Jan. 26, 1937

Dear Violer:

Still fighting the world, huh? But why in hell do you
go and listen to poetry you don't like? Maybe when I read poetry
on the air you'll feel better about it. But that's not a promise.
Just a smile. I know, you'd like to ride a beautiful white horse
through fields of lily of the valley until you swooned! And that
would be something. Meanwhile your poor kid daughter has to swoon
because some thick head squeezes the guts out of her when she's
in no condition to take it. She must be good looking. You see,
loveliness fares differently in the world today than it did in other
times. And we must celebrate it where we find it. Do you object to
that? If there is spirituality it's as much here today, in
present surroundings, as it ever has been anywhere in any surround-
ings whatever. And the only way it can be presently evoked ( in
an objective fashion as befits the sensual arts ) is by showing the
world not as the spirit once affected it but as it affects it
today.

Sorry. I know that is more than your poor little head can
stand but just count ten first and then read it again. It is
real meaty. No? So sorry. In fact I don't give a whoop in hell
what you do about it.

Sure, we'll be there when your ship comes in. It's been
difficult, to die, for us to do anything due to the influence by
which I live. Things are improving now. Until then, take it easy
as we say brightly in New Jersey. There ain't sick, not by the
new proclamations he keeps sending me and lists of "living" men.
He seems only to know ten of them. But I'm sure his choice is
colored by his personal preferences. Sorry to hear that Hilda writes
you so often and never writes to me. Queer, isn't she?

A nice letter. Glad to hear from you.

Yours as ever

DR. W. C. WILLIAMS

9 RIDGE ROAD
RUTHERFORD, N. J.

Dec 28, 1945

Dear Viola :

It's interesting to know you heard from
the Ezra, he seems to be getting out of it in the
modern way - by pretending madness. Why in hell
doesn't he come clean, acknowledge his guilt and
take it in the neck? Or else we could turn the Jews
over to him and let him run the country, he and
Lindburg. What a graceful time we'd have then?

The finest defence of him that I have yet
seen was written by a Jew, Louis Zukofsky.

Could you let me have Conrad's address on
the West Coast, I want to send him a New Year's present
a copy of In The American Grain - a first edition
I was lucky enough to pick up in New York in the
fall.

Cheerio and happy new year

Yours as ever

DR. W. C. WILLIAMS

10/29/46

Dear Viola:

Nothing to it. You know Ezra, he makes an
assumption, as for instance that I have talked of
written to your former husband which he immediately
takes for fact. The next step is to speak of it as
an occurrence. He's nuts. I don't like your former
husband and have never in any way communicated with
him - let him be a capitalist, that would make me
a socialist.

What is Conrad doing looking for a job?
Isn't he going back to college? I thought he had
another year of it before him - or is this job he
is after merely an extension of his college work?

Yes, the chrysanthemums are magnificent this
year, we have a garden full of them. But pore ol'
Ez is still in the coop, I don't think he'll be
much interested in the beauty of the weather this
year, if he ever was. I don't think he could tell
a daisy from a rose when you come right down to it,
any more than he could tell Mozart from Stravinsky.
His most recent cantos add nothing to his fame.