radicals, so-called liberals, and Communists are only that way, not through any a priori , bookish idealism, but because they were broke once, or out in the rain, and had to turn to some politico-economic father confessor. Which from my point of view is all the more reason for bucking life as you see it—artistically speaking, that is—or accepting it, or making the most of it— writing about it faithfully , in the long run, and not getting mixed up with the soothsayers. I suppose that if you really catch hell from life—as an untouchable, say, or a sharecropper—your artistic instincts wither, and you become political. That’s natural enough. But Americans are political enough as it is. We’ve got nearly everything, and we still bitch about this and that at every turn.
Which is all by way of saying that though I somehow resent not being able to settle down in a cozy Greenwich Village apartment at $40 a month, I am still glad to be in Brooklyn in a clean and decent place; and althoughthere are no doubt better places in New York I’m not going to get angry and political about it and start joining the Communist party.
Actually I hope I’m not giving the impression that I’m complaining, because this is a pretty nice place by anyone’s standards. It’s in an old weatherbeaten house overlooking Prospect Park. There are plenty of trees around, plenty of grass, and big windows to look at the grass through. I’m in an apartment on the ground floor—two rooms, bath, kitchen, all furnished, $70 a month—the rent being impossible were it not for the fact that I am—or will be in June—sharing the apartment with Bob Loomis of Duke, who is coming to N.Y. to get a job. Split, the rent will be $9 a week, utilities included, which isn’t bad. The apartment is owned by a nice, easygoing woman who seems anxious to please. She’s educated, runs a school for backward children down the block.
I’ve seen Haydn, and I’m ready to go; in fact, I’m more than ready. I’ve already started the New Novel.
For some reason, although I’m not exactly ecstatic about the world and life in general, I’m very happy. I don’t know why that should be, as I’ve always thought of myself as an exceptionally melancholy person. Maybe the melancholy was merely adolescent, and maybe, though I can’t really sense it, I’m growing up, or reaching an “adjustment,” as the psychologists say. Whatever it is, it’s nice.
It’s not love—love of a girl, that is, because I haven’t found her yet. It’s not the excitement of being in New York, because I’ve been in New York before and now know how to take with a grain of salt its synthetic stimuli (though I still love New York). Actually I don’t know what it is. For the past four or five days I’ve been alone, not seeing anyone or talking to anyone I know except over the phone. Ordinarily this aloneness would have made me miserable, utterly wretched. But I haven’t minded it at all. I haven’t drunk hardly anything—a few beers, that’s all. And yet I’ve been quite content, suffused with a sort of pleasant well-being that demanded really nothing strenuous of myself, or of anyone else.
Perhaps it’s merely that I’ve gained a measure of Emerson’s self-reliance. Perhaps it’s just that, for some reason I can’t put my finger on, I feel surer of myself than I ever have before—more confident of my worth and my ultimate success, and less fearful of failure. I used to like to drink by myself. I still do occasionally, but gradually I’ve found myself stopping after the third beer, because there seems to be none of that fake pleasure in it anymore.
Maybe—again for some reason I haven’t quite been able to analyze—I’m finding that life excites me, appeals to me in a way I’ve never felt before. I still have awful moments of despair, and I guess I always will, but they don’t seem to be as overpowering as in the past. I don’t take so much pleasure in my despondency
Which is all by way of saying that though I somehow resent not being able to settle down in a cozy Greenwich Village apartment at $40 a month, I am still glad to be in Brooklyn in a clean and decent place; and althoughthere are no doubt better places in New York I’m not going to get angry and political about it and start joining the Communist party.
Actually I hope I’m not giving the impression that I’m complaining, because this is a pretty nice place by anyone’s standards. It’s in an old weatherbeaten house overlooking Prospect Park. There are plenty of trees around, plenty of grass, and big windows to look at the grass through. I’m in an apartment on the ground floor—two rooms, bath, kitchen, all furnished, $70 a month—the rent being impossible were it not for the fact that I am—or will be in June—sharing the apartment with Bob Loomis of Duke, who is coming to N.Y. to get a job. Split, the rent will be $9 a week, utilities included, which isn’t bad. The apartment is owned by a nice, easygoing woman who seems anxious to please. She’s educated, runs a school for backward children down the block.
I’ve seen Haydn, and I’m ready to go; in fact, I’m more than ready. I’ve already started the New Novel.
For some reason, although I’m not exactly ecstatic about the world and life in general, I’m very happy. I don’t know why that should be, as I’ve always thought of myself as an exceptionally melancholy person. Maybe the melancholy was merely adolescent, and maybe, though I can’t really sense it, I’m growing up, or reaching an “adjustment,” as the psychologists say. Whatever it is, it’s nice.
It’s not love—love of a girl, that is, because I haven’t found her yet. It’s not the excitement of being in New York, because I’ve been in New York before and now know how to take with a grain of salt its synthetic stimuli (though I still love New York). Actually I don’t know what it is. For the past four or five days I’ve been alone, not seeing anyone or talking to anyone I know except over the phone. Ordinarily this aloneness would have made me miserable, utterly wretched. But I haven’t minded it at all. I haven’t drunk hardly anything—a few beers, that’s all. And yet I’ve been quite content, suffused with a sort of pleasant well-being that demanded really nothing strenuous of myself, or of anyone else.
Perhaps it’s merely that I’ve gained a measure of Emerson’s self-reliance. Perhaps it’s just that, for some reason I can’t put my finger on, I feel surer of myself than I ever have before—more confident of my worth and my ultimate success, and less fearful of failure. I used to like to drink by myself. I still do occasionally, but gradually I’ve found myself stopping after the third beer, because there seems to be none of that fake pleasure in it anymore.
Maybe—again for some reason I haven’t quite been able to analyze—I’m finding that life excites me, appeals to me in a way I’ve never felt before. I still have awful moments of despair, and I guess I always will, but they don’t seem to be as overpowering as in the past. I don’t take so much pleasure in my despondency
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