400 Deming Place
Chicago, 14.

November 8th.

Dear Jean:

I never write, or only at great intervals, to people that I esteem very highly, as I would like to write very special lettersto them and generally wait for ever for the right mood, inspiration,etc, which rarely comes. Now, I have an urgent and real excuse to just sit down and write to you.

I have in my possession quite a few of your books which are new. Not really new, as they have been in storage so long, but books off the press that were never used, and I would like to know if you would like to have them sent to you at once, or what you would like to have done with them.

Yvonne had quite a few of your books which I believe she was handling for you. She had them when she was living in the last apartment she ever had of her own, at 21 E. Division St. She had Bob living with her and was sending him to the Francis Parker school, and it was quite a job trying to get him to go to school and cook his meals and trying to civilize him generally to fit into a regular schoolchild's life.. It was very difficult for her financially and Bob was noisy and unruly and the consequence was that she had to give up the apt. rather suddenly and put all her things into storage, which, she thought would be just for a few months.

I think it was after that, that she lived with Elise for a year. I know just before she left Elis's, when she got a little better, she talked and worried so much about the things in storage as she was afraid she would lose every thing. They threatened to sell the things and I know one time she had me call them to try to put them off.

I thought later

they were lost, that it was too late to redeem them.
Later on when I had a letter from the warehouse that
they could still be had I was unable to take them out
as Mother was too ill for me to go on with my real
estate work and I had given up the apt. we lived in and
had a furnished hotel apt. with service in order to
take care of Mother and be with her all the time, so
had no way of taking Yvonne's furniture and things.
It was only this spring, when I was able to take a small
unfurnished apt. that I was able to get them out.

Unpacking the things that she had so carefully
packed and expected to take out so soon and worried so
much about, and had so much of her personality all
through, was like a knife turning in my heart. Life
is so much like that with every one, I guess.
People come and go, travel all over the world, marry
divorce, have children, live and die, so much happens
so quickly. I just live on in the same place,
apparently nothing happens to me, just on the inside,
but I feel that so many tragedies and wrenches have
ploughed right through my inner being, that I have
nothing left but a passive cheek and a torn heart.
Perhaps, its getting old too. I feel very old these
days. It gives one quite a detached feeling.

I still have a good many things to be thank
ful for. I am so happy about Gordon's marriage. He
married a lovely girl; so thoroughly honest and sweet-
and I am enjoying having some one so young and gay in
the family now. I was afraid that Gordon would not
marry and he seemed rather lonesome before.

Then Bob has lived through two years in the
Pacific and came out safely. He is in Tokio now. I
just received a letter from him. I hope he will be
out of Japan soon and on his way back.

I know you hear from Chauns occasionally.
He did not like California and has gone back to Portage

again. Florence has been living In California
for over two years and likes it very much. And
believe it or not, Dolly is still living at the
Dearborn Manor and of course is still at the Library.
We two still hold the fort in Chicago. I do
not see any of the old crowd. So many of them have
passed on. Does it not seem strange that so many of t
them died really rather young?

I saw Emily one day with her mother and the
twins when they were still in the carriage stage.

Stella Weber went to Paris to live and
married a "White Russian" and bought a lovely villa
in the south of France but left it and came back
just as the Germans were taking over. She came to
see me when she returned. Then she and her husband
went to some college town to live. I think it may
have been Amherst.

I think of you more often than you might
realize. You did so much for all your pupils. It
took some time to realize it. I am quite sure you
wakened us all to some extent, which made it possible
for us to make a little start on the road to reality.
Just practising awareness alone was a real beginning
of cutting through personality.

I heard you were quite ill and had an
operation. I hope you are much better. Your little
girl must be quite a lovely big girl now and a joy
to you. I never met your wife but I have heard so much
about her that I feel as if I had, and I should like
to send my greetings to her.

Long, at last about the books. There are
five volumes of Cane and 60 copies of Essentials,
all in very good condition. There are enough of
Essentials to do something with them. Let me know if
I shall mail them on to you, or if there is any
thing else you would like to have me do with them.

With love, Pauline [Dupee]

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION

Mill House
Doylestown, Pa

Nov 21 45

Dear Pauline,

How good to hear from you! Ever so often my Chicago
days come back to me, and always with a warm feeling.
Remember how I used to pitch in to Chicago, and sometimes
made you mad by what you felt to be unfair criticisms?
Well, even then, so you also knew, I had a warm spot in my
heart for that place and its people - and I still have.
There's something in me that would like to come back, not
in memory only but in person.

Ah my, that Dearborn Manor - and what went on there.
remember Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with the
jupees, and much else with that good family. And of course
yonne, warmly. And your mother, and you andolly and
sometimes Chaunce and sometimes Gordon. I remember, too,
Mark Tobey (the Red Beard), and Mark Turkyfill (do I spell
that correctly?) and sometimes Koler.

I don't wonder that you feel that so much has come and
so much has gone, and that you have been torn by the
heartaches. I think that many of us, if not most of us,
have a curious sense of being on the sidelines - this
sense, that is, comes to the surface when we really face
ourselves and candidly view our situation. In fact, the
first chapter of the book I'm working on deals with just
this theme, and the theme runs throughout the book. This
book, by the way, will contain, I think, quite a bit that will
recall one Bruce-Jean, and some things that are relatively
recent developments. It is tentatively down for publication
this spring, but I don't think I'll have it ready to come
out before late summer or early fall. At any rate it is
on the way, and a publisher has already been found.

As for the books you have, I wish you'd consider all
the copies of Essentials yours. Among other things, they
make good Christmas gifts - and I wish you'd use them that way
or any way you see fit. I have about a hundred copies here,
so don't need any more. I have, too, a copy of Jane. But
I may want to call on you for a copy of that. So if it is not
too much trouble, would you sort of keep those few copies
for me, and then I'll write when need arises.

I am glad to hear about Gordon and his fine marriage.
Please greet him and her for me. And greetolly, and Chaunce
should he come in from Portage. I had a card from him from
California, but none since. So Bob has come through the wars!
That's splendid - and I bet he wants he wants to get back
home.

Sometime time ago I heard of Emily and her twins. Since
then, no word. I'd like to see her as a mother of growing
twins. Perhaps there are more now. And what do you think?
One evening, I don't remember quite how long ago, I was
having dinner at an inn in a little town about ten miles

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

2

from here. Across the room was a party of people at a table. Presently one of that party arose and came towards me, smiling. Suddenly I recognized Stella Weber! Yes, there she was, and her husband, and some friends. If I remember aright, they were living at Princeton for the time being. Since that surprise meeting, I've neither seen nor heard of her, until your letter came. I hear from the walcotts exactly once a year - at Xmas time. They are firmly rooted in North Carolina. Occasionally, in a round about way, I get word of Dorothy North. More often fix of the Groves. Of Elise I've heard nothing in a long time.

Yes it is curious how some of the group passed away at a comparatively early age. I myself had a close shave. To tell the truth I'm sometimes as surprised to find myself still among the living on this earth. Of those who have gone on, I can only hope that their life and world are preferable to these here. Man on earth has not done well by himself, or by Nature, or by God. And I do not like the looks of the way things are shaping up for the future. The war has ended, but war has not. Trouble increases at home and abroad. I think that the next few years will witness either the great disaster that has ever befallen men, or the most extraordinary rebirth. I think that only a profound new birth of the spirit, of the soul, of a greater consciousness and being, can stave off the ruin symbolized by the atomic bomb.

It is good to know that I had some part in making it possible for those of the groups to move towards reality. This is the big thing. To be on the way. It is a long way, and a hard one. But the way does exist, and people can travel it. One may not seem to make much progress in one life, but one life is a very short span in relation to the long-time existence of beings. The old saying is applicable here. Every little bit helps. Every day counts.

I miss something. Know what it is? Why, Pauline, telling me the kind of months I am going to have. So perhaps she might let me know of the prospects, in terms of energy, for the next few months. In other words, am I going to have enough favorable influences to complete that look by April.

Young Margery (called Arge by her young friends) is quite a girl, tall, filled out, nature looking physically, and of really splendid character. Her nature, her disposition, her inner being, are her strong points to date. Her mind, though quite adequate, is not what you would call brilliant. She's a fine looking child, or I had better say young lady. Marjorie is fine too, and sends warm greetings to you. As do I, with the hope that the business of living yields enough to live on without too much worry and work, and that that inner life of yours continues growing.

400 Deming Place
Chicago, 14.

February 26th [1947]

Dear Jean:

Thank you so much for the book. It was so
very good of you to think of me and to send me one.

I have wanted to know about the Quakers for
some time, what they believe, and about their silent
meetings. It is one of the few religions that I have
never heard criticised. It seems to bring universal
respect. It was only a couple of weeks before your
book came, that some one asked me if I knew how she
could find out something about the Quakers. This
person had real interest and was very anxious to find
out if there were any meetings in Chicago. I must re-
member which one of my friends it was and lend her
your book when I have read it.

I have just so far read the first chapter. It
is beautifully written and very interesting. It is so
much like your writing of old, but it is different too.
You must have changed also. I am very anxious to read
the rest of it. Lately I have had one of those strenu-
ous hectic periods when I have not had enough of time
or real quiet to read any thing like it and get what I
would like to from it - the understanding and apprecia-
tion. By the end of this week I hope to.

I have recently had Bob spend a month with me,
trying to get adjusted after the disillusion of a
four months' marriage and separation, which was very
hard for him as he had not recovered from his nerves
which were badly affected by the war. He has recently
left for South America with the Merchant Marines and
hopes to be with them for a year. He loves the sea
and I think it will help his nerves.

Do you remember my friend Kempie (Mr. & Mrs. Dow)
who had the attractive little apartment on Elm St?
They have lived in Connecticut for the last five years
but she has been here lately to get patched up after
a bad automobile accident. The operation was very
successful and she has gone back with only a slight
limp which will soon go.

Chauns' daughter and her two little children are

visiting him for the winter and he is enjoying that
very much. He has been living a la the bachelor in
a barren farm house, but Toma has been making curtains
and fixing it generally and I hear it is cozy and
comfortable now.

Gordon and Laura are as happy as the day is long.
They are precious and very well suited to each other.

Dolly is still busy at the library but hopes to
retire in a few years.

I had a grand time giving your Essentials as
Christmas presents. Thank you so much for letting
me have them. I meant to write you and thank you at
the time.

I hope you are very well now. The stars should
have been so much better for you the last year and
continue to be.

Greetings to the family and thanking you very
much!

Jean Toomer perceives, plainly, a great deal of truth in the spiritual world. He is also a keen observer of the homunculus in his earthly actuality. Races, nationalities, types and sex, he argues, are essentially real, "but, to men, they are prejudices." And he observes with incisive wisdom: "Men are most active when evading real issues, most powerful when rejecting real values."

In "Essentials" Jean Toomer commands high respect. Some of his aphorisms compare with those of Novalis, and the reviewer can think of no higher praise."

—JOHN McCLURE,
in *The New Orleans Times-Picayune*.

"As a maker of Sentences and Maxims, Mr. Toomer has the requisite concision and point and very often attains weight of thought. "Essentials" is a stimulating book for those who fall between the 'increasing number of materialists who are committing suicide because they believe they have no soul' and the 'increasing number of spiritualists who are going crazy because they believe they have one,' for those people in the center, that is, who take a hard-headed interest in self-development."

—The New York Sun.

"As a record of intellectual experience "Essentials" is even more interesting. 'We learn the rope of life by untying its knots,' Mr. Toomer notes, and his book makes it clear that he has spent much time on the persistent knots or riddles of life. He is stimulating just where most of our critics are insipid; they are alert for the latest words on things but asleep when it comes to pondering on the first words. Mr. Toomer tries to disengage the problem of Man, the first words on things, and for that effort he may be highly recommended to those readers in search for real food for the mind."

—GORHAM MUNSON,
in a letter in the N. Y. World-Telegram.

"Essentials is one of the most thought provoking items we have discovered since we read *The Devil's Dictionary*. We should add that Toomer is like Bierce with, what would today be called, the Menckenese left out."

—Krock's Book Review.

"Those who are in the habit of seeking for principles behind appearances will be likely to feel an illuminating wisdom at work throughout the collection, and here and there it will seem as though a window has been opened briefly in the opaque wall of the world."

—The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

## ESSENTIALS

A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
IN THREE HUNDRED
DEFINITIONS
AND
APHORISMS

JEAN TOOMER

"It will take its place
as one of the great books."

WOULD you like a book which may endure
as long as there is an American literature?

Such is the promise of ESSENTIALS.

A philosophy of life recorded in unforgettable maxims and aphorisms, bearing on human relationships, love, sex, education, art, society, business, science, religion, individualization...

There is wisdom in it—wisdom for living in these days when old forms are breaking up, old ways are ending, and men are forced to seek new directions.

Clear thinking and literary art combine to make ESSENTIALS unique in modern literature.

An increasing number of thoughtful people are recognizing the power, intelligence, and literary artistry of Jean Toomer. He is already known as a lyric poet, as a writer of distinguished prose, as a brilliant lecturer. This volume will introduce him as a philosopher of crystalline understanding.

Among the ancients, maxims and aphorisms were favored highly esteemed literary forms. A good portion of the world's wisdom is recorded in pithy sayings. Jean Toomer is a modern ancient.

He is satirical and delightful, realistic and religious.

He is as intense as Nietzsche, as pointed as Bernard Shaw.

He is uniquely himself when dealing with psychological reality.

The quintessence of his experience and thought is contained in ESSENTIALS.

This is a private edition limited to one thousand numbered copies, specially designed and printed.

Price, $3 per copy.

## Critical Opinions of ESSENTIALS

"In these 300 definitions is reflected the keen intuitive wisdom of one of the most sensitive artists of this period. The philosophy is a virile mystic doctrine of personal growth towards perfection. Aside from the doctrinal element, the volume contains scores of aphorisms valuable in themselves apart from their context. Such as these:

We who are in the universe act as if we were not.

We who talk of knowledge of the universe cannot sense the nature of an apple.

We are hypnotized by literacy.

Science is a system of exact mysteries.

Whose energy is released when a spring unwinds?

We sleep: who profits by our dreams?

People mistake their limitations for high standards.

A symbol is as useful to the spirit as a tool is to the hand.

Jean Toomer contends that "man is a being potentially able to act with reason according to value." We should conceive of ourselves, he argues, "as wholes, made up of both actualities and potentialites." His philosophy glorifies the potentialities in man. "He who feels ashamed of slavery can win freedom. He who feels ashamed of ignorance can attain knowledge. He who feels ashamed of nothingness can be." Most of us are too much concerned with actualities. "Modern man is losing his sense of himself and of reality." Man's aim, he argues, should be "to spiritualize the actual and to actualize the potential." Here are other thoughts:

It takes a well-spent lifetime, and perhaps more, to crystallize in us that for which we exist.

Let your doing be an exercise, not an exhibition.

Man is a nerve of the cosmos, dislocated, trying to quiver into place.

A true individual is not conformative but formative.

We move and hustle but lack rhythm.

We should have a living spirit and the ability to spiritualize experience.

We do not suffer: seldom does our essence suffer, but pride, vanity, egotism suffer in us.

My breathing is the Great Breath broken into nostrils.

Whatever is, is sacred.

HELEN DUPEE
1447 NORTH DEARBORN STREET, CHICAGO

Kindly send me ............ copies of *Essentials*, by Jean Toomer. I enclose $............

Name

Address City

R.D. 3

Doylestown, Pa

Sept 25 53

Dear Pauline,

Several years ago I somehow heard that Chauns had married and was living up north of Portage. That Christmas I sent him a letter addressed to Portage, asking that it be forwarded. It may never have reached him.

What Chauns went through! Well, he was there, making effort to the very last. It is awful that his lazy days were passed in such agony. And to think that his head striking a door brought it on. Though it is anything but happy news, I'm glad to know about him, even briefly, during the years when he and I were out of touch. As you know, I had a very warm feeling for him, and we had some very good times together, in work and out of it.

I have passed on the news to Fred Leighton. You'll probably hear from him.

Did you know that Gurdjieff died in 1949? What I am sure you do not know is that from about 1940 on, he began what from my point of view was a new phase of his work. He had a group of French people, really taught and trained them in the use of new inner exercises, etc. A wealth of new material. Orage did not have it, so he could not pass it on to his groups in New York. I did not have it, so I could not pass it on to mine in Chicago. There are a number of groups in New York now, some are psychological groups, some are classes in the movements. Last year I went in almost every week, and soon will begin doing so again. There are also records of some of the Gurdjieff music. Madame de Balzmann, one of his oldest pupils, is now head of the York in France, England, and the US. She will return to NY this fall. She was with Gurdjieff on one of his trips to Chicago. You may remember her.

Marjorie spent most of the summer in New Mexico and returned looking quite hale and hearty. Daughter Arge is now a young lady of 21, tall, well-built, and quite good looking, though she herself does not believe it. Is maturing, but that business of maturing is no easy one.

I see Fred fairly often. He too is again much in the work. I hear from the Walcotts and the Groves at Xmas time. Fred gets to Chicago now and again. Am sure he would like to see you, Dolly and Gordon. The last time he was there he got in touch with Max.

warm greetings to yourself, Dolly, and Gordon, and maybe one of these days I'll get to Chicago again, I would really like to. In a way Chicago is my city as no other is, and yes indeed I was part of the Dupe family, and feel I still am,

JEAN TOOMER COLLECTION

5335 Cornell Ave.
Chicago 15, Ill.

June 8th, 1958

Dear Jean:

I have taken such a long time to answer your very good letter which I was so glad to get. You dated it Feb. 27th and here it is June 8th. How time does fly- I can hardly believe it.

I was so sorry to hear that your health is not very good. I hope you are feeling better by now. It was so nice hearing about different members of the old Gurdjieff group. It brought back - as you said - the good old days.. Days of the Dearborn Manor and Superior 1570. I was amused when I started to dial that number a few weeks ago. It is queer what tricks our subconscious mind plays on us every once in a while. Well, those times seem like a different world. Time moves so fast.

Last month when we moved and packed I came across a few pictures of you and Yvonne and a baby picture of Arge. It seems so strange that she is already grown up. She must be very attractive and have a great deal of poise and courage to have been a stewardess on a National airline. I know what that work demands and I can't help but think what a coward I was at that age!

I only just forwarded your letter to Shirley and Max, so you probably will be hearing from them soon.

I had hoped to visit in Washington, D.C. this spring and was going to look up Elise and Stella Webber there but with our plans suddenly changing I could not manage it.

Gordon, Dolly and I had a very happy time together in our very spacious and attractive apartment, but Gordon got to the point when he felt that he wanted to have an apartment of his own. I think I told you that he resigned as president of the Great Books Foundation, which he had been for over 8 years, and had a sort of a nervous break-down. He had a very fine psychiatrist which pulled him out of it pretty well. He is much better now but has not found any work that he likes. He has a temporary job in New York which he can operate from here. Dolly and I have taken an apartment together, walking distance from Gordon's so we visit back and forth.

My brother-in-law in Winnetka died the day before we signed our lease. The day of his funeral, my sister Elaine fell and broker her hip and as she is alone in the house except for the help, Dolly and I take turns, alternating, spending a week at a time out in Winnetka. Consequently we are far from settled in our new apartment and feel as if we are camping out. Elaine has a day and night nurse so we do not have very much to do except to see that things go along alright, so it gives me a very good opportunity to write some of the letters I have been wanting to.

I have not seen Mark Turbyfill for some time. Last time I talked to him over the phone he said that he could not leave

home very well for any time, as his mother had had a stroke and his
father has died.

Thank you so very much for your very nice letter and
please drop me a line when you feel like it, and hoping you will be
better and feel like it.

Dolly Gordon and I send our love and greetings,