4/30/55

The irking dissatisfaction of living with someone whom one is not thoroughly in love with, does not love thoroughly and unquestioningly. Ah, that nagging inner question, that defiant exclamation: “Surely I am not fated to live with her the rest of my life! I can’t believe I am fated to live this!” What irks the honest man and the honest artist (a redundant term!) is that inevitably, if he is human and kind, the world—for him will be seen through the eyes of the person whom he does not entirely trust, and whose imperfections (nothing but dishonesties) he has already tried hundreds of times to correct and explain away, without success. To be bound to a warped and dishonest person, to be emotionally bound, is like being compelled to wear distorting glasses the rest of one’s life. An unbearable fate for an artist! The world is difficult enough to bring into perspective, even seen purely!