1930, Nov 2 - HMK to Rena Harrell

Sunday afternoon,

November 2, 1930

My dear R.H.,

Thanks for the "Sceptre" which is the better for its form and for what you have to say about books but is as you say "young."  I like Inez Dellinger's verse "Seasonal" - can't see how any girl born and living in Japan can describe a Japanese mountain as a "Hogback" - could shake Margaret Jones for missing her mark in what should have been a fine bit.  In "Appeal" was amused by a condescension to Virgil.  Now what is wrong with Ariel McNinch for saying green is an ugly color, and will not write to you again until you have read "The Wind Bloweth."  If I could write one book like that I should think that I had not lived in vain.  I think most modern musicians are either mad or fakers and hope Dr. Ninnis will be here on the 4th of January when Margaret Volavy gives her piano recital.  Thanks for the name.  I'll use it sometime on a story and see what becomes of it.  I'm not the least Gaelic.  I'm glad you liked Komroff's Coronet.  He's a strange duck, but nice.  If I had a garden I should have every color known to man and gods and a few more including blue and even suspected lavendar.  

I have some ten stories out with Editors, among them "The Power and Peril of Color," which your friend's photoplay will have in January so you can see some of my theories on the subject.  On a rainy day a few weeks ago I went up to Quincy, Mass. and gave my color lecture before 1600 high school students.  They ate it up, surprisingly, and I dare say there are some new experiments in color in sweaters, etc.  I should judge you liked blue, do you? 

I haven't been doing much.  Went to a couple of terrible shows.  They grow worse.  H.B. has rushed off from Yazoo City and you can tell your faculty member that he is a person to be proud of.  Norma comes from Jackson and is as clever and vivacious as H.B. is wise and silent.  My agent sent "Lilies of Jade" to "The Journal" and they said they had not hated to return a story so much for a long time but that it was a bit too thin for them.  It was a mistake for if one had not read "The Smile of Buddha" it would seem thin.  He has sent it to someone else again but I wrote it for "The Review" and will get it to them soon.  Thanks and now get busy and read that book so you can write me soon again.

Faithfully,

HMK

   

1931, Sept. 11: HMK to RH -- Personal Banter

London Terrace
In Old Chelsea

September Eleventh. [1931]

My dear R.H. [Rena Harrell],

I do not smoke a pipe. I never saw Ruby Farrel in my life and I never worked with Jim Kirkwood and so there goes your long arm of circumstance. Women are strange creatures and seem ready always to change a thousand charming possibilities for one grim fact or the recording page of some family Bible. I hope you never come knocking at my door or if you do that you will only find Peter who will mystify you even more and tell you nothing. I have not told you what happened when I was baptized but I will say that I squirmed about and got water in my ear for my pains even though what was going on did concern me to some extent. That curiosity cost me years of pain and the loss of hearing in my left ear so you see what become of being curious. As for the names tacked onto an innocent and defenseless child, I do not tell them to you for they open the way by their significance to a world of questions that would be painful to me in that they recall a wicked injustice to my sainted Mother who suffered from the stupidity of the pride of blood that has made me hate the name. And that is that.

What a lovely summer you must have had and how lovely your little Japanese friend must have been. Its true about their grace. I felt when I was in Japan altho I knew a little of the usage of polite society like the proverbial bull let loose in a shop filled with satsuma and cloisonne. I must tell you sometime about a house in which I was a guest there and how utterly conceited we are in thinking that we represent all that there is of culture and civilization and the fine thing of life. Have you read "The Book of Tea?" If not do so.

The Griffith picture is a sad thing I'm afraid and your young friend will find much to criticize. I hate to think that D.W. is dated but he is and definitely and there were signs of it in Abraham Lincoln. But this thing is so banal, so sentimental and East Lynnish that its pathetic. But not so pathetic as if you were to succumb and get yourself one of these frightful Eugenie hats or as my friend Madame Volavy calls them "eugenic" hats. And don't speak of shaggy little yellow and bronze chrysanthemums. I adore them and they come at the time of year I love the most, brave little things freezing with smiles upon their faces, laughing in the face of death.

And I don't even smoke cigars or cigarettes, what do you think of that? And all my life I've known only the very wickedest kind of people and if you must know it I'm six feet high and my hair is getting quite white altho my youngest sister beat me to it at 28. And that again is that.

Faithfully,
H.M.K.

1931, Sept. 17: HMK to RH -- Death of Eldest Brother F.C.

Thursday, September 17th, 1931

My dear R.H.

What mockery the Fates make of those who defy them and what a task it is to be defiant still. On Sunday I was lying in the grass under a mighty elm looking up at a cloudless sky so near that I might almost have touched it and listening to Mme. Volavy playing Glück. It was a thing, so serene, so spiritual, so calm yet at that moment unknown to me they were killing my eldest brother with an amputation. He did not die until today although I have been praying constantly since I heard what they had done to him that he might. For he was a great lover of trees and rivers and lakes and lived with a fishing rod ever at hand and I could not bear to think of him sitting there with his dogs, just waiting. I am not grieving for him though I am unutterably sad for I know that the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God and that my brother is in peace and that at least he has become a part of all things he loved the most, the sun and the wind on the water, soft rain and gray clouds, little flowers that hide in the woods, the good earth. But I wonder at the design of which he was a part, this good and simple man who loved his fellow men and was very loved by children and by dogs and so of course very much beloved of God and what purpose he fulfilled in this plan so far wider than men may dream of. Do not be sorry for me and never for him for he has come into a glorious kingdom far from this stupid dream which we so surely think is all there is of life. The eldest and I the youngest and yet he seemed ever younger than I myself have ever been. Write when you feel in the mood and not because of this.

Faithfully,
HMK

[Note: The brother of HMK is my great-grandfather F.C., Frederick Christian Schmidt, 72 y/o, who died this day after a leg amputation due to gangrene possibly associated with stomach cancer. FC was HMK's eldest brother and some 16-17 years older than HMK.]