Letters, Jan. 30, 1939

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Medals Sirs:

I nominate as the group which brought the most joy to the heart of suffering humanity during 1938 the boys who beat up Goebbels, and I trust every effort will be made to commemorate in some fitting manner the action of these public benefactors. I would be delighted to subscribe to a fund to buy them costly medals, if they survive.

FRANK SULLIVAN Saratoga Springs, N. Y.

— Their whereabouts are unknown, their act unverified.—ED.

Thackeray to Kieran

Sirs :

I note, on p. 36 of TIME, Jan. 9, the following, under heading "Kieran & Co.":

"Mused Father John [Kieran] into the microphone in Kieranized Shakespeare: 'How sharper than a thankless tooth it is to have a serpent child.' "

Let TIME and omniscient Mr. Kieran read William Makepeace Thackeray's The Kickleburys on the Rhine (1851), where they will find this paragraph:

"Lady Kicklebury remarked, that Shakspeare* was very right in stating, how much sharper than a thankless tooth it is to have a serpent child."

WM. GEO. SULLIVAN Indianapolis, Ind.

Carlyle

Sirs:

"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land; to the English that of the sea; to the Germans that of—the air."

(Thomas Carlyle in the Edinburgh Review, June 1827)

E. SMALLWEED

Somerset, N. J.

Takashi Masuda

Sirs:

May I thank you personally for your extremely unbiased and sympathetic account of the death of ex-Baron Takashi Masuda [TIME, Jan. 9] ? At this time when we are being urged on all sides to think all Japanese dragons, your reportorial honesty does you credit.

We met Mr. Masuda last year. We went, on a rainy day, to his house outside of Tokyo, primarily to see his private collection of Chinese and Japanese Art. We came away adoring that merry, hospitable and clever old man. . . .

When we saw him he was recovering from an ailment and leaned heavily on a cane. Every now and then the cane gave way and would do a sidewise step across the room.

Each time his two girl attendants would giggle. His instructions were that his ailment was to be ignored or treated gaily.

He had, as you mentioned, extremely individual notions about food. I remember his insisting that I take honey instead of sugar in my tea, that it was better for me. The honey was from his own bees, the tea grew on shrubs which stretched for an acre in front of us as we sat there sipping it, and made up his front garden. He had two boxes packed for us. . . .

I have two regrets. One, that we could not return for Mr. Masuda's promised tale of his intensely interesting experiences during the exciting changes which took place in Japan during 1860-1875; the other that my New Year's greetings reached him too late.

ELEANOR LAPORTE Ann Arbor, Mich.

True But Naïve

Sirs:

Every true American patriot . . . should protest emphatically against the war-breeding statement against the totalitarian states made by Chairman Key Pittman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (p. 6,TIME, Jan. 2).