Letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, June 24, 1944

              ffry  ^^^  Duluth June 24 — Saturday  The longest day of the year is -* or are, since that day Is  anywhere from June 19-23, incl, — over, and that always gives  me a brief sentimental sadness, to see the days ""draw lnM  again*  Two really noble trips (after work-hours) on T^uirsday &  Friday, First — about Victor Rldder, He is the father of  Bob, of whom I have written* With two brothers, he publishes the Staats-Zeitung and Journal of Commerce, in NYC —  where he lives, with summers in Duluth, the only two papers  in St, Paul, the ditto in* Duluth, and a paper in Grand Forks,  i« Dak/ Important* Thohgh an ardent Republican, he once,  at a difficult time, took oveU the running of the whole WPA  In NYCity,  Of a good ancestral German family he Is, though  apparently anti-Hitler with several nephews and I think a son  in the service, now being attacked by your bearded and auto-  papal (new word just coined) friend Rex Stout as being practically & German agent, which Is pretty vicious nonsense*  (Whether Rex's running mate Kip Fadiman is also in on this  stink, I don't know — I*m afraid so®)  Victor stays out here for the summer with Bob, pretty modestly, except for blowing himself to chauffeur, which is necessary, for he is lame, walks with elaborate pair of metal  crutch things, after having had tuberculosis twice and cancer  once and having, for latter, breast almost cut away. But he  doesn't show it at all; his face — he must be 55-60 - is  curiously young and eager, with a soft touch of Peter Loree  (when playing Nlze People, not Villains), of some European  strangeness about it. He knows Europe bassackwards, but so  does he such assorted sections of America as the Catskllls,  Vermont, Colorado, A really clever man — and, like myself  (that other clever man, you know — the one you met) he is  a Collector of Viewsj goes up, like me, to a hillscape or an  ocean, takes a delicate pinch, smells it, and says, ""Johannis-  berger Cabinet, 191? — aery fine brand,M  When I first met him, I thought him dictatorial, a man who,  like Dorothy and Geo Jean Nathan, never listens to anybody  else. But I have come to like him immensely, and so will you,  when you meet him here, J- -   .      >  And he has become my chief chess-mate — he plays maybe a  little better than Herb Mayes^ not quite so well as old  Frank Crassweller,,...Well,/Thursday, he drives me out behind this rim of hills to/some complete charming, un-Northern-  !MinnesotaAto the NE — pastures and little hills, with little  upland meadows, and between and beyond the hills, the great  arc of ocean that Is Lake Superior, We might have been in  Devonshire,,...So we go to the Northland Country Club, and  play chess, and look out at the oldish (but many of them  were oldish at 28) women chattering in pretty lounge, and  have dinner with kolossal roast beef»..,amd play chess,,.,  and I get licked three several games,  (You still have not  explained, whether done on boards or in the mind, wMether  in yr three-dimensional chess you move on one board after  another, through the eight, or play eight players at once,  or WHAT — or don't your bright young innovators know?)