by Shaun Usher
Dr. Solley, the gay, sweet doctor in charge, is a best friend of my best friends the Murphys and Dr. Passos, so they are busy cabling him about me and it’s nice to know the doctor is more than medically involved. I no longer need special nurses and today my entire bandage is removed. (The incision was made sort of below the right armpit toward the back--26 stitches.) Anyway, if it hadn’t been for all they learned about chest surgery in the war, I would not be in this fine shape. If I had had it done before they wouldn’t have known a lot of fancy precautionary touches. Anyway it just started growing and shoving this year, although Dr. Witt told me all about it 20 years ago with my first attack. I don’t even need to be careful, Dr. Ada says. My twin thrives on whiskey, but all I’m giving him is steak and ice cream. Anyway I get all bandages off today. I had nine broken ribs before and probably Terry would keep cracking them if I let him. I was very glad on hearing of my twin that he hadn’t popped out of my chest during a formal dinner party, me in my strapless and him grabbing my martini. I rather thought he’d come out saying, “Okay Louis, drop the gun.”
Anyway, I breathe wonderfully as if I’d never breathed before. I didn’t write Auntie May as I thought you’d tell her what was suitable for a growing girl. By the way Dr. Passos has been in several time after a trip he made for Life Magazine to Atlanta, Ga., also Johnson City, Tenn. He said the hills around J.C. were the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Is that your stomping ground?
I wish Dr. Ada could yank out Mabel’s pyloris. I really am tired of pain and think Mabel should be promoted past it. I had my share of gas and rhubarb and soda. Anyway, you two ladies start looking in your chests for further twins. I was hoping Terry Toma had saved up a fortune for me. He’s still being analyzed in the pathology dept., so I’m not sure what all he had in him but you’ll both get your share, fair and square.
Much love,
Dawn
P.S. Joe is spending Easter with Jojo. I will go home Tuesday, I guess.
Dearest Phyllis—
First, regarding Dry Hospital Skin, let me share my Egyptian beauty secrets of eternal youth. After years of Endocreme I was squeezed out when it zoomed to $5 a jar and took up a rare product called Pond’s Dry Skin Cream (75 cents). I was taken with an ad telling you to heat a spoonful and stuff on your puss after cleaning. Well sir, I think it’s great. Even on the hands. Also, it doesn’t smell. However, if your antennae are still sensitive you may be nauseated at a faint sniff of lanolin. If I had saved the 20 years’ worth of Endocreme expenditures I would not be the beauty I am today, perhaps, but I would have had more to put on the horses or gigolos or fine jewels or else enough for a rainy day if I’d saved enough water too.
It is 8 a.m. and I sit here in my bay window looking over at the New York Life skyscraper (midget skyscrapers) waiting for the toilers to get to their desks and start staring back at me. I couldn’t sleep because I have an appointment in two hours to see a man about a job—a role I haven’t played for some time. Do I come in with a curtsy or with a roar? Does he pay me or do I pay him? I have only a vague idea of what the job is as the publication doesn’t yet exist—and I’m sure the man who phoned me about it hasn’t any idea of what I do. So I don’t know whether to go in with a list of girls’ phone numbers for an Elks banquet or some samples of my upside-down cake. I did remember to get a haircut and shave and I shined my shoes and wiped the cat hairs off my suit. I am fairly sure I will be baffled right back here by noon.
My operation—hysterectomy due to cancer cells—was in 1946 and was not a complete one as I faded out in the middle and had to be transfused and oxygenated and then went into shock so the doctor stayed in my hospital room all night. (Isn’t that flattering?) So, to get the rest out, I had two or three months of daily radium treatments that wore me down and sickened me. I had felt marvelous after the operation so I was mad when I had to go to Mt. Sinai Hospital for a week and have a radium kind of operation. All this was particularly mean because Joe and everybody were bored by my being sick by that time. However, I will say it fixed me. The radiological doctor is dead now (of cancer) but here I am, Pond’s Creamed up the hilt (where the ovaries used to stand) and ready for employment—so cheers! Be of high heart! Or High Beust or something. Get high.
Love,
Dawn
Letter No. 081
DO NOT REMAIN NAMELESS TO YOURSELF
RICHARD FEYNMAN TO KOICHI MANO
February 3rd, 1966
In 1966, nine years after gaining his PhD with a dissertation titled “The Self-Energy of the Scalar Nucleon”, physicist Koichi Mano wrote a congratulatory letter to Richard Feynman, the man who had originally taught him at the California Institute of Technology and, more recently, joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his pioneering work in quantum electrodynamics. Feynman replied with an enquiry about Mano’s current job, to which Mano responded that he was “studying the Coherence theory with some applications to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through turbulent atmosphere […] a humble and down-to-earth type of problem”. Feynman responded with this letter.
American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, 1965
Dear Koichi,
I was very happy to hear from you, and that you have such a position in the Research Laboratories.
Unfortunately your letter made me unhappy for you seem to be truly sad. It seems that the influence of your teacher has been to give you a false idea of what are worthwhile problems. The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. A problem is grand in science if it lies before us unsolved and we see some way for us to make some headway into it. I would advise you to take even simpler, or as you say, humbler, problems until you find some you can really solve easily, no matter how trivial. You will get the pleasure of success, and of helping your fellow man, even if it is only to answer a question in the mind of a colleague less able than you. You must not take away from yourself these pleasures because you have some erroneous idea of what is worthwhile.
You met me at the peak of my career when I seemed to you to be concerned with problems close to the gods. But at the same time I had another Ph.D. Student (Albert Hibbs) was on how it is that the winds build up waves blowing over water in the sea. I accepted him as a student because he came to me with the problem he wanted to solve. With you I made a mistake, I gave you the problem instead of letting you find your own; and left you with a wrong idea of what is interesting or pleasant or important to work on (namely those problems you see you may do something about). I am sorry, excuse me. I hope by this letter to correct it a little.
I have worked on innumerable problems that you would call humble, but which I enjoyed and felt very good about because I sometimes could partially succeed. For example, experiments on the coefficient of friction on highly polished surfaces, to try to learn something about how friction worked (failure). Or, how elastic properties of crystals depends on the forces between the atoms in them, or how to make electroplated metal stick to plastic objects (like radio knobs). Or, how neutrons diffuse out of Uranium. Or, the reflection of electromagnetic waves from films coating glass. The development of shock waves in explosions. The design of a neutron counter. Why some elements capture electrons from the L-orbits, but not the K-orbits. General theory of how to fold paper to make a certain type of child’s toy (called flexagons). The energy levels in the light nuclei. The theory of turbulence (I have spent several years on it without success). Plus all the “grander” problems of quantum theory.
No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself – it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of your na
ïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s ideals are.
Best of luck and happiness.
Sincerely,
Richard P. Feynman
Letter No. 082
I SEE HIM IN THE STAR
EMILY DICKINSON TO SUSAN DICKINSON
October, 1883
Born in August of 1875 in Amherst, Massachusetts, Thomas Gilbert Dickinson was the third child of Susan and Austin Dickinson and by all accounts an adored member of their large family. Indeed, judging by the affection she showered upon him during his all-too-short existence, it was his smitten auntie and next door neighbour, celebrated poet Emily Dickinson, who was particularly taken with Thomas. Tragically, many hearts were forever broken on October 5th of 1883, when Thomas, still only eight, died following a battle with typhoid fever. Soon after, in the midst of attempting to deal with her own grief, Emily wrote what is arguably her greatest letter: one of condolence to her sister-in-law.
Dear Sue -
The Vision of Immortal Life has been fulfilled -
How simply at the last the Fathom comes! The Passenger and not the Sea, we find surprises us -
Gilbert rejoiced in Secrets -
His Life was panting with them - With what menace of Light he cried “Dont tell, Aunt Emily”! Now my ascended Playmate must instruct me. Show us, prattling Preceptor, but the way to thee!
He knew no niggard moment - His Life was full of Boon -
The Playthings of the Dervish were not so wild as his -
No Crescent was this Creature - He traveled from the Full -
Such soar, but never set -
I see him in the Star, and meet his sweet velocity in everything that flies - His Life was like the Bugle, which winds itself away, his Elegy an Echo - his Requiem Ecstacy -
Dawn and Meridian in one.
Wherefore would he wait, wronged only of Night, which he left for us -
Without a speculation, our little Ajax spans the whole -
Pass to thy Rendezvous of Light,
Pangless except for us -
Who slowly ford the Mystery
Which thou hast leaped across!
Emily –
The Vision of Immortal Life has been fulfilled -
How simply at the last the Fathom comes! The Passenger and not the Sea, we find surprises us -
Gilbert rejoiced in Secrets -
His Life was panting with them - With what menace of Light he cried “Dont tell, Aunt Emily”! Now my ascended Playmate must instruct me. Show us, prattling Preceptor, but the way to thee!
He knew no niggard moment - His Life was full of Boon -
The Playthings of the Dervish were not so wild as his -
No Crescent was this Creature - He traveled from the Full -
Such soar, but never set -
I see him in the Star, and meet his sweet velocity in everything that flies - His Life was like the Bugle, which winds itself away, his Elegy an Echo - his Requiem Ecstacy -
Dawn and Meridian in one.
Wherefore would he wait, wronged only of Night, which he left for us -
Without a speculation, our little Ajax spans the whole -
Pass to thy Rendezvous of Light,
Pangless except for us -
Who slowly ford the Mystery
Which thou hast leaped across!
Emily –
Letter No. 083
I AM DESPERATE TO HAVE SOME REAL FUN
PETER SELLERS TO SPIKE MILLIGAN
May 28th, 1980
In January 1960, nine years and 250 episodes after first being introduced to a baffled but delighted audience, The Goon Show’s final instalment was broadcast on BBC radio, much to the dismay of its many fans. Written chiefly by Spike Milligan, the show’s ten series had been a surreal mixture of sketches, music and general nonsense that went on to make stars of its three main actors – Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe – and become one of British comedy’s most influential and adored creations. Judging by this touching telegram, sent by an ill Sellers to his ex-co-stars in 1980, it wasn’t just the listeners who mourned The Goon Show. Tragically, two months after sending it, hours before a planned reunion dinner with Milligan and Secombe, Sellers suffered a heart attack. He passed away two days later.
PADDINGTON
28 MAY 80
MR SPIKE MILLIGAN
DEAR SPIKE I AM DESPERATE TO HAVE SOME REAL FUN AGAIN WITH YOU AND HARRY. PLEASE CAN WE GET TOGETHER AND WRITE SOME MORE GOON SHOWS? WE COULD PLACE THEM ANYWHERE I DONT WANT ANY MONEY I WILL WORK JUST FOR THE SHEER JOY OF BEING WITH YOU BOTH AGAIN AS WE WERE.
LOVE
PETER
Letter No. 084
THE WHITE HOUSE
ABIGAIL ADAMS TO HER DAUGHTER
November 21st, 1800
In November of 1800, shortly after her husband moved in, 55-year-old Abigail Adams became the first First Lady to live at the White House in the newly designated capital city, Washington D.C. Both the house and city were still unfinished but “habitable”, and Adams was clearly frustrated. A few days after arriving, she wrote a letter to her daughter and described the now unimaginable scene.
Earliest known daguerrotype of the White House, 1846
Washington, 21 November 1800
My Dear Child:
I arrived here on Sunday last, and without meeting with any accident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore and going eight or nine miles on the Frederick road, by which means we were obliged to go the other eight through woods, where we wandered two hours without finding a guide or the path. Fortunately, a straggling black came up with us, and we engaged him as a guide to extricate us out of our difficulty; but woods are all you can see from Baltimore until you reach the city, which is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed amongst the forests, through which you travel miles without seeing any human being. In the city there are buildings enough, if they were compact and finished, to accommodate Congress and those attached to it; but as they are, and scattered as they are, I see no great comfort for them. The river, which runs up to Alexandria, is in full view of my window, and I see the vessels as they pass and repass. The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables; an establishment very well proportioned to the President’s salary. The lighting of the apartments, from the kitchen to parlors and chambers, is a tax indeed; and the fires we are obliged to keep to secure us from daily agues is another very cheering comfort. To assist us in this great castle, and render less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not one single one being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you can obtain. This is so great an inconvenience that I know not what to do, or how to do. The ladies from Georgetown and in the city have many of them visited me. Yesterday I returned fifteen visits--but such a place as Georgetown appears--why, our Milton is beautiful. But no comparisons--if they will put me up some bells and let me have wood enough to keep fires, I design to be pleased. I could content myself almost anywhere three months; but surrounded with forests, can you believe that wood is not to be had because people cannot be found to cut and cart it? Briesler entered into a contract with a man to supply him with wood. A small part, a few cords only, has he been able to get. Most of that was expended to dry the walls of the house before we came in, and yesterday the man told him it was impossible for him to procure it to be cut and carted. He has had recourse to coals; but we cannot get grates made and set. We have, indeed, come into a new country.
You must keep all this to yourself, and, when asked how I like it, say that I write you the situation is beautiful, which is true. The house is made habitable, but there is not a single apartment finished, and all withinside, except the plastering, has been done since Briesler came. We have not the least fence, yard, or other convenience, without, and the great unfinish
ed audience room I made a drying room of, to hang up the clothes in. The principal stairs are not up, and will not be this winter. Six chambers are made comfortable; two are occupied by the President and Mr. Shaw; two lower rooms, one for a common parlor, and one for a levee room. Upstairs there is the oval room, which is designed for the drawing room, and has the crimson furniture in it. It is a very handsome room now; but, when completed, it will be beautiful. If the twelve years, in which this place has been considered as the future seat of government, had been improved, as they would have been if in New England, very many of the present inconveniences would have been removed. It is a beautiful spot, capable of every improvement, and the more I view it, the more I am delighted with it.