Letter, dated January 8, 1952:
happynewyear:
I'm sorry we managed to elude each other so successfully during the recent brief holiday, but life was excessively traumatic.
Permit me to announce, at this time, the termination of the Romance of the Century... (not to be confused with the Greatest Fights of the Century, which is a television show on boxing)... which after an eventful three years and half, etc., etc.,
I am working. This time for the University. I am the receptionist at the Reading Institute for Children Who don't Know the Alphabet (in sanscrit) and retarded Adults. It is very dull here except when the children do some perverted thing like stop up the toilet, or walk through windows. Then it gets very interesting. The woman I work for is a bitch, and she hates me, but then so does everybody else. Every day, all over the world, mankind observes, religiously, fifteen minutes of hate Alice.
I saw George Broadfield for the first time in about two years the other night, and he bored the hell out of me for half an hour. What is left in life for me now, if even Broadfield is boring. He has, by the way, the East via, I suspect, a Tibetan fairy or something related. Anyway, he has decided that he is a Negro, and that he's going to South Africa like Augustine or somebody.
I have been having fierce pains in the stomach for about two weeks. It's probably psychosomatic, but I prefer to think that my brother has been feeding me large doses of ground glass in my rice crispies.
I once wrote you a letter when you first wrote to Dave Green but I think I lost it. Or maybe I handed it to Wm. Riley Parker instead of a Milton paper. I haven't been to that class since that day, anyhow.
I still do not have a thesis, or even an idea, and I don't expect to have one.
What is Chicago. Do you the like U. Are you going to the U. I met somebody who knows you whose name is Pearl Weis-something. I don't think she likes you. She is divorcing her husband.
I had a nice christmas. I got presents and I got drunk. Write to me unless you're too busy or something.
alice
Found in "Collected Poems: 1909-1935" by T.S. Eliot. Published by Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1936.
-Click to enlarge photos-
21 comments:
Good Lord. That is the most pessimistic but awesome letter.
Haha I loved it!
This is fantastic!
I was just reading along in the letter when the name William Parker Riley jumped out at me. Professor Riley was a faculty member and then Chair of the English Department here at Indiana University (where I work). Our departmental library is named for him and is known as the "The Parker." I don't usually think about his full name, so I had to get up and go check the plaque to make sure that this was our William Riley Parker. It was. Wow.
Wow. Just wow. I hope she wrote a novel at some point in her life, and I hope I somehow find it and read it! Loved this one - what a voice; what a find!
Ah, poor Alice!
Fantastic. I want to have a drink with Alice.
I have now decided that every time in the future I donate a book to a charity shop or library sales, I will first write a cryptic and bizarre letter to slip into it and make the purchasers wonder......
Amazing. Alice is now my new best friend.
That is marvelous. I wonder what Alice would make of her minor fame?
Oh my. I think if I was Alice I would get drunk too.
That is absolutely fantastic! It gave me quite a laugh. I wonder how Alice's life turned out?
Hahaha, this was an amazing letter. It makes me hope she wrote an autobiography.
HAHA I love this so much!
This is fun.
Oh my gosh, that is good. Although, the other post was pretty good, too. I think I it's a tie. What a great laugh, I can't tell you how much your posts brighten my days!
Well, she's certainly quite a character, isn't she?
I must say, that letter made me chuckle. It's a keeper.
Fantastic letter :-) I wrote my fair share of them when I was young so Alice and I need to go out and get drunk for old time's sake :-) Jo
the date, subject and especially the tone/style suggest that 'alice' just might be Alice Sheldon, AKA the well known SF writer James Tiptree. That would be something of a literary find.
I shall now endeavor, every day, to observe, religiously, fifteen minutes of adore Alice.
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