I managed to eat more when the money came and Mary ate well: I ate for those who were poor, I ate for my father, for the starving waifs, for the sick, those in prison, fighting in wars. I ate because it would soon be Spring. I ate because I must write.
Wrens built a nest above my window. Day after day, they fluttered in and out; day after day it got warmer; I was able to take care of myself; Mary and I were planning to picnic beside the river; she never came; I waited and waited; I asked those who knew her; no one had seen her.
I asked for her many times. There was absolutely no trace of her. She simply disappeared. Some criminal? Some man? Death? I never knew.
Ave Maria!
Home
Over the years I have read Ellen’s letters, hearing them almost. Those lines of hers, when I was dismal and lonely, shook off the curse of disillusionment. Even now, after these years, lines come to me:
Surely the greatness of a play lies in its mystery: we are taken inside a private world that is tragic or amusing or sentimental; things that are a part of this world must be judiciously hinted at.
Your plays take life apart because your poetry is so profound. It’s the finest poetry I know. Knowing you gives your work added profundity...
The theatre gives man breadth: it’s his second life. A country without a theatre is a poor, barren country.