Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1296

Carbon of letter from Heath to W.R. Goddard, 1729 Prospect Street, Santa Barbara, California

January 30, 1940

 

 

Dear Mr. Goddard:

 

     Your very charming daughter, Kathleen, suggested to me in New York recently that you would like to have a copy of the Christmas greeting that I sent out to friends last month in the form of a rhyme and simplified version of the Lord’s Prayer — simplified in the sense of being reduced entirely to words of one syllable. I asked Kathleen to give me your full name and address so that I could send one of them direct to you without first giving it to her. This I am very happy to do.

 

     I am also enclosing two little booklets, one of them entitled “The Inspiration of Beauty,” which I hope you will find interesting as a view of the spiritual /social?/ life from the standpoint of beauty and creativeness rather than from the standpoint of reformation and correction. It seems to me that a knowledge of God is in reality a knowledge of Him as Creator and of His creative ways, as they manifest themselves in His creatures and in all creation. I think it is the providence of God that only the beautiful shall possess any reality and final permanence, and only through the pursuit of beauty and under its inspiration can men find their way to that which is godly and to God.

     As an example of creative beauty manifesting itself in the social institutions with which mankind is endowed, I am sending you the other little booklet, “Private Property in Land Explained.” If this interests you sufficiently to peruse it, I think you will find that it analyses this social institution in its aspect as being an agency adapted to perform peacefully and without force all of the community or public services that a civilized population requires. I believe that service is the only practical manifestation of love, and that mutual love can only be expressed by exchange. The study of social institutions from the standpoint of services performed and exchanged, is to study them from the standpoint of their capacity to manifest love — this love being no less than the love of God being manifested and working in the exchange processes and relationships of men.

     I trust this letter will find you in possession of many bounties and the enjoyment of many beauties both within and without.

                        Very sincerely yours,

 

SH:ML

 

Enc.

Inspiration of beauty

Private Property  in Land Explained

Lord’s Prayer

 

CC:  Miss Kathleen Goddard

     National Broadcasting Company

     Room 411

     Radio City, New York