Letters: Oct. 5, 1983

(3 of 12)
after I am out, I have a good mind to buy you a drink. Two, if you can stand the gait. Will you libate with me?

CHARLES PONZI

Massachusetts State Prison

Charlestown, Mass.

932 I WAS IN THE CLASS OF '86 AT HARVARD. I WAS NOT EXPELLED IN '87 NOR ANY OTHER YEAR. I NEVER DID ANYTHING VERY BAD AT HARVARD NOR ANYTHING VERY GOOD EITHER. I WAS RUSTICATED IN '86 FOR AN EXCESS OF POLITICAL ENTHUSIASM AND A CERTAIN DEFICIENCY IN INTELLECTUAL ATTAINMENTS. I DID NOT RETURN TO BE GRADUATED. THERE DID NOT SEEM TO BE EITHER REASON OR HOPE. I THINK THE LESS SAID ABOUT MY COLLEGE CAREER THE BETTER. PERHAPS THAT IS SO WITH THE REST OF MY CAREER. HOWEVER, EXERCISE YOUR OWN JUDGMENT, ONLY PLEASE PRINT THE FACTS, OR PERHAPS I SHOULD SAY, PLEASE DON'T.

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST Los Angeles, Calif.

Rustication: An old-fashioned academic penalty whereby delinquent undergraduates are sent away, generally to their homes to continue their studies under a supervisor designated by the college.—ED.

1933 Yes, very nice. Thanks for the wreathes. What about your doing a little constructive work????

1) My How to Read is intended for a textbook and ought to be in use. It wd. debunk 80% of the idiocy in teaching literature in high-schools and colleges and 81 and one-fourth percent of literary journalists. Literary teaching and criticism ought to get the best stuff to the reader with the least interposition of secondhand yawp.

2) You don't mention my having written two operas, i.e., the music. That is more important than my written criticism. I mean to say I have "set to music" a great deal of the best poetry of Villon and Cavalcanti with the intention of getting it out of books and to the consumer or recipient.

Whether anybody likes the tunes or not, there is at least the dimension or technical success of intelligibility. The music does not hide the words.

Naturally if I didn't think my melodic line was stronger, "better," had more guts than the general ruck of music I wd. have burnt the mss. instead of instigating its performance.

E. POUND Rapallo, Italy

1934 I do not know when I ever saw such a conglomeration of lies. The 638 was not the engine my husband was killed on and was never a passenger engine, and as to my son being a highway laborer, that was a base lie, he was never on a highway in his life unless he drove over it. Whoever gave you the information did not get it from me. I just want to tell you that I do not like one thing you said and please never attempt it again without my permission.

MRS. CASEY JONES Jackson, Tenn.

1935 What's this you've been publishing about the Dook of York that our distributors have been fools enough to censor and tear out over here? Please post me (letterpost) the censored article and send me a bill for a year's subscription to TIME. I don't know TIME: I ought to do so.

H. G. WELLS London

1936 I CAN TALK BUT I HATE TO INTERRUPT GROUCHO. I SPOKE IN PUBLIC LAST YEAR IN PORTLAND WHEN I ASKED FOR A RAISE IN SALARY BUT I DON'T THINK ANYONE HEARD ME. I MAKE A PRACTICE OF SPEAKING EVERY TIME CHICO MAKES A GRAND SLAM. SO YOU CAN LOOK FOR ANOTHER

SPEECH IN 1937.

HARPO MARX Culver City, Calif.

1937 The records on "spittin' image" should certainly be kept