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I'm interested in what you say of Wyndham L. I've heard so very very much about him from Anne Rice and Violet Schiff. Yes, I admire his line tremendously. It's beautifully obedient to his wishes. But it's queer I feel that as an artist in spite of his passions and his views and all that he lacks a real centre. I'll tell you what I mean. It sounds personal but we can't help that, we can only speak of what we have learnt. It seems to me that what one aims at is to work with one's mind and one's soul together. By soul I mean that ‘thing’ that makes the mind really important. I always picture it like this. My mind is a very complicated, capable instrument. But the interior is dark. It can work in the dark and throw off all kinds of things. But behind that instrument like a very steady gentle light is the soul. And it's only when the soul irradiates the mind that what one does matters… What I aim at is that state of mind when I feel my soul and my mind are one. It's awfully, terribly difficult to get at. Only solitude will do it for me. But I feel Wyndham Lewis would be inclined to call the soul tiddley-om-pom. It's a mystery, anyway. One aims at perfection—knows one will never achieve it and goes on aiming as though one knew the exact contrary.

By the way, do you know Marquet's work well? I have a book of reproductions I will show you. He's not a very great painter but he's most awfully good sometimes. What a bore! As I write about him he suddenly seems very small beer. And the reproduction of a picture by le Nan (in the Louvre), Repas de Paysans, which is four-pinned on my wall is miles and miles better than all Marquet's kind of thing.