Dear Marion, 

Thank you, thank you very much for your two letters,
the first with its bucolic description of the prairie,
and the moldy old books that Boo had placed in a bookcase outside
your room at the Farm, including a history of American Literature
by Barrett Wendell, whose name is familiar to me because sixty 
three years ago, I was beneficiary of the Barrett Wendell Prize,
named in his honor, for, of all things, an essay on the Insanity
of Nietzsche. De nobis fabula narrabitur.

Of my most recent letter to you, where I commented that most parents
would rather receive a social security check from their government
than an expression of affection from their children, - I neglected to
bring a copy here to Virginia. Therefore I'm at a loss to review the
incriminating statements on the basis of which you drafted your
indictment of me, an indictment against which I will try to defend
myself nonetheless.

You write:

_    I think it is YOU, much more than any other Meyer,
_    who is focused on the desirability of having
_    as large an inheritance as possible delivered
_    to your descendants.

I think, as is sometimes the case, you have it backwards.  The
nonchalance with which I am prepared to discuss personal financial
matters I interpret as an index of my detachment. It is because of
their unimportance to me that I can discuss my personal finances with
the same indifference with which I would audit the balance sheet of a
corporation or of a governmental agency. If other members of the
family are more secretive, it's because they value money more.
Indeed so much more that they can't contemplate giving it away.

Your resort to an ad hominem argument "it is YOU" is admittedly
flattering. True, there's no member of my family as concerned
as I about the estate tax, but then, neither is there a member
of my family who does plumbing and wiring, who litigates in the
Massachusetts Appeals Court, who writes novels in German, or who
demonstrates so passionate a desire to understand: "dass ich erkenne
was die Welt im Innersten zusammen haelt."  (Faust I). Admittedly my
deviance from the family (and public) social norm is not (necessarily)
laudable; perhaps it's an ominous prodrome of impending insanity or
criminality. But as I pointed out in my essay on Nietzsche's madness,
the ad hominem argument far from explaining the issue, serves only
to obscure it.

That issue is the rationality and consistency of the law. I contend
that the government officials who administer the law do not understand
it, nor do the lawyers who enrich themselves by exploiting the fear
and ignorance of their clients, nor do the black robed justices who
presume to adjudicate the ensuing anomalies. I admit that I also do
not understand the Estate Tax law: I argue that it is intrinsically
contradictory and unintelligible. I infer that the dignitaries who
enact it, who presume to interpret it, and who adjudicate it are either
fools or liars, more likely both.

The effectiveness of the law derives not from its rational meaning
but from the irrational consensus which invests the law with power.
The lawyers and the judges are unaware of the discrepancy and when
it's dramatized for them, they are sometimes perplexed. Hence the
Court's delay in adjudicating my appeal.

The hummingbirds are back for a last nip at the sucrose nectar in
the gaudily red plastic dispensers. Jeane Walls told Margaret we
must stop feeding them, lest they miss their flight south "under
the wings" of the Canada geese. It sounds plausible that the
miniature birds might hitch a ride in the slipstream of their
much larger cousins. Have you heard such an explanation?

Jochen