Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2122

Heath dictating to Spencer MacCallum while driving from New York to Baltimore, for a letter to Ruth MacCallum Berryman.

1956?

 

 

Dear Ruth:

 

It was nice to hear from you some time ago, and to know you were enjoying Faith & Freedom, of which I think a great deal. It is in line with my own thinking that neither science, art nor religion is complete or adequate except so far as it is united with the other two.

 

     So now you have become a real country-woman instead of a mere suburbanite. I don’t doubt you can find an ache in every one of your fifty acres, as I did in my hundred. But, of course, you get a lot out of it, if you don’t weaken. I wonder if you know Mildred Loomis. When I knew her some years ago, she was a fine gal very much like you. She and her then new husband moved to an eighty-acre farm in Ohio near Brookville, which they call Lane’s End Homestead. They’re very idealistic about the creative country life and have made their place quite an institution, especially among people of the “Distributists” movement, who believe in the glorification of practical arts and crafts through small units widely dispersed in farm communities instead of concentrated in factory towns. They’re a good deal of the William Morris complex — if you know what I mean. Mildred gets out a small periodical, which she began by writing letters to her many friends. I think I will write her and ask her to put your name on her list.

 

     I’m dictating this letter this late afternoon while driving with Spencer on our way from New York down to Baltimore. At the present moment, we are near to Flemington and are wishing very much we had time to look in on you for an hour or so. But it is now six o’clock and we’ve nearly 200 miles ahead of us.

 

     My own affairs are shaping up. CM&A is now being set up in type at the Yale University Printing Office. Spencer joins me in looking forward to it becoming a landmark in the realm of thought concerning human affairs.

 

     It is nice to remember you and to look forward to more of your good company, including John and the juniors and to hear again that lovely music of yours.

 

     Spencer joins me in every good wish.

 

Affectionately,