the last word

    If we're to limit ourselves to what might be politely
    uttered across a drawing room, then we are all in
    for a very boring time indeed. The best literary exchanges
    have always been conducted from the safety of well-
    separated desks.

    When Max Eastman, in one of those fashionable Thirties
    magazines, questioned the genuineness of the hair
    on Hemingway's chest he probably didn't expect my hero
    to turn up in his publisher's office & biff him on the nose.
    Any more than I expect Will to step off the noon plane
    & - as he says he would like to do - biff me. (Even if no one,
    least of all myself, ever called him a 'Yid'.) On this occasion,
    though it pains me to admit it, Eastman made a telling point.
    And Hemingway, by confirming the widespresd scepticism,
    made a bloody fool of himself.

    I'm glad Kim does not intend to respond. It would certainly
    spoil that air of moral grandeur with which she reproaches me.
    It also relieves me - if I can suppress my natural curiosity -
    of the obligation to whip out the magnifying glass & examine
    her strange, micrographic messages.

    Scottie B.

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Received on Tue Mar 4 14:01:07 2003