Telegrams of the Soul

On Writing

I just came to the realization, to the sudden, illuminating, simple realization, upon receipt of a letter from my true friend, Fr. W., a man most inclined to friendship (he writes with unbelievable verve on one of the finest typewriters) that to write a good letter can only mean to write it such that the recipient be able, while reading it, to hear the letter writer speaking loudly and most emphatically to him, as though seated right there at his side! To be able to completely reconcile in a letter this difference between the one who silently writes and the one who speaks out loud, that’s true letter writing skill! Everything else is literary rubbish crowned with laurels à la pig’s head. Temperament, incivilities, peculiarities, impertinences, tomfooleries, everything must come roaring out, roaring, roaring; or else it’s a contrived, mendacious and, therefore, boring, business! Letter-instant-photography!

A friend of mine, the watchmaker Josef T., once came to me with a request. He had just laid his lovely 23-year-old beloved in the grave.

“Peter, you know me, please help me! Write me a proper inscription for my marble tombstone. When may I hope that you think up something appropriate?”

“Now or never!” I replied right there in the middle of the street.

He tore out his notebook.

I wrote:

“I was the Watchmaker Josef T.,

And then I found paradise through you—.

And now I’m the Watchmaker

Joseph T. again—.”

You’ve got to pour out all your humanity spontaneously, in a rush; because later it turns into a tasteless sauce! That’s why there are so many tasteless sauces—.