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just naturally ashamed of my discourtesy in leaving that dandy? last letter of yours so so long unanswered. Hurried as it is, however, this letter ought not to get away from me without this one: when I read the Ed Geers passage ("My God, what a man!" etc.) I wondered if you weren't also thinking of and in a way describing your ideal of a writer. The lack of flourish and effect and theatricalism, the great results without seeming effort, the absorption in the job to the neglect of applause, the scorn of "show" and cleverness- all of these traits for which you were lauding Geers were the very traits which you were manifesting in the writing of that very passage itself. This quality, which I suppose is a part of your love of craftsmanship, your love and respect for your tools and materials, is the thing I like in your writing- secondary to that second-sight imagination which enables you to make every one of your characters seem like people you have really known. Of course, many of them you have known and that is even bigger- to have got at what is really inside