Columbia, Mo,
Oct. 10, '59.
You know I think of you very often, whether I write or not. You are dear to me.
I'm so glad H. B. has bought a modern home in town. It did not seem right for him to be out there alone, and I know he did not like it. Silence and solitude are necessary now and then, even at frequent intervals; but we are gregarious beings.
Many thanks for delivering my message to Thompson and to Wilcox. Bless their wise and good hearts!
My classes this semester are bully, as usual. I always fear, each semester, that my Epic America class will fall off, at last. It never does, somehow, and I'm always surprised at the perfect attention they give me. They are sweethearts!
In my Writing of Poetry class I have some really gifted students. I teach, of course, by indirection. The purpose is to create a group mood in the class which will make it a pleasure to work on verse as a means of expressing poetic experience. Before the end of the semester my classes, thus far, have all become unified with a feeling of something like affection for each other. You know, I believe, that I have come to think of poetry as a way of seeing the world of men & things — a way of being, rather than of way of writing.
Anyway, I love you. Be happy. And give my warm regards to your precious Nita.
John
