Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/148



he's 70, he begins to be a sole survivor, with no friends left to lose.

''You will find the Tree book amusing as you go on with it. Four-fifths of it represent the life of a dead fairy told by living fairies, one wittier and more whimsical than the others. I confess to tittering over Viola's "screwing their screws to the sticking-point" and "peacocks held in the leash." And that's a glorious portrait of Julius, though, when I knew him, he was more mature and more majestic''

On 11. 10. 20 he breaks into verse:

''My very dear Stephen McKenna,    I'm reading your Lilith again,   With much intellectual pleasure     And some little physical pain. This jingle shaped itself within my head As I stepped to my table from my bed.  It's that physical pain I'm after for the present. The book hurts my eyes''

''I've had a little petty cash from the Couperus books. It's been amusing to see that Small Souls in a given six months produces 15 times as much in America as in this benighted country''

Though he commonly kept his religion and politics to himself, Teixeira's sympathy with