July 27, 2020
Dear Nikola, Thank you for writing. I have been thinking about you, hoping and passionately wishing that you are well. I infer from your letter that this is the case.

I searched my bookshelves for Dr. Faustus, no success. Possibly Adrian Leverkuehn stayed in Virginia. What I remember is too sketchy to permit responsible comment. Instead I stumbled on Ernst Cassirer's, Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, (in translation), volume two of which is a convoluted attempt to reconcile myth and historical reality, an opportunity for me to test my hypothesis that all historical reality is myth in socially correct disguise. Cassirer reminded me that Schelling elaborated a Philosophy of Myth. I purchased Schelling's Collected Works in my youth when I had determined that I would become knowledgeable about everything. Something more to read and think about.

I also found a 500 page anthology of writings of the "wie es eigentlich gewesen","what is was really like" realistic Romantic historian Leopold von Ranke, - further material on which to test my theory of history as myth. Meanwhile I am editing and re-editing my Kroetenrettung (Toad Rescue) libretto, to try to find out how to purge it of Kitsch.

Whenever you feel like talking on the phone, I shall be happy to hear from you. Stay welland content. Please give my greetings to your parents.
EJM


On 07/27/2020 10:12 PM, Nikola Chubrich wrote:
> Dear Dr. Meyer:
>
> I have been back in Portsmouth and planning to stay through August. I hope you are well.
>
> You will typically ask, when we talk, "what's on your mind?". Not a great deal at the moment. I find myself looking back on life as a whole so far and seeing how unrealistic I have been. It took a long time to get to this point. I suppose there is much I can still do; but I have not yet figured out how to combine a gregarious nature and the creative spark with realism. It is a profound problem; it would be good to figure it out.
>
> I will try to call in the next few days.
>
> My best to all the Meyers.
>
> Nick.