When in doubt, when there is little choice, always vote against the incumbent. Keep the rascals rotating.

Edward Abbey
Letter to Arizona Republic
22nd October 1982

—Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast, edited by David Petersen (Milkweed Editions, 2006)

People do not vote for presidential candidates in this country; they vote against them. Thus the election is usually the butchery of a villain rather than the exaltation of a hero.

H. L. Mencken
Letter to James Cannon Jr.
22nd October 1935

—The New Mencken Letters, edited by Carl Bode (Dial Press, 1977).

I fear for the U.S. (and the rest of the world since we have too much influence) … The people (the majority) who do not bother to vote will find there is no more voting.

Martha Gellhorn
Letter to Howard Gotlieb
28th December 1994

—Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn, edited by Caroline Moorehead (Henry Holt and Company, 2006).

[W]e are living in such a drama, from day to day. Today was the blackest. I do not expect anything so bad for some time to come... The watchword is November. We have this time to get them out of office, while there are still elections.

William Maxwell
Letter to Eudora Welty
25th February 1954

—What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell, edited by Suzanne Marrs (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

In our splendid Republic, where at election time, all are ‘free and equal,’ a few Americans own the rest.

Helen Keller
Letter to an English Suffragist
15th February 1911

—Out of the Dark: Essays, Letters, and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (Doubleday, Page & Company, 1913).

It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.

Abraham Lincoln
Letter to James C. Conkling
26th August 1863

—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume VI, edited by Roy P. Basler, with Marion Dolores Pratt and Lloyd A. Dunlap (Rutgers University Press, 1953).

If they change again the men better quit and let the women take hold of it and run the elections for awhile.1

Betsey Shipman Gates
Letter to Betsey Gates Mills
7th November 1884

—Grandmother’s Letters: The Letters of Betsey Shipman Gates to Her Daughter, Betsey Gates Mills, prepared by Mary Dawes Beach (privately printed by Henry M. Dawes, Chicago, 1926).

You ask what is a Republican to do. The answer is, of course, simple—vote democratic.

E. B. White
Letter to Brooks Beck
12th June 1953

—Letters of E. B. White, collected and edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth (Harper & Row, 1976).

It seems that politics is becoming a millionaire’s club—​Romney, Scranton, Rockefeller, Kennedy—​a poor man just doesn’t have a chance these days. It is true that America is becoming more and more anti-revolutionary and anti-democratic—​but as long as Americans feel such awe and envy for wealth and power, men like Scranton have a tremendous glamour over any other person no matter how well qualified or intelligent—​the symbol of success: money dazzles everyone in America even if it is inherited.

Barbara Chase-Riboud
Letter to her Mother
12th November 1962

—I Always Knew: A Memoir (Princeton University Press, 2022).

In this country laboring men should protect themselves, with their votes. They are largely in the majority. There are a thousand laboring men where there 1s one capitalist, and in a country where the vote of every man is equal to the vote of every other man, the laboring man certainly has the power absolutely to protect himself…

The ballot is the sword and shield of the laboring man, and if he fails to protect himself, he has himself to blame.

Robert G. Ingersoll
Letter to D. W. S. Fero, Esq.
3rd November 1882

—The Letters of Robert G. Ingersoll, edited with a biographical introduction by Eva Ingersoll Wakefield (Philosophical Library, 1951).

This newsletter continues to exist thanks to the generosity of its readers. If you haven’t already, and if you’re able, please consider becoming a paying subscriber or making a donation. Or buy a book (of note). And if you can’t do any of that, please spread the word by sharing the newsletter with others. Thank you.

Every now and then, a letter stops me in my tracks and reminds me why I fell in love with them in the first place. This is a fine example, and it comes from Alexander Woollcott, the American critic whose correspondence was so often full of wit and mischief. The year was 1928, and Woollcott had lost his beloved sister, Julie, after a long and painful illness. Soon afterwards, he wrote to Julie’s close friend, Lucy, to tell her about his sister’s final months and the terrible emptiness left by her death.

Dear Lucy,

When Julie died, I had a strong impulse to jump on a train and go to you as the only person left in the world to whom I could really talk about her.

I am glad you did not see her in those agonising summer months when her sickness first took hold of her, when she was trying to walk but couldn’t, unable to speak clearly but trying to all the time, shaking so that she could hardly guide a cigarette to her lips. It was cruel business.

The experts had some elaborate explanation of the inexplicable phenomenon—a progressive degeneration of the nerve tissue which defeats medicine and eludes surgery. But the ways of the spirit are mysterious and I know that she had just invented a way of getting out of a world that was too intolerably lonely for her without her husband. You could tell that from the peace and satisfaction which settled on her when the invention worked at last, for in the final six weeks at the hospital, there was no pain or distress or trouble.

She just lay there at rest in a room that somehow began to look like her, with the yellow roses on the table and the blue silk shawl thrown across the foot of her bed. Day by day the years seemed to fall away from her, cast off like garments she no longer needed. She did not know even me, but she was pleased when it was Paul Robeson’s voice on the phonograph and pleased when the nurse would put a gardenia on the pillow beside her. If you bent close, you could hear her say “Sweet, sweet.”

The lines went out of her face, the gray out of her hair, the pain out of her eyes. Her hair, braided and tied with little blue ribbons, lay tossed upon the pillow and framed so prettily a face that was the one you saw when she first came out to Kansas City nearly forty years ago.

The Julie that was turned toward you and toward me was the same all the way through—a gentle and gracious and gallant person in the very core of her. There was nothing base in her. Julie’s chapter is ended. She was perfume, scattered now on the ground. And there is just a small company of us—you, dear Lucy, and a few others, for whom the fragrance of her lingers in the air.

The Phalanx is ghostly now. There are strangers in the little cottage, so that what Aunt Anne used to call the “Julie light” can once more be seen through the trees. But the big house is mostly dark. When I used to come home at Christmas time from school, I could see it from a great way off through the bare branches of the trees, warm lamplight shining from each of the twelve French windows that looked out across the lawn. Now only two or three windows are lighted.

So one by one the lights go out. I have had to write you about them. It is because Julie loved you with a surpassing loyalty and tenderness. The miles and the years between made no difference to her at all—none at all. I think you knew that there was always that lamp in her window for you, always that loving kindness in her heart.

Something stops me from trying to say anything of the impoverishment I feel. What a world this would be—what a morning light would shine across it—if all people were like her. I think of that and of many things and I send you her love and mine. I wish I could stand beside you at some window today and look out into the twilight and say nothing.

Aleck

Source: The Letters of Alexander Woollcott, edited by Beatrice Kaufman and Joseph Hennessey (The Viking Press, 1944).

Diaries of Note

Finally, at long last, my latest book, Diaries of Note, has arrived at Of Note HQ, and I’m now selling signed, personalised and gift-wrapped copies to anyone who would like one. Just head to my little bookshop for more information. It’s a collection of 366 remarkable diary entries from throughout history, written by all sorts of people, famous and otherwise, recording everything from extraordinary world events to the little dramas of everyday life.

One small warning: I’m based in the UK and will be sending all copies from here, so international postage can be rather expensive. Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about that. You can, of course, find cheaper copies elsewhere, without the signature, personal message or gift-wrapping. I won’t be offended.

Thanks.

In 1830, a young Hans Christian Andersen, not yet famous for his fairy tales, fell deeply in love with Riborg Voigt, the sister of his friend Christian. However, she was already engaged to another man, leaving Andersen heartbroken. Two years later, Andersen learned that Voigt believed he was still writing about her in his poetry, and that this was causing difficulties in her marriage. Andersen wrote the following letter to her brother in an effort to set the record straight.

When Andersen died 43 years later, a small pouch containing a long letter from Riborg was found on his chest. Whatever she had written, we will never know: that letter was burned by his friend, Jonas Collin.

Christmas 1832

Dear Christian,

What you told me yesterday has deeply upset me. No, that isn’t quite right. It has made me bitter.

If you write to her about this, please point out that such things appear in the work of almost every poet. Indeed, precisely the same situations can be found in the poetry of Heine and Wilhelm Müller. But perhaps she believes that those poets were writing about her, too!

A poet must write about love! Such feelings will appear in everything I write, for as long as I live. So ask her to read my poems for what they are: poetry. Or am I supposed to give up being a poet altogether?

What I love is an ideal: the memory of a girl who once showed me something more than ordinary friendship. It is that ideal I dream of, that I write about, and that will live on in my poetry. How can a sensible married woman imagine that I am writing about her? That I wish to disturb the peace of her marriage? Surely it is a kind of vanity to suppose that every word I write, every thought I have, must concern her.

As I have said, I would have to stop being a poet altogether if I were forbidden to write anything that she might imagine was about her.

I loved Riborg. But I never think of the woman she is now: Madame Bøving. I wish she would do the same with me, and see a poet where she now imagines she sees a lover.

I would despise myself if I ever tried to destroy the happiness of two people. Besides, I have too much respect for her husband, and for the way he has regarded the whole affair, to wish him to become my enemy.

So tell her about Heine and Wilhelm Müller, and ask her to see only the poet, and nothing more. That is all I am, and all I ought to be.

Yours
HCA

The original letter is held at H. C. Andersen Centret, Odense. Many thanks to Susanne Roberts.

Few people enjoyed a party quite like Dylan Thomas, and few people could write a letter quite like him, especially when he was annoyed. So imagine his disappointment when, returning to London from America in June 1953, he discovered that the city had been celebrating the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II without him. His friends had been partying for days, and Thomas, bursting with stories from his travels, arrived just as everyone was running out of steam. He was not amused.

Boat House
Laughame
Carmarthenshire
Wales

June 22 1953

Dear Oscar, Little dear Honourable Treasurer of mine, how are you?

I missed you a lot my last days, and was Lizzed away to the plane alone. I almost liked the plane-ride, though; it was stormy and dangerous, and only my iron will kept the big bird up; lightning looked wonderful through the little eyeholes in its underbelly; the bar was open all the way from Newfoundland; and the woman next to me was stonedeaf so I spoke to her all the way, more wildly and more wildly as the plane lurched on through dark and lion-thunder and the fire-water yelled through my blood, and she unheard all my delirium with a smile; and then it was London, and my iron will brought the bird down safely, with only one spine-cracking jar.

And, queasy, purple, maggoty, scalped, I weak-wormed through festoons, bunting, flags, great roses, sad spangles, paste and tinsel, the million cardboard simpers and ogrish plaster statuettes of the nincompoop queen, I crawled as early as sin in the chilly weeping morning through the city’s hushed hangover and all those miles of cock-deep orange-peel, nibbled sandwiches, broken bottles, discarded vests, vomit and condoms, lollipops, senile fish, blood lips, old towels, teeth, turds, soiled blowing newspapers by the unread mountain, all the spatter and bloody gravy and giant mousemess that go to show how a loyal and phlegmatic people enjoyed themselves like hell the day before.

And, my God, wouldn’t I have enjoyed it too! In the house where I stay in London, a party was still going on, at half-past seven in the wet, beige morning, that had started two nights before. Full of my news, of the latest American gossip from the intellectual underworld, of tall goings-on, of tiny victories and disasters, aching to gabble I found myself in a company of amiable, wrestling, maudlin, beetleskulled men, semi-men, and many kinds of women, who did not know or care I had been so far and wildly away but seemed to think I had been in the party all the whooping time. Sober, airsick, pancaked flat, I saw these intelligent old friends as a warrenfull of blockish stinkers, and sulked all morning over my warm beer as they clamoured and hiccupped, rolled rodgering down, fell gaily through windows, sang and splintered.

And in the afternoon, I stood—I was the only one who could—alone and disillusioned among the snorers and the dead. They grunted all around me, or went soughing and green to their Maker. I was close to crying there, in the chaotic middle of anticlimax. It was all too sordid. Oh how I hated these recumbent Bohemians! Slowly, I went upstairs to wash. There was a man asleep in the bath. And tears ran down my cheeks. Two creatures stretched dead in my bed. And, now, rain was boo-hooing too all over London.

Dylan

Letter reprinted from the fantastic book, Selected letters of Dylan Thomas, edited by Constantine Fitzgibbon. First published in 1965 by New Directions Publishing Corporation.

I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Charles Lyell
1st October 1861

—Darwin Correspondence Project

Can we get a Hollywood divorce and still be frightfully, frightfully good friends? I mean, hold hands in nightclubs and gaze deep into each other's pocketbooks for the photographers? Anyway, a lot of miscellaneous things have been bobbing up (including a low state of mind) and it seems a change would be very salutary. New hands, new eyes, new faces, new pocketbooks, new photographers. So, with quivering lip but chin up, I would like to pack up my pretties from all departments, including the best pieces of furniture from your offices and leave your bed and board…

Dawn Powell
Letter to her soon-to-be former literary agent, Carl Brandt
1st October 1948

—Selected Letters of Dawn Powell, 1913-1965

I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, influencing each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. The parts change and pass, or die, people and races and rocks and stars; none of them seems to me important in itself, but only the whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that the whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and that there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one’s affections outward toward this one God, rather than inward on one’s self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions—the world of spirits.

Robinson Jeffers
Letter to Sister Mary James
1st October 1934

—The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers

If you asked [the last man I worked for], he’d tell you that I’m “not very likeable, (that I) hate people, (that I) just want to be left alone, and (that I) feel too superior to mingle with the average person.” (That’s a direct quote from a memo he sent to the publisher.)

Nothing beats having good references.

Hunter S. Thompson
Job application letter to the Vancouver Sun
1st October 1958

—Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

I know, as I know the sun will rise tomorrow, that I love you unalterably. I know it would survive any passing liking I might have for anyone else (It’s all right! don’t be afraid. I don’t like anyone else!) I know now, after five years, what a difference there is between a thing with great long strong roots, all gnarled and Rackham-like, and a love which is merely an accident of the imagination, and the person one imagines one loves might just as easily have been somebody else. You see, I don’t think a love like ours often happens. Passion happens, and habit happens, but the knowledge that one is linked and welded and soldered by a mixture of passion and habit and tenderness and friendship and circumstance and memories and, above all, by the thing one calls love, which is essentially a sense of belonging, of choice, a sense of ‘He is MINE’—I don’t think that often happens.

Vita Sackville-West
Letter to Harold Nicolson
1st October 1918

—Vita and Harold: The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson

What you ought to do is write you big lazy bastard. My god it is hard for anybody to write. I never start a damn thing without knowing 200 times I can’t write—never will be able to write a line—can’t go on—can’t get started—stuff is rotten—can’t say what I mean—know there is a whole fine complete thing and all I get of it is the bacon rinds. You would write better than anybody but the minute it becomes impossible you stop. That is the time you have to go on through and then it gets easier. It always gets utterly and completely impossible.

Thank God it does—otherwise everybody would write and I would starve to death.

Ernest Hemingway
Letter to Waldo Pierce
1st Oct 1928

—The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 2

Good-bye. If you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. To be a Gringo in Mexico — ah, that is euthanasia!

Ambrose Bierce
Letter to Lora1
1st October 1913

—The Letters of Ambrose Bierce

Twenty-five years ago today, on 11th September 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the terrorist attacks on the United States. In the days that followed, countless stories emerged of strangers helping strangers amid the chaos. Some of those stories were later preserved by the September 11 Digital Archive, which collected letters, emails, photographs and first-hand accounts of that day and its aftermath. Among them was this letter of thanks.

To the Police Officer who helped me on September 11th:

You literally picked me up off the sidewalk that day.

I was on the east side of City Hall Park and after the second WTC collapse I was running from the wall of dust and flying debris when I fell. I was terrified—people were running over me and past me. You lifted me off the ground and said “run with me”. After a few blocks when I said I didn’t think I could run anymore, you said “run just a little further and then if you can’t run I’ll carry you”. You got me to a safe place and went back to help others.

I didn’t get your badge number or your name but I will never forget you. I pray that you are safe. You and your brother and sister officers are one of the great things about this city.

With love and gratitude,
Ann (the lady in the gray dress and yellow sweater)

In June 1972, Elvis Presley took over Madison Square Garden for four sold-out concerts in three days, his first full-scale live shows in New York City. More than 80,000 people saw him that weekend, and recordings of the performances would later be released as two live albums, Elvis: As Recorded at Madison Square Garden and An Afternoon in the Garden. Among the thousands who packed the arena on 10th June was Marjorie Fossa of New Jersey, a devoted fan who’d been waiting since the 1950s to see her idol in concert. Two days later, still on a high, she wrote him a letter.

June 12. 1972

Dear Elvis,

ALAS, AT LONG LAST I FINALLY SAW YOU IN CONCERT AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.

I AM NOW ON CLOUD 9,000.

I cannot eat, sleep, drive or function at all. I have been a devout fan and admirer of you since the first day you hit the scene in the fifties. I have never liked music by anyone else. I have lost lots of boyfriends through high school (only because they were all jealous of you). I have spent all of my allowance on your records. I worked three part-time jobs in school just so that I could continue buying all of your music and anything else that I could get my hands on. I was in high school through the fifties, was later married in 1960 (to a soldier no less) and believe it or not he does look a lot like you, but not nearly as handsome. I have traveled all over in hopes of seeing you someday (I never gave up). I lived in Washington, DC, Virginia, Oklahoma, and now in NJ. When I heard you were appearing at the Garden, I immediately arranged to take a day off work in order to go to the city and get as many tickets as I could. You see, all of my friends are also fans of yours. (I wouldn’t think of having any other friends of course). Needless to say our tickets for seats were all the way up to the sky, but I purchased a pair of high-powered binoculars so that I could see you as close as possible. Girls were being dragged and/or carried out by the NYC PD, the day was the most exciting day of my life (more so than my wedding day).

Incidentally, my husband accompanied me to your concert and he did not care that much for you UNTIL HE SAW YOU AT THE GARDEN and now he is a great fan also and even admitted to me that I have great taste. Before he would not allow me to play your records while he was home. I always had to wait for him to leave so I could play your music. This did not make me happy and I threatened to divorce him if he didn’t straighten out and let me have a life too.

I returned to my job today. A big surprise was waiting for me. I had worked for this crummy building contractor for one year and he did not mind my taking a day off, but the idea that I had gone to get tickets to see you. I am so furious that I hope he can’t find another secretary to replace me. But in the end result IT WAS WORTH LOSING FIFTY JOBS. I love you more than life itself and I can’t wait to see you in concert again. Keep coming to NYC. When my husband sat there and watched the Garden fill up to capacity, he decided that you had to be great for so many followers to be there admiring you and screaming and yelling.

I LOVE YOU FOR WHAT YOU ARE AND THE WAY YOU PLEASE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE THE WORLD OVER, NOT FOR WHO YOU ARE. When I was young I used to dream of being Mrs. Presley, like all other teenage girls I suppose. YOU have made the greatest impact on people and the music business, not only rock ’n’ roll, I enjoy every song that you sing. You have a magnetism like no other. I will close for now. I hope you never stop singing, you truly make this world a better place, there should be more in it like you, but there could never be another to replace you, I’ll spend my whole life through “LOVING YOU.”

Your #1 Fan

Marjorie Fossa
Montclair, New Jersey

Many thanks to Dwayne Rogers for sharing this letter from his personal collection of Elvia memorabilia.

It has never been very easy for me to live, though I am always very happy—maybe because I want so much to be happy. I like so much to live and I hate the idea of dying one day. And then I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life, I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, and to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish... You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.

Simone de Beauvoir
Letter to Nelson Algren
3rd July 1947

—Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren

Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering pulse-less lot that make up England today. They’ve got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it’s a marvel they can breed.

D. H. Lawrence
Letter to Edward Garnett
3rd July 1912

—The Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence

I sometimes imagine that as one grows older one comes to live a role which as a young person one merely “played.”

May Sarton
Letter to Louise Bogan
3rd July 1955

—May Sarton: Selected Letters

Tell me, what is the point of having an empty car park before 11.00 a.m.? To set up a car park to keep cars out until after 11.00 a.m. is asinine; to have an empty car park in a choked city is to increase the congestion; an empty space where a car should be parked is contrary to organisation and common sense. In other words, what is the point of having an empty car park? Again, if they had a large notice at the entrance of the car park which you could not miss when you went in, saying ‘no parking until after 11.00 a.m.’ this would also help the situation. As I say, it is outrageous, therefore I have no intention of paying the fine, I will not be in Court on the day requested and I shall not pay any extra fine as the result of my non-appearance. Therefore your only way out is to send me to prison. I will gladly do this and make use of the media television and newspapers to put across my point of view.

Spike Milligan
Letter to the Magistrates’ Court
3rd July 1973

—Spike Milligan: Man of Letters

May I say now at once that I will not tolerate any tinkering with the personal nomenclature. Nor with the name/word Hobbit. I will not have any more Hompen (in which I was not consulted), nor any Hobbel or what not. Elves, Dwarfs/ves, Trolls, yes: they are mere modern equivalents of the correct terms. But hobbit (and orc) are of that world, and they must stay, whether they sound Dutch or not... If you think I am being absurd, then I shall be greatly distressed; but I fear not altered in my opinions. The few people I have been able to consult, I must say, express themselves equally strongly… I am no linguist, but I do know something about nomenclature, and have specially studied it, and I am actually very angry indeed.

J.R.R. Tolkien
Letter to his publisher, Rayner Unwin
3rd July 1956

—The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

And finally… on this day in 1905, after attending a performance of Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, the relentlessly grumpy playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw wrote the following letter of complaint to The Times.

(Keep scrolling to watch this one being read for us at Letters Live by Benedict Cumberbatch.)

July 3rd 1905

Sir,

On Saturday night I went to the Opera. I wore the costume imposed on me by the regulations of the house. I fully recognise the advantage of those regulations. Evening dress is cheap, simple, durable, prevents rivalry and extravagance on the part of male leaders of fashion, annihilates class distinctions and gives men who are poor and doubtful of their social position (that is, the great majority of men) a sense of security and satisfaction that no clothes of their own choosing could confer, besides saving a whole sex the trouble of considering what they should wear on state occasions.

Now let me describe what actually happened to me at the Opera. Not only was I in evening dress by compulsion, but I voluntarily added many graces of conduct as to which the management made no stipulation whatever. I was in my seat in time for the first chord of the overture. I did not chatter during the music nor raise my voice when the Opera was too loud for normal conversation. I did not get up and go out when the statue music began. My language was fairly moderate considering the number and nature of the improvements on Mozart volunteered by Signor Caruso, and the respectful ignorance of dramatic points of the score exhibited by the conductor and stage manager — if there is such a functionary at Covent Garden. In short, my behaviour was exemplary.

At 9 o’clock (the Opera began at 8) a lady came in and sat down very conspicuously in my line of sight. She remained there until the beginning of the last act. I do not complain of her coming late and going early; on the contrary, I wish she had come later and gone earlier. For this lady, who had very black hair, had stuck over her right ear the pitiable corpse of a large white bird, which looked exactly if someone had killed it by stamping on the beast, and then nailed it to the lady’s temple, which was presumably of sufficient solidity to bear the operation. I am not, I hope, a morbidly squeamish person; but the spectacle sickened me. I presume that if I had presented myself at the doors with a dead snake round my neck, a collection of black beetles pinned to my shirtfront, and a grouse in my hair, I should have been refused admission. Why, then is a woman to be allowed to commit such a public outrage? Had the lady been refused admission, as she should have been, she would have soundly rated the tradesman who imposed the disgusting headdress on her under the false pretence that ‘the best people’ wear such things, and withdrawn her custom from him; and thus the root of the evil would be struck at; for your fashionable woman generally allows herself to be dressed according to the taste of a person who she would not let sit down in her presence. I once, in Drury Lane Theatre, sat behind a matinee hat decorated with the two wings of a seagull, artificially reddened at the joints so as to produce the illusion of being freshly plucked from a live bird. But even that lady stopped short of a whole seagull. Both ladies were evidently regarded by their neighbours as ridiculous and vulgar; but that is hardly enough when the offence is one which produces a sensation of physical sickness in persons of normal human sensibility.

I suggest to the Covent Garden authorities that, if they feel bound to protect their subscribers against the dangers of my shocking them with a blue tie, they are at least equally bound to protect me against the danger of a woman shocking me with a dead bird.

Yours truly,
G. Bernard Shaw

This newsletter continues to exist thanks to the generosity of its readers. If you haven’t already, and if you’re able, please consider becoming a paying subscriber or making a donation. Or buy a book (of note). And if you can’t do any of that, please spread the word by sharing the newsletter with others. Thank you.

I want to kiss you. I want our dream worlds to be one. I would like to see from your eyes, hear from your ears, feel with your skin, and kiss with your mouth. In order to see you from below I would like to be the shadow that is born from the soles of your feet and that lengthens along the ground upon which you walk. I want to be the water that bathes you, the light that gives you form, I wish that my substance were your substance, that your voice should come out of my throat so as to caress me from inside.

Frida Kahlo
Letter to Josep Bartolí
20th October 1946

—Translation by Hayden Herrera for Doyle New York

How any woman with a family ever put pen to paper I cannot fathom. Always the bell rings and the baker calls.

Virginia Woolf
Letter to Quentin Bell
8th June 1930

—The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. 4

Our so-called leaders speak of an “honorable” withdrawal from Vietnam, but there can be no honorable conclusion to such a dishonorable war. The only decent thing we can do now is to somehow compel those moral degenerates in the White House and Pentagon to stop their cowardly attack on Vietnam and then begin at once, as best we can, to help the survivors in that devastated land rebuild their farms, homes, villages, and cities, and reconstruct their shattered culture. If, that is, they would even be willing to accept aid from our bloody hands.

Edward Abbey
Letter to Arizona Daily Star
29th December 1972

—Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

I know what I want: I want a life with people that is almost explosive in its excitement, fierce and hard and laughing and loud and gay as all hell let loose, and the rest of the time, I want them bloody damn well not to get any place near me, I want to be alone and do my work and my thinking by myself and let them kindly not come to call.

Martha Gellhorn
Letter to Hortense Flexner
22nd September 1941

—Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn

Sources closer to you than you may realize have told me that you have been making atrocious remarks about my cat. Ordinarily, I would not have believed these rumors, but recalling the way you have talked about cats in the past, I would not put it beneath you at all. Let me tell you something. Jimmy-boy. What you say has a way of getting back to me. If I hear that you have said one more thing about my cat, I am going to invite you to a fight in which I expect to beat out of you a fat amount of your yellow and treacherous shit.

William Styron
Letter to James Jones
January 22, 1962

—Selected Letters of William Styron

Your letter came as a blessing for indeed a man is blessed in his friends; and when I think of all the honest affections given me by men much too good for me I feel bitterly ashamed of my pessimism, of my ineradicable tendency to quarrel with fate. And in the depth of Your friendship You can find words that are sweeter than balsam to the soul of the scribe; after reading your messages I think a little better of myself and thus You confer on me not a small benefit O! Friend long unseen but never forgotten.

Joseph Conrad
Letter to E. L. Sanderson
24th May 1899

—The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, Volume 2

Many think pottery a little—a minor art. But no craft is minor, for whatever creative work we take up demands the whole of us—all our brains, strength, time & even soul.

Anne Dangar
Letter to Grace Crowley
27th November 1950

—Earth, Fire, Water, Air: Anne Dangar’s Letters to Grace Crowley, 1930-1951

Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering pulse-less lot that make up England today. They’ve got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it’s a marvel they can breed.

D. H. Lawrence
Letter to Edward Garnett
3rd July 1912

—The Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence

I shall think of you not only today but for weeks and weeks and only with love. Goodbye. If you knew how brave I am at not asking to see you.

Dora Carrington
Letter to Gerald Brenan
10th June 1922

—Carrington’s Letters: Her Art, Her Loves, Her Friendships

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On this day in 1995, a year after her son, Mark, died of AIDS at the age of 31, Patsy Clarke wrote the following letter to Jesse Helms, a family friend and US senator whose hostility towards gay people and AIDS-related initiatives had made him one of the most controversial politicians in America. Helms’s heartless response, in which he suggested that Mark had been “playing Russian roulette with his sexual activity,” inspired Clarke to join forces with another grieving mother and co-found Mothers Against Jesse in Congress, a grassroots campaign dedicated to unseating him.

June 5, 1995

Senator Jesse Helms
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C.

Dear Jesse,

When my husband (and your strong friend) Harry Clarke died in a plane crash at the Asheville airport on March 9, 1987, you called me in the night. You told me of your sorrow at our loss and of what Harry had meant to you as a friend. You placed your praise for him and his principles in the Congressional Record. You sent me the flag flown over the Capitol in his memory. You did all of these things and I am grateful.

Harry and I had a son, Mark, who was almost the image of his father, though much taller. He was blessed with great charm and intelligence, and we loved him. He was gay. On March 9, 1994, exactly seven years to the day that his father died, Mark followed him—a victim of AIDS. I sat by his bed, held his dear hand and sang through that long, last night the baby song that I had sung to all our children: “Rock-a-bye and don’t you cry, rock-a-bye little Mark...”

A few days before he died, Mark said these words: “This disease is not beating me. When I draw my last breath I will have defeated this disease—and I will be free.” I watched him take his last breath and claim his freedom. He was 31.

As I write these words, I relive the most difficult time of my life. The tears will smudge this if I don’t take care. No matter, I will type it so it is legible. My reason for writing to you is not to plead for funds, although I’d like to ask your support for AIDS research; it is not to accept a lifestyle which is abhorrent to you; it is rather to ask you not to pass judgment on other human beings as “deserving what they get.” No one deserves that. AIDS is not a disgrace, it is a TRAGEDY. Nor is homosexuality a disgrace; we so-called normal people make it a tragedy because of our own lack of understanding.

Mark gave me a great gift. A quote returns to me from long-ago forensic days: “I have no lamp to light my feet save the lamp of experience.” I think Patrick Henry said it. Mark’s life and death have illuminated my own, and I am grateful for him.

So that’s what this letter is about, and I hope I have written it well. I wish you had known Mark. His life was so much more eloquent than any words I might put on paper. I ask you to share his memory with me in compassion.

Gratefully,
Patsy M. Clarke

Letter excerpted from the book, Keep Singing: Two Mothers, Two Sons, and Their Fight Against Jesse Helms.

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By June 1944, Winston Churchill had decided that directing the war from London was not enough. He wanted to witness the D-Day landings from HMS Belfast and, if possible, set foot in France soon after the troops had gone ashore. It was a risky plan, and one that alarmed those around him. In the end, the person who stopped him was King George VI. Written on this day in 1944, just days before D-Day, the following remarkable letter was the King's final attempt to persuade his Prime Minister to stay away from the front.

June 2nd 1944

My Dear Winston,

I want to make one more appeal to you not to go to sea on D day. Please consider my own position. I am a younger man than you, I am a sailor, & as King I am the head of all three services. There is nothing I would like better than to go to sea but I have agreed to stay at home; is it fair that you should then do exactly what I should have liked to do myself?

You said yesterday afternoon that it would be a fine thing for the King to lead his troops into battle, as in old days; if the King cannot do this, it does not seem to me right that his Prime Minister should take his place.

Then there is your own position. You will see very little, you will seem a considerable risk, you will be inaccessible at a critical time when vital decisions might have to be taken, & however unobtrusive you may be, your very presence on board is bound to be a very heavy additional responsibility to the Admiral & Captain.

As I said in my previous letter, your being there would add immeasurably to my anxieties, & your going without consulting your colleagues in the Cabinet would put them in a very difficult position which they would justifiably resent.

I ask you most earnestly to consider the whole question again, & not let your personal wishes which I very well understand lead you to depart from your own high standard of duty to the State.

Believe me,
Your very sincere friend,
George R. I.

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What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.

Jane Austen
Letter to Cassandra Austen
18th September 1796

—Jane Austen’s Letters

We are having the most monstrous heatwave. I don’t dare translate the thermometer readings into Fahrenheit, but suspect that if it were body temperature our brains would have burned out like the motor of my little electric fan in the middle of last night — causing sheer dank heat to wake me. You can bet I was out early this morning to buy a new one — only to have the clerks in the first 4 electrical supply shops appear puzzled by my request: Electric fan, who would ever want such a thing? No, we don’t carry them.

James Merrill
Letter to Rosie
19th July 1973

—A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill

Have you read in the papers about the terrific heat and drought? The heat was the worst I have ever felt, just couldn’t get away from it, day in and day out. Our grass was so burnt it looked like a shredded wheat biscuit. Thank God it ended a few days ago. Every one in the city looks half dead.

Aline Bernstein
Letter to Thomas Wolfe
18th August 1930

—My Other Loneliness: Letters of Thomas Wolfe and Aline Bernstein

The sun becomes indignant at the broad-brimmed hats of the boys, so it curls down round them, and up under them. It ripples and crackles along the curbing at noon. . . Dead worms on the side walks fry and sizzle, and the upholstery of autos left in the street bakes and cracks and burns your breeches. The little thermometers on store fronts mount as best they can, and then give it up as a bad job and settle down to a steady 100°.

E. B. White
Letter to his parents
16th July 1922

—Letters of E. B. White

‘Is it hot?’ you ask. MURDER. I don’t mind heat as much as cold, intense degrees of either, that is, but this is like nothing I have ever endured, even in Chicago or New York in a ‘heat wave.’ It never lets up. The humidity is often higher than the temperature. The result is that one cannot quite stand to eat properly and it is impossible to sleep normally. One moves slowly through the days and nights, pretending to be more than half-alive.

M. F. K. Fisher
Letter to Ted Kennedy
28th February 1965

—M.F.K. Fisher: A Life in Letters

I sweat all over the first sheet and had to start over. . . It has been hell hot now for three days. Wish you were here to sweat. I can out sweat all the big local sweaters and they are going to bring in outside competition and have me sweat derrier grosse motos. . . This is a shitty letter but its so damned hot.

Ernest Hemingway
Letter to Waldo Peirce
22nd July 1927

—The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1926–1929

Here we are in Delphi, all well except for Roger’s insides falling out and my skin peeling in great sores. The wind and sun, the bitter cold and violent heat, the driving all day along rocky or pitted roads, make one feel like a parboiled cactus.

Virginia Woolf
Letter to Vanessa Bell
2nd May 1932

—The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume 5

Did you know Billy McCann, who is now in Rio de Janeiro? They are in the midst of one of the most terrific heat-waves Brazil has ever known, and one midday, Billy was staring out of his window (which looks over the ocean) when he saw an enormous black and white procession advancing, two by two, for, it seemed miles, in a straight line on the water. As it came nearer, he saw that it consisted of polar bears, polar seals, walruses and/or sea elephants, and penguins. Poor boys and girls, they had been carried straight from the North Pole or the polar opposite number to the Gulf Stream. The authorities from the Zoo gathered them up in air-conditioned ambulances, and they are now sitting on blocks of ice at the Zoo, where they were welcomed with rapture.

Edith Sitwell
Letter to Benjamin Britten
18th February 1956

—The Letters of Edith Sitwell

It’s been so frightfully hot here that I’ve been almost too weak to hold a pen, and even if I had been able, there was no ink — it had all evaporated into a cloud of black steam, and in that state it has been floating about the room, inking the walls and ceiling till they’re hardly fit to be seen

Lewis Carroll
Letter to
23rd May 1864

—The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll

Another heat wave is here and reminds me of last year at the same time. The heat is terribly dry and not at all like Montgomery and is so unexpected. The people feel deeply offended, as if they were being bombed.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Letter to Zelda Fitzgerald
11th October 1940

—A Life in Letters

Wake Island a hell hole of heat. . . I should go out and walk around and I dread it. It’s like swimming in warm blood, humidity 300 percent. You don’t breathe, you bubble.

John Steinbeck
Letters to Elaine Steinbeck
September 1957

—Steinbeck: A Life in Letters

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In 1950, English actress Hermione Gingold appeared on stage in London alongside Hermione Baddeley in Fallen Angels, a Noël Coward comedy in which—controversially at the time—its two female leads discussed pre-marital sex and adultery. Although it was a hit, even Coward was unimpressed with Charles Russell’s revival of the play, saying at the time: “I have never yet in my long experience seen a more vulgar, silly, unfunny, disgraceful performance.” Soon after the show opened, Gingold received a threatening letter from a disgusted member of the public. With no address at which to aim a reply, Gingold instead responded with a letter that was reprinted in her 1952 book, My Own Unaided Work.

April, 1950

Dear Madam, 

Unless something is done at once about your disgusting exhibition in the filthy play you appear in every night, I and several of my friends will do something very unpleasant about it.

What you and your co-partner Hermione Baddeley do nightly in public is a slur on English womanhood. “Fallen Angels” is disgusting as a play, but your performance in it makes it loathsome. How the powers that be could permit such an exhibition is past the understanding of a God-fearing man who supports the present Government—and thanks God for them. 

I give you fair warning to leave the play, or it will be the worse for you. Our wrath will strike at you in your home, or maybe during a performance at the theatre.

A. Friend

Ambassadors Theatre

W.C.2.

April 14th

Dear Friend, 

How clever and capricious you are, cloaking yourself in anonymity, and I must confess I cannot for the life of me guess which of my many friends you can be. You have sent my head spinning and my imagination whirling. Could you be found among my dear friends, intimate friends, close friends, childhood friends, pen friends, family friends, friends of a friend, friends in distress, friends who are closer than a brother, friends in need, or school friends? Your letter quite clearly shows that you are not illiterate, and therefore we can rule out my school friends. Your masterly command of the language banishes the thought that you could be found among my friends from overseas. Your witty criticism of my performance makes me think that I might find you among my nearest and dearest “bosom friends,” that is if you did not choose to address me as “Dear Madam”—a clever move this, and one that reduces my last thought to mere stupidity and you to a casual acquaintance, and yet I must banish the thought “casual acquaintance.” for how many people are there in London today who realise that my “co-partner,” as you wittily dub her, is none other than Hermione Baddeley, and by the way, she wants me to thank you for the facsimile letter you sent her, and say that she is getting on in years and feeble, and is not able to attend to her correspondence as she would wish, and so she cannot answer your letter personally. 

An awful thought has dawned. It is all a joke, and you aren’t really my friend at all. I must try to dismiss this thought. It depresses me. To lose a friend like you in a few words, oh no. 

So, dear anonymous friend, if this should chance to meet your eye, please keep your promise and come round one night—yes, and bring your friends, too, for I know intuitively that your friends will be my friends.

Cordially yours, 
Hermione Gingold 

P.S. If you wish to strike at me with your wrath in my home, I am always in between ten-thirty and twelve in the morning, excluding Tuesday, which is a bad day, as a lot of tiresome tradespeople call for the same reason. You will easily recognize my apartment, for, apart from the number “85” marked in plain figures on the door, over the knocker there is a notice, "strike twice and wait, bell out of order.”

It was on this day in 1809 that one of my favourite haters was born. Celebrated biologist, naturalist, and holder of the intimidating title, ‘Father of Evolution,’ Charles Darwin was undoubtedly one of the most intelligent people ever to have graced this earth. But he was also just a person. A person who, according to his letters, was often irritable, overworked, and exasperated. And seasick.

I hate every wave of the ocean.

Charles Darwin
Letter to his cousin, William Fox
15th February 1836

I loathe, I abhor the sea, & all ships which sail on it.

Charles Darwin
Letter to his sister, Susan Darwin
4th August 1836

I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship.

Charles Darwin
Letter to William Fox
24th October 1852

Oh my God how I do hate species & varieties.

Charles Darwin
Letter to J. D. Hooker
11th March 1858

I am very tired, very stomachy & hate nearly the whole world.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Thomas Huxley
10th September 1860

I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.

Charles Darwin
Letter to Charles Lyell
1st October 1861

I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.

Charles Darwin
Letter to John Lubbock
3rd September 1862

I am languid & bedeviled & hate writing & hate everybody.

Charles Darwin
Letter to J. D. Hooker
23rd June 1863

All of Darwin’s letters can be found at the wonderful website, Darwin Correspondence Project.

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Sorry I was so glum. I’m in a cursed mood and can’t bear the human face.

Virginia Woolf
Letter to Ethel Smyth
10th February 1933

—The Letters of Virginia Woolf

As to your notion of an allegory, there is none. Charlotte’s Web is a tale of the animals in my barn, not of the people in my life. When you read it, just relax. Any attempt to find allegorical meanings is bound to end disastrously, for no meanings are in there. I ought to know.

E. B. White
Letter to John Detmold
10th February 1953

—Letters of E. B. White

My husband, T. S. Eliot, loved to recount how late one evening he stopped a taxi. As he got in, the driver said: “You’re T. S. Eliot.” When asked how he knew, he replied: “Ah, I’ve got an eye for a celebrity. Only the other evening I picked up Bertrand Russell, and I said to him: ‘Well, Lord Russell, what’s it all about;’ and, do you know, he couldn’t tell me.”

Valerie Eliot
Letter to The Times
10th February 1970

—The Times: Great Letters

Since books are to libraries what asphalt is to highway departments, I assume that Indiana is also asking donations from suppliers of asphalt for her roads. Or has it been decided that asphalt is worth good money, and that books are not?

Kurt Vonnegut
Letter to Charles Ewick, Indiana State Library
10th February 1983

—Kurt Vonnegut: Letters

The civilization of any country may always be measured by the degree of equality between men and women; and society will never come truly into order until there is perfect equality and copartnership between them in every department of human life.

Lydia Maria Child
Letter to Mrs. S. M. Parsons
10th February 1877

—Lydia Maria Child: Selected letters, 1817-1880

I have been much moved by your letter; and the pleasure it has given me has some little sorrowful ingredient in it. In the strife and struggle of this great world where most of us lose each other so strangely, it is impossible to be spoken to out of the old times without a softened emotion. You so belong to the days when the qualities that have done me most good since, were growing in my boyish heart that I cannot end my answer to you lightly.

We are all sailing away to the sea, and have a pleasure in thinking of the river we are upon, when it was very narrow and little.

Charles Dickens
Letter to his first love, Maria Beadnell
10th February 1855

—The Selected Letters of Charles_Dickens

I’ve got no advice on these up and down times of elation & depression you seem to have, but I can tell you that time is very dangerous without a rigid routine. If you do the same thing every day at the same time for the same length of time, you’ll save yourself from many a sink. Routine is a condition of survival.

Flannery O’Connor
Letter to Betty Hester
10th February 62

—The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

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Since 1800, when John Adams first moved into the newly-built White House with his admirably-named dogs, Juno and Satan, the majority of US Presidents have brought their canine friends to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, Donald Trump was the first US President in over a century, since poochless William McKinley took the reins in 1897, to not own a dog. In 1989, when Ronald Reagan’s Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Rex, left the presidential kennel, his place was immediately filled by Millie, the English Springer Spaniel belonging to George H W Bush, and within months she gave birth to a litter of puppies, one of whom, Ranger, became Bush’s favourite. In 1992, panicked by Ranger’s ballooning weight, President sent this urgent missive to all White House personnel.

February 6, 1992

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

THIS IS AN ALL-POINTS BULLETIN FROM THE PRESIDENT

SUBJECT: MY DOG “RANGER”

Recently Ranger was put on a weight-reduction program. Either that program succeeds or we enter Ranger in the Houston Fat Stock Show as Prime Hereford.

All offices should take a formal “pledge” that reads as follows: “WE AGREE NOT TO FEED RANGER. WE WILL NOT GIVE HIM BISCUITS. WE WILL NOT GIVE HIM FOOD OF ANY KIND.”

In addition, Ranger’s ‘access’ is hereby restricted. He has been told not to wander the corridors without an escort. This applies to the East and West Wings, to the Residence from the 3rd floor to the very, very bottom basement.

Although Ranger will still be permitted to roam at Camp David, the Camp David staff including the Marines, Naval personnel, All Civilians and Kids are specifically instructed to “rat” on anyone seen feeding Ranger.

Ranger has been asked to wear a ‘Do not feed me’ badge in addition to his ID.

I will, of course, report on Ranger’s fight against obesity. Right now, he looks like a blimp, a nice friendly appealing blimp, but a blimp.

We Need Your Help—All hands, please help.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

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1889 was a turning-point year for Arthur Conan Doyle. Two years earlier he had published A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel, and another would follow in 1890. His medical practice was faltering, his literary prospects were gathering pace, and in January his life shifted again with the birth of his first child, Mary Louise, to his wife, Louise (or ‘Toodles’ to her family). The following letter was his way of breaking the news to his mother

Jan 28 1889

Southsea

Toodles produced this morning at 6.15 a remarkably fine specimen of the Toodles minor, who is now howling her head off in the back bedroom. I must say that I am surprised at the conduct of the young woman, seeing that both her parents are modest sort of people. She came evidently for a long visit, and yet she has made no apology for the suddenness of her arrival. She had no luggage with her, nor any possessions of any kind, barring a slight cough, and a voice like a coalman. I regret to say that she had not even any clothes, and we have had for decency’s sake to rig her out with a wardrobe.

Now, one would not mind doing all this for the sake of a visitor, but when the said visitor does nothing but snuffle in reply it becomes monotonous. She has frank and engaging manners, but she is bald, which will prevent her from going out into society for some little time.

Forgive me for not telling you, dear. I knew how trying the suspense of waiting would be, and thought that on the whole it would be best that you should learn when it was too late to worry yourself.

P. S. Tell Lottie her flannel square came in very useful for the young Empress—her first bit of property.

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The Founding Fathers cannot have intended a President and his small group of appointed advisors to perform like a monarch surrounded by his court. As if the people’s representatives and the people themselves were a general nuisance, and the job is to keep the whole tiresome bunch quiet. . .

What a black historical irony if the Free World was lost due to the tyranny of the Leader of the Free World. No sane man would believe for a minute that you win the minds and hearts of the people by bombing them. Or by financing and arming rulers whom the people detest. . .

Our country is founded on as decent principles as exist in human society, but of course principles become contemptible hypocrisy when they are only used for rhetoric, not as a faithful guide to action. If this unforgivable war has taught us to be eternally vigilant against the misuse of our power, then it will have served one valuable purpose: the education of Americans.

Martha Gellhorn
Letter to Daniel Ellsberg
1971

—Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn

There is very little question in my mind that eventually—maybe this century, maybe next—the world will become politically unified. There is no other sensible conclusion. It may be the unity of disaster, when we all go up in a jolly burst of fissionable fuss, or, if we can hang tight awhile, it may be a more comfortable unity, when we knock some sense into each other’s heads, quit calling each other “foreigners,” and get down to business.

E. B. White
Letter to Janice White
27th April 1952

—Letters of E. B. White

The day is coming, and it is not far distant, when ordinary intelligent people are going to look upon the world as it revealed itself in the middle of the 20th century, and to ask what possibly could have driven civilized people into the hysteria and near-insanity which characterizes us now. It will be then impossible to explain how people who call themselves Christians or Jews or Mohammedans or followers of the great Buddha, could have persuaded themselves that civilization was going to be preserved and increased and broadened by world war. And yet today an extraordinary number of human beings are depending upon force, and force to the utmost, in order to accomplish what they seem to think will be a new and better world.

In that coming day we shall all know that such an idea was crazy; that neither armies nor navies, atom bombs or unlimited funds are going to remake the human soul; that what we have got to have in this world is a change of heart.

We have got to respect our fellow beings no matter what their color or race is, or their history or their present situation.

We have got to see that the poverty of the mass of men disappears, that ignorance is eliminated and that disease yields to scientific knowledge.

Then, starting upon that foundation, we have got to do justice to human beings without regard to the lines of separation that appear, and we have got, so far as is humanly possible, to give thought and desire the widest freedom compatible with the freedom and progress of all.

W. E. B. Du Bois
Letter to The Tribune
13th July 1953

—The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections, 1944-1963

I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen than it has ever been before. Certainly all any of us can do is follow our own conscience and retain faith in our democracy. Sometimes it is the very people who cry out the loudest in favor of getting back to what they call “American Virtues” who lack this faith in our country. I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our smallest minorities.

Charles Schulz
Letter to a 10-year-old fan
9th November 1970

—Jean Schulz

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In December of 1982, Oregon’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer, received a letter of complaint from someone named “I.M. Grinch,” accusing Santa Claus of a catalogue of improper business practices. Frohnmayer responded with one of his tongue-in-cheek Christmas legal opinions, in the form of a formal letter to “S. T. Nicholas” that was released to the press and published in local newspapers.

Mr. S. T. Nicholas
1225 N. Pole
Gnome, Alaska 90001

Dear Mr. Nicholas:

This letter is to inform you of our decision in the complaint of improper business practices brought against you by Mr. I. M. Grinch.

In his complaint, Mr. Grinch has requested that the Oregon Department of Justice immediately seek a temporary restraining order prohibiting you from any business-related activities because of the following alleged violations of state and federal antitrust laws:

1. That by conspiring with parents you cause confusion or misunderstanding as to the source, sponsorship, and approval of your goods and services (ORS 646.608);

2. That by consulting with parents on gifts for children you have furnished them with privileged customer information;

3. That by inciting parents to whisper among themselves and hide presents during the month of December, and by compiling a list and checking it twice, you engage in conspiratorial practices (ORS 646.725);

4. That by discriminating against naughty persons you have accorded special service to some customers in violation of ORS 646.080, which states that customers must be treated on proportionally equal terms;

5. That by linking the receipt of your gifts to persons’ good behavior you violated Oregon law, which prohibits making product sales conditional upon other behavior;

6. That by giving away presents you have violated federal minimum price regulations;

7. That by claiming to deliver presents all over the world in only one night you are promising delivery of goods while knowing you are not able to fulfill that promise (ORS 646.607 and 646.608);

8. That you have conspired with Saint Nick, Santa Claus, Père Noel, and others to engage in an illegal restraint of trade by allocating markets and customers and by fixing prices (ORS 646.725); and

9. That you have received kickbacks from your reindeer.

Finally, Mr. Grinch has accused you of having violated ORS 646.730, which states:

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons to monopolize, any part of trade or commerce, shall be in violation of ORS 136.617, 646.705 or 646.805, and 646.990.

We find that you have participated in monopoly, but only in the delivery of the game to children, a non-citable practice.

We conclude that the allegations are unfounded and see no reason to convene a special grand jury. We have, however, filed a counterclaim on your behalf against I.M. Grinch under state antitrust laws for contriving a shortage of good will. His action may also constitute the crime of malicious rottenness.

Further, I have instructed our Consumer Protection Section to pay close attention to enforcement of chimney cleaning regulations for the remainder of 1982.

Merry Christmas,

Dave Frohnmayer
Attorney General

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On this day in 1880, Mary Ann Evans died. Better known by her pen name, George Eliot, she was born in Nuneaton and is best known for writing Middlemarch, a novel often regarded as one of the greatest in the English language. In 1865, the young daughter of Caroline Bray, a close friend and fellow writer, died following a long illness. Some weeks later, Evans sent her this letter.

My dear Cara,

You see I have let the weeks go by—thinking of you, but not writing to you. I believe you are one of the few who can understand that in certain crises, direct expression of sympathy is the least possible to those who most feel sympathy. If I could have been with you in bodily presence, I should have sat silent, thinking silence a sign of feeling that speech, trying to be wise, must always spoil. The truest things one can say about great death are the oldest simplest things that everybody knows by rote, but that no one knows really till death has come very close. And when that inward teaching is going on, it seems pitiful presumption for those who are outside to be saying anything. There is no such thing as consolation, when we have made the lot of another our own as you did Nelly’s. The anguish must be borne—it will only get more and more bearable as other thoughts and feelings recover some power.

I don’t know whether you strongly share, as I do, the old belief that made men say the gods loved those who died young. It seems to me truer than ever, now life has become more complex and more and more difficult problems have to be worked out. Life, though a good to men on the whole, is a doubtful good to many, and to some not a good at all. To my thought, it is a source of constant mental distortion to make the denial of this a part of religion, to go on pretending things are better than they are.

But I will not write of judgments and opinions. What I want my letter to tell you is that I love you truly, gratefully, unchangeably. And to show me you believe it, you must not write till you feel inclined—not think I shall mind if you don’t answer this at all, for indeed there is nothing to answer.

With love to you, always, dear Cara, your old
Marian

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