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#150 Navy #3247 (Mil. Govt) FPO San Francisco 26 Feb. (Mon) 8 pm My dearest darling I've been going around in a slight fog today - a little too much to drink considering that I didn't work it off (6 or 7 good slugs of bourbon, a couple of beers and a coke - carried it well enough), and a great deal of work to return to. Probably won't take a day off again for another four months - an afternoon a week will do nicely; I'm in good trim, have less to regret when I'm busy and enough to do to justify working every day - but it was pleasant while it lasted. Discovered when Reinie was here two weeks or so ago, and forgot to mention the coincidence, that the Hurtzburgs are from Stamford, Conn. Yesterday I discovered farther, to our common amusement, that he had Miss Paxton for a teacher in Kindergarten - 2nd grade a little before she started her own school, “Miss Paxton's”, which I attended in the same grades. He could remember the house at 99 Hope St. where we lived until Daddy (that sounds funny, but of course I never called him anything else) died; knows a number of friends of Muz's at least by name (e.g. the Tweedys - “oh yes, that's an old Stanford name”) - he was born and brought up in Stanford and expects to return there. Gerry is his second wife; he has 3 boys by a former wife who also lives in the vicinity of Stamford - [pg 2] I was a little surprised at their ages, 18, 16, and another younger one. The latter (I think it is) goes to Northhampton Academy, one of the schools listed on that page you sent me. It was a very congenial group of doctors whom I spent the day with - 7 or 8 in all, though generally just 2 or 3 at a time. Reinie was glad to see the latest pictures, of Wendy, looked at them closely a couple of times and spoke of her in very complimentary fashion (“Gee, she's a cute little devil, isn't she…”), going on in a goodnatured, boyish sort of way about children generally. He seems to enjoy them - “and I've had enough experience to know”: then I learned of the rest of his family. He didn't go into much detail. Showed me good photographs of Gerry and Dick. I enjoyed him a good deal more than I did the night he was here, and I must say that he was a very easy and considerate host. Incidentally, I took “The Monterey Peninsula” down for him to browse in and left it with him. He has a hunch he may get his orders before long - they’re overstaffed - but I should see him again meanwhile. You’re still being awfully good to me, darling [pg 3] Four more letters last night and today, a fresh box of stationery; a package that I’d completely forgotten about, containing two cans of sardines, a jar of cheese spread, a can of evaporated milk and a box of marbles (I was on my way to take them up to school when I made a sidetrip to the Korean labor office, and seeing a dozen or so 6-10 year old kids playing in the square there I couldn't resist having a scramble for them - you’d have enjoyed seeing it); a copy of the Pine Cone for Jan 19th - just happened to feel in the mood to read it between mail call and supper; and, to my great delight, the large photograph of Wendy. It is now in the folder where it belongs, opposite the picture of you and a littler Wendy. It is a charming picture, honey. One of your letters touched me deeply. “I feel so ashamed of the nasty way I've been feeling lately. I don't like being bitter and jealous, and I'm sure it must disappoint you to have me so. “Yes. I know I still have a lot of growing up to do - but each time I slip backward, and then start to go forward again, I feel that much more a complete person…” You are a more complete person, dearly beloved. [pg 4] You have never for a minute disappointed me; on the contrary, there've been times when you've awakened a certain humility in me for what you have to face and for how you’re doing it. Since I wrote you that long letter a couple of days ago I've had a haunting feeling that perhaps I was too analytical and offhand in tone. The phrase or idea that bothers me had to do with our being more impersonal some of the time, and I should hate to have you misinterpret that. I like the fact that we are more than ordinarily personal and direct with each other; what I want to build on that honest foundation are a variety of common interest and a fund of humor and understanding about things over and above, as well as including, our own immediate concerns. But of course I am not thinking of abstractions; any interest in any phenomena, whether passing or passionate, is essentially personal. My use of the word ‘impersonal’ referred to contact or subject rather than approach; with respect to those things over and above our own personal concerns I should have substituted the phrase ‘objective in nature’ or something like that. Do you understand me? When I spoke of self-discipline I had in the back of my head, among others, a thought that has recurred a number of times lately in connection with that toughening I spoke of and also in [pg 5] connection with the hazard of being excessively personal. There are times when the latter can scarcely escape self-consciousness - in effect a short-circuiting of one's purposefulness. This particular thought is that there are many times when it is necessary to preserve a relative impersonalness [I guess this word does enter in legitimately, after all] even with most loved ones and certainly with friends, in order to preserve the focus of one’s personal integrity, and to avoid a blurred impression. For instance, there are lots of things which can be said lying awake in bed at night which are better left unsaid in prosaic daylight - in the latter case they become that short circuit when they might have been a strong stimulus - that sudden grateful surge of a fresh understanding. I have seen so many people, including men, whose ‘friendships’ (in terms of pleasantries and mild mutual flattery) are based on nothing more than a common need for the assuaging of their respective vanities and justified by a superficiality of coincidences. I am not disparaging human needs but only their shallow fulfillment. An opposite example (in many ways, tho he has his ludicrous vanities at times too) is Charlie Frankel whom, while I still feel sometimes that he's too offhand, I've come [pg 6] to have increasing respect for. He is an essentially honest person, and if he quibbles to satisfy small vanities he is uncompromising toward larger ones. He is thoroughly tough in the way that I mean - and so, in greater or less degree, are 5 or 6 other men here. Consequently this operation has been and continues to be a good experience for me. Did you ever stop to think how strong a word ‘good’ can be? [A?t] the inevitable twinge of jealousy and the restlessness that accompanies reading or thinking about jobs, security, the fortunes of other people we know, etc., I never write or relay a letter on the subject but that I realize the test it puts you to. I don't send it because it does, or because I realize that you and I have to preserve and develop a certain wisdom toward this flux we’re amidst, but only because to shut our eyes to what's going on around us is the greater folly. I think it's important to know what's going on, and equally important not to get excited about it. Now perhaps I can make just a beginning of answering all the letters! Here's a little clipping on sheet names…yes, that amused me when I first came here; we are so used to it now that I don't think about it. (One recalcitrant unit has sprinkled Chicago street names throughout their small area) [pg 7] I'm glad you sent Aunt Beth one of the 4x5s, and Aunt Lucy a snapshot - hope it was a big one of Wendy or else one of you both. (Here's my little mouse again. It's rather entertaining to sit here 6 feet away from the bookcase made of boxes on the second shelf of which he's nibbling at a box of ExLax left by Mr. Pearson. He's timid enough to run or get ready to if I make any sweeping motion or crinkle paper, but otherwise goes on with his nibbling. I don't particularly like mice and would feel uneasy about having one in a fox hole* with me, but one loses his fear of something when he can see it openly - for Ernie Pyle, whose comments on the prisoners I can appreciate, that would consist in living with Japs for awhile as we do here. But he’d have to speak the language a little bit, and even then like us might not grow to trust any people but the Okinawans (as a group), with certain exceptions for all groups) -That was just a little beginning but it's getting late - perhaps tomorrow night after English class. Good night, darling, and bless you both Warren *That reminds me that Reinie showed me all the pictures of the island that you've seen.
