Letters to Friends, Family and Editors

I send you my kisses with all the good things I think I have in me.

So many powers within me are tied to a stake, which might possibly grow into a green tree. Released, they could be useful to me and the country. But nobody ever shook a millstone from around his neck by complaining, especially when he was fond of it.

—I am taking a piece (for I can do more than this and I shall—yes), a piece of my heart, packing it neatly in a few sheets of inscribed paper, and sending it on to you.

I’ll put together a bundle for you; it will contain everything I have written up to now, original or derivative. Nothing will be missing except the childhood things (as you see, this misery’s been on my back from early on), then the stuff I no longer have, then the stuff I regard as worthless in this context, then the plans, since they are whole countries to him who has them and sand to everyone else, and finally the things I cannot show even to you, for we shudder to stand naked and be fingered by others, even if we have begged on our knees for that very thing.

We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours. And if I were to cast myself down before you and weep and tell you, what more would you know about me than you know about hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful. For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to hell.