box of extra quality paper untouched and the keyboard
leering at me, and not a line, not a word, have I written! The
hideous period of beginning to begin! I imagine it's like the tense
moment in a football game, just before the kickoff, only those lucky
youths are pushed and prodded into action, willynilly. If only a
whistle would blow or a pistol crack for me!

I have come to realize that the most dangerous thing for a writer to
have is uninterrupted leisure. _Now_ I know how Harriet Beecher
Stowe could write _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ with poverty and sickness
and a debilitating climate and seven children. So could I. It's the
awful quiet of this orderly room, the jeering taunt of Washington
Square, looking in at my window to say, "What! here you are in my
throbbing, thrilling midst at last, having left your sylvan home
because it ceased to nourish you,--and you have nothing to say?"

I've simulated a mad business. I've answered every letter--some that
I've owed for years; I've put my bureau and chiffonier and closet in
sickening order; I've mended every scrap of clothing I possess,
reinforced all my buttons and run in miles of ribbon; I've visited
the sick and even been to the dentist. I really ought to die just
before I start a new piece of work. At no other time is my house of
life in such shining order.

Sally, didn't I say something nitwitted about music? Now, indeed, I
pour ashes on my head. Lucky you, who need only sit down and spill
out your soul in something thoughtfully arranged for that very
purpose by Mr. Chopin or Mr. Tschaikovsky! While I--"out of senseless
nothing to evoke"--I wish I did something definite and tangible like
plain sewing! If I don't start soon I'll sell this think-mobile for
junk and put out a sign--"Mending and Washing and Going Out by the
Day Taken in Here."

Just now the painted ship upon the painted ocean is a bee-hive of
activity compared to me.

JANE.

_Monday Noon._

SARAH,

Sh-h...! I'm off!

J.

_Wednesday, more than midnight._

DEAREST S.,

I'm a dying woman but my sketch is done! I've lived on board the
typewriter since twelve o'clock on Monday, coming briefly ashore for
a snatch of food or sleep, but it's done and I adore it! (Says the
author, modestly.) The heavenly mad haste of the actual doing make