Dear Eugene，
It was good to get your letter. I would have written you， only you said in your wire you were writing， so I waited to learn all the details of your good news. And it sure is good news！ But， as I wired you， I was by no means astonished， or anything like that， that you had done so nobly， for your somber premonitions had not impressed me as being liable to coincide with the facts when they appeared. I know such dreary forebodings too damned well. They are the familiar spirits of this branch of the O'Neills—one of the baneful heritages you get from me， I'm afraid. I've been enjoying more than my usual share of them lately， too， what with this Cycle of plays stretching out into a future of seemingly endless hard labor. It looks now as if there would have to be still another play—a ninth which will carry me back to 1770 as a starter.