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XX Friday 13 October 6 pm Hello, darling - Henry is reading me excerpts from Jean's letters. She has real style and originality of thought and lots of humor - is just as likely to describe wryly the “quitting” of a duck (beginning with “We bought a lot of vegetables at the market, and a rather fat dead duck…”) or her reaction to a weighty book on the economic basis of politics (which she doesn't like, but succeeds in bringing some very sensible conclusions from by way of general perspective) as to write about lesser doings. Because it was so freshly put and pertinent I had to ask to be allowed to copy a part about you, after she’d received your letter - “What she's going through now is the difficult realization that she must do things on her own, apart from Warren and build up something that belongs first of all to her: This is hard not because it's different to do such a thing but because you don't want to. You hate the separateness it implies, you hate to see any breaking down of the union you've built up. And yet the only way you can make any adjustment worthwhile is to go ahead and do things alone, to get interested in things by yourself. (These projects aren't unshared but they are mostly initiated alone). That is a hard conflict, although rather an unconscious one, and I can remember getting very sad over the realization that in order to get used to your being away I would have to do things that seemed to emphasize my being separate from you. Building up Jean instead of Jean and Henry. “But I’d say that was resolved now. I don't give that these 5 months and what I've done in them have broken up our togetherness. No indeed. But you’re so god damned far away. I will say that.” Your own letters, my dearest, have given me increasing [pg 2] satisfaction. “I feel stronger and better adjusted every day, and it does give me a feeling of satisfaction, though of course I never cease to miss you.” That's just the position I'm in, sweetie, and I think that it's perhaps the most we can expect from this period. At the same time, it's no little bit, something to be altogether disparaged, but something positive and capable of great good. It forces me, for instance, to an appraisal of myself for which I wasn't ready a year ago yet which, without the strong stimulus of change and privation, I might have postponed a good deal longer. Still, I'm not too sure of how much good there is in separation. I simply want to accept it as unavoidable and make as much as we can out of it. It's especially reassuring to me now that you are facing it so admirably because I dreaded the separation too and was afraid for you as well as a little for myself. Now already I know there is nothing to fear in the situation, only things that are bad. I am in the process of reformulating a philosophy of life on the simple [?] of things which are good (or good aspects of things) and those which aren't, as I know them. I don't think it's possible to be much more sweeping or dogmatic than that. Few things and few people are altogether good, but then few are altogether bad, either. Nevertheless there is a great deal in the structure of American society as we know it today that is bad - meretricious, banal, hypocritical, unimaginative and even vicious. I think there is something of the last in our advertising mentality. I don't mean that I don't like department store ads - sometimes I enjoy them very much, and sometimes I think them a service. But the price we pay for even that relatively innocent version of what I mean is often too high - we become credulous, doped by artificial standards. I think that often you see thru such things as well as I do. [pg 3] I don't really feel like delivering myself of a lecture on such subjects just now, other than to give you a hint of what I am thinking and of what Henry and I sometimes talk about. You mustn't think that such thoughts overpower me - it is true that they are sometimes depressing, but more important that that is that I am beginning to be able to define my relationship to them. Six months ago, for instance, I might have been circling to write copy for Carnation Contented or Church Seats if it would mean a more comfortable living for us. Now I realize that I couldn't - that I could never be satisfied doing it. If it were the only way to support us I wouldn't be shamefully compromised, because it seems to me that among the highest of goods is one's own personal life and that of one's family. But I begin to realize that it isn't the only way, even if other ways mean struggling a little harder and being sufficiently honest to leave a secure job for a less secure one if you've outgrown the first. You just can't set arbitrary standards. I grow more confident that I'll do only what I'm ready to do, but that I won't really be satisfied not to continue getting ready even if I should wander into something comfortable and secure. I don't know the future, of course, and the only two practical alternative (which seem to me, however, far from the only ones likely to develop) I can spot just now are social work or college teaching. Both have their bleak sides but what's important is not the social standing or, beyond a minimum, the salary that goes with them so much as their capacity for good, of which they have a great deal more than, say, my job with Copeland and Thompson. The latter had some value for me personally in developing initiative and a certain indispensable modicum of [?ness], but no [pg 4] value at all objectively. You can see, or better sense, some of the sadness of this war in the men here. They are a decent enough bunch, I think; you meet almost none who are bloodthirsty or full of hate. On the other hand, there is a lot of indifference and cynicism as to what the war is being fought for. We don't have the strong, well-defined motives that, say, the Russians do. It is so evident amongst these men (most of whom want nothing more than to get back to their families) that we are living in an age of confused purposes and ideals. It gives me strength much more than despair to realize that I am actively groping, or perhaps have passed that stage by now (having had an undercurrent of it since before you first knew me), to make some sense out of the world. Despair is really an adolescent emotion, or an ill-adjusted one except in cases of extreme personal grief, and you can't summon all the good into one mighty crusade against all the bad. To be deceived into thinking so is to wander into verbal confusion. The only worthwhile thing is to be specific and selective. These aren't new thoughts - in fact, I vaguely recall having been able to say them much better a few years earlier - But that much doesn't matter now. I'm in a period of accelerated growth which isn't just repetition because I've learned so many other things and grown up so much in other ways since the last time I ad any active, conscious thinking. I need to read now to keep from generalizing too much and help integrate my thinking and experience. But whatever comes of this, darling, you and Wendy are uppermost in my thoughts…I had so much to say to you tonight in answer to your letters but there isn't time now - well, tomorrow. I love you Warren Hi, little Sweetie here's a big hug and a kiss to you too!! Daddy
