Typed Letter Signed to a fellow philosopher
New York: 1973.
1 page, 11 x 8.5 inches, New York City, November 22, 1973. Exceptional typed letter with one handwritten line in which Barrett shares his NYU private phone number. Written to fellow philosopher Henry David Aiken, reflecting on their long friendship and the fact that both are getting older, in part: "...This is a love-letter to you, in lieu of seeing you. It doesn't do for seeing you, talking with you, but for the time being it must do. We shall see each other soon. Here we are, you and I, mired in the last crisis of all, so Erikson tells us, none more to go through, that's luck, but what a fucking indignity after all those other crises, adolescence, youth, middle age, what not, to have another tunnel to crawl through. You are the most intelligent man I've ever known, friend brother father once, and I wanted to talk with you about all this. I'm no longer a reader of Beckett; I've become one of his characters. I think you're the only philosopher in the United States who would understand me when I say it. For me it came about this way. I had been drinking too much. Alcohol dehydrates. In the middle of the summer, the heavy viscous New York summer, I had a heat seizure in the New York subway. My legs gave out under me. I was helped out alive. But I knew fear as I'd never known it before. When the body gives way, you begin to think, really think. Think what? In the time closing around you, you think of the few things that we may have left to do, the few people you really want to see. I thought of you. If I'm ever to do anything again, ever write anything again, it will only be after talking with you. If I%u2019d had you to talk with, this last book of mine would have been a lot different and a lot better. Dear friend: take care, take heart, I crawl forward a little, and you too crawl. Maybe we will crawl out of this god-damned tunnel yet." Henry David Aiken (1912 - 1982) was the author of "Age of Ideology." Natural folds; light wrinkling and spotting. Very good(-) condition.
Professor of Philosophy at New York University from 1950 - 1979. He is best remembered for his work "Irrational Man."
Binding: Unbound
Language: English
Price: $650.00
Item #265319