Wolfe escaped ‘noise… tumult… too many people’

On this day in 1937: Author Thomas Wolfe writes from New York to his mother in Asheville:

“Yes, I suppose there are more modern and up-to-date places around Asheville with electric lights, new beds, etc. but I did not have time to look for them and I honestly thought that the Whitson cabin was . . . the best place that I saw. . . .

“As to your own fears of loneliness — and not liking to be alone out in the country at night — I know of no way in which you can get peace and seclusion, and not get it, at the same time. What I need desperately at the present time is to get away from the noise and tumult of New York, to get away from towns and cities and, for a few weeks at least, to get away from too many people.”