Letters Unposted

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 320, 10 August 1945, Page 9

Letters Unposted

N a recent programme from 4YA, en- | titled "Postman’s Knock," Professor T. D. Adams produced some of the most diversely-sorted letters it would be possible to find, digging haphazardly into that odd post-bag of letters written by great men, often addressed to nobody with any tangible existence, very seldom actually posted, requiring, in most cases, no reply. Indeed, to the first of these particular letters no fitting reply was possible, since the unknown recipient must surely have died of bitter shame after reading the first few lines. It was from Thomas Mann to the Dean of the University of Bonn, which had just informed the famous author that, having lost his German citizenship, he must no longer use the degree conferred upon him. The reply, couched in scholarly, gentlemanly, but biting language, informed the Dean that the writer no longer required to use the degree, since

it had been supplanted by one from Harvard, conferred for those very qualities of militant anti-Fascism which the Bonn University so deprecated. A more moving letter could scarcely be imagined, and it is not difficult to believe, as Professor Adams tells us, that it was circulated underground in Germany and read with excitement, fascination, and danger. It was opportune of Professor Adams to Produce, in the same mail, so to speak, some of the love-letters of Pierre and Marie Curie, since the film of their life was currently showing in Dunedin. The restrained and gentle affection of these letters showed, if anything were needed to prove such a point, that truth is often more quietly effective than Hollywood fiction.