Spent two weeks in New York getting the winter's work set. Promised the magazine two stories before Christmas. Wants to lengthen the Swedish story and merge it with the other to make a two-part pastoral. British edition of Alexander looks much better than the American. Has been reading Balzac and the disgusting Idiot by Dostoevsky. Thought the first two parts of Creative Evolution [ Bergson ] were splendid. Everyone seems to be celebrating "The Bohemian Girl" except a reader who thought it immoral. W. S. C. [Stout #242]
Will go to New York about mid-January by way of Washington. Working well here. Won't get to Boston before late winter. The new book great fun but awfully long! Please return The Idiot [ Dostoevsky ], if it was she to whom she lent it. Is reading The Awkward Age [ James ] with Isabelle. W. S. C. [Stout #290]
P.S.: How can he like Elizabeth Bowen's Look at All Those Roses? All calculation, no caring. Like an operating room. Dostoevsky may be pathological, but has intense feeling for his characters. But Bowen only plays tricks with her characters, and doesn't have very good technique either. [Stout #1787]
