Oct 1911 (Tom to Peter)

postmarked from:
Tom Alden
Green Pastures Rest Home for the Criminally Insane

postmarked to:
Dr Peter E. Strandman
Undergraduate Dean
Oxford

*****

Dear Peter Strandman,

I hope this letter will find you well, and indeed that it will find you at all, though I do think that I've found an up-to-date address. Sir, I dont know how, exactly, to begin to write; I feel quite bewildered when I think of what to say... but I do remember that once when I expressed similar feelings about my undergraduate thesis you laughed and told me I had already begun.

And so i have, it seems, but it takes a good deal more effort than it used to to preserve the coherence you once encouraged in me. There was a book you had us read once in the first class I had with you, and I dont remember the plot really, or even the title, but I remember a line from it : "And the man became a little boy in a dark wood, with the wind blowing always a little colder from the east." I didn't like the line at the time, and I asked something like why did the author choose such an overused image - and you said that sometimes there was nothing else to say.
Then I asked you why the cold wind came from the east and not the north and you said because the east was for hope and hope is very cold. I didn't understand you then, about either question. I might now.

But I am being dishonest. I am not offering my words from a position you can identify. The unforgivable sin in writing, or what I suppose in life. I dont know if that is what I could not forgive you for, or the opposite, butone thing I wanted to tell you is that it is done and i was a bastard and a fool and a child, really, and though you may have hoped for better I imagine I managed to trach you at least that a good brain can hold a pitifully crippled understanding.

But I realized all this some time ago, and it is not truly why I write. I am in trouble, and I am selfish and there is something, something I want from you, something you can see in me or give me, and I don't know what it is except... I dont want a lantern because I don't want to see where I've wandered. I think I just want to feel a hand find mine for a moment, and Christ almighty I am still a bastard so please disregard this sentimental rot and throw this letter on some pile of rejected drafts. Because I don't deserve anything you could give me; I want you to know that - I don't deserve anything you could give me, and I mean that in the best possible way for you Peter, and - Fuck this letter. Profanity is the sign of a weak mind, sir. Ergo, my mind is weak. That is a clear and accurate conclusion. But I think perhaps it is less the mind than the heart. That is, I suppose I knew that the mind had the power to break the heart, but not that the heart had the power to break the mind.

Oh goddamn it all. I may have done somwthing quite terrible, is what I'm trying to say. I only know for sure that it's a very dark wood I've found myself in, with a bunch of eyeless men for company, and I'd like very much to hear form you.

your old student,
Tom Alden