Later in the evening, March 9th
Dearest Patricia:
I must put on paper reactions to Friday – primarily thanks, many times over, joy and happiness and the feeling we are closer now and more secure in our relationship because of the added understanding that come from our easy and frank discussion at dinnertime and afterward. Please don’t ever feel that I am trying to pressure you, or impose my wishes on you. If what I may say isn’t always clear – just ask me directly what I mean, for anytime that one party to a relationship doesn’t understand or truly communicate with the other, he can react only on the basis of misunderstanding or lack of understanding, either of which is a form of [?]
I realize that, on the basis of traditional or customary reaction patterns you, as a younger person than I and as a student might be expected to be more shy and more reticent to counter with positive disagreement or with requests for explanation. However, as I have said before and as I must sincerely mean it, among the qualities in you that I most admire and treasure is the fact that you have so much strength in your personality. I delight in your determination to be you, and to stand on your own beliefs and your own thoughts and conclusions. So few young persons do this – or for that matter so few adults – really – that regardless of age such personas are extremely rare. I glory in your individuality and I look up to you for it. I really feel so completely humbled in your presence as I have with any of the few outstanding friends I have had in my life time. This humility is one that bespeaks trust and confidence as well as admiration and affection. I prize your acquaintance and I learn from you as much as you even may from me. A young friend from whom an older person can learn and thereby retain more of his [?] youth is a pearl of great price – I prize our relationship above everything else I know. Often when I think about it I am moved to tears of poignancy – not the weeping that you have abandoned by becoming stoical in the face of hurt, or degradation, or desertion by someone whom you have had every right to expect to be loyal – but the type of tears that are called forth by experiences that touch the heart or are evoked by great beauty or innocence (as when I view a children’s pet parade in Palo Alto – it happens every spring – and my eyes at times get so [Page 2] blurred by tears of appreciation of the little kids that I can hardly see. I feel this way about you at times – believe me! I feel that a bond exists between you and me that consists of – and is still being forged – of goodness, and kindness, of trust and affection, and understanding that are priceless. Let’s see them grow and grow and grow – till the bond can transcend anything else that happens to either of us and be a source of enduring strength , of reassurance, and faith that will sustain and enrich all the rest of our lives.
As to your poetry – I feel deeply what I said tonight – that it has qualities of insight and whimsicality that are marks of real poetic genius and that should not be touched by anyone. I deeply regret that I ever produced any other impressions by anything that I said or wrote. If you wish, I will voice no suggestions relating to changing anything – certainly there’ll be no thought of “connecting” or modifying them. If you feel it would be better to seek “criticism” (that I have never intended) elsewhere, I’ll gladly refrain from any commentary and just appreciate your verses because of their genuine poetic beauty which is of a quality and a beauty of expression that I do not have – another reason or justification for humility, on my part. But do allow me inside your sphere of trust and understanding so that I may again read your verses and be enriched by them.
Today you brought me joy by sharing tea and Lindy [?]’s chocolate cupcakes with me for breakfast – and by having dinner with me again. We did have such a good time sharing experiences and plans – and I get a surge of happiness from dining with you – for any time I eat with you it is dining! Then I was as happy as a boy in being able to share in your shopping. Maybe I can’t really express what such things meant to me, but they affect me deeply – they mean sunshine, and beauty, and love that make life worthwhile for me once more!
I am honored and humbled and brought to a state of rejoicing because you will go to dinner with me to my friends home in Lodera (Mrs. Ann Rosell) before the concert, and because you want to go to the summer meeting of the international platform association in July. I look forward eagerly to each of these occasions as well as to dinner dates, the moves etc. More than I can say.
And now again “goodnight sweetheart, till we meet tomorrow”
Much love, always, Carl
Dr. Carl Duncan and Patricia Whiting Collection (SJSU)
