On July 9, 1962 Merton replies saying that he has often thought of writing to Miller and that he has read Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch and The Colossus of Maroussi which he regards as "a tremendous and important book." He says how he has wanted to discuss their common interest in Jean Giono, and the need for a good selection of Giono to be published in English. The Delteil book has arrived but Merton has not yet read much of it. He refers to his own "banned book" (Peace in the Post-Christian Era) commenting in parenthesis to Miller, "you are not the only one, you see!" and Merton encloses a copy for Miller along with a couple of mimeographed items. He asks Miller if he has read New Seeds of Contemplation, that perhaps James Laughlin has sent to him already. Merton concludes by encouraging Miller to "keep speaking out" and says he is in his prayers.
Miller replies on July 31, 1962 that he has read New Seeds of Contemplation and was "much, much impressed." He adds, "To me you belong with Emerson and Thoreau, who were (and still are) most radical thinkers." He tells Merton that he visited Ireland and found "nothing but 'faith and poverty.' But wrong faith, wrong kind of poverty," and adds, "I often find atheists more religious minded - don't you?" He encourages Merton to keep to his "(wonderful) way!"
A week later on August 7, 1962 Merton writes agreeing with Miller on the difficulty of translating Delteil into English (Miller had said that he doubted a good translator could be found because of Delteil's "unusual French"). Merton is tempted to try it himself and would enjoy the challenge but has no time; "a living and riotous book it would make: a life of St. Francis as there never yet was in English" - an intriguing and tantalizing prospect! But Merton says he has to "save energy for some strong statements that may be needed here and there." He says he will write to Delteil - did he do so?
Merton is reading Miller's The Wisdom of the Heart which he tells Miller is "you at your best ... very fine material everywhere, one insight on top of another," and says he is looking forward to The Time of the Assassins, Miller's book about French poet Rimbaud.
He agrees that that Miller is probably right about Ireland and likens religion to a monster of the Apocalypse - "the greatest orgy of idolatry the world has ever known" and describes idolatry as "the greatest and fundamental sin," and that "the greatest and most absurd difficulty of our time is keeping disentangled from idols." He laments that he does not have an answer but "...it is no longer a matter of answers. It is a time perhaps of great spiritual silence."
Merton clearly likes that Miller has likened him to the transcendentalists, though he admits he has not read Emerson except little bits that he has liked. Thoreau he admires "tremendously," who is one of the reasons, he says, that he felt justified in becoming an American citizen - "he and Emily Dickinson, and some of my friends, and people like yourself." He says, "It is to me a great thing that you say I am like the transcendentalists. I will try to be worthy of that."
Merton sends another brief note a few days later on August 11, 1962 to say that he is reading Miller's "magnificent essay on Raimu" (in The Wisdom of the Heart). That same day Merton wrote in his journal: "Henry Miller's tremendous essay on Raimu deeply significant, touches the real nerve of our time, the American nihilist, the movie dreamer, who commits crime in his sleep, a bomb wrapped in ideals, as against Raimu the human European, caught in the mess of real politics." (Journals Vol. 4, p.237)
Then the correspondence goes quiet for a while until Miller sends a card on January 8, 1963 to say he is reading the Thomas Merton Reader "slowly each night" adding, "How wonderful. What a lucid, exciting thinker you are. A joy to read you." He sends another card on January 12, 1963 to say "how deeply moved" he was by reading of Merton's early life in France (in the Reader): "My God, all those wonderful place names you reel off - and that wonderful father of yours!" He tells Merton he was in Prades a year earlier and how he said "a silent prayer for the first time in ages." He adds: "You see I know nothing about your life and have been reading you backwards. No matter. I could read you standing on my head. God bless you! I say. Long life. Keep writing - and praying!"
I am struck by the heartfelt admiration these two writers have for each other - both for their writings and, even more so, for one another as fellow human beings, kindred spirits.
In the spring of 1963 Merton writes Miller to say that he is happy with the two postcards about the Reader. Merton sends some poems by Robert Lax plus some translations and a poem of his own. On May 12, 1963 Merton again thanks Miller for all his cards. He also says that he is reading Alfred Perles book My Friend Henry Miller: An Intimate Biography and comments on the similarities with his own life: "It all sounds so familiar: it is the kind of life in many ways that I was always intending to lead and did lead, to some extent." He affirms that he is still at the monastery, despite "all sorts of legends" about him being elsewhere, but refers to his attempts to get permission to go to Mexico as a hermit which were "squashed by administrative and political maneuvers which I could not block." He has no desire, he says, to go back to New York (which he would in fact do within the year to see D.T. Suzuki) but that he would like to see Europe again which, he says, is not beyond the bounds of possibility (but he never did so). On the whole he accepts that his place is to be a monk at Gethsemani: "It seems to me that I am here for a reason, just as you are where you are for a reason. And the reason seems to be pretty much the same in both cases. We are here to live, and to 'be,' and on occasion to help others with the recharging of batteries."
Merton laments that he has not read Miller's novels but feel that he would enjoy them now as opposed to before he entered the monastery when he was "too ambivalent and too doubtful of myself." He hopes to read them someday but warns Miller not to send them because of the "barrier of censorship."
Apparently Lax's poems did not "click" with Miller (which suggests there is at least one missing piece of correspondence from Miller), and Merton invites Miller to stay a day or two at the monastery "if you happen to be this way."
The correspondence goes quiet again until June 22, 1964 when Merton writes to say, "I cannot let your hummingbird [Stand Still Like The Hummingbird] get away without a resounding shout of approval." Merton "liked it from the first," and said, "I have been getting into it again and like it more and more." In Miller's writing Merton recognizes himself: "All that you say seem to me as obvious as if I had said it myself and you have said it better than I ever could. It needs to be said over and over again." Merton further adds, "I resound to everything you say, Europe, Zen, Thoreau, and your real basic Christian spirit which I wish a few Christians shared!" He encourages Miller to "keep giving us so many good things" and again invites him to come to the monastery if he is in the vicinity, though he can't imagine why he would be. He also mentions that he met D.T. Suzuki recently and they "agreed warmly about everything." And finally he says that "thanks to you" he is going to "dig up" everything he can find of J.S. Powys.
In this letter Merton also enclosed a recent photograph of himself with Miguel Grinberg. A month later on July 4, 1964 Miller writes to say how he "can't get over" the photo Merton sent him, saying "you are as familiar to me as if I had known you in my dreams." Miller comments on the resemblance of Merton to himself and to Jean Genet - "seems to combine my mug and Genet's" - and he continues, "You too have the look of an ex-convict, of one who has been through fires." He says, "The three of us [Miller, Merton and Genet] have been through hell and I think bear traces of it."
Miller is interested to hear that Merton has met with Suzuki; and he says how he adored "Father John (Powys)" though he adds, "a Christian he never was - nor an atheist either, for that matter. Just a wonderful pagan, a heathen, if you like, endowed with a true catholic 'universal' spirit."
The final letter we have is dated August 16, 1964 in which Merton also comments on the similarity in their faces and saying that the person he is mostly likened to is Picasso: "Still I think it is a distinction to look like Picasso, Henry Miller, and Genet all at once. Pretty comprehensive. It seems to imply some kind of responsibility." Earlier in May (May 11, 1964) Merton had written to Miguel Grinberg having received the pictures from him saying, "I look like Henry Miller." In July (July 12, 1964) he again writes to Grinberg saying, "I sent Henry Miller a picture of the two of us in the front garden of the monastery amid cold winds, snow, fallout, sleet, darkness, chaos and night. He thought he was able to discern in me a likeness to himself, and I agree as I had already thought of that myself. Maybe I said it in a letter." He adds that Miller also thought Merton looked like Genet and an ex-convict and Grinberg like "a pugilist and a vagabond." Merton concludes, "In all these things he is undoubtedly partly right, for only ex-convicts and vagabonds have any right to be moving about and breathing the air of night which is our ordinary climate."
He said something similar in his August 16 response to Miller: "It seems to me that the only justification for a man's existence in this present world is for him to either be a convict, or a victim of plague, or a leper, or at least look like one of these things." He mentions that he has just finished reading Camus' The Plague which he found "very sobering." Of course, one has to take what is said in personal letters in the context in which they are written as opposed to more formal published statements, but these words give an indication of Merton's own self-understanding as someone on the margins (or on the outside) of society, not unlike the position of Miller himself with whom he clearly identifies in ways more than the physical resemblance in which he delights!
Sources:
Merton, Thomas. The Courage for Truth: Letters to Writers, selected and edited by Christine M. Bochen. New York: Harcourt Brace (Harvest edition), 1994. (CFT)
Merton, Thomas. Turning Towards The World: Journals Vol. 4, 1960-1963. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996.
Shapero, Ken. “Dear Henry: Love, Thomas.” Louisville Today 5 (May 1981): 32-37.
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