Well—no sooner had my epistle gone out of the house that the expressman brought your welcome packet—the "Geography" & the "Lady". Have thumbed through the pages of the former, & it looks as though it promises an even rarer feast than the kindred volumes I have recently read. Old Monty's scholarship certainly is profound to the very last degree. I shall be interested to see how far the "Lady" comes toward justifying the intemperate admiration of Comte d'Erlette & Jehvish-Ei.
"Dark Chamber" & cuttings will go on the road as soon as I get down town. The weather has slightly moderated, so that I may make it today or tomorrow.
This card shews a finely panelled room taken from an old house at the front of the hill not so very far from here. I never saw it in its original site, but have visited it in its present Brooklyn habitat. Another room from the same house is in a museum in Minneapolis, Minn—young Melmoth's home territory. The old brick house, stripped of its fine woodwork, still stands—in a neighbourhood of slowly decaying commercialism.
Yrs with the blessing of Nefren-Ka-Ech-Pi-El
Glad to see the item about Crowley. What a queer duck! He is the original of Clinton in Wakefield's "They Return at Evening."
Clark Ashton Smith, Esq.,
Box 385,
Auburn,
California
