BR TO KATHARINE TAIT, 7 JAN. 1950
BRACERS 52542. ALS. McMaster
Proofread by K. Blackwell

Jan. 7, 1950.

My dear Kate —

Thank you very much for the lovely card and for your letter with it. The longer one you promised hasn’t come yet. I hope Charlie has got the job you spoke of.

I wish I could see you. Although you might not guess it, I am very fond of you. I have accepted an invitation to lecture at Mount Holyoke next Oct., partly because it will give me a chance of seeing you if we are all still alive then.

I have lived here now since April, all alone except during Conrad’s summer holidays <text excised from photocopy> This day week I am leaving here to go to Richmond and share a house with John. Too much solitude is bad for me: I grow morbid, and reflect what a failure I have made of my life, as a husband and as a father. I have tried to think the fault was other people’s, but the repetition seems to show it can’t be <text excised> I dislike the feeling that I must have been unkind.

I have a great deal of work on hand, which I am glad of; but for work I should go melancholy mad.

Perhaps you should try now to sell the MS of “The Free Man’s Worship”.a I may be forgotten by the time I die. Possibly you could sell it to Haldeman-Julius, whose address is Girard, Kansas. Or Culbertson (the bridge man) might like to have it. But you should take advice. Might try Simon and Schuster.

I look forward to sharing a house with John. I shall have a separate flat, and we shall see each other when we want to, not otherwise. John is hopeless in practical matters, and Susan is only so-so, but John’s mind has improved, and Susan has an aptitude for poetry. — I wish I could do more for you. Goodbye dear Kate, with much love.

Diddy

Textual Notes

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  “The Free Man’s Worship” quotation marks supplied editorially