Descripción
Autograph letter signed, "Jim," to Aunt Mossie, 6 April 1951. Five pages on three leaves, small octavo, plain pages with two-fold-lines; with "The Beverly House" printed envelope, beside which Agee has written in pencil "Agee, c/o R. J. McGill, Apt. 5," along with the address, "Mrs. M. Hodges, 3851 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA." ---- "Friday, April 6, 1951. Dear Aunt Mossie I've got a lot to thank you for your letter. ---I wish I had been in New York when you were there, and I certainly look forward to seeing you there, soon I hope, and to you and Mia's getting to know each other [Mia Fritsch, third wife]. She s a wonderful woman and I am sure you would like each other. All you say about divorce and marriage I agree with and am especially glad of Grandmother [Emma Tyler] had the same humane understanding and good sense about the whole thing and that's one of the main ways it seems to me the human race is divided between the ones who would kill others (or themselves) for the sake of a principle and those who know that people and their needs and their well-being, means a lot more than any principle. The ones who believe in people are your natural friends, everywhere the others are natural enemies. Yes you are dead right I really know for the first time what marriage is with Mia. With Alma [Mailman, second wife] it was something different a very vivid kind of love affair, trying to be a marriage we were neither of us capable of sometimes wonderful and sometimes horrible, but never a real marriage. The one before that wasn't even a real love affair but just a 5-year-living mistake which gives me so much to think of, it hurt the girl so badly. But I feel that what Mia and I have is solid as rock, and gets stronger and better the longer it goes on. It looks now as if I might come home pretty soon for a while at least if a certain movie gets made at all (from the novel The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene, starring Ralph Richardson) they want me to write the screenplay. I will know by next Wednesday. I could work on it at home at least for the next several weeks. I enjoy movie-writing much more ---- I hadn't realized that you have a bad heart too. Considering that I might be dead or an invalid, it doesn't seem like much, to have to cut far down on smoking and drinking and exertion yet I'm finding it hard to do. Always having had a great deal of energy and good health, I have no habit of taking care of myself so if I just try to be moderate it's very easy to forget. What I realize is that instead I must ration myself strictly but even when I do that the temptations to go past the rule a little bit is strong -- That would be okay except that the `little bit' can so easily become more that you realize. In general I keep a good enough hold on it, but I suspect that unless it becomes a habit pretty soon I d better quit smoking and drinking altogether. I was surprised in the hospital, how easy it was. But I do have a real addiction to tobacco and to alcohol. On the tragic scale of some friends of mine, who are really wrecked by it, I m not as alcoholic, but I am certainly a naturally hard drinker. After one drink it s very hard for me not to take another, and after 3 it s even harder not to take 3 more, and after that I am apt to lose count and stop caring how much I drink. So my ration is two on ordinary days and four on special occasions, and except for one drunken night I've held to this all right for the past few weeks. I'm awfully glad that you like the book ["Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"]. I like things in it but in many ways feel badly about it, for by now I can see many ways I could have made it so much better. I hope you like the new one ["The Morning Watch"]. I want to send you a copy but knowing my difficulty with wrapping and mailing packages, or even getting the paper and string. I'll probably wait till I'm home. Please remember me with love to Ida and Ruth, and very much love to yourself----". N° de ref. del artículo ABE-1623693896102
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