Paul Delvaux painting
Dear Frida,
I do not mean to be cruel but I
shall write to you exactly what I consider to be your faults and I hope
sincerely that what I have written will influence you. Like most people, you
are not able to face more than one fear during your lifetime. You also spend
your life fleeing from your first fear towards your first hope. Be careful that
you do not, through your own wiliness end up always in the same position in
which you began. I do not advise you to spend your life surrounding yourself
with those things which you term necessary to your existence, regardless of
whether or not they are objectively interesting in themselves or even to your
own particular intellect. I believe sincerely that only those men who reach the
stage where it is possible for them to combat a second tragedy within
themselves, and not the first over again, are worthy of being called mature. When
you think someone is going ahead, make sure that he is not really standing
still. In order to go ahead, you must leave things behind which most people are
unwilling to do. Your first pain, you carry it with you like a lodestone in
your breast because all tenderness will come from there. You must carry it with
you through your whole life but you must not circle around it. You must give up
the search for those symbols which only serve to hide its face from you. You will
have the illusion that they are disparate and manifold but they are always the
same. If you are only interested in a bearable life, perhaps this letter does
not concern you.
Jane Bowles: Two Serious Ladies
Jane Bowles: Two Serious Ladies
