"Hysteria Night hi the Sophomore Dormitory"       13

him into the sphinx he became shortly thereafter, writing like a
driven man but in solitude, with no new play seeing the boards
for a decade and more, until The Iceman Cometh in 1946.

The Random House papers reveal, during the rest of the fateful
1934, regular exchanges of mail, on literary affairs but as much
on business matters, with O'Neill characteristically quick to harry
on contractual details, like royalties, or author's free copies. A bit
of his own tight-fisted father shows in this? Though too, these
were Depression days even for a genius. The urbane Mr. Cerf al¬
ways replied diplomatically, whether to Sea Island, or to Eugene
(with warm wishes always to Carlotta) in their summer retreat
from southern coastal heat, upstate in New York's Adirondacks.
In August, O'Neill is writing from "Camp Wurzburg, Big Wolf
Lake, Tupper Lake Junction" where snapshots of a tanned, ath¬
letic swimmer, also found in the Random House collection, were
taken. It seems likely that these, like the exchange of Feb. 26-28
above, is unpublished material.

There is, in this 1934 year of ironies for O'NeiU, a further rub,
in the last exchange to be mentioned here. On Oct. 29, again to
Georgia, "Bennett" sent off this Postal Telegraph query, "Ru.mor
All Around Town That You Have Won Nobel Prize Won¬
derful If True Have You Heard Anything About It." In fact,
the rumor had anticipated the actual award by two years. O'Neill
cabled back at once, "Know Nothing About It Hope It Isnt
True Have Trouble Enough." Even if he said this last in tongue-
in-cheek fashion, the choice of language underlines for us the un¬
happy fact that for Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, "Trouble" was
another middle name.