Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. How was the movie?
Let me reiterate that you're under no obligation to write
at length, or for that matter to write at all. My cerebral
mill grinds very slowly, and there's more than enough grist
to keep it busy until it wears out.

Your penultimate (Butterfly) letter was rich in questions. You asked
about the years in Konnarock, the forays to Germantown, - there were
in fact two, one in 1942 and one in 1945, you touch once more on the
religious masquerades; each of these topics gives me a lot to think,
and potentially to write about. They're on my mental "to do" list.

What's on my mind this morning, however, is Weltschmerz which casts
such a shadow on my family and myself, - at least as Margot saw it
or didn't see it.  I however would argue that Weltschmerz sheds an
invisible beam of light, not ultraviolet but ultraconventional,
or should I write, infraconventional, 
which will make to fluoresce brightly the Substance which it irradiates. 
In any event, my statement a few weeks ago that in reciting your
family's accusations of lugubriousness and Weltschmerz,
you hit the nail on the head, was tinged with irony so subtle
that in retrospect it appears as a guilty plea which I must now retract.

The occasion for this about-face is my rediscovery of letters from
and to my father which I found in my files last evening when I was
searching for correspondence with Fritz. I haven't (yet) found any
letters between my parents and yours, but I did find one file of
correspondence in 1939 and 1940 with officials of the Committee
for Christian Refugees which reflect the depth of the despair
to which my parents had sunk in those years, and a second file
of correspondence with one Eberhard Frielinghaus, the Pastor
or the Evangelisch Reformierte Gemeinde in Braunschweig who
was my parent's loyal friend. Diese Briefe beurkunden die
geistigen Uebungen mittels derer mein Vater bestrebt war sich
dem Dunkel das ihn umfing zu entwinden. These letters document
the intellectual and emotional exercises by means of which my
father sought to escape the spiritual predicament in which he
found himself. Of course, other people also, in fact everyone
has problems some of which rival, and many exceed in gravity those
which afflicted my parents. And if such problems are inapparent,
it's because they are not given voice.  My father was a poet.
He didn't complain, but he tried to understand and he tried to
describe what he saw and what he felt.  I'm reminded of the praise
of poetry that Goethe attributed to Tasso: "Und wenn der Mensch
in seiner Qual verstummt, gab mir ein Gott zu sagen was ich leide."
My father did not complain, ever. His prose-poetry is the description
of the world as he experienced it.  What he said and what he wrote
reflected his efforts to overcome to difficulties that enveloped
him.  His letters, to Frielinghaus and to myself, are an accounting
of his life.  All of this correspondence seems to me valuable;
as soon as I have the time, I plan to try to preserve it by
electronic scanning. I have no reason to think that you will want
to delve into this subject to such depths, but if I am mistaken,
I can then make the correspoindence available to you on CD's or 
by e-mail.

As I understand it now, my parent's Weltschmerz was a virtue
made of necessity. Contemplating, acknowledging and describing 
not so much their own troubles, as more generally, the troubles 
of the world, enabled them to survive. I am sympathetic with
Margot in her perplexity at not being able to see in the world
what my parents saw, at not being able to hear in the music of
Beethoven and Schubert and especially of Bach, what my parents
heard.

The relevant text is in the fourth book of Moses, Numbers 21:

4 And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea,
to compass the land of Edom and the soul of the people was much discouraged
because of the way.
5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses,
Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
for there is no bread, neither is there any water;
and our soul loatheth this light bread.
6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people,
and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
7 Therefore the people came to Moses, and said,
We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee;
pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.
And Moses prayed for the people.
8 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent,
and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass,
that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.
9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole;
and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man,
when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

I am repeating myself, though perhaps not to you, when I note
that just having proscribed all imagery, the LORD now commands Moses
to make an image by the contemplation of which the people will be
cured of the otherwise fatal bites of the serpents. I would argue
that whatever else he may have been, Moses was the first artist.
I interpret these verses as the divine institution of art.
In my father's experience, there was no distinction between religion
and art. His relationship to Christianity through the music of Bach
was precisely articulated by Saint John, that Platonist in monks'
clothing, when he wrote:

3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have eternal life. 

If one redefines "eternal life" as the eternal present of
consciousness, then so far as Heinz was concerned, the verse
is a perfect fit.

It's probably not inappropriate to reconsider whether the pejorative
implications of Weltschmerz schouldn't be modified. Isn't it 
Weltschmerz that upsets you about Israeli politics in Arab
lands? Isn't it Weltschmerz when you feel the hurt that is inflicted
on others in distant parts of the world?

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume;
when one man dies,
one chapter is not torn out of the book,
but translated into a better language; 
and every chapter must be so translated...
As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon,
calls not upon the preacher only,
but upon the congregation to come:
so this bell calls us all: 
but how much more me,
who am brought so near the door by this sickness....
No man is an island, entire of itself...
any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know 
for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee." John Donne, Meditation XVII

Which reminds me of Rilkes Poem,

Ernste Stunde.

Wer jetzt weint irgendwo in der Welt,
ohne Grund weint in der Welt,
weint über mich.

Wer jetzt lacht irgendwo in der Nacht,
ohne Grund lacht in der Nacht,
lacht mich aus.

Wer jetzt geht irgendwo in der Welt,
ohne Grund geht in der Welt,
geht zu mir.

Wer jetzt stirbt irgendwo in der Welt,
ohne Grund stirbt in der Welt:
sieht mich an.

================

It's alright for us to laugh, even at this.
There is a laughter which is not far removed from tears,
and less embarrassing.

Jochen