a) Thank you for your reply which I promise to keep confidential.

b) I will say nothing further to Nathaniel about this matter, unless and until I receive a reply from Nathaniel.

c) My mind recapitulates the social tensions and controversies which have absorbed my own life: the hostility of my sister and of my father, the envy of Stuart Atkins and the rejection of Elliot Perkins, the Harvard professors who so disliked me, my failure in Graduate School, my distress in Medical School, my spiritual collapse during my internship, my "subverting my parents' relationship with the Board of American Missions", my controversy with the Town of Damascus concerning the Reynolds Street sidewalk, the offense which I caused by publishing without institutional approval a paper about eye movements and a periodical "Glaucoma Letter" of my own, my 10 year long legal controversy with the Infirmary, my two legal controversies with the Town of Nantucket aggregating 14 years in duration, and the "professional" financial and social failure of my trying to write for 65 years ... and counting.

d) I acknowledge that I have been, and am. a failure,

e) I acknowledge that my advice to Nathaniel may have been in error echoing my own flawed existence.

f) If and when Nathaniel replies to me, I will first write to you what I propose to answer, and ask for your advice.