Gullivers Travels

In early January of 1948 he received a letter from Dudley Fitts. It is on Phillips Academy stationary and Fitts, at that time, was an instructor at Phillips up in Andover, Massachusetts. Fitts was a well known poet and one of the best translators of his time of classical Greek plays into English. He had received a copy of the Gulliver as a gift from his old friend the artist and replied, in Spanish, that not withstanding certain Andalucian priests they had once encountered he discovers himself to be "a believer this morning; and what has affected this unexpected transformation is your magnificent Gulliver which arrived not only at the beginning of the new year but also on the occasion of my beginning a new course here on Swift and his work. It is difficult to deny a presentiment. You have given me the gift of a fine omen, and how was it that you knew that at ten o'clock sharp this morning I would be standing before a class intoning pontifically?:

"'Very well, gentlemen: spit out your Wrigley-Spearmint
onto the floor, and you, O'Reilly of my heart, please do
me the favor of ceasing to play the trumpet. Thank you.
Gentlemen: Jonathan Swift, Christian misanthrope, was
born in Dublin in 1667, &c &c......

"Or is Quintanilla clairvoyant, or does God exist. Which do you prefer?

"Your Gulliver is an enchantment. The drawings have the certitude, the bitter grieving compassion which I perceived many years ago in your All the Brave, and the ferocious humor of your book, with Paul, on arroz con pollo. That is to say, they have the savage indignation which so tormented Swift himself. And they are the inevitable accompaniment to the Gulliver: it being a book which is profoundly religious I can't deny the conclusion that you are a religious painter. Very well, as I said, I believe in this form of religion....

"I am not going to continue excoriating you with this awful Castilian of mine (VOICES IN THE BACKGROUND: then, why the devil not write in English? VOICE OF PROFESSOR FEETS: What the hell, this is fun, ain't it?) Enough to say that your gift has moved me greatly, and that once again I offer you my thanks for your many elegances. Su amigo invariable,... " and here he signed it with a lovely black monogram, D. F., in black ink.

Reduced to a mere illustrator of books, he at least still received an appreciative understanding from friends, once again, who could see what he did and how it related to its subject. The great illusion and intent he had put into his work had communicated itself to Fitts, who comprehended this aesthetic significance. And communicated it back to the artist in his humorous, life enhancing, enchanting letter.

From Waiting at the Shore