Letters

To Marlon Brando, Doris Day, Henry IV, George Herbert, Washington Irving, happy birthday. Dante has found himself lost in the Dark Wood. Napoleon is occupying Rome. In Palm Springs, college students are rioting. Passover began at sunset. The Pony Express commences mail service today between Sacramento and St. J______, Missouri. James Earl Ray is appealing his 99-year sentence. “U.N.” troops are pushing the Chinese back across the 38th Parallel in Korea. The U.S. has opened warfare against Chief Black Hawk to drive the Fox and Sac Indians across the Mississippi. The Vietnamese peace talks have resumed in Paris: no progress. And you Failed Again to Complete your Suicide, well begun in 1953 and repromised in your Letter of March 6.

Scriptotherapy.

Since that letter, the Ark and the Dove have reached Maryland with Lord Baltimore’s first colonists; Hannah Dustin has been captured by Indians in Haverhill, Mass., Geronimo has surrendered to General Crook in Mexico and escaped; Patrick Henry has delivered his liberty-or-death speech to the revolutionary convention in Richmond, which inclines to the former; Jacob Horner has been Born on President Madison’s 172nd birthday, has Left College on his own 28th (Madison’s 200th), has first been Fetched From Immobility by the Doctor, and has Turned 46 on Madison’s 218th, no returns anticipated. The U.S.S. Hornet has captured the Penguin. Andrew Jackson has defeated the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend; Jean Lafitte has burned Galveston and disappeared with his Baratarians; President Madison (60) has disclosed the Henry Letters to Congress; the Monitor has damaged the Merrimac in Hampton Roads; Napoleon has 86 left of his 100 Days; Parliament has repealed the Stamp Act, too late now; Oliver Hazard Perry is building his Lake Erie fleet at Presque Isle, Pa. Not to Mention Blticher’s entry with the Allies into Paris; the Commune’s burning of the Tuileries; the Confederate evacuations of Petersburg and Richmond; Czar Nicholas’s abdication; De Forest’s first exhibition of talking films at the Rivoli in New York City; the founding of Rhode Island and the U.S. Navy; Germany’s declaration of war on Portugal; Dr. Goddard’s launching of the first liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn, Mass.; Hitler’s invasion of Austria, occupation of Bohemia, and rejection of the Versailles Treaty; Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for reelection; Martin Luther King Jr.‘s march from Selma to Montgomery; Sieur de La Salle’s murder by his own men in Texas; Madrid’s surrender to General Franco; Franklin Roosevelt’s first Fireside Chat; Russia’s sale of Alaska to the U.S., blockade of Berlin, and invasion of Persia; the U.S.‘s conquest of Iwo Jima, invasion of Okinawa, and suppression of the Philippine insurgents; Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, N.M., and General Pershing’s invasion of Mexico to kill or capture him. When you Were, in a sense, Jacob Horner, you Interested yourself, at the Doctor’s prescription, in such events. Now you Merely Acknowledge calendric resonances, the anniversary view of history, and Catalogue them by Alphabetical Priority.

“Why alphabetical priority, Horner?” the Doctor asked you at your Annual Interview in the Progress and Advice Room. This was March 17th last, eighteenth anniversary of your First Such Session, and of other things. “When you used to be Unable to Make Choices, I gave you three principles to apply. Perhaps you have Forgotten.”

He knows you have Forgotten Nothing of those semesters in Wicomico. You Repeated the principles of Sinistrality and Antecedence: if alternatives are side by side, choose the one on the left; if they’re consecutive in time, choose the earlier; if neither of these applies, choose the alternative whose name begins with the earlier letter of the alphabet.

“But I’d often Have Trouble Choosing which principle to Use,” you Told him. “In the order you first gave them to me — Sinistrality, Antecedence, Alphabetical Priority — Sinistrality is farthest left and earliest read, but not alphabetically prior. If I Put Antecedence first, it’s both antecedent and sinistral but ditto. Then when I Started my Hornbook and Got in the Habit of Listing Things Alphabetically, I Remarked that in the series Alphabetical Priority, Antecedence, Sinistrality, Alphabetical Priority is alphabetically prior, as well as both antecedent and sinistral. So that’s the one I Use.”

“Jacob Horner: you are a Fool.”

Knee to knee in the Progress and Advice Room, you both Regarded your Cigars.

“You are Forty-Six,” the Doctor said.

“As of yesterday.”

“Though we speak here only once a year now, and you are Virtually in Charge of Administering the Farm since Mrs. Dockey’s death, you Still Regard yourself as My Patient?”

You Smiled Ruefully. “I’m Afraid So.”