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Saturday, 21 October 11:30 am XXVII Darling, Just a brief note for now because there's lots to do for a change, and I'm glad, because I was just getting fed up with not having work to do. I really worked only the first week or ten days that I was here, but I had enough errands, shopping, etc. to do to keep me busy through the day before yesterday. Now I'm ready to get to work. Package #2 has just arrived, Sweetie, and I'm putting it away. It is the one mailed October 5th by Special Delivery and sounds as though there is a tin box underneath the paper. I hope so, because it's just the right size for some index cards I'm packing as well as to be generally useful. An interesting little theme that I've kept forgetting to mention in writing you is the number, variety and luxuriousness of [?] appendages around here (amongst both sailors and civilians, occasionally C.P.O.'s, rarely officers), from drooping mustaches to full beards - many of the latter. They were one of the first things to attract my attention but are so common as to be quickly taken for granted. Occasionally you see one on a youth who has never shaved - such ones are fine and wispy, like those of ancient Chinese patriarchs. Bought a book yesterday (much cheaper than retail, but only a few titles are stocked) whose title I forget but which includes all of Wilkie's “One World,” some of Wallace's speeches, all of Hoover and Gibson's “Problems of a Lasting Peace” and some of ex-underSec’y of State Sumner Welle's writings. [pg 2] “One World” is entertaining and easy to read - you'll enjoy the very beginning in which he writes of how space has been obliterated by the airplane. I've grown to have the same feeling and it won't seem much farther from you to go any distance west of here. The part by Wallace, which I opened to first, impressed me as somewhat dull until Henry last night reminded me and I recalled easily the context in which they were written - first of all, to be spoken (which makes considerable difference) and secondly, being precedent-making in content they had to be a little conservative in tone. But then Wallace, a deeply religious man, is Conservative in that respect anyhow. The rest of the book I haven't look into yet. I started marking it with you I mind and then thought, no, that's bad - Bobby will want to read her own emphases into it and maybe take different things for granted than I do. I underline, of course, the things which impress me as important and which I do not already take so much for granted that there's no point in marking them. I am sure you won't want to read the whole book- you might just glance through at what impressed me - but you'll probably enjoy “One World” if you haven't already read it. Henry just received Jack [B?] Still Time to Die. It is a book I want sometime. Felt very low yesterday and so lonely as to be able to realize how you must feel much of the time. The only remedy for that is to keep busy and be with people, which I can easily do. It must be much harder for you, but always try, darling. I love you so much and want you to have some peace of mind if not happiness. Warren.
