We Walk The Plank With Strangers.

The Artist's Life Nourishes Itself On The Particular, The Concrete.

I Felt Overstuffed And Dull And Disappointed, The Way I Always Do The Day After Christmas, As If Whatever It Was The Pine Boughs And The Candles And The Silver And Gilt-ribboned Presents And The Birch-log Fires And The Christmas Turkey And The Carols At The Piano Promised Never Came To Pass.

I Hadn't, At The Last Moment, Felt Like Washing Off The Two Diagonal Lines Of Dried Blood That Marked My Cheeks. They Seemed Touching, And Rather Spectacular, And I Thought I Would Carry Them Around With Me, Like The Relic Of A Dead Lover, Till They Wore Off Of Their Own Accord.

England Offers New Comforts. I Could Write A Novel There.

I Find That In A Novel I Can Get More Of Life, Perhaps Not Such Intense Life, But Certainly More Of Life Than In Poetry.