Business In Your Life

What stupidity! What cowardice! What a “masterrace”! When you think of the courage and pride and confidence which the English, the Dutch, the Russians and, above all, the Jews have shown in the hour of their defeat, it fills you with deep disgust to watch this complete collapse of all human dignity. But stronger than this feeling of disgust is the feeling of “trust in all mankind” to see, at one of the great moments in history, how the human spirit is able to throw off a disease and to return to decency and to overcome the greatest danger to civilisation and progress. Well, while Im writing this the sun has come out and a little blue bird is taking a bath in the brook outside of my windowand life is beautiful. Last night  had dinner at the Gershwins. Fanny Brice made stuffed cabbagea    nd it was dull as always. I cannot stand the atmosphere in that house right now, and I dont think theyll see much of me, but I want to keep the surface. Max is having troubles letters  ?  Copyrighted material with the contract for Ingrid Bergmann. He was so eager to get her that he promised her all kinds of things which the Dramatists Guild doesnt allow him to give awayand Ingrids husband seems to be another Dick Halliday. It is slightly disgusting to see the great playwright running after a movie star, but, after our last experience I have full understanding for any author who is trying to protect his work as much as he can. Now I have to go to the studio. Please darling, take well care of yourself, get your strength back and have a good time. I have the feeling Ill be back soon and well have lots of “Feinlebe.” Thousand kisses from your devoted husband Kurt    WEILL IN LOS ANGELES TO LENYA IN NEW YORK,  APRIL  Letterhead: Hotel BelAir April ,  Traubilein, This is the last day of the show. I am sad when I think about it, but I know its no use getting upset again. I suppose you have an empty house this afternoon and youll be glad when it is all over.The weather is very lovely here the last few days. Ill go to the beach with Max who has taken a little cottage in a motel and is writing a new play !!, this time a comedy for Helen Hayes.

 He just kept raving about your looksand that was sweet music for my ears, because I know when you look beautiful you are feeling welland to know that you are feeling well is good for my spirits. Nothin new here. I am working  hours a day. Monday night till . with Ira, last night till  with Eddie, tonight and tomorrow with both of them. We wrote a little Arietta for Cellini where he tells his exagerated version of the Maffio murder. Very good. Last night, in working with Eddie, I got an idea for the Duchess song in the sedan chair scene. It is a line in the play The Firebrand: “Great men make poor lovers.” Jack die Ripper Wildberg just called to tell me that Mary was back in the show last night and will probably be out again because there is no ice in the theatre. I have a letters  ?  Copyrighted material slight suspicion that she is sabotaging the show. Strangely enough business was better last week with Jane Joan? Davis playing the     part than the week before with Mary. But if Mary continues behaving like a superGertrude Lawrence she can easily ruin the show for good. And that wouldnt be so good for her either. I hear that sweet little Dick Halliday is going to produce a showmaybe that will help. I had a letter from him about Peter Pan. Well, sweety honey sugar pie, thats all I can tell you. No social activities this week, thank God. The war looks wonderful, doesnt it? Those week, feeble minded democracies are doing alright by Mr. Hitler. Good bye, my love. Kurt . Canadianborn Beatrice Lillie , became a popular comedienne in London before establishing herself as a comic character actress on Broadway in the late twenties. Bert lahr , the Cowardly Lion in the film The Wizard of Oz , began his career on Broadway in  and appeared opposite Ethel Merman in Dubarry Was a Lady . .  The actress Joan Davis  had a long career in vaudeville, radio, and films. She was known for physical comedy and raucous delivery. None of the programs for One Touch of Venus in the WeillLenya Research Center mentions a Jane or Joan Davis. .       On  July, General Omar Bradley t American forces had broken through the German front at SaintLo, and a few days later General Pat ton J Third Army cleared the way to Brittany.

Dein Weib  WEILL IN NEW CITY TO LENYA IN DES MOINES, IOWA,  MAY  Friday, May ,  Darling, Weve had rain for two days, and we needed it badly. But today was a nice day. I went for a ride with Max and Terry and mowed the lawn in die afternoon. There is a complete standstill again in all my enterprises. That nice trio SamAlfredLynn continue to behave in the strangest way. I didnt hear a word from them. Sam didnt send me the script of the revisions. No word of reaction to the negro audition. Wednesday evening Dornrdschen called up which is, as you know, a rare event. He stammered something that everything is settled and they had worked out a statement. I smelled a rat and asked what they had announced about me. He said he didnt know. Next morning it was in all papers .. . “incidental music by K.W.” At  Jules came back from town. He said Lynn had asked her maid who is a friend of Jules if Jules would pack Alfreds luggage I am sure they are trying to get Jules away from us. Jules went there at  a.m. and Alfred sent a message through Jules !!! how sorry he was that he couldnt see me before leaving and he would write me a letter. Later I called Bill Fields and asked how it got into the papers without asking me and why they used the expression “incidental music.” He spilled die whole soup: Sam was afraid that people would think it is a musical and insisted on “incidental music.” I think my original impression was the right one: Sam is the one who is working against the music, partly because he is afraid of it, partly because he doesnt want to pay. Well, he wont get away with it. I will force an issue and I am not afraid of a possible break with Sam  ? lenya on the road:  Copyrighted material  because, if he is afraid of music in this little comedy, he certainly would never do a real musical with me. The whole thing is deeply disgusting, and I have the feeling that I am wasting away my time with those little unimportant quarrels instead of doing something really worthwhile. I am in the mood to throw away all this show business and get a real war job or join the army or go into a factory.

A logic, at first allowed only to defend received opinions, al length gave rise to philosophical controversies, which, disguised as they were under a barbarous jargon, contained the seeds of the deepest and boldest speculations concerning the first principles of human knowledge. The revival of llie Roman jurisprudence rescued law from absolute dependence on the clergy, and raised up formidable rivals to that body ; the cultivation of the vernacular language, and llie study of ancient literature, diffused instruction and spirit among the laity; and Ihe mind of man w as gradually roused to that revolt against all human authority over reason, which is Ihe grand source of subsequent improvement in science, in art, in government, and in morals.fourth epoch is lhat of Ihe second emancipation of science, armed with belter instruments, supplied wilh far more abundant materials, and secured from attack or decay by a happier order of society. The reformers, w ho intended only to arrange the stale of theological opinion, restored man to the free exercise of reason. The innumerable inventions and discoveries which began in the middle of llie fifteenth century, promoted equally the increase and the diffusion of knowledge. Civilisation became impregnable ; llie ascendant of civilised nations over the other parts of Ihe human species was no longer capable of being shaken ; and from the beginning of this new career or sociely, it became impossible lo arrest its progress, or permanently to enslave the understanding.In the general history of Ihe human mind, Ihe Vcrulamian reformation of philosophy may doubtless be regarded as a portion of that great revolution by which the fourth epoch is distinguished. But in the history of science il may, w ith propriety, be separated from the general movement of society, and considered apart, as forming a fifth epoch in the progress of know ledge.olumbus, Luther, and Bacon arc perhaps, in modern times, the men of whom it may be said, with the greatest probability, lhat, if they had not existed, the whole coursc of human affairs in after ages would have been varied. We formerly said so much of the genius of Bacon, and of the reformation which he effected in philosophy, that it would be vain to attempt any additional observation on that subject. But, since our former article, the most important of Bacon’s w ritings has been illustrated by a commentary small indeed in extent, but, in our opinion, of inestimable value, as il exhibits a perfect model of the manner in which the whole of that great work might be adapted to the present state of science. We allude to Mr. Playfair’s observations on those parts of the ” Novum Organum” which relate to the various sorts of prejudice, and the comparative value of facts in physical enquiry.

The list of English mathematicians of llie fourteenth century, given by Montocla. among whom it Chaucer, shows the terms of Ihe text to be loo exclusive, and seems indeed, as he observes, lo presage ihe future success of the English nation in that department. Monlu.been saved, il might have been as speciously argued, that we owed our literature to the salvation of that great school and repository of learning, as it has been asserted for the last three centuries, lhat the cultivation of letters in the West is to be ascribed lo Ihe Hight of Grecian exiles into Italy. But, however that may be, the revival of letters is an epoch in the hisloryof philosophy.Literature, which lies much nearer to Ihe feelings of mankind than science, has Ihe most important elTect on the sentiments wilh which Ihe sciences arc regarded, the activity with which they are pursued, and tho mode in which Ihey are cultivated. Il is the instrument, in particular, by which ethical science is generally dilTused. As the useful arts maintain the general honour of physical knowledge, so polite letters allure the world inlo the neighbourhood of the sciences of Morals and of Mind. Wherever the. agreeable vehicle of literature does not convey their doclrines to Ihe public, they remain the occupation of a fow recluscs in the schools, with no root in Ihe general feelings, and liable to be deslroyed by the dispersion of a handful of doctors, and ihe deslruclion of Iheir unlamented seminaries. Nor is this all. l’olite literature is not only the true guardian of the moral sciences, and the sole instrument of spreading their benefits among men, but it becomes, from these Very circumstances, tho regulator of their cultivation and their progress. As long as they are confined lo a small number of men in scholastic retirements, Ihere is no restraint upon Iheir natural proneness to degenerate either inlo verbal subtleties or inlo showy dreams. It is peculiar to these vices, that, having no boundaries prescribed by reason, their course may be prolonged for ever. As long as speculation remained in Ihe schools, all ils followers were divided inlo mere dialecticians or mvslical visionaries, both alike unmindful of Ihe real world, and disregarded by its inhabitants. The revival of literature produced a revolution at once in the stale of sociely and in Ihe mode of philosophising. It attracted readers from the common ranks of society, who were gradually led on from eloquence and poetry lo morals and philosophy.

As a poet, a critic, philosopher, or controversialist, his style will be found precisely such as we of England are accustomed to admire most: brief, nervous, vivid; yet quiet, without glitter or antithesis; idiomatic, pure without purism, transparent, yet full of character and reflex hues of meaning. ” Every sentence,” says Horn, and justly, ” is like a phalanx;” not a word wrong placed, not a word that could be spared; and it forms itself so calmly and lightly, and stands in its completeness, so gay, yet so impregnable ! As a poet he contemptuously denied himself all merit; but his readers have not taken him at his word: here loo a similar felicity of style attends him; his plays, his if Minna von Barnhelm,” his ” Emilie Gallotli,” his ” Nathan der Weise,” have a genuine and graceful poetic life; yet  works known lo us in any language are purer from exaggeration, or any appearance of falsehood. They are pictures, we might say, painted not in colours, bill in crayons ; vel a strange attraction lies iu them ; for the figures are grouped into Ihe fines! attitudes, and true and spiritspeaking in every line, ll is with his style chiefly thai we have to do here; yet we must add, thai Ihe matter of his works is not less meritorious. His Criticism and philosophic or religious Scepticism were of a higher mood than had yet been heard in Europe, still more iu Germany: his ” Dramaturgic” first exploded the pretensions of Ihe French theatre, and, wilh irresistible conviction, made Shakspeare known lo his countrymen; preparing Ihe way for a brighter era in their literature, the chief men of which still thankfully look back to Lessing as Iheir patriarch. His ” Laocoon,” wilh its deep glances into the philosophy of Art, his ” Dialogues of Freemasons,” a work of far higher import than its title indicates, may yvl leach many things lo most of us, which we know not, and ought to know.Wilh Lessing and Ivlopstock might be joined in this respect nearly every one, we do not say of their distinguished, but even of their tolerated contemporaries. The two Jacobis, known more or less in all countries, are little know n here if they are accused of wanting literary taste.

” At the same time, do I not see the mercy and patience of a good God to a sinful world ? The desolations of the. world, how wonderfully would they be, if every transgression met with its just reward!” It is no rare thing for the children of men to, die by a thunderbolt: a king has been so slain in the midst of his army. There was a punishment of old used upon criminals, by pouring hot lead into their mouths, and used in imitation of God’s destroying with lightning; whereby the inward parts are burnt without any visible touch upon the outward. This death by lightning, has been frequently inflicted. Their being asleep at the time has not preserved them though there be fancy in Plutarch that it would ; nor would a tent of seal skin have done it, though some great ones have repaired to such an amulet for their protection. My God, I adore thy sovereign grace, that such a sinner as I, have not yet been by lightning turned into dust and ashes before thee !” I take notice of one thing, that as guilt lying on the minds of men, makes them startle at a thunder clap ; so the miscarriages about which our hearts do first and most of all misgive us in a thunder storm, are those which most of all call for a thorough repentance. There are some writings which  cannot read, except I hold them against the fire; by having my heart held up against the lightning, I may quickly read my own iniquity.”" Impious people are deaf to thunder !”Kerlicius, in his Tractaius de Fulmine, reckons up a considerable number of those, which might be called Faslicia Fulmina. Such will they be that made these impressions upon us.The air of our atmosphere in which we breathe, is a diaphanous, compressible, dilatable fluid; a body covering the earth and the sea, to a great height above the highest mountains.There seem to be three different sorts of corpuscles, whereof the air is composed. There are such as are carried up into the air from othef bodies, as vapours exhaled by heat. There may be also a more subtile kind mixed with our air emitted from the heavenly bodies, and from the magnetic steams of the globe on which we sojourn. But there may be a third sort of particles which may most properly merit the name of aerial, as being the distinguishing parts of the air, taken in the stricter sense of the term. Thesd particles have an elasticity resembling the spring of a watch. Elasticity is an essential property of the air, and it is thought no other fluid has any thing of it, only as it participates of air, or has air contained in the pores of it.