You broke the approach of friendship; you made discussion impossible; and you became a hysterical bore.
That’s what the practice of hate does. By design and by your own confession, you employed hatred as an administrative method from the beginning. It took; and the blood has rushed to your head ever since. Now you imagine that everyone hates you and you plunge from one distorted position to another.
For God’s sake, clear your head.
You have a large theatrical property.
Manage it judiciously, and from a distance.
It’s a play basically requiring high standards; maintain them.
Don’t listen to Shubert Alley wise-guy advice; they don’t know anything about this kind of property.
See that it satisfies the highest type of audience in every town,—then the hoi-polloi will follow. But if you direct it to the hoi-polloi, they won’t like it and you’ll have lost any solid following.
You have my friendship waiting for you when you’ve emerged from your illness, and show yourself again an able business man; a cool clear administrator; and a worker in the arts who is unshakeably set on only being connected with the highest standards procurable.
When you can assure me of that, I’m
Your old friend,
Thornton
201. TO ISABELLA N. WILDER. ALS 2 pp. Yale
Censored
T.N. Wilder
HQ NAAF A-5
APO 650
c/o Postmaster NY NY
Sept 15 1943
Dear Mom:
Lovely long letter from you.
I am delighted to learn from you that I am the one of your children who is now most a subject for your concern; for I am not likely to cause you any beyond what your imagination can invent. The city I was in for a month and a half had many mosquitoes, but the citizens were proud to say that none of them had been carriers for ten years. This is hard to understand, because the city was very dirty, as they all are here. At present I am about 10 miles from another famous city; here the mosquitos are carriers and we sleep under nets. A number of my colleagues have had short fits of malaria, dysintery, etc. I suffered with the latter for one day. I confess I do not take the atropin table
A-5 has moved into a wealthy Mohammedan’s villa. Seven rooms about a large central court. Hideous “European” murals. A Squadron Leader; (i.e Major) a Flight Lieutenant (Captain) and I share a room, and are a congenial and gratifying example of “combined staff” harmony. The Mediterranean is a heavenly blue. The place-names of the region are famous in warfare, ancient and modern.
It’s true that I was in one raid which I shall remember as the most magnificent display of pyrotechnics that a small boy could imagine. 40 planes of the enemy did little damage and were driven off with losses. It was at 4:00 a.m. and you know how I like early rising.
I loved your going to Hartford to shop with Mrs Burton, and would like to see what you both bought. And I loved Isabel’s account of your gira100 to Boston, the Pioneer, the visit backstage, etc. And I liked best your determined resolve to live well past 90. Take care of yourself, especially on those back stairs. Try not to be a concern to me and I’ll take care not to be one to you.
Lots of Love,
Thornt.
202. TO ISABELLA N. AND ISABEL WILDER. ALS 2 pp. Yale
Mediterranean Air Command APO 512
c/o Postmaster, NY, NY.
Dec. 20(?) <1943>
Dear Ones:
A new address
I don’t dare think how long it may have been since I last wrote.
We moved because we have a big piece of new work to do, and we had to begin the work before and during the work
This afternoon when we asked our boss, the Group Captain, whether there was to be a “office conference on progress” he stopped and thought a minute and said, “No,—my advice to all of you is to go out and take a long walk.” Oh, boy,—I walked home and took a nap which was mighty welcome.
Now, dears, I gotta tell you an awful thing,—I am now established in a billet of delicious comfort!! It weighs on me. Two other officers and I have a 5 room apartment on the main street of the city (elevator and everything); we have a bonne à tout faire,101—une “perle”,102 who adores us. We draw comestibles from the quartermaster and she cooks our breakfasts and dinners. The minute we take off a piece of clothes she whisks it away and washes and irons it, and refuses to think of keeping a record and being paid for it. What’s more, her soups are delicious, her coquilles (from G.I. salmon with bechamel sauce), everything.
She is slightly touched with what G. Stein calls “cook-stove craziness”; but I like her fine and she’s recounted the story of her 56 years to me with details which would have startled the late Delia Porter.103
I get up at quarter to seven from between real sheets. I bathe cold, but I could bathe hot, if I dared manage the alarming looking geyser which has a pilot-light on, like a perpetual votive flame. I take bus, tram or hitchhike a considerable distance to the hut (“Nissen hut”) in which my desk is. Lunch at “Senior Officers’ Mess”. Start home about 7. Loud welcomes from Françoise. Dinner and early to bed to read a little Balzac before turning out the light. Such are the rigours of war.
Another thing has arrested us all from writing. No one can settle for us what our address is. We have risen one echelon higher, yes, ma’am. I am now the head of Mediterranean Air Command Air Plans III. All MAC is one APO number. Should we or not, include our section? Is it a breach of security? Yet if we omit it, would correspondence ever reach us?
Darlings, your packages are piled up in one corner of my armoire. Christmas day will be like any other day probably; but one of my housemates has ordered a turkey from a farmer (an American!) 15 miles from this city, and that we’ll have on the Eve and I’ll open my packages by myself in my luxurious bed after dinner.
Dec. 21
Again interrupted.
Work increases. I love it, and enjoy the approval of my bosses. Someday I shall a tale unfold.
This letter’ll never get off, if I don’t give it up to the Sgt. now.
Look at the date.
We don’t even think Xmas yet.
But
tons of love
Thornton
203. TO EVELYN SCOTT METCALFE.104 ALS 2 pp. Tennessee
T.N. Wilder, Major AC
HQ MAAF
APO 650
U.S. Army
July 28. 1944
Dear Mrs Metcalfe:
Indeed I understand very well the assumption behind your letter that Charlotte judging by her letters may be soon permitted to return to normal living.105 We have it often, too, after a visit to her when her conversation for the most part gives every indication of being restored to herself. I have not seen her since I came overseas, more than a year ago. For a time she had seemed to benefit greatly from the shock treatments and several of the nurses said that they had never seen such improvement in her type of illness.
Unfortunately, however, the lucid interval and the balanced letter are only a part of the story. For us the distressing part is the sudden bottom falling out of a conversation and the disappointment to our hopes: the sudden insistance that she has only been ill a year; the announcement that there are many people going around in the world saying that they are Evelyn Scott or Thornton Wilder, but that they aren’t and that we must protect ourselves against them. From the doctors’ point of view a still more conclusive reason that she is not well enough for removal is the fact
Fortunately
for my own reassurance that no injustice is being done Charlotte’s opportunity for the best surroundings conducive to her recovery is the fact that Dr Tom Rennie, the head of the Psychiatric Section of the NY Hospital and one of the most distinguished doctors for mental illness in the country is a friend of mine; has interested himself in Charlotte’s case and is able to read the reports which we are not allowed to see. He assures me that there is still a measure of hope that she may rejoin the outside world and that he will continue to follow her case and let us know when he thinks that she has sufficiently recovered to justify a change of background.
Sincerely yours
Thornton Wilder
204. TO ISABELLA N. AND ISABEL WILDER. ALS 2 pp. Yale
HQ MAAF APO 650 Oct 17, 1944
Dearest Twain: Suddenly I’m aware again that quite a time must have elapsed since I last not only vowed each morning to get a letter off before the day was over, but did it. My days are more and more cluttered with other duties than my military. The American service personnel who are interested in putting on plays have urged me to let them do Our Town, and I can’t offer any very good reasons not to, so a group of soldiers with little theatre and professional experience and some WACs are already rehearsing. In addition, I was pushed into being Acting Chairman—I at least insisted it was only “acting”—of the committee supervising all productions at the Hq., and now there’s a perfect fever of theatre going on.—there were highly successful runs of “Outward Bound” “Rope” “French without Tears” and <“>Pirates of Penzance” and now four companies are rehearsing Arsenic and Old Lace, Blithe Spirit, Tons of Money and Our Town. All this requires a lot of coordination and committee and club meetings, and is accompanied I’m sorry to say with a lot of underground politics and some very bitter feuds. I’m getting out of the chairmanship as soon as I can, and will restrict myself solely to overseeing the Our Town. ¶ The Wing Commander is back from his wedding journey106 and the eternal teasing of him by the entire staff will soon die down, speriamo.
TNW as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Force.
TNW as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Force. Courtesy of Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
The capitols of enemy held Europe, are falling<.> Riga and Athens these last few days; two more any day now.
We gave a goodbye party to another of our staff who got an appointment at the Pentagon. I was told the same could be had for me for the asking but I replied that I didn’t want to go there or home, until this mighty action had seen its ending.
It’s getting colder, dearies. I don’t wish to harrow my mama, but it certainly is idiotic the way that during the day I forget to call up the billetting officer and ask for another blanket. I only think of it nights when it’s too late!! So I put rolls of Sunday NY newspapers under my lower blankets—newspapers are very good insulation—and my heavy raincoat over my feet and over the two other blankets—can you bear it, mother?—and make out very well. Today, and no later, I shall call up and arrange for everything. My colleagues who were here last winter say that seven blankets is par.
Rê Xmas presents. Well, dears, edibles are highly welcome. Due to my not going to mess at noon and merely nibbling sweets. From the PX we can draw unlimited fruit juice so that prevents my picnic lunches from being downright deleterious. What is most deleterious, however, is sitting down to a full dinner at noon. As for the rest, any practical clothing from underwear to sox are also welcome. Heigh-ho—what I want most is to give you some big hugs and lie on the hearth rug and listen to the radio describing the reconstruction activity after the war.
lots of love and you’ll hear from me oftener.
Thine Thorny
P.S. I’m still in top health, girls, explain it.
205. TO ISABELLA N. AND ISABEL WILDER. ALS 2 pp. Yale
HQ MAAF APO 650 c/o P/M NY NY Nov. 10, 1944
Dear Ones.
Such fascinating packages arriving from you every day. The smaller ones I shall dip into as comestible in order to augment my picnic lunches,—ie that retirement to my tent, disdaining the plethora of the mess, and opening a can of fruit juice, etc, etc, reading a few pages of Freeman on Lees Lieutenants or Croce on old Naples,107 occasionally catching a cat’s nap, etc.
Our Town rehearsals go on pretty well. I’ve rec’d very high approval for the transfer from an air combat unit of a sergeant who was asst stage manager at the Los Angeles production—so I won’t have to give so much time to it. The “Stage Manager” does pretty well, but he’s atrocious in the clergyman’s speech at the wedding. How that must have been misread in the many small-town productions. It’s not a small-town comment on the ceremony!
I loved your letter on the garden. I love all your letters and don’t deserve them. Its downright abysmal how few I write: between rehearsals on alternate nights; Hq. Theatre Club committees (very stormy) on other nights; a new military committee I’m on and which requires writing up reports on other nights, I get very little time. Since with old fashioned scrupulousness I refuse to using
The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder Page 40