I Am Alone Here In New York,

In The Long Run Wives Are To Be Paid In A Peculiar Coin — Consideration For Their Feelings. As It Usually Turns Out This Is An Enormous, Unthinkable Inflation Few Men Will Remit, Or If They Will, Only With A Sense Of Being Overcharged.

Many People Believe Letters The Most Personal And Revealing Form Of Communication. In Them, We Expect To Find The Charmer At His Nap, Slumped, Open-mouthed, Profoundly Himself Without Thought For Appearances. Yet, This Is Not Quite True. Letters Are Above All Useful As A Means Of Expressing The Ideal Self; And No Other Method Of Communication Is Quite So Good For This Purpose. In Conversation, Those Uneasy Eyes Upon You, Those Lips Ready With An Emendation Before You Have Begun To Speak, Are A Powerful Deterrent To Unreality, Even To Hope.

Now, My Novel Begins. No, Now I Begin My Novel—and Yet I Cannot Decide Whether To Call Myself I Or She.

Mothers Born On Relief Have Their Babies On Relief. Nothingness, Truly, Seems To Be The Condition Of These New York People. They Are Nomads Going From One Rooming House To Another, Looking For A Toilet That Functions.

The Laughter Of Adults Was Always Very Different From The Laughter Of Children. The Former Indicated A Recognition Of The Familiar, But In Children It Came From The Shock Of The New.