Read this criticism. It takes the bisquito. But why a half-brick at me? They do hate me, those young men. The Sat. Review said my story [The Daughters of the Late Colonel] was “a dismal transcript of inefficiency.” What a bother! I suppose that, living alone as I do, I get all out of touch and what seems to me even lively is ghostly glee…

I like these two torn pages written at such a terrific lick—funny long y's and g's tearing along like fishes in a river when you are wading.

I was not honest about “not facing facts.” Yes, I do believe one ought to face facts. If you don't, they get behind you and may become terrors, nightmares, giants, horrors. As long as one faces them one is top-dog. The trouble is not to steel oneself—to face them calmly, easily—to have the habit of facing them. I say this because I think nearly all my falsity has come from not facing facts as I should have done, and it's only now that I am beginning to learn to face them.