Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1425

Carbon of a letter from 14 Washington Place East, New York City, to (daughter) Marguerite McConkey

February 14, 1944

Dear Marguerite:

     I am glad to have your letter of the seventh.

     About Enid’s (and my) money that I send her, I don’t want anybody to help her to “manage” it, as you say. I will tell her all she needs to know about where and how to keep any portion of it that she is not ready to use or that remains unused. But in her use and spending of it I don’t want anyone (unless it should be me) to control or direct her. Most of it she will have to spend for fixed college expenses, such as room and board. But as to anything else she spends, I want her to develop and use her own judgment and be alone responsible for it. In doing this I hope she will ask for advice whenever she feels the need of doing so, and I don’t doubt she will ask your opinions about many things and be much helped and influenced by them (and I expect she will ask mine too sometimes) but I want her decisions to be her own. If she makes mistakes, I don’t want her to say she would have done otherwise but her Mother or her Aunt or some­body told her to do so and so. She is adult in years and I want her to take the responsibility of an adult. That is a most important part of her education. If she manages well and shows that she can spend judiciously she will have more to spend. If she is over cautious and too “stingy” with herself or if she spends recklessly or stupidly she will find herself having less and less to spend. (This is almost certain to be true whatever be the source she gets it from.) If she asks my advice and seems in need of it I will do my best to help her, but I do not expect to control her on any particular items — only as to the over-all amount that she has from me. And this over-all amount will be very much affected by how much I know about her ambitions, needs and desires as well as upon the competency with which she spends. What I wrote to her about wishing her Aunt Betty or Aunt Beatrice here for me to talk to about her was a wish that they might help me decide what would be a reasonably liberal over-all amount to send Enid for the coming semester.

     There is one thing I hope Enid will not make a prac­tice of or not do at all (unless for some very special reason). That is, to spend herself into a deficit and then have to borrow against the future. I want her to budget her expenses for each semester — making reasonable allowance for emergencies (other than illness) — and then live within her budget, and if anything additional comes up she should obtain the funds from some other source or ask special authorization from me for the additional expense. I know it is not very easy for her to make up her budget, especially in her first year (her Aunt Betty made it up for her for the first semester, and I think it was a little too small) but I want her to learn how to do it herself and then how to live by it.

     In my last letter (January 20) I sent her $400 to cover room and board and leave $140 for other expenses. I expect her to write me about her other expenses in detail. I hope to hear from her soon about this. Also if she is going to make any new banking arrangements such as I suggested I hope she will do so without further delay.

     Now about Enid’s expenses for the first semester: I sent her altogether, beginning with $30 in July, $320. That didn’t include anything for sorority expense and I didn’t expect it to cover that item. So it will be all right for her to borrow out of the $400 I sent January 20 to finish out the first semester before making up her budget for the second semester. If you or Merton, as you say, want to supply $45 or $50 at the end of the term that would be all right, but if you have any neglected dental work I would much rather have you attend to that or to any other necessary thing first and leave me to provide for all Enid’s college expenses (except tuition) as I set out and undertook to do.

     I am surely glad you and Merton are both recovered now and that household and other arrangements are so much better than they were.

     I think it is wonderful what Aunt Betty has been able to do for Heath Charles. I think she is wonderful. I liked her years ago and I became very fond of her last summer and would like to see a lot more of her.

     Thank Merton for me for getting the proof sheets. They are just what I wanted. I may write for some more.

     Keep on telling me all about everything. I shall be happy to know that everything is going better and better with you.

Heaps of love,

 

/Carbon to Enid and note to her:/

Dear Enid:

     This letter is as much for you as for your Mother. Please take note of all of it, note well, and act accord­ingly. I am betting on your good sense and high practi­cality.

     I certainly am glad you got that bid for your chosen Sorority. Get that second semester budget — full list of expenses — fixed up soon so I will know just how we stand with our college fisc. If Mother and Father want to help out I suggest you let them put it on your clothes and leave all your strictly college expenses to me. If your second semester budget should not use up all of the $400 (after taking care of your first semester deficit) we can keep the balance as a special fund (to which I may add at times) to be appropriated to other purposes.

     Yes, I got a letter from Aunt Beatrice today. She wrote it on the 11th from Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and she was in the hospital with bronchitis and tonsillitis and pretty much upset about missing her training classes and such things. I have already sent an air mail letter to her and hope to get a reply by telegram very soon. She may be sent goodness knows where at any time. Yes I had a letter from Aunt Lucile a week or more ago. She and the three boys are still in Mexico City and she is teaching in the American School there. I have not heard from Uncle Crawford for about three months and we are beginning to worry about him. He was headed for London, England in November.

     What shall I do to you for being fascinated by such a book as “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter?” I thought it about the most sordid I ever read and was pretty well disgusted by it — not because it was so “earthy” but because it left every­thing that way. It is the kind of realism that is not real because it depicts things that cannot go on and on but must make an end of themselves. A work of “art” that reflects only the dregs of existence is only a sordid lie. It is as far from being true as it is from being beautiful. If you want to read something that shows both sides — the sordid and the sublime — get yourself a copy of Maeterlinck’s “Monna Vanna.” But don’t think I want to censor your reading. Stick your nose into everything, but do your own smelling; cultivate your own taste, let the cri­teria be your own.

     Heaps of love to you at Ann Arbor and all the folks at Lansing and Aunt Betty at Keuka Park as soon as you write to her.

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