ted in the assembly and
sent to Congress, fat-paunched bundles of corruption, devoid of "both
ideas and ideals" as the debaters used to say. Even forty years ago we
had good men in politics, but we, we are brought up to pile up a million
and "show what we are made of." Sometimes I wish I'd been an Englishman;
American life is so damned dumb and stupid and healthy.

Since poor Beatrice died I'll probably have a little money, but very
darn little. I can forgive mother almost everything except the fact that
in a sudden burst of religiosity toward the end, she left half of what
remained to be spent in stained-glass windows and seminary endowments.
Mr. Barton, my lawyer, writes me that my thousands are mostly in street
railways and that the said Street R.R. s are losing money because of the
five-cent fares. Imagine a salary list that gives $350 a month to a man
that can't read and write!--yet I believe in it, even though I've
seen what was once a sizable fortune melt away between speculation,
extravagance, the democratic administration, and the income tax--modern,
that's me all over, Mabel.

At any rate we'll have really knock-out rooms--you can get a job on some
fashion magazine, and Alec can go into the Zinc Company or whatever it
is that his people own--he's looking over my shoulder and he says it's
a brass company, but I don't think it matters much, do you? There's
probably as much corruption in zinc-made money as brass-made money. As
for the well-known Amory, he would write immortal literature if he were
sure enough about anything to risk telling any one else about it.
There is no more dangerous gift to posterity than a few cleverly turned
platitudes.

Tom, why don't you become a Catholic? Of course to be a good one you'd
have to give up those violent intrigues you used to tell me about,
but you'd write better poetry if you were linked up to tall golden
candlesticks and long, even chants, and even if the American priests are
rather burgeois, as Beatrice used to say, still you need only go to the
sporty churches, and I'll introduce you to Monsignor Darcy who really is
a wonder.

Kerry's death was a blow, so was Jesse's to a certain extent. And I have
a great curiosity to know what queer corner of the world has swallowed
Burne. Do you suppose he's in prison under some false name? I confess
that the war instead of making me orthodox, which is the correct
reaction, has made me a passionate agnostic. The Catholic Church