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to what extent Auden´s speech contains hitherto unknown material,
if any.  I said airlily that he had probably said iat asll before,
in Secondary Worlds and so on, but this is not true.  After a
preamble the speech begins:
    Between the ages of six and twelve, I spent a great many of
    my waking hours in the fabrication of a private secondary
s   sacred world, the basic elements of which were a) a limestone
landscape mainly derived from the Pennine Moors in the North of
    England and b) an industry - lead-mining.
    Irt is no doubt psychologically significant that my sacred
    world was autistic - that is to say I had no wish to share
    it with others ...   and so on.
He goes on to define the Primary and Secondary Worlds;  his
private world, the restrictions on the freedom of the artist;
water-turbines, his Platonic idea of a concentrating mill and
of his moral duty to sacrifice his aesthetic princip preference
to reality or truth.

    If you like I can have the whole thing photo-copied and
send it along, but you see what it´s about.  I cannot believe
that Wystan chose Neulengbach to make a one-time-only
statement of this length and weight, the idea is absurd and
the point of my quotation in my talk in 1976 was to show Auden
in one aspect of his contact with the Austrians, not without
a touch of hilarity.  But this is not in Secondary Worlds,
I have leafed through your Early Auden page by page and finkd
no reference, nor can I find it anywhere else.  Can you
eliucidate?

    MYy worm´s eye view of the arrangements for the funeral
goes iknto my new piece, and incidentally the contributions
will be looked over by a lawyer.

    Are you about to come out with a Middle Auden or whatever?
If so it would be nice to know about it so I can refer to it.

    The chaplain sto the British Embassy in Vienna gave me the
name and addreess of the clergyman who took the service with the
RC pasrish priest and I wrote to him to find oiuut´whether he
can remember the form of service etc. but no answer so far.
This would be of interest here because though common practice
in England such an ecumenical service was a novelty here and
caused much comment.

    How are you and what are you doing apasrt from teaching?
I had a lot of illness, hospitals etc. but am now stablilised
and am living now wholly in the country but am well looked
after and see plenty of people.  It´s Parkinson´s disease
which can be kept pretty well under control these days.  My
relations organised a splendid surprise party for my 70th
birthday which went on all day, at breakfast I didn´t yet
know twhat lay ahead.  My son plotted this and steered it from
New York but was there on the day.  He built up the Austrian
bank Creditanstalt-Bankverein in NY, and if ever you need to
send me bulky papers or whatever - not that you will - contact
him at 212-702-9101.  His mname is Marko.

              Good health and success ijn 1986,