Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. It wouldn't be possible for me
to disagree with anything you write, even if I wanted to, 
because with all the sentiments you express, you are on the
side of the angels, - clearly the side to be on, if sides 
are to be chosen. It's invigorating to take a deep breath,
but one cannot hold it but for a limited period of time.
Then the restless, relentless to-and-fro of respiratory
thought is bound to resume and to continue as long as there
is life.

I look back on our exchange on Gegen grosse Vorzuege as an
interesting and very meaningful set of variations on a theme,
mental exercises which illuminate many problems, but resolve
none, while shedding considerable light on our world and on
ourselves.

"Things are seldom as they seem" you surely recognize as a
line from Pinafore, an operetta which is deeply engraved in
my spirit because it was performed by the children of the
Flanders-Fansler family with whom I spent that memorable
summer 1939 in Columbia County in upstate New York, just when
you were coming into existence. If you care to read all about
it and haven't done so already, you can look at
http://home.earthlink.net/~ernstmeyer/notes/Flanders.html
Sixty-six years later, the surviving Flanders children staged
another performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera in upstate
New York. This time: The Pirates of Penzance. Margaret and I
were invited and went. I admire Arthur Sullivan as a legatee
of German romantic music, and remind myself that he studied
in Leipzig at Mendelssohn's time or soon thereafter. Some of
his arias I find very touching.
Jochen