d appeal to me, but last night I was in the mood
especially to understand and sympathise with Hedda, to be Hedda, in
fact. For a few hours I was as brave and wonderful in thought and
feeling as she. It was the reaction from my stupid days in hunting a
job. Her disgust with everything, her search for something new and
different, the fascination she felt for saying and doing dangerous and
reckless things--this I could understand so thoroughly! I was in a very
reckless and discontented mood, but I was able to get away from myself
and become Hedda for awhile; and this made me think of what a wonderful
thing it is, what a power Ibsen has, to produce such emotions by merely
stringing a few words together. Why, the very name Hedda, Hedda Gabler!
When Eilert says it, what does it not convey! Terry and I had a long
talk about it, and about literature in general, so the result was that I
became calm, quiet, and reflective--as I love to be, but which I can be
only very seldom. I have an almost continuous craving for something new
and strange, like Hedda. But somehow reading and thinking about her
calmed me. I can find new emotions in books, and this satisfies me for a
time, but they are never vital enough to last me long. It is only
sterile emotions we derive from literature, and so I turn again
restlessly to life.

"But when I turn to life I find for the most part people who are
unwilling to give themselves up to life, who will not follow out their
moods, or have none. When I am no longer capable of abandoning myself,
why continue? Most people seem to me to be dried up. They look as if
they never felt anything, so expressionless, so automatic are they, as
if they had been wound up to walk and talk, and eat and sleep in
precisely the same way for a certain number of years. This seems to be
the American type. I suppose you have read of the Caruso affair--how he
kissed a woman in Central Park, or wanted to, and the howl it made? The
way they all jumped on him, in the name of morality! And you remember
what happened to Gorky, when he was here? Why, these American stiffs,
what do they mean by morality? Since they are much too cold-blooded for
immortality, what do they know about it? This country is composed of
pie-eating, ice-water drinking, sour-faced business people. If one with
emotions comes to this country, he is of course immoral. If there were
no foreigners here, this country would resemble the North Pole.

"I'm glad I am not