Letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, August 7, 1943

              m  $■**-/  ^<XV\i  GHHTEeHQ fflHRffiOOT  8221  SUNSET BOULEVARD  HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES .CALIFORNIA  Saturday, August 7  Most? darlingl  to  Four weeks from today I start for -- oh, for you,  of course.  I suppose (though now you can't be certain  what trains you'll get) that means I'll arrive in NY on  Tuesday, Sept. 7, Tafi* a month from today. Anyway,. in strict  conformity with your darling letter Just reed, In ar literal  and possibly humorless obedience, I have just written down  in my lil red engagement book, under Sept 7 ""Algonq: gray  sut, blue & wh stripe shirt."" I don't, you notice, include  you in the memo, because by now, gay fickle thing that you  are, flitting from manuscript to bowling alley like a pink  bee, exactly in fact like,the picture of Mrs. Bing Crosby,  you will have forgotten having given me that order.  Dear sweet, I must warn you that as your letters become more  and more brilliant, as they very decidedly do become, I am  only the more in love with you, and this being my free Saturday, intended t»y) rest me  after the almost crushing 18 or  20 hoursof work and anecdote-telling that I have put in  ithis past week with Dore, I shall probably sit here mmpam  rapturously writing to you from now till 7J30, when I go  dinner with Harry Maule, out here for a week to see his  aged and ailing mother*...And if that isn't a damn curious  paragraph: 1/3 furious and shameless love-making and 1/3  a bulletin of facts and 1/3 comment, then I don't know a  cur'ous paragraph'.  You needn't have shed a quiet tear over my not taking your  photographs. I wanted them to be fresh when I see them  again.  I long to see them now, and ifo  see the new ones —  but don't send them here unless you have them ready by  AugustH'21st — I don't want to risk not getting them.....  And I want one of you in smart strict suit as well as in  fllmsk of chiffon and rose....And said August 21 is Edith  Haggard's;birthday — you might send her a sunflower.  I'm becoming violent with desire to see your new apartment.  Remember your promise to have it quite done by the time I  MMM get back so youA""spend every single minute with me,""  and those are your own words and the sweetest you ever  pentyped.  I find sadly that Helen Macy now also considers the Sauk  Centre joke a very fine new one, to be used at least once  every time I see them.  I get so godam bored by that — and  then I remember how generous George is, about calling up,  about books, about constantly chauffing me here — for here,