I

AN AMERICAN AND FRANCE

America is my county and Paris is my home town and it is as it has come to be.

After all anybody is as their land and air is. Anybody is as the sky is low or
high, the air heavy or clear and anybody is as there is wind or no wind there. It
is that which makes them and the arts they make and the work they do and the way
they eat and the way they drink and the way they learn and everything.

And so I am an American and I have lived half my life in Paris, not the half
that made me but the half in which I made what I made.

And why is Paris my home town, because after all that is just what it is, it
is my home town.

It is very natural that every one who makes anything inside themselves that
is makes it entirely out of what is in them does naturally have to have two civil-
izations. They have to have the civilization that makes them and the civilization
that has nothing to do with them.

What is adventure and what is romance. Adventure is making the distant approach
nearer but romance is having what is where it is which is not where you are stay
where it is. So those who create things do not need adventure but they do need romance
they need that something that is not for them stays where it is and that they can
know that it is there where it is.

It has always been true of all who make what they make come out of what is in
them and have nothing to do with what is necessarily existing outside of them it is
inevitable that they have always wanted two civilizations. The Renaissance needed
the Greek, as the modern painter needed the negroes as the English writers have
needed Italy and as many Americans have needed Spain or France. There is no possib-
ility of mixing up the other civilization with yourself you are you and if you are
you in your own civilization you are apt to mix yourself up too much with your
civilization but when it is another civilization a complete other a romantic other
another that stays there where it is you in it have a freedom inside yourself which
if you are to do what is inside yourself and nothing else is a very useful thing

2

thing to have happen to you and so America is my country and Paris is my home town.

What is that romantic thing that does happen to you.

It begins it practically always begins as soon as the civilization that is you comes to be you that is as soon as you know anything.

What is the difference between romantic and historical. That is very important because that determines which civilization which second civilization you will need in your business in your business as a creator.

Historical is different from romantic and to us Americans England is historic while France and Spain are romantic.

The other day we were talking about a rather strange thing that so many Spanish painters married Russians and wondered why and that the Russian marriages well do not turn out well. A Russian explained. She said you see she said Russians and Spaniards have many superficial things in common and so they come together, but as soon as they are together they know that those superficial things carry them just far enough to know that they have nothing at all in common and so there is disaster.

All this has a great deal to do with romance and with history nothing whatever to do with adventure but as I say adventure has really nothing to do with creation, because the distant thing being brought nearer ceases to have any existence inside in one and therefore adventure has no relation to creation. Any one can realise that.

But romance and history, where are we when there is that. There always is romance and there always is history, and it seems as if the two are alike but they are not certainly not necessarily that.

Romance is the outside thing, that remains the outside thing and remaining there has it own existing and so although it is outside it is inside because it being outside and staying outside it is always a thing to be felt inside. Now history is different. History can be outside but as outside it continues and as it continues it cannot remain inside you and so in this way it is very different from romance. Romance is there but it does not continue it has no time it is neither past nor present nor future it is there because it is something with which you cannot come into contact as it exists of itself and by itself and looks as it does where it is.

3

To an American England can of course be romantic, it very often is, but it is historical it completely is and therefore like the Spaniard and the Russian even though eventually the American and Englishman find that they are different they can to a certain extent progress together and so they can have a time sense together they can have a past present and future together and so they are more history than romance and so living in England does not free the American the way living in France frees him because the French and the American do not have the sense of going on together, from the beginning they know that there is no going on together no past present and future and so it is there existing outside one from the other and if a thing exists completely outside then there is no doubt that there is no past present and future, and there is nothing that any one creating anything needs more than that there is no time sense inside in them no past present or future.

So let me tell the difference between France and England in the inside life of an American.

There is another matter that must be settled before we can find out what is the second civilization needed by any one who is to be a creator. And that is the size of the world. That is going to be a very serious matter. The size of the world that is the world getting inevitably getting smaller and smaller and less and less different is going to be a very serious matter.

In the early civilizations when any one was to be a creator and belonged to his own civilization and could not know another he inevitably in order to know another had made for him it was one of the things that inevitably existed a language which as an ordinary member of his civilization did not exist for him. That is really really truly the reason why they always had a special language to write which was not the language that was spoken, now it is generally considered that this was because of the necessity of religion and mystery but actually the writer could not write unless he had the two civilizations coming together the one he was and the other that was there outside him and creation is the opposition of one of them to the other. This is very interesting. Really this is very true, the written thing is not the spoken thing and the written thing exists there because the writing

4

that is in the old civilizations was a something with which there was not really
any existing because it existed there and it remained there and the one writing
connected that with himself only by creating. That is what romance is and is not
what history is. History is what has happened and so having happened it is something
that might happen and so does not exist for and by itself and is therefore not
romantic.

This is really all very exciting, and you see the trouble is that now the world
is very small, history that is anything happening goes on, and the difference be-
tween writing and speaking is nothing well then where are we, where are we to find
two civilizations which I insist any one creating anything needs to have if he is
to create anything.

Everybody more or less knows that this is a trouble now, they try everything
but every one more or less knows that this is a trouble now.

When I began being well of course everything is always a trouble, that is what everything is but nevertheless finding the other civilization was not so much of a bother as it is now, the world was not yet as small as it has become not yet.

When a thing is completely different then it is not romantic then it comes
nearer to being an adventure, the west to the occident used to be that, but to an
American particularly a Pacific Coast American the orient was not a romance not
necessarily an adventure, it was something different altogether, it really was not
there and so it did not matter in spite of the fact that if it were there there
would be no difficulty in knowing all about its being there and so once more it did
not matter. It was therefore neither romance nor history and so it was not the
second civilization. Have I made myself clear. At any rate it was neither romance
nor history and it did not matter. Now the world has become small and once more
completely the orient has come to here, not there but here and once more as a
second civilization it does not exist and so it does not matter.

There are so many things to say beside about the part in between between the
orient and the occident and these might come to matter, indeed they are the romance
to lots of you who are here now. And so help the world not to be too small so that

5

any one who is to create can have his two civilizations which are necessary.

But to tell what France meant to me and why Paris became my home town. That
is what I wish now a very little to do.

Any one can remember what they saw but not nearly enough to tell. But any one
can remember what there was well really well enough to tell.

They are two things you live in what you do and what you have. Mostly if you
are going to be any one who is going to do anything dependent entirely upon what
is within what you have is mostly what you read. What you do is what you do there
is nothing more to be said about that. But what you have in other words what you
read there is a great deal to be said about that.

What I read was all English some American but mostly all English and so what
I had was English and was that that I had romantic. More historical than romantic
it all really had happened. I could not have it so much if it all really had not
happened and it had happened and it was happening. But then there were French
things and some Spanish. To be sure I read them in English but they were romantic
they had not happened. Cinq Mars de Vigny, Dumas, Don Quixote, Jules Vernes, Georges
Sand they were there but they had not happened not like the Stuarts and Walter
Scott happened no not at all. That was what made them romantic that they were there
but they had not happened. Shakespeare had happened Pilgrims Progress had happened,
the Arabian Nights had happened but the French and Spanish things had not happened
they were there but they had not happened and so they were to me romantic but not
historical, they were there for me but I did not live in them not as I did in the
English books where the things had happened. There are a lot of young Americans to-
day for whom Proust does that, it is there but it has not happened and so as de
Vigny and Georges Sand and Balzac and Jules Vernes were romantic to me so Proust
is to them. They do not live in it as they do in the English thing but it is there
and it has not happened.

As I say the Arabian Nights the oriental thing is a different thing, it can be
far enough away so its happening is not an important thing but the French and
Spanish thing to the American has that about it, it is there it is near but it has

6

not happened.

And so Americans go to Paris and they are free not to be connected with anything happening.

That is what foreignness is, that it is there but it does not happen. England to an American English writing to an American is not in this sense a foreign thing.
And so we go to Paris. That is a great many of us go to Paris.

And when we live in Paris what is it that it is.

But there is another thing that happened before going to Paris and that is
pictures. Of course lots of people have painted pictures but they were old pictures,
in the nineteenth century the only pictures that were pictures were French pictures
and that began as soon as one began.

I was only about ten years old when I saw the Man with the Hoe by Millet and
that was a natural thing and a completely foreign thing because the fields were
French fields the hoe was a French hoe and the man was a French man and yet it was
really that fields hoes and men and all three together. It is very important to
every one that all the nineteenth century painting was French painting, there is
no doubt about it nineteenth century painting was French painting and I like to
look at painting. One did of course when one was brought up in California see
Japanese prints and American etchings but the only nineteenth century painting was
French painting, and so to me Paris was a natural thing.

Just as one needs two civilizations so one needs two occupations the thing one
does and the thing that has nothing to do with what one does. Writing and reading
is to me synonymous with existing, but painting well looking at paintings is some-
thing that can occupy me and so relieve me from being existing. And anybody has to
have that happen.

And now why is French painting the only nineteenth century painting I am sure
I do not know but it is. The twentieth century tends to be Spanish but Spain in
France, but Spanish never the less, but the nineteenth century painting was all
French. And I suppose that has a great deal to do with something. Why is all the
nineteenth century painting French. It is there is practically no other and it is

7

practically the only century of which that is true. The whole nineteenth century was created as painting by France and I wonder why but anyway it is. There is no getting away from it. At the end of the century it became Spanish and just now well just now we cannot worry about it.

And because France did produce all the painting that the nineteenth century produced those of us who had nothing to do with painting except to look at it lived in France.

And that was natural enough because whenever it is as it is is the place where those who have to be left alone have to be.

Whether France or Paris left you alone because it was the place where all the nineteenth century painting was being made or all the nineteenth century painting was being made there because they let you alone I do not know but it is all so.

France was friendly and it let you alone, and so there it was and there you were, since the war perhaps not so much and so painting has become Spanish, it was becoming so just at the end.

To be friendly and to let you alone, to be there and to be not needed by it, that was France in the nineteenth century and so everybody was there and everybody and everybody did what they did in it not being of it because one could not be of it since it was there. How can you be of anything if it is there of course not. Anybody can realise that.

Very well that was nineteenth century that is pre-war Paris and I lived there and then there was the war and then after the war and I lived there. As I said America is my country and Paris is my home town.

It is not what France gave you but what it did not take away from you that was important.

After all it is that that is important. After all what you are you are even if you are not all of it, but any one being interested in you you are likely to lose it and that is what France did it was not interested in you. That is really what Paris did. As far as the after-war has made France interested in you, perhaps really interested in you we will see but to us who knew France the France that

8

took nothing from you because it was there and had no need of you not of you but
of what anything meant in being you that France took nothing from you and so it was
where those doing anything from all that was inside them needed to be living. And
it was what we did, it was what I did and this is all that I can say about this
thing.

I

AN AMERICAN AND FRANCE

America is my country and Paris is my home town and it is as it has come to be.

And why is Paris my home town, because after all that is, just what it is, it is
my home town.

It is very natural that every one who makes anything inside themselves that is
makes it entirely out of what is in them does naturally have to have two civilizations.
They have to have the civilization that makes them and the civilization that has noth-
ing to do with them.

What is adventure and what is romance. Adventure is making the distant approach
nearer but romance is having what is where it is which is not where you are staying
where it is. So those who create things do not need adventure but they do need romance
they need that something that is not for them stays where it is and that they can know
that it is there where it is.

It has always been true of all who make what they make come out of what is in
them and have nothing to do with what is necessarily existing outside of them it is in-
evitable that they have always wanted two civilizations. The Renaissance needed the Greek,
as the modern painter needed the negroes as the English writers have needed Italy and
as many Americans have needed Spani or France. There is no possibility of mixing up
the other civilization with yourself you are you and if you are you in your own civil-
ization you are apt to mix yourself up too much with your civilization but when it is
another civilization a complete other a romantic other another that stays there where
it is you in it have a freedom inside yourself which if you are to do what is inside
yourself and nothing else is a very useful thing to have happen to you and so America
is my country and Paris is my home town.

2

Historical is different from romantic and to us Americans England is historical while France and Spain are romantic.

Romance is the outside thing, that remains the outside thing and remaining there has its own existing and so although it is outside it is inside because it being outside and staying outside it is always a thing to be felt inside. Now history is different. History can be outside but as outside it continues and as it continues it cannot remain inside you and so in this way it is very different from romance. Romance is there but it does not continue it has no time it is neither past nor present nor future it is there because it is something with which you cannot come into contact as it exists of itself and by itself and looks as it does where it is.

3

There is another matter that must be settled before we can find out what is the second civilization needed by any one who is to be a creator. And that is the size of the world. That is going to be a very serious matter. The size of the world that is the world getting inevitably smaller and smaller and less and less different is going to be a very serious matter.

In the early civilizations when any one was to be a creator a writer or a painter and he belonged to his own civilization and could not know another, he inevitably in order to know another had made for him it was one of the things that inevitably existed a language which as an ordinary member of his civilization did not exist for him. That is really really truly the reason why they always had a special language to write which was not the language that was spoken, now it is generally considered that this was because of the necessity of religion and mystery but actually the writer could not write unless he had the two civilizations coming together the one he was and the other that was there outside him and creation is the opposition of one of them to the other. This is very interesting. Really this is very true, the written thing is not the spoken thing and the written thing exists there because the writing that is in the old civilizations was a something with which there was not really any existing because it existed

4

This is really all very exciting, and you see the trouble is that now the world is very small, history that is anything happening goes on, and the difference between writing and speaking is nothing well then where are we, where are we to find two civilizations which I insist any one creating anything needs to have if he is to create anything.

When a thing is completely different then it is not romantic then it comes nearer to being an adventure, the Orient to the Occident and to be that, but to an American particularly a Pacific Coast American the Orient was not a romance not necessarily an adventure, it was something different altogether, it really was not there and so it did not matter in spite of the fact that if it were there there would be no difficulty in knowing all about it being there and so once more it did not matter. It was therefore neither romance nor history and so it was not the second civilization. Have I made myself clear. At any rate it was neither romance nor history and it did not matter. Now the world has become small and once more completely the Orient has come to here, not there but here and once more as a second civilization it does not exist and so it does not matter.

There are so many things to say beside about the part in between between the Orient and the Occident and these might come to matter, indeed they are the romance to lots of you who are here now. And so help the world not to be too small so that any one who is to create can have his two civilizations which are necessary.

5

There are two things you live in what you do and what you have. Mostly if you are
going to be any one who is going to do anything dependent entirely upon what is within
what you have is mostly what you read. What you do is what you do there is nothing more
to be said about that. But what you have in other words what you read there is a great
deal to be said about that.

What I read was all English some American but mostly all English and so what I had
was English and was that that I had romantic. More historical than romantic it all really
had happened. I could not have it so much if it all really had not happened and it
had happened and it was happening. But then there were French things and some Spanish.
To be sure I read them in English but they were romantic they had not happened. Cinq
Mars, de Vigny, Dumas, Don Quixote, Jules Vernes, Georges Sand they were there but they
had not happened not like the Stuarts and Walter Scott happened no not at all. That
was what made them romantic that they were there but they had not happened. Shakespeare
had happened Pilgrims Progress had happened, the Arabian Nights had happened but the
French and Spanish things had not happened they were there but they had not happened
and so they were to me romantic but not historical, they were there for me but I did not
live in them not as I did in the English books where the things had happened. There are
a lot of young Americans to day for whom Proust does that, it is there but it has not
happened and so as de Vigny and Georges Sand and Balzac and Jules Vernes were romantic
to me so Proust is to them. They do not live in it as they do in the English thing but
it is there and it has not happened.

As I say the Arabian Nights the Oriental thing is a different thing, it can be far
enough away so its happening is not an important thing but the French and Spanish thing
to the American has that about it, it is there but it has not happened.

6

a
American English writing to an American is not in this sense a foreign thing. And so we
^ go to Paris. That is a great many of us go to Paris.

But there is another thing that happened before going to Paris and that is pictures.
Of course lots of people have painted pictures but they were old pictures, in the nine-
teenth century the only pictures that were pictures were French pictures and that began
as soon as one began.

I eas only about ten years old when I saw the Man With the Hoe by Millet and that
was a natural thing and a completely foreign thing because the fields were French fields
the hoe was a French hoe and the man was a French man and yet it was really that fields
hoes and men and all three together. It is very important to every one that all the
nineteenth century painting was French painting, there is no doubt about it nineteenth
century painting was French painting and I like to look at painting. One did of course
when one was brought up in California see Japanese prints and American etchings but t
the only nineteenth century painting was French painting, and so to me Paris was a
natural thing.

Just as one needs two civilizations so one needs two occupations the thing one does
and the thing that has nothing to do with that one does. Writing and reading is to me
synonymous with existing, but painting well looking at paintings is something that can
occupy me and so relieve me from being existing. And anybody who has to have that happen.

And now why is French painting the only nineteenth century I am sure I do not know
but it is. The twentieth century tends to be Spanish but Spain in France, but Spanish
never the less, but the nineteenth century painting was all French. And I suppose that
has a great deal to do with something. Why is all the nineteenth century painting French.
It is there is practically no other, and it is practically the only century of which that
is true. The whole nineteenth century was created as painting by France and I wonder why
but anyway it is. There is no getting away from it. At the end of the century it became
Spanish and just now well just now we cannot worry about it.

And because France did produce all the painting that the nineteenth century produc-
ed those of us who had nothing to do with painting except to look at it lived in France.

7

To be friendly and to let you alone, to be there and to be not needed by it, that was France in the nineteenth century and so everybody was there and everybody and anybody did what they did in it not being of it because one could not be of it since it was there. How can you be of anything if it is there of course not. Anybody can realise that.

After all it is that that is important. After all what you are you are even if you are not all of it, but any one being interested in you you are likely to lose it and that is what France did it was not interested in you. That is really what Paris did. Alas the after war has made France interested in you, perhaps really interested in you well we will see but to us who knew France the France that took nothing from you because it was there and had no need of you not of you but of what anything meant in being you that France took nothing from you and so it was where those doing anything from all that was inside them needed to be living. And it was what we did, it was what I did and this is all that I can say about this thing.

I

AN AMERICAN and FRANCE

What is adventure and what is romance. Adventure is making the distant approach
you
nearer but romance is having what is where it is which is not where>I are staying
where it is. So those who create things do not need adventure but they do. need romance
they need that something that is not for them stays where it is and that they can know
that it is there where it is

It has always been true of all who make what they make come out of what is in
them and have nothing to do with what is necessarily existing outside of them it is
inevitable that they have always wanted two civilizations. The Renaissance needed the
greek, as the modern painter needed the negroes as the English writers have needed
Italy and as many Americans have needed Spain or France. There is no possibility of
mixing up the other civilization with yourself you are you and if you are you in your
own civilization you are apt to mix yourself up too much with your civilization but
when it is another civilization a complete other a romantic other that stays
there where it is you in it have a freedom inside yourself which if you are to do what
is inside yourself and nothing else is a very useful thing to have happen to you and
so America is my country and Paris is my home town.

2

that
What is romantic thing that does happen to you.

What is the difference between romantic and historical. That is very important
because that determines which civilization which second civilisation you will need in
your business in your business as a creator.

Romance is the outside thing, that remains the outside thing and remaining there
has its own existing and so although it is outside it is inside because it being out-
side and staying outside it is always a thing to be felt inside. Now history is differ-
ent. History can be outside but as outside it continues and as it continues it cannot
remain inside you and so in this way it is very different from romance. Romance is
there but it does not continue it has no time it is neither past nor present nor future
it is there because it is something with which you cannot come into contact as it ex-
ists of itself and by itself and looks as it does where it is.

3

In the early civilizations when any one was to be a creator a writer or a painter and belonged to his own civilization and could not know another, he inevitably in order to know another had made for him it was one of the things that inevitably existed a language which as an ordinary member of his civilization did not exist for him. That is really really truly the reason why they always had a special language to write which was not the language that was spoken, now it is generally considered that this was because of the necessity of religion and mystery but actually the writer could not write unless he had the two civilizations coming together the one he was and the other that was there outside him and creation is the opposition of one of them to the other. This is very interesting. Really this is very true, the written thing is not the spoken thing and the written thing exists there because the writing that is in the old civilization was a something with which there was not really any existing because it existed there

4

This is really all very exciting, and you see the trouble is that now the world
is very small, history that is anything happening goes on, and the difference between
writing and speaking is nothing well then where are we, where are we to find two civil-
izations which I insist any one creating anything needs to have if he is to create any-
thing.

When a thing is completely different then it is not romantic then it comes nearer
used
to being an adventure, the orient to the occident to be that, but to an American
particularly a Pacific Coast American the Orient was not a romance not necessarily an
adventure, it was something different altogether, it really was not there and so it
did not matter in spite of the fact that if it were there there would be no difficulty
in knowing all about its being there and so once more it did not matter. It was there-
fore neither romance nor history and so it was not the second civilization. Have I made
myself clear. At any rate it was neither romance nor history and it did not matter.
Now the world has become small and once more completely the Orient has come to here,
not there but here and once more as a second civilization it does not exist and so it
does not matter.

There are so many things to say beside about the part in between the Orient
and the Occident and these might come to matter, indeed they are the romance to lots of
you who are here now. And so help the world not to be too small so that any one who is
to create can have his two civilizations which are necessary.

5

wish now a very little to do.

There are two things you live in what you do and what you have. Mostly if you are
going to be any one who is going to do anything dependent entirely upon what is with-
in what you have is mostly what you read. What you do is what you do there is nothing
more to be said about that. But what you have in other words what you read there is a
great deal to be said about that.

What I read was all English some American but mostly all English and so what I
had was English and was that that I had romantic. More historical than romantic it all
really had happened. I could not have it so much if it all really had not happened and
it had happened and it was happening. But then there were french things and some
Spanish. To be sure I read them in English but they were romantic they had not happen-
ed. Cinq Mars, de Vigny, Dumas, Don Quixote, Jules Vernes, Georges Sand they were
there but they had not happened not like the Stuarts and Walter Scott happened no not
at all. That was what made them romantic that they were there but they had not happen-
ed. Shakespeare had happened Pilgrims Progress had happened, the Arabian Nights had
happened but the French and Spanish things had not happened they were there but they
had not happened and so they were to me romantic but not historical, they were there
for me but I did not live in them not as I did in the English books where the things
had happened. There are a lot of young American to-day for whom Proust does that, it
is there but it has not happened and so as de Vigny and Georges Sand and Balzac and
Jules Vernes were romantic to me so Proust is to them. They do not live in it as they
do in the English thing but it is there and it has not happened.

6

a
an American English writing to an American is not in this sense foreign thing. And so
we go to Paris. That is a great many of us go to Paris.

But there is another thing that happened before going to Paris and that is pict-
ures. Of course lots of people have painted pictures but they were old pictures, in
the nineteenth century the only pictures that were pictures were French pictures and
that began as soon as one began.

I was only about ten years old when I saw the Man With the Hoe by Millet and
that was a natural thing and a completely foreign thing because the fields were French
fields the hoe was a French hoe and the man was a French man and yet it was really
that fields hoes and men and all three together. It is very important to every one
that all the nineteenth century painting was French painting, there is no doubt about
it nineteenth century painting was French painting and I like to look at painting.
One did of course when one was brought up in California see Japanese prints and Amer-
ican etchings but the only nineteenth century painting was French painting, and so to
me Paris was a natural thing.

Just as one needs two civilizations so one needs two occupations the thing one
does and the thing that has nothing to do with what one does. Writing and reading is
to me synonymous with existing, but painting well looking at paintings is something
that can occupy me and so relieve me from being existing. And anybody has to have
that happen.

And now why is French painting the only nineteenth century painting I am sure I
do not know but it is. The twentieth century tends to be Spanish but Spain in France,
but Spanish never the less, but the nineteenth century painting was all French. And I
suppose that has a great deal to do with something. Why is all the nineteenth century
painting French. It is there is practically no other and it is practically the only
century of which that is true. The whole nineteenth century was created as painting
by France and I wonder why but anyway it is. There is no getting away from it. At the
end of the century it became Spanish and just now well just now we cannot worry about
it.

And because France did produce all the painting that the nineteenth century pro-

7

AN AMERICAN AND FRANCE

After all anybody is al their land and air is.
Anybody is as the sky is low or high, the air heavy or
clear and anybody is as there is wind or no wind there.
It is that which makes them and the arts they make and
and the work they do and the way they eat and the way
they drink and the way they learn and everything.

It is very natural that every one who makes any-
thing inside themselves that it makes it entirely out
of what is in them does naturally have to have two
civilizations. They have to have the civilization that
makes them and the civilization that has nothing to do
with them.

It has always been true of all who make what they
make come out of what is in them and having nothing to
do with what is necessarily existing outside of them it
is inevitable that they have always wanted two civiliza-
tions. The Renaissance needed the Greek, as the modern
painter needed the negroes as the English writers have
needed Italy and as many Americans have needed Spain or
France. There is no possibility of mixing up the other
civilization with yourself you are you and if you are
you in your own civilization you are apt to mix yourself
up too much with your civilization but when it is another
civilization a complete other a romantic other another
that stays there where it is you in it have freedom
inside yourself which if you are to do what is inside
yourself and nothing else is a very useful thing to have
happen to you and so America is my country and Paris is
my home town.

All this has a great deal to do with romance and
history nothing whatever to do with adventure but as I
say adventure has really nothing to do with creation,
because the distant thing being brought nearer ceases
to have any existence inside in one and therefore
adventure has no relation to creation. Any one can realise
that.

But romance and history, where are we
that. There always is romance and there always is history,
and it seems as if the two are alike but they are not
certainly not necessarily that.

thing and remaining there has its own existing and so
although it is outside it is inside because it being
outside and staying outside it is always a thing to be
felt inside. Now history is different. History can
be outside but as outside it continues and as it con-
tinues it cannot remain inside you and so in this way
it is very different from romance. Romance is there but
it does not continue it has no time it is neither past
nor present nor future it is there because it is something
with which you cannot come into contact, as it exists
of itself and by itself and looks as it does where it is.

To an American England can of course be romantic,
it very often is, but it is historical it completely is
and therefore like the Spaniard and the Russian even
though eventually the American and Englishman find that
they are different they can to a certain extent progress
together and so they can have a time sense together they
can have a past present and future together and so they
are more history than romance and so living in England
does not free the American the way living in France frees
him because the French and the American do not have the
sense of going on together, from the beginning they know
that there is no going on together no past present and
future and so it is there existing outside one from the
other and if a thing exists completely outside them there
is no doubt that there is no past present or future, and
there is nothing that any one creating anything needs more

There is another matter that must be settled before
we can find out what is the second civilization needed by
anyone who is to be a creator. And that is the size of
the world. That is going to be a very serious matter. The
size of the world that is the world getting inevitably
getting smaller and smaller and less and less different
is going to be a very serious matter.

In the early civilizations when any one was to be
a creator & writer and he belonged to his own civilization
not
and could/know another he inevitably in order to know
another had made for him it was one of the things that
inevitably existed a language which as an ordinary member
of his civilization did not exist for him. That is really
truly the reason why they always had a special language
to write which was not the language that was spoken,
now it is generally considered that this was because of
the necessity of religion and mystery but actually the
writer could not write unless he had the two civilizations
coming together the one he was and the other that was
there outside him and creation is the opposition of one
of them to the other. This is very interesting. Really
this is very true, the written thing is not the spoken
thing and the written thing exists there because the

writing that is in the old civilization was a something
with which there was not really anything existing because
it existed there and it remained there and the one writing
connected that with himself only by creating. That is
what romance is and is not what history is. History is
what has happened and so having happen it is something
that might happen and so does not exist for and by itself
and is therefore not romantic.

This is all really very exciting, and you see the
trouble is that now the world is very small, history
that is anything happening goes on, and the difference
between writing and speaking is nothing well then where
are we, where are we to find two civilizations which I
insist any one creating anything needs to have if he is
to create anything.

Everybody more or less knows that this is a trouble
now, they think everything but any one more or less knows
that this is a trouble now.

When I began being well of course everything is
always a trouble, that is what everything is but never-
theless finding the other civilization was not so much
of a bother as it is now, the world was not yet as small
as it has become not yet.

When a thing is completely different then it is not
romantic then it comes nearer to being an adventure, the
west to the accident has to be that, but to an American
particularly a Pacific coast American the orient was not
a romance not necessarily an adventure, it was something

different altogether, it really was not there and so
it did not matter in spite of the fact that if it were
there there would be no difficulty in knowing all about
its being there and so once more it did not matter.
It was therefore neither romance nor history and so it
was not the second civilization. Have I made myself
clear. At any rate it was neither romance nor history
and it did not matter. Now the world has become shall
and once more completely the orient has come to here,
not there but here and once more as a second civilization
it does not exist and so it does not matter.

There are so many things to say beside about the
part in between between the Orient and the Occident and
those might come to matter, indeed they are the romance
to lots of you who are here now, and so have the world
not to be too small so that any one who is to create
can have his two civilizations which are necessary.

What I read was all English some American but
mostly all English and so what I had was English and was that
that I had romantic. More historical than romantic it
all really had happened. I could not have it so much if
it all really had not happened and it had happened and
it was happening. But then there were French things
and some Spanish. To be sure I read them in English but
they were romantic they had not happened. Cinq Mars, de Vigny,
Dumas, Don Quixote, Jules Vernes, Georges Sand they were
there but they had not happened not like the Stuarts and
Walter Scott happened no not at all. That was what made
them romantic that they were there but they had not
happened. Shakespeare had happened Pilgrims Progress
had happened, the Arabian Nights had happened but the
French and Spanish things had not happened they were
there but they had not happened and so they were to me
romantic but not historical, they were there for me but
I did not live them not as I did in the English books
where the things had happened. There are a lot of young
Americans today for whom Proust does that, it is there
but it has not happened and so as de Vigny and Georges
Sand and Balzac and Jules Vernes were romantic to me so

As I say the Arabian Nights the oriental thing is
a different thing, it can be far enough away so its
happening is not an important thing, but the French and
Spanish thing to the American has that about it, it is
there it is near but it has not happened.

I was about only ten years old when I saw the Man
with the Hoe by Millet and that was a natural thing and a
completely foreign thing because the fields were French
fields and the hoe was a French hoe and the man was a
French man and yet it was really the fields hoes and

and men and all three together. It is very important to
every one that all the nineteenth century painting was
French painting, there is no doubt about it nineteenth
century painting was French painting and I like to look
at painting. One did of course when one was brought
up in California see Japanese prints and American
etchings but the only nineteenth century painting was
French painting and so to me Paris was a natural thing.

Just as one needs two civilizations the thing one
does and the thing that has nothing to do with what one
does. Writing and reading is to me synonymous with
existing, but painting well looking at paintings is some-
thing that can occupy me and so relieve me from being
existing. And anybody has to have that happen.

And now why is French painting the only nineteenth
century painting I am sure I do not know but it is. The
twentieth century tends to be Spanish but Spain in France,
but Spanish never the less, but the nineteenth century
painting was all French. And I suppose that has a great
deal to do with something. Why is all the nineteenth
century painting French. It is there is practically no
other and it is practically the only century of which
that is true. The whole nineteenth century was created
as painting by France and I wonder why but anyway it is. There
There is no getting away from it. At the end of the
century it became Spanish and just now well just now we
cannot worry about it.

And because France did produce all the painting
that the nineteenth century produced those of us who
had nothing to do with the painting except to look at
it lived in France.

France was friendly and it let you alone and so
there it was and there you were, since the war perhaps
not so much and so painting has become Spanish, it was
becoming so just at the end.

To be friendly and to let you alone, to be there
and to be not needed by it, that was France in the
nineteenth century and so everybody was there and
everybody and anybody did what they did in it not being
of it because one could not be of it since it was there.
How can you be of anything if it is there of course not.
Anybody can realize that.

Very well that was nineteenth century and that is
pre-war Paris and I lived there and then there was the
war and then after the war I lived there. As I said
America is my country and Paris is my home town.

After all it is that that is important. After all
what you are you are even if you are not all of it,
but any one being interested in you you are likely to
lose it and that is what France did it was not interested
in you. That is really what Paris did. Alas the after-
war has made France interested in you, perhaps reably
interested in you well we will see but to us who knew
France the France that took nothing from you because it
was there and had no need of you not of you but of what
anything meant in being you that France took nothing
from you and so it was where those doing anything from
all that was inside them needed to be living. And it
was what we did, it was what I did and this is all that
I can say about this thing.