "deserted" the scene—at the beginning of the new year. I was still in New York, however, in October, 1929, when the stock market crash swept away a considerable portion of Dreiser's principal and income. Along with almost everybody else he had invested rather heavily. I used to tease him whenever I noticed him checking on stock quotations, taunting him with "capitalistic" behavior. He usually came back at me with words to the effect that he'd suffer no pain whatsoever if circumstances ever drove him back to a Greenwich Village hall bedroom. How easy to say such things, I thought, when one knew it would almost certainly never happen. But I must admit he wasn't far from the truth in his contention. For when the crash came, though naturally disturbed over his financial loss, he accepted the situation philosophically, always thanking his lucky stars he still had his Mt. Kisco property for refuge if everything else vanished. My New York experiment over, I returned to Philadelphia and went on working with him in the usual routine

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manner. I continued to receive chapters of Dawn as he finished them, for that was his project at the time. 200 West 57th St., N.Y. February 10, 1930 Dear Louise: Are you back to 4730. If so, I want to send on chapters 1 to 14 inclusive for copying. Meanwhile I'm going on with the others. The party was a great success. I was sorry you couldn't have been there. Lots of interesting people. Are you better? Or worse? If worse, call the police. If better, notify the Purity League. In either case, remember your duty to me and to God. But I do want you to get well. T. Dreiser admired tremendously any demonstrations of manual skill, possessing none whatever himself. People who were able to build a desk, sew a fine seam, or even merely concoct an exceptionally tasty pot of soup, aroused him to sincere expressions of interest and admiration. Speaking of soup, while he was no gourmet, he did appreciate good food. My mother's cooking, whenever he ate a meal at our house, invariably moved him to enthusiastic comment. Several times I carried over to New York, along with a package of workedover manuscript, one of her pumpkin pies, which he pronounced the best he ever ate. At Mt. Kisco he sometimes insisted I demonstrate what I had learned from her in the way of cooking, particularly the proper way to fry Philadelphia scrapple and the making of what he considered a most delectable green split pea soup. My mother also happened to be an exceptionally gifted

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dressmaker. Only existing circumstances prevented her f r o m becoming the equivalent of a modern-day Chanel. H e was always impressed by the examples of her handiwork I wore when I went to New York and several times suggested, half seriously, she might be interested in designing and fashioning a suit of clothes or an overcoat for him. Between them he felt sure they could create an interesting garment. Receiving no encouragement for such ridiculous flights of fancy, he eventually lowered his sights to aim at something on a smaller scale, as evidenced by the following:

200 West 57th St., N.Y. Feb. 11, 1930 Dear Louise: Are you in Philadelphia? They've quit making bow ties. Broadcast that at once. Incidentally, I don't want to quit wearing them. Would you get a few silk scraps of good texture—browns, blues, greens (quite dark)—also dark reds (patterns or plain), and have your mother make me up some. I'll send her an exact size tie out of my discards and she can take it apart and act accordingly. Tell mother dear that this will be a Christian deed as it will contribute to the peace of mind of a very worthy man. T.D. My mother did "act accordingly" to the extent of about thirty-five bow ties. I had insisted he make his own choice of materials and send them over, and he did so. H e expressed his gratitude to her in these words: The lovely ties made by you and forwarded by Louise have just come. I am so pleased and so grateful. I know

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you are sick much of the time and probably sick of sewing but you dress Louise so well that I thought (enviously I will admit) that you might help me out. I dress so wretchedly. Besides, they've quit making bow ties and I love bow ties. So, mother dear, I want to register here my gratitude. I know you get enough adoration for eight mothers from Louise but I'll add some more—say enough to—all told—make nine. Besides, I'll remember you in my prayers—such as they are. They're not much but in your case I'll do a little better than usual—or try to. Affectionately and gratefully, Theodore Dreiser One day I received a letter from Dreiser that saddened me:

200 West 57th St., N.Y. Feb. 13, 1930 Dear Louise: The little house on the hill at Mt. Kisco—trees and all—is gone. Burned yesterday. Sorenson, the dub, was burning grass around the house where it wasn't necessary to burn anything. But gone. Requiem. T u r n down an empty glass. T. T h i s catastrophe later revealed what I consider an interesting phase of Dreiser's complex personality. Following the fire that destroyed the attractive log cabin, the first of the houses on the estate, he discharged the guilty caretaker. T h e man immediately brought suit, alleging that on the strength of his employment he had arranged to bring his family over

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from Europe. This action infuriated Dreiser and he vowed he would spend his last cent, if he had to, fighting the suit. Over a year went by. Dreiser's lawyer apparently was able to have trial postponed time after time. T h e n one day, weighed down even more than usual by cosmic concern, Dreiser confided to me his conclusion that the whole situation was a tragic example of flagrant injustice. Here was a classic example of the poor being ground down by the rich. Here was a man financially able to employ the best legal talent pitted against another, the poor caretaker, sadly unequipped for such a battle. Never mind whose fault it was to begin with! T h e inequality of opportunity was appalling. So . . . settlement out of court. Case dismissed! 200 West 57th St., N.Y. Feb. 27, 1930 Dear Louise: Chapters 1 to 12 (Dawn) have arrived. I haven't gone over them yet. Revising this thing is very difficult. It seems as yet much too diffuse and not well arranged. Perhaps when it is all worked over an effective thing can be selected from it. But the thing now is to shape it up as orderly as possible and then reconsider it as a whole. Yeah! Just to show good faith I am sending you—on the 1st—a check for $100. Are we downhearted. Yep, we are downhearted. Brownskitus seems to have me lashed to the mast or nailed—fur side in—to the cabin. I cough and cough. And take electric treatments and heroin—perhaps heroines would be better—and gin rickeys—and Brown's Mixture. And still I cough. How about a novena—or a few prayers to St. Joseph. Pray for your dear kind old— well, you know— Love— T.

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T h e matter of the ties pops us again, this time apparently a special order for one particular tie.

200 West 57th St., N.Y. March 4, 1930 Dear Louise: The tie is excellent. I have it on. But I want to correct an impression. I called for a few solid colors because I haven't any. But actually I have always thought that bow ties being so small it would be one instance in which a man could indulge in gay colors. But really different or arresting colors are rarely to be found. Actually I was going to ask you to have your mother make me a few out of light tone velvets—green, blue, orange, yellow, pink— or flowered versions of the same. If this induces heart failure wire for Amy McPherson. D.

Every once in a while Dreiser found the whole complex pattern of his life intolerably burdensome and simply packed u p and left. T h i s time he went West, as I learned from a letter from Tucson, Arizona, where he was staying at the Santa Rita Hotel. It was dated March 31,1930: Dear Louise: Haven't written you because in the main I've been working harder than I did in N.Y. And sightseeing. Sort of knocked out by the individuality of this world. Nothing like it anywhere that I have ever seen. Always 2000 to 7000 feet above sea level. Always mountains arranged in triangles, squares or parallel lines above the flat level of these high mesas. Always cacti or mesquite or bunch grass.

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Mostly a blazing sun or a cold starry night. Fairly good roads. A hundred miles without a house, sometimes with only one gasoline station. Hundreds and hundreds of forgotten and deserted pueblos or ancient Indian towns lie buried in the sand, perhaps thousands of them. Hundreds of live inhabitated pueblos with from 300 to 1000 Indians all farming and looking much like the Indian figure you gave me. And then thousands of Americanized Indians— short skirts, high heels, silk stockings—attending the state schools or colleges. And thousands of Mexicans, real or Americanized—and first, second, third and fourth generation ones—and actually the handsomest and most temperamental and vivid people out here. Then the business American—all business—machine-like—with his office building 10 or 12 stories high, his small banks, Baptist churches, Woolworths, Kresges, and his Hollywood houses and 1930 cars. And then le tourist—swelling around or rolling through. And cowboys—in uniform. And ranchers. And miners. And the movies. And jazz. And the bootleggers. And emigrant runners. Really is colorful. Skies like those of Italy. Sunrises and sunsets that would make you cry or crazy with loneliness. Old missions. New large white ones with bells and towers. Thousands of wild cattle on the 100,000 acre ranches. Roaming to get fat or die of starvation, as you please. No food and not too much water provided but what's left driven to pasture land (or shipped) to be fattened and then slaughtered—Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, Dallas. All told—except for business—the Americans the dullest of all. Never heard of anything except congressmen and senators and Mary Baker Eddy and Volstead and Christ. Oh, well, I'm planning to go to Phoenix, Yuma, Prescott, Williams, Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, and so on in New Mexico, Gallup—the Indian detour, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and then either back east or a stay in Albuquerque. I'm here until Sunday, then Phoenix. And I'll write you again before then. How's everything. Numb-

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skulll You sent me a corkscrew in a trunk when I can get one anywhere in any Woolworths for ten cents. And their Woollyworts are nicer as ours. I'm enclosing some views. They're too true not to send. T.D. Santa Rita Hotel Tucson, Ariz., Apr. 5, 1930 Dear Louise: This is a wonderful climate. You never saw such mornings and evenings anywhere. In Umbria—Italy— some best mornings in Hollywood and on the Riviera. It is said to rain here occasionally. I have not seen a cloudy day. And those mesas! In Russia they would be steppes. In Kansas plains. Here they are brown, dry, warm or hot. And with cacti or mesquite or chapparal—nothing much over three to five feet high except those one arm cacti which here are as tall as telegraph poles and thicker. Marvelous 1 There is a forest of them near here 30 miles across. But to walk on the mesa! T o lie in the sunl To watch for prairie dogs or lovely strange birds! T o watch ranchers and lone cattle and the mountains changing in the light. I can't tell you. The ordinary American may be dumb and all business but oh, his land! Love.

T.D.

Dreiser returned from the West in July. By that time An A merican Tragedy had achieved great popularity in Germany and a dramatization of the book by Erwin Piscator, a noted German playwright, was to be presented in Berlin. When he received the German play manuscript he wrote me requesting a translation:

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Dear Louise: As I wired you I have German version American Tragedy. I want it translated. More, I want the original or translation or both compared with Kearney's American script in order to discover whether any of the original text of Kearney, that is, any of the lines invented by him are used in the German version. Piscator and Madam Goldschmidt worked from the book as well as the Kearney play. But since much of the play was from the book the chance of crossing Kearney much is slight. Will you take the German version and translate it? Then take Kearney's script (I have it) and the book to see how you feel about it. Write at once as to this. Next, I have fifteen more chapters of Dawn ready for retyping. In this connection it isn't only the retyping but also a question of what if anything of this should be left out for the present and how. Where are you going to be this weekend. Do you want to come over here? Our trouble here is Helen rented the house at Kisco until Sept. 1. The cabin though is there—occupied for the moment by Katherine Sayre—and today and tomorrow I am putting up a 12 χ 18 tent. We might cut grass and make a grand stall—divided by cross lines strung with denim or some such, making stalls—no feed boxes attached. Or Helen and I might drive over to Paoli. The book work is getting along and will come through fine—except what should or should not go in. Liveright is definitely out of Liveright, Inc. Pell, Smith and one or two others remain. My contract expires Jan. 1, 1932, and then I'm out, only recently much time lost there. Won't you wire where you are to be and suggestions. If you want to come here we can probably manage at Kisco. If not you can have the small room here. The play business is urgent. The book also really but the play comes first. Fabri says it is swell but he can't translate it. It goes on Oct. 8 in Berlin. T.D.

8 1 9 3 1 WAS A YEAR FULL OF TROUBLE FOR DREISER. HIS PUBLISHER,

Liveright, was insolvent by this time and there began the long drawn-out arbitration proceedings that went on for years. In July of that year he was invited by Paramount Pictures to preview the screen version of An American Tragedy, which they had bought in 1926. At that time the plan was to have the picture directed by Serge Eisenstein, famous for his "Ten Days That Shook The World." He was brought over to Hollywood and came to Mt. Kisco for a weekend visit to discuss his plans with Dreiser. I happened to be there at the time and know that Dreiser was delighted with Eisenstein and his ideas, especially the idea of using an unknown for the part of Clyde. Everything was hunkydory and Eisenstein went back to Hollywood and prepared the script. It was going to be a really magnificent film, a credit to everyone concerned. But things didn't turn out that way, because after several months Eisenstein was on his way back to Russia and the picture was shelved. Now, four years later, Paramount decided again to screen the Tragedy, this time with Josef von Sternberg as director. And this was the picture Dreiser previewed in New York in 1931. He objected strenuously to several scenes and flew to Hollywood to discuss the matter. Unable to reach an agreement with the producers or the director, he came back to New York and brought an injunction to restrain the showing of the picture. The point at issue was the right of an author to demand that any adaptation of his work conform to his own interpretation of it. Soon after he returned from Hollywood he wrote me:

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New York, Aug. 5, 1931 Dear Louise: I am worn and pine with things to do. Had two weeks of (literally) fights in Hollywood—almost blows. Still I'm likely to win. Several firms of lawyers here are anxious to take the case. But write—I couldn't. I'm choked with stuff—every conceivable kind of demand. Besides 4 law cases—Paramount, the Russian ballet, Laengst, and the Liveright American Tragedy case. Poor Captain Light (Evelyn Light, his secretary) struggles under the weary load. I would welcome two weeks in bed in a darkened room. Me noivesl Me noives! T.D.

I n September of 1931, the lease of the Fifty-seventh Street a p a r t m e n t expired. W o r r i e d a b o u t his u n c e r t a i n financial condition, he decided n o t to renew. All of the f u r n i t u r e was accordingly sent o u t to the M t . Kisco place, which would b e his h o m e for the time being. W h e n in N e w York he would live at the Ansonia. H i s next few letters indicate his state of m i n d at that time.

Dear Louise: I've had a hell of a summer. Heat. Work. Mental worries. Lawsuits. Just a day to day drive. Add to that moving. In the place here right now are four tin trunks which ought to be opened—the contents rearranged—the contents of each new rearrangement listed and placed outside the trunk concerned. How about coming over—sleeping in Helen's room and doing all this work. It shouldn't take more than four or five days. And so hello. I haven't written but that cuts no ice. I see you as clearly as though you were here.

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I lost my suit (the injunction against the motion picture) but not exactly. Actually I made them add seven scenes—fore and aft—750 feet of film. They came here and begged me to endorse it in its new form. I could have called off the suit and taken the credit but I chose not to do so. And I'm glad I didn't. The judge's comments are priceless to me. Can you come over? T.

H e was now spending most of his time at the Ansonia, living in a suite consisting of a bedroom and large room adjoining which he used for a workroom.

Dear Louise: I'm in room 1665 Ansonia. You should see it. This room is charming. Helen and the family have another— 1659. They're back and forth. It's colder today. I'm going up to Kisco. Wish you were going to be there just to cheer up the place. If you'll come over here I'll put you up for the night in one of these 16th floor rooms. Or you can sleep in mine. According to Pell, no savings bank today is now safe, so if you're hoarding wealth get a tin can and put it in the back yard. T.D.

Hotel Ansonia, N.Y. April 1, 1932 Dear Louise: I want to apologize. But what's the use? You know me. I'd be glad if you'd come over but I wish before doing

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so that you'd write Helen a letter. She feels a little slighted I think and you don't mean to hurt her, I know. Dorothy Harvey 1 has written a long book about yours truly. And Jonathan Cape, etc. have accepted it. Its in galleys now—196 or so, which means 600 pagesl!! Tonight Miss Light sent it to you special delivery. You know what you're to do—read and meditate as to what is best and wisest and write me a letter of advice. They want to know if I want anything cut out. If I am offended by anything, if there is too much American or national background or too much of me in any place. And of course they want the whole thing back by return mail. Well, that can't be but it is a rush job because I've said it will be. So come, all ye faithful, and declare the works of God. Anyhow, my dear, I read all your letters and say, oh, yes, that's right. God, why didn't I answer that other letter. She knows that I should, etc., etc., etc. But then I add well it's Louise and she knows me and so— Beloved, the wicked will be punished in hell. They'll grill and grill and it will serve them good and right. But don't you bring any charges against me and furthermore read, meditate and advise. St. Theodore the Nubian

Again, from the Ansonia, and another apology for delay in answering my letter:

N.Y., April 15, 1932 Dear Louise: I know I should have answered at once but you should see this place. I am sick of running a bureau and of being a clearing house for nothing. My dream is to get out, this ι This I believe, should be Dorothy Dudley, Forgotten

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month if possible, close Miss Light's office—get her a desk at Liverights and close out my room here. Me for a single hut in the west where I can write and save expense. Everything seems to be going under. I am sending you Monday the first 15 chapters of The Stoic to read. When that comes back I'll send you some money. I thought your criticism of Mrs. Harvey's (?) book very good and told Cape so. I'm sorry about your mother. Lord, life is a slow sandpapering process. We all get worn down. Somehow I admire Helen as much as anyone. She keeps up a strong front and looks toward a simpler form of existence under a new form of government. She likes flowers and dogs and the country and so I think she may come out O.K. As for me!!! Come over. Love from T.D.

I was not surprised to learn that he did "get out," as he said he dreamed of doing, because his next letter came from Texas. H e had begun to work again on The Stoic, the final book of the trilogy beginning with The Financier.

San Antonio, Texas June 10, 1932 Dear Louise: Forgive me for clearing out on short notice and for the long silence. I've been working and hard. Starting on Chapter XXXIII this morning, which proves it. Because she hasn't had so much else to do I've been sending Miss Light the handwritten copies and having her make three. One comes back to me for corrections and two stay there.

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I've been intending to go over my set and correct them but so far haven't done anything but write—and I think it best. Once I get forty chapters done I intend to have certain corrections or rather additions I have made to the 15 you edited plus the remaining 25 typed and sent to Kyllman in London for revision—their way of saying things. After these come back my plan is to send the forty to you for examination, editing, etc. The remaining forty (if there are that many) will be handled in the same way. How are you? And your mother? I had to get out of N.Y. Couldn't get a thing done. Besides, expenses were eating me alive. Here I spend about 20 a week. El Paso where I am going tomorrow I will not do much worse. If I do I'll come here. Helen is up at Mt. Kisco. I'm sticking here instead of going back there because I need a change of mind as well as place but as soon as this book is in shape I'm going back of course. Sorry I've been so negligent but work—18 chapters in 5 weeks—has kept me going. Please write and give me the news. I owe you money—but how much. I think I ought to fix a lump sum for the book. But I still think you cut a little too close. I don't want my style to become too crisp or snappy. It has an involute character which to a degree should remain. Love—regards to everybody— D. Next week East Lynne—I mean El Paso.

T h e "involution"—what I considered awkward syntax, verbosity, etc.—was often a point of argument between us. Sometimes I won. But after all, they were his books. A n d what would the critics talk about if he changed his way of writing? By July, Dreiser had returned from the west and was back in Mt. Kisco and troubled by his living expenses and his decreasing financial status. I learned this from a letter received soon after his return:

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Dear Louise: Thanks for your note. I'm glad you like the story. When it's all done it should be gone over again for cuts like we did the Tragedy. More trouble in my camp. Liveright, Inc., is busted. No money. They are breaking their contract with me, which means 7/8ths of my annual income. Also some way to live. That means Horn 8c Hardart's, I guess. But with time I'll get down to bed rock— say $50 a week maybe. The good old days. Meanwhile I'll find some way to pay you. Pell is no publisher. Neither is Smith. Their fall list is pathetic. And now is no time to sell books. 5000 is considered a sale. Will have more stuff shortly. Yes, I worked hard. You don't need a janitor, do you? D.

Mt. Kisco, July 21, 1932 Dear Louise: So sorry to hear about your brother-in-law. But Lord every day brings news of ills everywhere. Don't forget I have seven relatives who have been getting help from me and right now anyhow I can't go on and it's hell for them. But I haven't got it. Nor do I know when I will get more again. My idea now is to do some trading when the book is done. And when I get these chapters up to date—all I've sent you now—I'm going to begin. Please send me the new numbering to date. How many chapters have you all told? I have three more over here. Wish I might see you and hope to in a week or so. Am a country gentleman now—but tied to the job by necessity no less. T.D.

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Mt. Kisco, July 31, 1932 Dear Louise: Chapter 1 as revised came and I feel it may do. Will tell you later. The book goes along. I am on 54. Up to that is typed but not revised. When I have 10 I'll revise and send them on. It's going to be long—this first draft. But when it's all done I think it can be gone over and condensed. Feel so. If so it will have a lot of go and color and drama. Can't tell you how I've sklaved over this— usually 9 to 5—often 9 to 7. Several times 9 to midnight. If I get it done I can do a lot with it because it completes the trilogy. One question: should I or should you make a brief synopsis of Vols 1 and 2 and put them in the front of this one by way of introduction. Or would that hurt the sale of this book as a separate thing? Pell is mailing you a check for $50. Later on I'll send you some more. Isn't that tough about those bonus men? Now you begin to see the money crowd in full action. Next comes coldblooded dictatorship and the guns for the small fish. Wait a little while. D.

T h a t last paragraph is indicative of Dreiser's reaction to conditions prevailing over all the country due to the depression. Always an ardent advocate of social reform, he now railed more than ever against " B i g Business" and its sinful greed. Heretofore content with the written expression of his ideas, he now was persuaded to address a few small groups of people interested in hearing his solution for the prevailing labor unrest. Actually, although he may not have been aware of it, he was unconsciously preparing himself for the lecture tour he later made during the war. Through these talks he discovered

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that public speaking was not as distasteful as he thought it would be; in fact, he found he liked it. But all of his writing time was devoted to getting on with The Stoic. Dear Louise: You have refrained from comment on this 3rd vol., which strikes me as ominous. In editing up to 45 I have rearranged and cut not a little. As I wrote you chapters 1 and 3 were combined—with most of 3 constituting the opening and a condensed version of this 1/3 of No. 1— the close. Chapters 29, 30, 31 have been condensed and rearranged. Most of the sheik stuff with Aileen—together with the clown dinner are out. The last half of 43 (Aileen and C again and Pryors Cove) has been reduced to a few references in order to speed things up. But even so I would like a severe critical sandpapering in order to shake me into closer work. Not can you—but will you oblige— D. Toward the end of April, Dreiser took time off from work to assist in the formation of a new and different type of magazine. The American Spectator was to be "a literary newspaper," published monthly, free of any advertising and therefore an organ of free expression. Its Board of Editors consisted of George Jean Nathan, Ernest Boyd, James Branch Cabell, Eugene O'Neill, and Dreiser, who wrote me on September 13, 1932: Dear Louise: You should know this. It's interesting. A newspaper. Monthly at first. Price 10 cents. Later a weekly. Longest article 2500 words. Shortest 500. First price—1 cent a word. Later 5 cents a word. The strongest critical individual anywhere expressing his deepest or most ironic

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moods or convictions. As it is written so it is printed. You should see the eagerness to get in it in some form. There are as yet no salaries and no rewards other than the reward of good company but there may be. No one editor can order or accept any thing. The editors do that. But any editor can stir up whom he pleases—suggest or invite suggestions and if something exceptional comes of it fight to get it in. It has come to that already. I am having a battle royal over one thing and it's not mine. Anyhow, the above is news. I'm still here working and will presently show results. Am moving to Harpers I hope—and soon. How's everybody? Are juice well? Write me a note. Suggest a real person or a worthwhile thing to do. How about Eric Knight? I read "Saturday to Monday." But—take up a real book—even a short one—I don't mean a current novel—and compare. The other day I reread Carnival (the little book). Godll! As ever T.D.

The A merican Spectator, I thought, was extremely interesting. It was an exciting new idea in the magazine field. Unfortunately, however, it failed to attract enough attention to keep going for more than about two years. Before it vanished f r o m the scene Dreiser had resigned from the editorial board because of a decision to change policy and accept advertising. I n 1933, I was writing motion picture and book reviews for the Philadelphia Public Ledger, which is n o longer in existence. I wrote a column on Dreiser, which appeared in the issue of July 18,1933, and read as follows: Theodore Dreiser always wears bow ties—has them made up from scraps of silk that appeal to him for color

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and texture. On cold days he wraps a brilliant silk scarf around his neck—his collection of ties and scarfs rivals that of any Hollywood movie star. His combination of blue shirt and blue handkerchief—the blue of a workingman's overalls—is famous. His suits are always gray or blue, and white from June to September. Atop of this a black velour hat, or often no hat at all. He is extremely pessimistic on arising in the morning but by noon the business of living has taken on new zest, and today, past 60, he is no more tired of living than the baby born yesterday. He plays solitaire by the hour—the simple Canfield system. Rejects any offer of enlightenment as to more complicated and presumably more interesting systems. It rarely comes out for him. He is an ardent admirer of youth—inclined to condone its sins on the score of immaturity. He is extremely orderly as regards his desk and surroundings; might even be called a "tidy" person. Will even pick u p a broom and sweep a dusty corner that offends his eye rather than wait for the housekeeping program to catch up to it. In the country or any quiet place he will "set and rock" by the hour, humming a monotonous tune and staring into space while pleating and re-pleating his large white handkerchief. (No description of Dreiser is complete without mention of this handkerchief-folding habit.) In any gathering of kindred spirits his contribution to the gaiety and interest of the occasion is highly stimulating. He is an ideal host and because of his strong convictions and interest in such a wide variety of subjects, any gathering is likely to find itself after a while merely an interested and willingly attentive audience for his expressions of opinion. He refuses to tolerate boredom and will leave any gathering, public or private, the moment the dread mood descends upon him. But in this matter of talking he is

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just as likely to close up like a clam or hold forth on some foolish triviality for the delectation of those who come before him expecting to be awed and dazzled by pearls of wisdom dropping from the lips of the great master. He is a good listener. If he likes the person talking he will lend a patient ear to even the most trivial discourse. He laughs to the bursting point at such comedians as Joe Cook and Ed Wynn, and recalls with high glee his memories of George Monroe, Joe Welch and the late Bert Savoy, of old theater days. He certainly does not write for money, but in the matter of remuneration will fight heaven and earth for every penny he considers due him. And then, too, he likes a good fight. His rages are epic. In his opinion there is nothing like a thunderstorm to clear the atmosphere. He has been more than ordinarily patient with and interested in struggling young writers. But time and patience have today almost reached their limits and for obvious reasons he is now inclined to turn down reading budding authors' manuscripts. He is one of the few modern writers who disdains the use of the typewriter. He writes in ink, the lines evenly spaced on white paper. Four revisions are not too many according to his method, with one or two extra goingsover of the final proofs. He is an exuberantly enthusiastic admirer of the person who is able "to do something," which means, according to him, to sing, to dance, to act, to paint, to write, or merely to live. He has no patience with what he terms "dubs," the mentally dull and timid. His phenomenal curiosity and anxiety to discover the whyness of everything are responsible to his interest in an extraordinary diversity of subjects: medicine, machinery, science, religion, astrology, art, music, mysticism—Today he is most interested in economics, the social scene, man's injustice to man. He has recently overcome a long-stand-

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ing antipathy to public speaking and taken to the platform to express his views. An inbred, inborn sympathy for the poor and downtrodden, of which he was one for so many years, has grown to a cosmic urge to right the wrongs of the world. He is the grand rebel of his day. His indignations over the causes he sponsors are magnificent and his sincerity is unquestionable. There are no half measures for Dreiser. He even "dunks" his doughnuts in public. Dreiser approved of the article, as he wrote me on July

24,1933: Dear Louise: OK for that sketch of yours truly. It's almost painfully accurate but I like it just the same. Always I'm thinking of your short stories. I feel they should be just what they are—goodnaturedly ironic, not poignant, since you do not run to poignant studies of this earthly scene—and that there should be a market for them. Also I have more than once thought that if you had lived and written in and about London you would have found a market there. Over here I don't know. A friendly leisure thing, however accurate, doesn't seem to get very far. Just the same I liked all of the things of yours that I have read. T.D.

Even though I was fairly busy with other work I still continued working on Dreiser's manuscripts. H e also sent me from time to time letters he received from his European publishers requesting I translate them. T h e correspondence and bookkeeping in connection with the publication of his books in Europe was a formidable project. In Czechoslovakia, for instance—and that was the time when Benes was President of that thriving democracy—they were tremendously popular.

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Also in Germany and Russia. T h e various publishers' statements—German, French, Czechoslovakian, Spanish, Hungarian, listing royalties in the currency of these countries were a headache to his secretaries. All except the Russian statement. That was easy, simply because there wasn't any. They chose to disregard the whole idea of accounting for royalties. And because of his deep sympathy for the Russians in the early stages of their experiment, Dreiser chose to overlook the omission. I might add here that by 1944, he felt differently. Russia seemed to be getting along pretty well and there seemed to be no reason why they should not compensate him. Characteristically, he proceeded to go directly to headquarters; in other words, a letter to Mr. Stalin himself. T h e result? A check for accumulated royalties dating back to 1927 and amounting to around thirty-four thousand dollars!

Hotel Ansonia, N.Y. Dec. 30, 1933 Dear Louise: Doctor Light sends this on in an envelope addressed to you, plainly wanting a translation. I read it (dimly) to mean that the difficulties of cutting loose from Zsolnay are many. However, an accurate translation is required. Which brings to mind I haven't remembered you this Xmas. But also what you don't know is that I have been in bed practically all this week—since last Saturday P.M.— mostly in this hotel room. It started in Mt. Kisco last Saturday—cold, cough, chill, etc., and only seems to be breaking up now. I came down last Sunday and went to bed here. Any plans I had went to pot. But I haven't forgotten you really and make a record of it. I'll send $5 for a new year's present—just so you'll know I still think

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on you. And I hope things go all right for us in 34.1 wrote off by selling a cold 20,000 loss on stocks and bonds about 2 weeks ago. That brings me down to real estate with its taxes and my pen. Liveright as you know folded up and tied up all my books and I've been lawing ever since—to get an arbitration and my plates back. No publisher, no sales, no income there. I've a few thousand in cash left over—about $8000. But I'll turn to something or I think I will. Love to you all— T.D.

Mt. Kisco, March 20,1934 Dear Louise: Yes, I left the Ansonia nearly three weeks ago, and as you suspect I've joined the Ache and Pain Club. I've been sick the usual run—grippe. Chest trouble. Lassitude and then to bed, the world forsaking, as twere (what does twere mean). And not a move from this place in 3 weeks. A few visitors. And enlarged telephone bills—for others. I'm not so easy to get to here. And for once—ill or no ill I rejoice. Start the Ache & Pain Club and I'll join. Yours friends may like the Ansonia. The rooms are all large and soundproof. The furniture is oldfashioned but the place is strictly clean and the service excellent and courteous. It gets to feel more like a home than a hotel. If you leave they miss you. And the welcome back for nearly all is real. It's full of musicians, playwrights, editors, prizefighters, ball players, oldtime actors, singers, etc. Worse or better—its international—French, German, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Jewish, and some few Americans. T.D.

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There were plans afoot to stage the German version of An American Tragedy, that is, a translation of Erwin Piscator's dramatization that had been done in Berlin.

Mt. Kisco, N.Y. Dec. 29, 1934 Dear Louise: Did I tell you it was O.K. to go ahead with the cutting of Compromise (short story). It is. But be sure not to overdo the condensing. If a philosophic aside has any beauty it should in my judgment be carried as poetic color. What you tell concerning the hoped-for secretaryship seems wonderful to me. What an experience field if you land it. Happy New Year. D. Jasper Deeter (Hedgerow Theatre) is over here today. He is going to stage the Piscator version of An American Tragedy (with changes). We are going to work on it together.

T h e Hedgerow Players, under the direction of Jasper Deeter, presented my translation of the German version of the Tragedy late in April, 1935, in their theater in Rose Valley, a Philadelphia suburb. I saw the play and found it thoughtprovoking to a most interesting degree. It was entirely different from Patrick Kearney's dramatization, which was in conventional play form. T h e German version accentuated the class struggle inherent in the book—the contrast between the poor and the rich. It was staged on two levels, signifying the difference between the two classes, and an interlocutor stood in the

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pit propounding questions to the players which elicited replies that led to philosophic discourse.

Mt. Kisco, April 29, 1935 Dear Louise: Why didn't you write me about the Hedgerow performance. I couldn't get over because I was in Chicago until the day before the performance. Got in N.Y. at 10 A.M. with other matters waiting. The reviews were excellent. Please write today and tell me what you thought. Am leaving here Friday for Los Angeles. T.D.

Before he left Dreiser secured a tenant for the house at Mt. Kisco. He planned to stay in Los Angeles all summer.

232 S. Westmoreland Ave. Los Angeles, May 26, 1935 Dear Louise: Once more among the ghouls and the Christians. But really sheltered and safeguarded by the California Institute of Technology. Nice to have a note. Wilson has not written yet but Deeter has and there is a certain Reinhymer of New York who is here to see me about it (production of An American Tragedy). Also an offer from the Civic Theatre, Ν. Y. Will see what happens. It's hot and dry. My bronchitis seems to lessen. Helen is coming out. I need the services of the Cal. Tech. for a piece of work and they're kindly helping me. How is mother dear—and Campbell and the wise Louise. The

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more I think of you the more my regard strengthens. Von Hindenburg and Von Ludendorf could do no more. T. D. It developed that the Shuberts had sent a scout to see the Hedgerow production of An American Tragedy and thought enough of it to start negotiations with Dreiser with a view to producing it in association with the Group Theatre in New York. Los Angeles, Cal., Oct. 14, 1935 Dear Louise: Leaving here tomorrow or next day for Kisco. Have thought of you a lot. You know the darling Shuberts now have the grand idea of calling in Owen Davis to revise Tragedy and make it into a real play. They want to open with the dear Judge sentencing Clyde and then later appearing throughout Clyde's life as interlocutor, questioning and explaining as does Piscator interlocutor, having experienced a change of heart since the sentence. And all this before (about 99-99/100th per cent) before he ever sentences Clydel Version two is for the foreman of the jury to do all this. Don't think I'm loony. I'll send you a copy of the letter. T.D. Mt. Kisco, Oct. 30, 1935 Dear Louise: Monday I talked Milton Shubert out of the Judgeforeman idea. Also out of the playwright who was to revise

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the text (Owen Davis). However, I had to agree to persuade you to come over and talk to him. The object is this. There are certain lines here and there which he (and some assistant of his) will (?) and these you are to either retranslate or strengthen by going back to the book itself, reading the particular scene there referred to and so find a strong phrase or what have you. For that you are to receive your fare and expenses and a modest sum of money. Shubert is now anxious to do it and soon. T.D. When you come over maybe we can arrange to have you come out here. I say maybe because we're closing the big house and living in the little one for the winter. There may be room and there may not be. Anyhow I'll see you in New York and talk the whole thing over. Mount Kisco, N.Y. Feb. 11, 1936 Dear Louise: Just now I heard from Shubert by telegraph that he thinks that he and the Group Theatre have fixed things so that jointly they will produce the play very shortly. Light two candles and say forty-eight Hail Marys at once. If that doesn't bring a telegram saying that all plans have fallen through, I miss my guess. Affectionately, T.D. Mt. Kisco, March 9, 1936 Dear Louise: As you probably know, the play is in rehearsal and opens Wednesday night. As the translator you are entitled to a few pairs of seats, but you will have to act quickly.

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I think you will like the new version very much. The stage setting is very interesting and I cannot see that any particular changes have been made in the text. But the costuming, the different temperaments of the actors, give it a very original feeling. I never go to an opening performance of anything of mine but if you could I would like to know what you feel. As always, T.D. Darling: Just got your accusing letter. I'v been and am so rushed every day. When your letter came I asked Helen to write first and explain and I would write later. She agreed to do it but without telling me changed her mind on the ground that I was the one to do it. You're never out of mind. All your problems—mother dear and all— are as close to me as you could possibly wish. And I'm glad mother's better. Tell her an irresponsible, undutiful author wishes her years and years of health and peace for her and all the rest of us sakes. And come over Wednesday to the opening. I'm not going. You know I never go. One Milton Shubert is writing you to come. I've seen one rehearsal. Finally tuned u p it should be fascinating to the stranger. Love to you. And forgive me all of my sins. T.D. Mt. Kisco, March 16, 1936 Dear Louise: Just to let you know. I'm asking Shubert for the 2nd time to put your name after Goldschmidt 8c Piscator as translator. I haven't seen it yet as fully staged. Have only seen rehearsals. T.D.

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Mt. Kisco, March 18, 1936 Dear Louise: You say that evidently the play is a hit. I am not sure it is a hit yet by any means. The critics were evenly divided, and those that were against it were decidely most reproving and angry. Many people have the impression that it is a worthless, rabid Communist plea—not the fine thing it really is. Shubert tells me he hopes to turn it into a success by advertising. T.D.

Notwithstanding the excellent notices, the Shuberts decided the play was too controversial and closed it after only a few weeks' r u n .

Mt. Kisco, May 13, 1936 Louise dear— I know how it seems but I'm right here and toiling— truly—because I've got something if I ever get it in shape. And I think of you as I think of myself—a relationship that can end only with death. It's beautiful here now— only last night it rained hard and is quite cool. I have to go to Purdue University tomorrow night to speak out there (Lafayette, Ind.). Back Monday. I hear that Shubert is going to have Deeter recast the Piscator version for him and take it on the road (August) for 14 weeks. Then back here for a run. (Well, maybe.) But I really believe he will do it. I'm feeling pretty fit—except for a touch of brown-skitus again, but I'll get over it. Regards to mother. Tell her

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that while I sympathize with her I also stand in awe, filled with admiration. I feel like taking a course from her on how to successfully battle the ills of life. Hope to rent this place for the summer and live in a cabin here or somewhere—maybe in a quiet writing apartment in Phila. T.D.

Mt. Kisco.July 13,1936 Dear Louise: I would have answered before but have many labors and duties. Both the big houses are rented. T h e two cabins at the lower end (the log cabin) serve as a cooking and sleeping place—the upper cabin as a workroom. I have Harriet Bissell (did you meet her) as secretary and a Mrs. Ballard who comes twice a week to clean up. Then there is Arturo who works evenings between five and six bringing water, wood, etc. This week I'm pretty crowded. However, on Friday afternoon is O.K. if you could come out on the train that leaves Grand Central at 3:30. Harriet will meet you at the ticket office at Mt. Kisco at 4:24 and bring you out. Then you can stay until Saturday A.M. I wish I could make it longer but I have something to do on Sun. I'd love to see you and I will dig up a steak or something in your honor. Have you read Eyeless in Gaza (Aldous Huxley). If so, would like to know what you think. T.D. Mencken sent me recently an official Maryland madstone. Rubbed on the head it cures lunacy, fits and extreme follies. I've rubbed and rubbed but somehow it don't help yet.

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Mt. Kisco, Aug. 21, 1936 Dear Louise: Glad you are coming over and out here. Tuesday is O.K. and here is $3.00. T h e fare is 75 cents each way and if you will drop a post card now (on receipt of this) and say what train you are coming on Miss Bissell will meet it. Don't forget that a letter mailed now will only be in the box out here Tuesday A.M. at 11:15. I f you take a train that will arrive here after 11:15 and will write the arriving time on the post card Miss Bissell will be there. Sorry you're broke but so is everybody. On your advice I bought two quarts of mouse seed and placed them in the cabin. Instead of driving off the mice they now eat all night long and are growing to rat size. It should be advertised as mouse food. T.D.

E v e n Dreiser f o u n d it impossible to ignore the biggest news of that year: the abdication of K i n g Edward V I I I .

Park Plaza Hotel, N.Y. Dec. 17, 1936 Dear Louise: Please excuse. Much work. (Damn lie.) Sick, (damn lie.) Started letter everyday but interrupted (damn lie). Always wanted to write (no lye—mean lie). Just the same here I beez, grateful for your nice letter and sneakingly trying to square things. Can be done? No? Yes? Well, anyhow, Merry Xmas and how are Mrs. Simpson and the King? T h e r e ain't no war no more. No trouble in Spain, none in China, Roosevelt ain't President. Just Mrs. Simp-

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son, that's all. I alius thought wimmen was just poor crawlin' worms—scrubs an' such, but now look. No man can get a line. You can't even think without saying to yourself, "Mrs. Simpson permitting" or "by your leave, Mrs. Simpson." I'd like to think about my own affairs for a minute. T h e door bell's ringing, Mrs. Simpson. Please excuse. Anyhow, that's the way 'tis with me. I aint myself no more. Just a jangle of Simpsons and Eds. Crash ding. If I could just git normal once more. Aint it so? But Mrs. S. permitting, I'd like to know that you are well and charming and full of comments on the ways of this nice world. And stories. And laffs. And your mother all right. T e l l 'er I'm as loyal as ever an' grateful to know she's around and going strong. Merry Xmas to her too. And that you're readin' all the new books. And seein' all the new movies. And scannin' all the papers. An' workin' out puzzles. And trying for prizes. Heck, what an active life. As for me, I scribble away an' every now and then write Simpson for something or somewhat or simmer or sample or anything like that. I'm goin' nuts, hear mel So, darling, please excuse. Mrs Simpson permitting, I'll do better, I will. Honest to Simpson, I mean it. Affectionately, E d — I mean, you know—Davie.

Notwithstanding the fact that the literary field was my favorite stamping ground, I wandered off occasionally w h e n a financially tempting opportunity for experience elsewhere presented itself. T h i s time it was something entirely new to me, a job dealing w i t h stocks and bonds. Naturally, d u r i n g such interims Dreiser's work was put aside for a while or only intermittently attacked. H e accepted my desertions, as he called them, with fairly good grace but not without a few sarcastic comments.

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Park Plaza Hotel, N.Y. Dec. 22, 1936 Dear Louise: I got the letter but I missed entirely the swellness of the job. What's getting into me? I'm failing, I see that. Before I go completely under, give me a stock tip or two. All I buy or seem to is things that don't move any way except down. The moment I buy them down they go. If I make a real rise I'll forward it as an overdue present. Mt. Kisco is too cold in the winter. Too much snow, sleet, bad roads. Too—well, you know. So here we are down here. At least you can walk in New York without ducking cars every 50 feet. That's more than you can do in the country. Imagine having to come to N.Y. in order to be able to walk a little! Take an hour off and imagine that last stuff. It's worth it. Right across from the Natural History Museum. I go every day to see the Giant Sloth. Somehow we seem to have something in common. T.D.

All through these years I never ceased bombarding Dreiser with my own literary efforts and he never complained about what must have been a boring chore.

Park Plaza Hotel, N.Y. Jan. 20, 1937 Dear Louise: This is amusing—very. Why not try it on the New Yorker or Vanity Fair. Enclosed is a check for $25 for services rendered. Buy yourself some chocolates. I've been

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very much down—mentally and physically—but I'm slowly coming around. I hope so anyhow. Wasn't the Mencken review a sort of vicious disgruntled thing. He is sore about something. D. Mt. Kisco, July 12, 1937 Dear Louise: You say "the days go so quickly." I'll say. I'm beginning to believe the new time theory that "time" elapses faster for the old than the young. I think so. And I feel about 18. Sure you've written me several times. And I'm the louse that doesn't live up to—well, whatever it is. W e don't live up to what we should. As for coming over I'll make a day. You'd like to get away from Philly and I'd like to get away from N.Y. If only there were some quaint village inn by a stream where both could arrive and sit or walk or row in a boat and blab meaningless blabs. Offhand I can't think of such a place. But I'll think some more. All else failing, you can come here. Think things through and let me know. T . D. Did you ever "think things through?" How does it feel?

116 West 11th St., N.Y. Oct. 18,1937 Most virtuous Louise: Thou knowest that I receive and rejoice in thy letters. It irks me when too long a time passes without one; also when I fail to respond in due season (gettest thou this

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antique stuff). Nonetheless, oh, flower of chastity, betimes I can no longer endure my remissness. The charm of that remote but comforting reality awakens in me the desire to know more and ever more of thee and thy goings to and fro, thou Sultan's pride, and hence, pen in hand (nay, pencil), I hasten to greet thee and to re-present to thy tolerant and charitable gaze these reassurances of mine homage, loyalty, fealty, faith and duty. In truth, mine substance, love and strength, which is, ever wast, and ever shall be, at thine sweet service, no less, so God giveth me grace and help me in my undying desire to be and do. In witness whereof, etc., this 18th day of October in the year of our blessed Lord and thy sweet and gracious and beneficent reign 1937, no less, I, hereby craving thy further charity and grace, do promise to remedy and more avoid all further remissness. T.D. Note, Saracen dog—I have moved from West 77th and now reside once more—as in 1924-25—at 116 West 11th, 2nd floor, where thou canst findest me on giving due notice, etc., etc.

H e apparently considered the foregoing not sufficiently apologetic for his delay in writing me because he followed it with another poetic effusion a few days later:

Ark of the Covenant Angel of Heaven I can't litanize fully right now, but here's something. Your letter glides as smoothly as deep water and yet as brightly as a shallow brook. How's that? More anon. And love to all. T.D.

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116 West 11th St., N.Y. Dec. 16, 1937 Dear Louise: Swell. I'm glad you got the job. You'll make a go of it. Next—look in the new Movie Magazine for January, read my Six Worst Pictures of the Year and see what you think about it. You might comment on it critically— might want to, I mean. Lastly, take sharp note of this— I received just now from Germany a new German version of the American Tragedy (play) which varies considerably I fear from the last form and the book. Will you please read it and tell me just how far away from the book it is? May I send it? Lastly, I got that bundle of silk scraps which never eventuated as ties. Those your mother did are swell. As a general Xmas reminder I am sending $15 which you can divide as you wish twixt thee and mother. If one of these days you really want to come over and will say when— Xmas or after—I'll send 10 to pay your round trip ticket. Love from T H E FIVE STAR FINAL

9 IN 1 9 3 8 , DREISER WAS QUITE ACTIVE IN TRYING TO AROUSE SYM-

pathy for the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War. In October of that year he went to Barcelona to observe the struggle at first hand. When he returned he devoted a large part of his time, by way of talks and articles, to enlisting material aid for the Loyalists, even appealing to President Roosevelt, but met with little success. Discouraged and disappointed, and by this time fed up with the demands on his time in New York, he decided to return to California. He came to see me in Philadelphia before he left and wrote me soon after arriving in Los Angeles:

Los Angeles, Dec. 12, 1938 Dear Louise: I've departed from N.Y. as you see. I left in the great Thanksgiving blizzard and arrived as the sun was blazing things up to 92 and keeping them there. Goldleaved trees in tiger-tan mountain canyons greeted my eyes. I have walked a few nights under windless, odorless trees, staring at the sharp stars. Despite all the water poured on grass and flowers and the roots of trees in endless miles of irrigation ditches, the climate seems not to change. No more clouds, no more fog, no more rain. Houses frail and gay. They are all that is needed here. And L.A. is not paying me for this—just a reaction. How's mother? And the family? It was so nice to stop in that day and find everyone O.K. Mother dear makes

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me feel that age is swell stuff—or can be. My eyes have beheld it in her. T.D. I'll be here for months, anyhow.

Dreiser was very fond of my mother. W h e n she died in 1940, he wrote me a letter which expressed most movingly his appreciation of her personality and his realization of what her death meant to me.

Hollywood, Cal., Nov. 20, 1940 Dear Louise: I can't feel deeply sorry for you for I know of all the years of pleasure and delight you have had in, with, and through your mother. As you know, I thought her an exquisite creature, really something apart from the crass and so often coarse forms of life. I remember the time you told me you could not stay out here or move to New York because of her—and I understood why. I wish I could help you with a thought as to how you are to do from now on, but all that comes to me is that you have gathered so much of all that was inspiring and comforting in her into yourself—through your love and devotion, of course—that in a very real sense she cannot be very far from you any more—any more than my beloved mother dead these 50 years is ever far from me. She isn't! I absorbed too much of her to me exquisite nature to think of her as dead or unreal. She is not to me—and never has been. So, I am sure, it will be with you. She will comfort you all of your days. And you will be proud and happy because of that.

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But don't forget, Louise, dear, you too are a spirit of force and comfort to others and have been for so long. Like myself, others must have looked to you for affection, understanding, sympathy and human and sustaining warmth and received it. And you will always know that their thoughts and affections are with you unchangingly. Mine are. And will continue to be. I know you are busy and cannot write much. And I am always blocks behind my words. But my thoughts are quicker. And certainly they must reach you often. I wish you could come out here for a visit with us. With love and good wishes Always T.D. In California he worked intensively on a series of philosophical essays which he had begun several years before. He intended eventually to combine them in one volume, its tentative title being The Formulae Called Life, but died before completing the studies. In May, 1939, I took on a new job, this time with a professor of sociology. It was actually the equivalent of a course in sociology because it required twice-weekly attendance at classes in a university, taking down in shorthand the professor's lectures and putting them in proper shape to be incorporated in a book he was writing. Since the lectures covered some of the subjects Dreiser was dealing with in his essays, he was interested in my account of my new venture and wrote me to that effect:

I am glad to hear of your new job and how interesting it is. Since you mention them, I mean the lectures on democracy, sex, love, marriage, the family, behavior patterns, etc., I wish you would do as you suggest and send

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me a brief summary of what you consider the most original and most striking data in connection with each. I am including chapters on all these things in the work I am doing and I have what I consider an entirely fresh approach on this thing. However, I would like to be aware of anything that throws any additional light on these matters, and I know that as long as he is touching on these topics it would never conflict with mine because mine is a wider and more comprehensive study of a lot of things in connection with the universe and life here on this earth. As a female, you're the wonder of your sex or will be. Talk about flitting from intellectual bough to intellectual bough. Next gifs science and philosophy and the Campbell School of Philosophy and Government. Who knows, I may yet sit in the front row and listen. Tickets $2.50. T.D.

But in 1939, the war in Europe was Dreiser's main concern. Our participation in it he feared was inevitable and he was vigorously opposed to this country joining what he called an imperialistic scramble for power and profit. H e wrote and distributed, at his own expense, several pamphlets expressing his views. In addition to that, under the auspices of the Committee for Soviet Friendship and the American Peace Mobilization, he lectured all over the country. In one of his lettters to me he remarked: " T o n i g h t I lecture or make an address. If you were in the front row, I'd address all my heaviest thoughts to you." There is a tinge of sarcasm here, because he knew how I felt about the whole thing. I wasn't happy about it. I heard him only once, when he lectured at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. What I feared would happen did happen. His mounting indignation took over and ruined what might have been an impressive argument, at least for some people in the

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audience. However, his theory of government and some of his suggestions for social reform were absolutely opposed to my own ideas. H e knew that, and it was a subject we didn't discuss very often. His search for a formula to reorganize the universe led him, I believed, along paths I could not and would not want to follow. Notwithstanding all this, no one could honestly doubt or question Dreiser's love of his native land. And after Germany attacked Russia and we ourselves were attacked at Pearl Harbor, he was equally articulate in advocating our all-out prosecution of the war to a successful conclusion. T h e energy he expended in his lecture tour finally laid him low and he was ill in his Hollywood home for several months. His recovery at that time was undoubtedly speeded u p by the sale of Sister Carrie to R K O Pictures. T h a t was his first novel and was published in 1912. T h e correspondence beUveen us during the next few years was more widely spaced. On December 31, 1941, he wrote me from Hollywood: Louise dear: What a doleful letter from you— of all people! And after all the pleasures you've had out of life. Also when you know so well that if it were not for contrast and change —constant contrast and constant change—we couldn't have this thing called life at all. Actually, it is a thoughtout game with most amazing arrangements and rules and when looked at closely seems to yield 50% and perhaps more of pleasure as against an opposite percentage of mixed worry and pain·—and not always intense pain by any means. Think of your youth, darling—all the cheering anticipations everybody has regardless of whether they come true or not. I know this country is in for storm and stress but it certainly has had a long run of ease, peace and plenty—

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so much so that it has grown cocky, indolent, self-pleasuring and inequitably indifferent to the needs of its own underprivileged. Actually, I think we need a good shaking u p and it looks as though we are going to get it. I am, as you know, not for taking any beating lying down but I also know that the people have allowed our government to fall into the hands of a group of selfish, greedy corporations that have no more interest in social equity than has a jungle tiger or wild cat. T h i n k of Morgan, Mellon, the 60 families. And our people need to learn about our Hitlerized corporations and their intense desire to turn this into a dictator-controlled state. My own hope is that this war will prove to the rank and file that our multimillionaires are seeking to sell them out. And when this is proved, as I think it will be, they will take our dear arrogant conniving financiers, etc., and throw them into our national ash can if we have one. As for dying from a bomb blast—well, forget it. At the most it won't last long. It's like dropping 10,000 feet in an aeroplane. You won't have a second's consciousness of pain, fear, or anything. Zing! And you're in the arms of Jesus—maybe? Besides, I think worry is good for us. It gets us down to brass tacks. I know it's made me work, and you, too. It also enhances pleasure. So far out here our so-called blackouts have been a farce. Our part of town will be black and another section blazing with lights. I turned out all my lights one night, darkened all the windows (after the siren sounded), lit a small candle and worked by that for a time and then ventured to peek out. All the house lights in the vicinity were gone but the street lamps—powerful electric blazers—were making everything perfectly visible. And the Power Company's explanation was that it had no way as yet of turning everything off and that it might be two weeks before it could. So do we need an alien kick in the pants—or do we? Yes, there's a lot of stewing out here on the west coast. Everybody seems to be expecting the sudden arrival of

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a thousand Jap planes that will level L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and points north. Helen is stewing about her poor old mother in case they blow up her house. She's 76 or something and very feeble. A number of times she's expressed a willingness to die but Helen wants her to live through the war. So—well—maybe she'll get her wish. Well, darling, I've got defense work here on my desk. Got to defend myself against rising taxes by turning out more so-called literature. So I'll have to get back. But this brief note is to say we're all in this togther and instead of spending time brooding on who's going to get killed first we'd better be figuring out how to kill some of our enemies first. At least, in case we go we'll have the satisfaction of knowing that we took a few Japs, etc., along. Love, darling, and write me a nice brave scrappy note. T.D. It was just about this time that while rearranging a storage closet in my apartment one rainy afternoon I came across a bulky package wrapped in crumbling brown paper. I recognized it immediately as Dreiser's original draft of The Bulwark, which he had completed in 1914 and handed to me back in the twenties for a reading whenever I had the time. I had almost forgotten it, probably because I certainly did not relish the idea of working on this appallingly voluminous mountain of handwritten manuscript. Now the paper was brittle with age and the ink had faded. What I most wanted to do was to get rid of it, so I wrote and told him I had just found it. As I suspected, he, too, had apparently forgotten I had it. Hollywood, July 27, 1942 Dear Louise: It's so nice to hear from you even if your letter points out what a bad memory I have. Imagine my forgetting

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that Bulwark ms! And you, too, you loafer! Why didn't you find it years ago? Why??? Anyhow, send it on. I'm doing the book now and liking it. And I'm on Chapter 19 and the structure is well in hand. But what the Quakers won't do to me! Send the ms by express, insured, collect. It only costs ten cents a hundred, so three or four hundred insurance won't matter. I'll send it to you. As for the war, darling, I don't mind meeting all the demands. They're right and fair if there's nothing wasted. But I'm sore on England and shall remain so. Instead of helping Russia direct we're helping England to save itself as we did in the last war. Before we had ever sent Russia a trashy $8,000,000 we had sent England $600,000,000 and have been sending more ever since. Its sole aim is to save the British Empire, with its sacred clawsses while it defeats the sound Russian idea of one for all and all for one by doing nothing. And our big corporations are doing their damndest to cripple Russia and save the British class system. So I'm out to go to jail before I'm through. But I'm glad to know that you're around and doing. Just to see your name Louise signed to anything cheers me. And meantime write me so I'll know you're in the land of the living. And thanks for word as to Bulwark ms. As to yourself, long mayest thou flourish, thou— well, I won't say it—but I love you just the same. D.

H e c o n t i n u e d w o r k o n The Bulwark b u t I h a d n o p a r t i n it at t h a t time. T h e r e were only occasional letters a f t e r that. One, d a t e d D e c e m b e r 13, 1943, has a t o u c h of nostalgia:

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been thinking of you again and again in the past weeks. H o w are you getting along? W i t h me, what between the war and my love for the Russians a n d my hatred of our cold-blooded capitalistic system I ' m in a mental stew— depressed or boiling with anger. Did you ever read that book Sixty Families or any portion of it? It's such a damning picture of greed and selfishness, show, folly, and amazing waste, positively sickening. A n d this is the crowd that is yelling about labor greed and that terrible country Russia. I've shouted so much about it all that I ' m hoarse and incidentally now and then threatened with prosecution. Dies once sent a m a n o u t here to interview me and if possible get some FBI evidence. Needless to say, he heard me at my worst—or best—and left, glad to get out I think. I asked h i m to ask Mr. Dies to do me a favor and call me before his committee. N o call. And then, now that I ' m 72, my thoughts go back to the old days in 10th Street and the Village and you As for me, I am going on as usual. Just sold a sketch of a woman warplant worker to the Readers Digest which may interest you when it appears. Also I have an order for a series of articles—6—from Esquire which is either to be called Unworthy Characters or Baa! Baa! Black Sheep! only they are not intended by me to be morally critical b u t rather friendly and where possible amusing pictures of people who just weren't made to conform to social theories—never could and never did. For one I've been thinking of p u t t i n g in my brother Rome, who passed away several years ago. H e was a scream! A n d in that connection, I've been thinking that you might have some character, male or female, who as described by you might fit into the series. You were always describing someone. Everything drags along here as usual. I sold SISTER C A R R I E to R.K.O. two years ago b u t it has never been produced and I fear never will be. Hurstwood's finish is too dark. Also I sold MY GAL SAL to Westcoast-Fox, which turned out to be successful, although they did not

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pay me much for it. Now I work here as best I can—not liking Los Angeles over much but seeing it as better in winter than New York—not so good in summer. And I don't like getting old. With love as ever D. By the way, give me the names of a few downtown residence streets running between Broad and the Delaware River—to the north of Market. I want to place a character in a decent furnished room there—a room that is a fairly short walking distance from the Broad Street Station.

H e was wrong about Sister Carrie. It was produced, b u t after his death, by Paramount, with Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones in the leading roles. Complying with his request I sent him an outline of a suggested "black sheep" for his collection of character studies. H e acknowledged it in this fashion:

Dear Louise: The stuff reads alright. And such speed. It's a great world, 'tis. So now—where can I sell it? Where? Any character studies today, lady? Nice fresh character studies. New England, West Coast, South, Mississippi. Some fine ripe Florida studies. Giddap! Character studies! Character studies! Character studies! Character study, Mister? Nice ripe Hollywood study here. Very good. Very cheap. Garbos, Harlows, Dietrichs. Don't want any? Giddap! T.D.

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I n January of 1944, in answer to a letter from me, he wrote as follows:

Right here I want to tell you how interesting, up to date, wise and snappy your letter reads to me. You talk about getting along in years and never having had quite enough of what it takes to be this or that but judging by this letter of yours I see no occasion for your deduction. It has the old mental tang which made you the person you were at 27 or 8 and that was some person. As for me, well, I'm struggling along, as grouchy as usual. We have a rather nice home in Hollywood, cement blocks all through but snow white on the outside. It has two spare bedrooms so that if you ever blow this way here you stay. Helen is healthy and busy, usually with what to wear. These wimmen. But Hollywood or L.A. has changed so much. I scarcely like it any more. 3,500,000 people in the metropolitan area and growing like mad. They calculate (the boosters) 5,000,000 in two or three years. And now load after load of writers and wouldbe playwrights as well as scripters of all breeds arriving every hour on the hour. And all on the off chance of getting into the movies as assistant screen writers. But somehow even in the face of bright warm winter days it all palls on me. I feel the absence of true wonder and really worthwhile ambitions in so many that are here. They struggle so hard to be something they are not and that makes me look back on good old 10th Street, N.Y. and the workshops and studios in N.Y., and sign. Here so much of it is showy and so calculating, like the girls who break in on Chaplin and Errol Flynn and the man who declaims his special merits to your face. So you see what a bad mood I'm in. But there is the sunshine. Xmas day like today was like a day in July. Only the second day after it poured and was cold, as tomorrow it will be, maybe. But your letter was a ray of

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sunshine and how I wish I could fill the place of the missing man around your house. You could entertain me while I'd sit about and allow you to do it. 50-50—you know. Meantime love and good wishes. No dark hours of any kind. And meanwhile I may be coming down your way this spring. A lecture agent is after me to tell America what's wrong with it. And with Russia as my guide maybe I could. Helen says to fold in her love, which I hereby do. As for me, I am as ever yours mournfully and yet lovingly, T.D.

O n February 19, 1944, he wrote to thank me for a sketch of an off-beat character I suggested he add to the collection he was at work on for a magazine. I apparently was not as p r o m p t in replying to his request for one as he thought I should be.

I thought on receipt of your answer to my second request that you were sharply down on me but on receipt (of the sketch) I decided that I was not entirely out in the snow—just partially. Do you know what allergies are? Poison oak? Poison ivy? Metal poisonings? Well, I have one. Burning eruptions on my left arm, left shoulder, back and partially around my neck. And the doctors have no answer—or just this one—you may suffer indefinitely but you won't die. Well, I've had this one for 6 weeks and I'm still here. No salve seems to help. But from your letters I gather you're O.K. and so I'm pleased by that. Your the same vivid understanding and interpretive Louise. You should have 50 books to your credit by now, but as I notice, Louise and her whims come first. Write me when your moved so to do. D

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I n the spring of 1944, Dreiser was invited by the American Academy of Arts and Letters to come to New York to receive the Award of Merit medal, honoring him not only for his books but for his significance as a pioneer in the field of American realism. I did not see him at the time, b u t when he returned to Hollywood he wrote me:

July 15, 1944 Louise dear: I was so sorry not to be able to make Philadelphia on my trip east but endless visitations in connection with interviews, publishers, editors and friends who came into N.Y. to see me made it impossible. I had planned to see you, Wharton, and Mencken but no go. Among other things I had personal calls from the heads of the American Society of Arts 8c Letters, some of whom seemed to feel that they had a personal claim on my time. And worst of all, my sister Mame, who had written me that she was ill before I left for N.Y., rapidly grew worse while I was there and died, and that disarranged everything. Since I've been back I've been trying to catch up and only partially doing it. I sincerely hope that you're all right, for with me the world seems so topsyturvy that I mentally feel distrait most of the time. For one thing, I get so many letters posing this problem and that—social, economic, literary— and asking for the answer. And I never know any of the answers. So I just say that but the endless problems just the same keep me worried. For I wonder how this world is to end for us. We are so mixed in everything from Mexico, the Argentine, the old Negro-baiting South, to say nothing of England, China and Russia, etc., that I fear sometimes that we'll be warring for years with this country and that. And our war troubles are so great now. Aren't you glad

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you haven't a 19-year-old boy in the Army? You'd be worrying so. Well, otherwise I am as I was in part and, gracious Madam, that's all for now. And here's health and good wishes. T.D.

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 1944 Louise dear: Well here you are—400 years later. And I enjoyed your last letter. Your brisk youthful approach to life never lessens. It's wonderful. If you think of another character yarn, let me see it. My agent Duffy says that he could sell one that had a touch of pathos—something that would arouse a feeling of pity at the same time that it had the feel of reality. Let me know. Meantime love and all good blessings. T.D.

Later that same year he conceived the idea of combining one book a series of articles by various friends discoursing recollections of their childhood.

Hollywood, Oct. 6, 1944 Dear Louise: I have an idea for a series of recollection articles that might sell and one of which you might like to do. The title I had or have for it was to be My Native Heath. Then I thought to call it My Natal Heath. I was thinking

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what an interesting or lively or moving sketch a person might make of the persons and environment that made or filled their lives between the ages of six and twelve— parents, relatives, their town, also their home life, poor or well-to-do or wretched or whatsoever. Want might have been a part of their lot but ill or loving treatment, delight in minor blessings, etc. Most persons' early years are so different when they really tell of them. Anyhow, I think you might do one. I know I could and think of others. If I could offer a series I'd go 50/50 with each writer assuming all sold. If each sketch brought $100 each person would get $50. If no sale occurred I'd return the sketches. Anyhow, think it over. T.D.

Hollywood, Oct. 22, 1944 Louise dear: The idea for the series is my own. I know several editors and agents who can sell the series as a whole. Incidentally I know various individuals or writers who, given such an idea as this, can write 1500 or 2000 words concerning the formative or basic years of their particular lives. You are one. I am another. I know at least 10 more. Since I furnish the idea for the series and find the editor or buyer, also persuade the editor to take the series without my signature and each writer to use his own name or a nom-de-plum, well, I think I am entitled to share 50/50 with each writer. If each gets $100 for his article I get 50 of his hundred. As for how the thing is to be done, just tell what you recall of yourself and all things about you— cows, grass, your mother and father, neighbors, people you liked or didn't like, trees, flowers, rain, sunshine, moonlight, things that scared you, things that interested or pleased you, etc., etc. If it comes to anything in 1500

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or 2000 words, O.K. If not, I'll try to fix it, make suggestions anyhow. So to work! to workl said sleepy Shirk. Let me know what you think. T.D. I wrote a recollection of my childhood and sent it to him. His letter of acknowledgement indicated approval: Hollywood, Nov. 18, 1944 Dear Louise: Your childhood sketch (I Remember) is amusing and better yet delightful. Why the devil haven't you this long while since written plays, novels, short stories and one-act plays? You might easily have done so. However, I'm too pleased to pick on you. Now if I can only get five more from here and there I think I can make a deal—presenting myself as editor or maybe social impresario. In which case you will get a 50% check shortly. But Louise, dear, why don't you write a play or farce or a family novel? I'm convinced it would be accepted and sell and personally I would love so much to read it myself. You are so honest, truthful and forgiving in the broadminded sense. I'm going to get my N.Y. agent to get after you. With love and admiration— T.D. For whom did you vote? Hollywood, March 4, 1945 Dear Louise: I have your contribution to I Remember I Remember and those of three others but I haven't the full half dozen

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that I need to make a sale, although I'm expecting the other two from a number of sources. Incidentally, several would like to have their names signed, which said difficulty I am overcoming or am arranging so to do by either leaving my name out entirely or entering myself as the originator of the idea and editor, which appears for some to overcome the difficulty entirely. Incidentally, and this is between us, I am (I think) just one month off from finishing T h e Bulwark and what I want to ask you now in connection with this is this: whether once it is done may I send the completed typewritten ms for you to read, edit and cut as you did in the case of An American Tragedy, only in that instance the ms as you will recall was in galley form, whereas this will be, as I say, the typewritten ms. It's a bit to ask, I know, but I'll be glad to pay you, darling, whatever you feel to be fair. For you are, as you know, a swell editor—the best I have ever known— and I'll feel troubled if you find yourself unable to edit it. However, if you can't you can't and that will be that and I'll love you as much as ever. So you are free to say impossible and I'll feel O K about you and us. It's raining here and cold and there's even snow on some of the nearby mountains and personally I am not feeling particularly well. A skin rash has descended on me—a lumpy itchy rash and I'm seeing the doctor tomorrow. However, as irritating as it is, it won't kill me and so I won't complain any more to you. Meanwhile, let me say although we're so far apart and I've known and cared for you so long and still do. You'd be surprised, dear, how constantly you are in mind and how high and how deep my affection for you truly is. Love and all good wishes—all TD I only wish you had written a book about your self that I could read.

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Louise

T h e collection of childhood recollections was finally dropped. He apparently was unsuccessful in assembling enough of them to make a worthwhile book. So now he turned his entire attention to The Bulwark. His reply to my letter agreeing to work on it I have placed at the end of this book, for a reason which I explain and which I think will be obvious. The Bulwark manuscript arrived, after a telegram reading as follows:

Los Angeles, May 6, 1945 The manuscript has been expressed to you. Please use your fine skill in eliminating dull spots or lines. The Lord will bless you and I will pay you. T.D.

I was not very happy about The Bulwark; I felt it certainly was far from an example of Dreiser at his best. I suspected he was in poor health and hesitated about expressing my true feelings. But I wrote and suggested certain changes.

May 21, 1945 Dear Louise: Thanks so much for your analysis and criticism of The Bulwark. You are at least partially right in your criticism of the presentation of the different children and Solon's reiterated emphasis on the Inner Light—its guiding importance. While I am not sure that all you say is correct, I will have to go over it and see how much I agree and what I

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can do. But apart from that I certainly am grateful to you for your prompt examination and opinion, which will be of value to me, whether I follow it closely or deviate from it some. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Th. D.

It was easy to assume from this letter that Dreiser was not entirely in agreement with my ideas. I n fact, the next I heard f r o m him was a wire asking me to send the manuscript to James T . Farrell for a reading. I did so at once, and so advised him. His next instructions are dated J u n e 19, 1945:

Dear Louise: Thank you so much for your letter, which I just received. It is always nice to hear from you, so don't forget to write occasionally. About The Bulwark, I have not heard from Farrell yet. Don't know why. But I just wrote a letter to him addressed to New York, as he is due back there on the 20th. I asked him to send the manuscript to you when he finished with it. When it arrives I will forward you the postage due on it. Then I would like you to keep it there until you hear from me, if you will. In the meantime, the publishers wish me to make some cuts, which they will submit to me. If they are o.k., so much the better. If they are not o.k., then I will have to do something more about the script myself. In that case I shall be very glad to have your suggestions on the subject. So we will see what the publishers say first. The contracts have gone through, signed and all. Well, as to weather, we do have hot days occasionally. Although this summer so far has been cold. Today and yesterday are the first warm days we have had. Yesterday

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was like a July day in New York—one of those days with a high humidity. It about killed me. Today, however, I feel better. On the whole, I am pretty well. Wish we could get as much gas as we want, as we used to. In that case we would probably be taking off for the east occasionally. As it is, we have to wait a while longer, the trains are too uncomfortable. Wish you could pop in and say hello. Maybe you can one day in the near future. I will let you know the moment I hear from Farrell. In the meantime, be your own sweet self, and don't forget me. Sincerely, and with love, T.D.

Soon after this Farrell telephoned me from New York to discuss the book with me. He liked it and disagreed entirely with my criticism of parts of it. He sent the manuscript back to me and Dreiser wired me to go ahead with my revision. While I would have preferred not to work on it (I had the feeling that Dreiser himself was more than ordinarily disturbed over the differences of opinion), I decided to go ahead and sent him several re-worked chapters to look over. I felt at the time it might possibly be the last manuscript he would ever send me.

Hollywood, July 27, 1945 Dear Louise: Thanks so much for the first 60 pages of the novel as you have revised it. I think it is exceedingly well done, and more than that, I think it improves the text of the

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book as a whole. I have nothing to say except that I wish you would go through the book as a whole in the same spirit in which you have revised it up to now. It seems to me that you have strengthened it in just the spots where it needs to be strengthened. As soon as I have your version complete, I will forward it to Doubleday Doran for their final reading. In regard to the dream, I think it should be left in. Meantime, I am very grateful to you, and will add this to the long store of favors which you have extended tome. As ever, affectionately, T.D.

I did a considerable amount of rewriting of parts of The Bulwark, some of which remained in the completed book. I still feel that if Dreiser had not been so tired and really ill before he reached the end, it would have been a better and more representative book. I could sense the strain he was working under; he seemed to be desperately anxious to finish it, as if he were running a race against time. There were only a few short letters and several telegrams dealing with my progress on the work. Finally it was finished and on September 1, 1945, he wrote me:

Dear Louise: Thanks so much for your excellently edited version of The Bulwark. You have eliminated quite a number of things that should have been eliminated in the first place, and now the story moves faster and is easier and more entertaining to read. Plainly you have not lost any of your

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editorial art since An American Tragedy. I have already sent it off to Doubleday Doran, where it will be set in galleys and published, 1 understand, in February or early March. Meantime I am enclosing my check for five hundred dollars. If I should make any money on it, I will send you an additional check for a present. As ever, you have my unchanging admiration and affection. Sincerely, T.D.

T h e letter I referred to a few pages back as being a most significant one I am putting in here to close my book. I feel it is a most fitting place in the whole pattern of our relationship. T h e r e was also something fatefully significant in the way the letter reached me. I might so easily never have received it. T o begin with, the street address on the envelope, in Dreiser's own handwriting, was incorrect, indicative, perhaps, of his mental condition at the time. However, the letter was delivered because someone also named Louise Campbell lived there. She opened and read the letter, was understandably amazed and puzzled by its contents, but decided there was nothing she could do about it. Why she didn't return it to the sender, whose name and address were plainly written on the back of the envelope, I do not know. Anyway, she held it for a week or more, all the while regretting that the person for whom it was intended would never read the moving message it contained. She had only a vague knowledge of Dreiser as a writer, merely knowing his name. Nevertheless, that was enough to bring to her mind eventually the fact that she had an acquaintance who was a librarian

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and might naturally be interested in such a letter. Here is where the h a n d of fate took hold, because the librarian happened to be a friend of mine and lost no time in passing it along to me. T h e letter speaks for itself. T o me it presaged the approaching end of our relationship. I sensed an aura of finality about it, so that I was almost prepared for the news of his death, which came to me in a telegram from Helen only a few months later.

May 1, 1945

Dear Louise: Forgive me for the long silence. I've been feeling pretty much down physically since I wrote you and worse sklaving over the book. However, it's done—actually completed! 11 and with your permission I'll be sending it on to you for your reading and editing in about a week. It will come parcel post and registered and I'll be deeply grateful if you will give it the once over and indicate what if anything you feel might come out. It's about as long as an American Tragedy and about as tragic—not quite— I think, but nearly so. Anyhow you can tell me as to that and other things, for I know how good an editor you are. Incidentally, you must name your editorial price and make it liberal to yourself. As for me, truly I've sklaved over it and I'll be glad to be rid of it and in your turn maybe you will be too. Today is May Day, dear, and I hope you find some way of enjoying it. As for me I have one more week to go on the book and so no May Day for me, for I'll be thinking of you and being glad that you're still on earth. Ours has

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been such a long and comforting friendship and one for which I've always been grateful. So with love and all good wishes I close and be thinking of you as you know. T.D.

A f t e r his death there was work on The Stoic, which he had practically completed, b u t I did that at Helen's request. T h e above letter I felt was his final farewell to me.