My dearest Patricia:
I’m writing to you this evening because I very much want to. You added so much to my enjoyment and to my life today that I just want to talk about it a little while. As you must know, you fascinate me to the point that I’m enthralled. I want to tell you everything important that I experience or do or think or feel.
You delight my soul - you are so responsive. We are both interested in Vietnam but when I told you about receiving the book today you came right over to see it and talk about it even though you didn’t feel that you wanted to get involved in it immediately. It is all vital to you but you want to wait till you can give it adequate attention and be prepared for its impact on you. for it has an impact on a person as concerned about what is going on in that unfortunate country as you are.
You were wise. I’ve reread all the illustrated first half of the book, and I dobut if you can take it all at once or until you are prepared for it. You’ll want to see all that the pictures show and get all the message of the accompanying explanations, but it will be better if you take it a little at a time. I was deeply affected by my second reading of it after you had left today. When I bring your copy from Palo Alto on Tuesday take your time with it and absorb it gradually, some of the impact of the pictures is too great individually to take them all at once.
And now back to you. I’ve said much of this before, but5 I’m impelled to do so again and again. To me you always are outstandingly beautiful - physically completely but as I’ve said before - as a personality even more so because of the light that shines forth from your eyes, revealing the personality within. Such directness, openness, honesty and directness of character could not but be beautiful for anyone who has eyes to see. You always contribute to me something mentally of yourself that repeatedly makes me feel that I’ve been enriched. There is a dialog of personality between us that is more rewarding to me than any that I have ever known with any other person. This is why I treasure the weekly dinners we have together, and when you favor me with a breakfast, a lunch, or a tea - as today - I feel that I’ve been awarded a bonus.
[Page 2] You are the only young person who treats me entirely as an equal - and this I prize. You give me the respect due to anyone who is sincere but you don’t overrate me - least of all for effect or to build up to a situation in which you want to speak from a position of advantage. Instead you display the relaxed courtesy (or the intense earnestness) that reveals trust and confidence. You have the assurance and courage, on the other hand to say what you believe as nearly as you know how, which is all anyone can do, and you are sufficiently at ease with me to know that I respect and honor and trust you as much as you do me.
All of this [?] and strengthens the love that I have for you just as it has created and inspired my love for you in the first place. I think of you many times a day in between the other thoughts that are necessitated by the duties and obligations that fill my life as comparable ones do yours.
Just as I was preparing to write to you this evening a former student and friend who lives in Concord arrived with a few questions - most important of which was Would I go with her and her husband (also a former student) to San Francisco next month to the opera Carmen if she can get the tickets. She and her husband are Sunny (her name)Verna Lederer and Howard Lederer. I was her (Sunny’s) mentor and guide while she was an undergraduate and have retained something of the same status since. Now she has a daughter, Jean, who is a new freshman at San Jose State. Jean was at Freshman Camp and sat at my table in the dining room a couple of days. Faculty were expected to change tables every day or even every meal though, so for most of the week I saw Jean at various activities.
While Sunny and I were talking tonight the big excitement on 5th street occurred. Seven fire trucks and one police car crowded the street and lots of people arrived. Everyone from the apartments here had to go out for a look and to learn the cause of the excitement. The cause was a fire in the kitchen (?) or a house across the street with a lot of smoke that partly asphyxiated the woman who lived there. She was able apparently to phone for police help and a respirator was taken in to her and in the course [page 3] of nearly an hour she, presumably, was given the help and resuscitation she needed. Eventually all the fire trucks but one - the one that monitored the respirator - left and the street cleared of traffic but it was exciting for a while. One of our street buses came along and threaded its way between the fire trucks about midway of the affair. I suppose you heard some of the disturbance and took a look out, too. All now seems to be quiet on the western front.
I’ll probably write you again when I feel a comparable urge - maybe after I return from Indiana. Sorry I can’t take you with me for I’m sure you’d enjoy it. Some day you’ll have to see that beautiful state and also meet Sandra and her family - husband, dog, three cats, two children. She’s like you in many ways - intelligent, good looking (but don’t forget - you are beautiful) interested in many things, possessed of an independent personality, fair in her appraisals of others, etc. I’m sure you’d like each other and get along from the first meeting.
And, oh yes! I’ll be sure to write to you from Indiana - and telephone to you too, just so I’ll not feel lost without seeing you for a whole week!
Goodnight darling - sweet dreams - good luck tomorrow - and I’ll see you Wednesday if not sooner (when I bring your book to you, for example)
And now - all the love I have for you that can be put on the end of a letter. Though words are such feeble things! You still delight my soul - Carl.
Dr. Carl Duncan and Patricia Whiting Collection (SJSU)
