4                                 John E. Unterecker

were to drive Crane to a death-leap from the Orizaba in the
last months of his thirty-second year, and we can see as well
the roots of those other forces that drove him to the composi¬
tion of some of the finest poetry of the century. We can also
see, however, in letter after letter, a much more "normal" man
than the good anecdotes \\ould suggest, a man generous to a
fault, affectionate, and cheerful in the face of really dreadful
financial and emotional problems.

This side of Crane's nature is \ery nicely demonstrated by a
happ\- lettter to his mother and grandmother that he wrote
toward the end of October, 1924. Until now published only in
part, it is particularly interesting because Crane had enclosed
with it an occasional poem, one of the few by him to have
survi\'ed. This one, written as a going-to-Europe message for
his Aunt Zcll, demonstrates something of the facility in light
verse that Crane possessed—a facility that show s up also in his
unpublished (and in his own time unpublishable) limericks. Be¬
neath the poem's surface, however, the careful reader can ob¬
serve the remarkable metrical dexterity that is e\'ident in all
of Crane's finest work.

Both letter and poem were composed during \\ hat for Crane
was a very good time. Actively working on tlie four central
lyrics in the "Voyages" set, he was also busily sketching details
for the organizational plan of The Bridge. Here good fortune
had played into his hands, for he had recently been able to
mo\e into a back room at 110 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn,
a room in which John Augustus Roebling, the designer of the
Brooklyn Bridge, had also once lived. Watching the hour by
hour clianges in the harbor scene. Crane, like Roebling, re¬
sponded to a seascape dominated by the great sweep of bridge
cables. Literalh- letting the scener\- soak into his consciousness,
he described the view to everyone to whom he wrote. For more
than si.x montlis, his letters are filled with it. Gradually his feel¬
ings seem to settle into an emotional syntliesis—a form almost as