Letters

We have explained already that LILYVAC found it unnecessary actually to compose the hypothetical fictions, having adumbrated their possibility and demonstrated the capacity. Nor can it be said that the creature who appended his name to the false Giles has been neutralized: we have not got all the birds out of LILYVAC I, and its capacity, while exceeding what could have been expected of so modest a facility, falls short of our requirements for years O through L — a discrepancy which we look to the Tidewater Foundation to rectify. But he shall pay.

Moreover and finally, our spring work period was abbreviated by an almost successful attempt on the part of our enemies to assassinate us in late May of this year. In the guise of Chautauqua County officials and with the pretext of “fogging the woods around Lily Dale against lake-fli_s,” they laid a cloud of poison gas about the car in which Ms. Bernstein and we had parked, en route from our afternoon’s work, in order to review our draft of this very letter. Thanks to her quick action in rolling up the windows and taking the wheel, and the admirable traction of our loyal VW on marshy woodland lanes, we made good our escape. Ms. Bernstein, we are relieved to report, suffered no more than a few tears and sneezes; we on the other hand were gassed to unconsciousness for 24 hours, suffered delirium, nausea, poisoned entrails, and muscular spasms for the following week, and still experience occasional twitches and a sustained low-grade nervous disorder. They shall pay.

But we survived! (The innocent lake-blanks, alas, did not.) And, come August 15 and the commencement of our fall work period, we shall proceed with the implementation of Year O, for which nothing is wanted save sufficient funding for the redesign of LILYVAC I. And while such funding is available to us from several sources, the voice of History directs us to RESET Complimentary Close

JBB

F: Ambrose Mensch to Yours Truly (and Lady Amherst). A de-cla-ra-ti-on and an ex-hor-ta-ti-on. With several postscripts.

The Lighthouse, Mensch’s Castle

Erdmann’s Cornlot

Dorset, Maryland

March 3, 1969

FROM:

Ambrose Mensch, Whom It Concerned

TO:

Yours Truly (cc. Germaine Pitt)

RE:

Your blank and anonymous letter to me of May 12, 1940

Dear Sir or Madam:

Fill in the blank: AMBROSE LOVES ______________.

A.

P.S. (to G.P.): Dear Distinguished Visiting Lecturer in English and Acting Provost of the Faculty of Letters of Marshyhope State University College Germaine Gordon Pitt Lady Amherst: I love you! And I shall in your pursuit surely make an ass of

P.P.S.: Sixth love of my life, admirable GGPLA: here are the first five “Words of Five Syllables” in the old New England Primer:

Ad-mi-ra-ti-on

Be-ne-fi-ci-al

Con-so-la-ti-on

De-cla-ra-ti-on

Ex-hor-ta-ti-on