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So I will try to keep it what I have made it; a vehicle and an instrument for the mind and spirit: - without fear, without chains, but with the courage of the heart. When someone boasted to me many months ago that he had "killed painting" I reminded him that that had never been the problem. I reminded him that the problem had always been how to make painting "live". And I was speaking of it on the highest level - above aesthetics or neuroticism, beyond the illustration of philosophical cliches and outside the realm of social or political ethics and uses. I see as yet no reason to modify my rejoinder to the "butcher". Only, I must be concerned that I live up to my own values.

May I thank you again for your generous letters and your personal encouragement and confidence. I will try to bring some of that godawful prairie-land aura with me, when I come through it, that you may both remember and be glad that you are not in its stinging heat and heartbreaking loneliness. With all the best,

Yours as ever,
Clyff. S.
Clyff

August, 11/54
San Francisco

Transcription Notes:
grammar mistakes rectified