To Faith Hersey, a longtime friend [Letter 401]

September 3, 1949

Dear Faith:

We have just returned home and found your note, which was transferred to us from New York. We were terribly sorry that we could not see you in New York this time. I telephoned your landlady on the day when we arrived and again on the day before we left, hoping that you might have returned.

Yes, I did want to see you without Isabel Paterson. I still feel guilty about that incident, and I had hoped that I would make up for it this time. It may please you to know that Isabel Paterson and I are not friends any longer. I did not see her at all on this trip. I am very slow and reluctant to condemn people, so it took me all these years to realize that she had a bad streak of malice. If you remember, at the time of that incident with you, she came in and started telling me such tragic things about herself that I felt I had to console her, and I neglected you as a result. I thought that it was an emergency. I have learned since, from her subsequent behavior, that it was a deliberate action on her part, an attempt to force me away from all my friends. Well, it didn’t work, but I hope that you will forgive me for that incident.

We had a wonderful trip to New York, and I am back at work on my new novel now. I was glad to hear that you were working with an opera company. I hope that it is the kind of job you wanted. Let me know how you are getting along and what you are doing. I am much better at answering letters now than I used to be. I hope you have seen the movie of THE FOUNTAINHEAD. Let me know how you liked it.

Love from both of us,