WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.520 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:07.200 align:middle line:84% One of the greatest loves of my life when I was a young poet 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:09.180 align:middle line:90% was Elinor Wylie. 00:00:09.180 --> 00:00:11.430 align:middle line:84% And, in fact, if you didn't love her, 00:00:11.430 --> 00:00:13.680 align:middle line:84% you were out as far as I was concerned. 00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:17.330 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.330 --> 00:00:20.850 align:middle line:84% I met a woman named Elinor, I believe 00:00:20.850 --> 00:00:23.640 align:middle line:90% it was Robinson, in New York. 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:27.520 align:middle line:84% And during the war she was an active socialist 00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:32.080 align:middle line:84% and a conscientious objector of Norman Thomas's newspaper. 00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:35.140 align:middle line:84% I had a delightful evening with her. 00:00:35.140 --> 00:00:40.130 align:middle line:84% About two or three years later, a young man 00:00:40.130 --> 00:00:45.020 align:middle line:84% called me up and said, I met your friend Elinor Robinson 00:00:45.020 --> 00:00:48.050 align:middle line:84% in Washington and she has a message for you. 00:00:48.050 --> 00:00:52.000 align:middle line:84% She asked me to call you and give you this message. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:54.870 align:middle line:90% She is now Elinor Wylie. 00:00:54.870 --> 00:00:58.110 align:middle line:84% She had married Mr. Wylie, the first husband, 00:00:58.110 --> 00:01:01.560 align:middle line:84% and she's living with all of Elinor's old hats, 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:04.629 align:middle line:90% velvet roses, silverware. 00:01:04.629 --> 00:01:06.960 align:middle line:84% It seems that whenever Elinor left the man, 00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:09.690 align:middle line:84% she left her beautiful wardrobe and the men then 00:01:09.690 --> 00:01:12.760 align:middle line:84% loved the wardrobe all the rest of their lives. 00:01:12.760 --> 00:01:16.440 align:middle line:84% So my friend had become Elinor Wylie. 00:01:16.440 --> 00:01:21.570 align:middle line:84% Well, that was, again, a note of reality in the milieu. 00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:25.500 align:middle line:84% Oh, I forgot to tell you that Miss MacIntosh is bald. 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:27.180 align:middle line:90% That's her secret. 00:01:27.180 --> 00:01:32.610 align:middle line:84% She's as bald as a billiard ball or busy highway. 00:01:32.610 --> 00:01:35.790 align:middle line:84% She says no grass grows on a busy street. 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:44.310 align:middle line:84% And she also loves to recite old proverbs about her baldness. 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:49.890 align:middle line:84% The bald head is soonest shaved, is one of them. 00:01:49.890 --> 00:01:54.330 align:middle line:84% It was a terrible pain to her to wear that red wig 00:01:54.330 --> 00:01:58.560 align:middle line:84% in the nursery, because she's a lost soul-- 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:01.300 align:middle line:90% 00:02:01.300 --> 00:02:03.590 align:middle line:84% well, she's almost a transvestite. 00:02:03.590 --> 00:02:04.670 align:middle line:90% She's not quite. 00:02:04.670 --> 00:02:06.730 align:middle line:90% She's very abnormal. 00:02:06.730 --> 00:02:09.490 align:middle line:84% I'll leave you to figure out just exactly how. 00:02:09.490 --> 00:02:12.370 align:middle line:84% It's sadder than one can put into words. 00:02:12.370 --> 00:02:15.520 align:middle line:84% She's the lost soul of the universe, really. 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:19.540 align:middle line:84% And she has her biblical symbolism, too, 00:02:19.540 --> 00:02:21.520 align:middle line:90% which I won't go into. 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:22.660 align:middle line:90% Because the Merv-- 00:02:22.660 --> 00:02:25.630 align:middle line:84% I was on the Merv Griffin Show five times, 00:02:25.630 --> 00:02:28.060 align:middle line:84% and they said, just don't quote the Bible ever, 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:31.720 align:middle line:90% because you're rating will drop. 00:02:31.720 --> 00:02:33.940 align:middle line:84% I'm not going to quote the Bible here. 00:02:33.940 --> 00:02:36.250 align:middle line:90% I don't want my ratings to drop. 00:02:36.250 --> 00:02:41.260 align:middle line:84% Well, I'm afraid I'll have God in this next paragraph, though. 00:02:41.260 --> 00:02:42.250 align:middle line:90% That'll be all right. 00:02:42.250 --> 00:02:47.530 align:middle line:90% 00:02:47.530 --> 00:02:50.230 align:middle line:84% She's telling how she was always bald. 00:02:50.230 --> 00:02:53.950 align:middle line:84% She was born bald, and she will die bald. 00:02:53.950 --> 00:02:57.310 align:middle line:84% I will have to say that the Bible says that, bald we 00:02:57.310 --> 00:03:00.760 align:middle line:84% come into the world, and on the last day of creation 00:03:00.760 --> 00:03:05.830 align:middle line:84% when the heavens open and the hail and brimstone rain down, 00:03:05.830 --> 00:03:09.310 align:middle line:84% we will all be bald at the end of time. 00:03:09.310 --> 00:03:12.460 align:middle line:84% And it's man without illusions-- that's 00:03:12.460 --> 00:03:16.210 align:middle line:84% what the baldness means-- without his dreams, his mask. 00:03:16.210 --> 00:03:20.610 align:middle line:84% As Joseph Kamel would call it, his illusion. 00:03:20.610 --> 00:03:25.710 align:middle line:84% So this is the part which I like about Miss MacInstosh, when 00:03:25.710 --> 00:03:30.900 align:middle line:84% she discovered she was bald when she was a little girl in Iowa-- 00:03:30.900 --> 00:03:31.830 align:middle line:90% What Cheer, Iowa. 00:03:31.830 --> 00:03:33.580 align:middle line:90% I was never there. 00:03:33.580 --> 00:03:37.880 align:middle line:84% And I wrote with great happy feeling that no one in What 00:03:37.880 --> 00:03:41.240 align:middle line:84% Cheer would ever read Miss MacIntosh, of course. 00:03:41.240 --> 00:03:44.780 align:middle line:84% And they have a big full page first review of-- 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:46.640 align:middle line:84% first page review of Miss MacIntosh, 00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:50.900 align:middle line:84% My Darling because Miss MacIntosh came from What Cheer. 00:03:50.900 --> 00:03:52.010 align:middle line:90% They liked it. 00:03:52.010 --> 00:03:54.830 align:middle line:84% I don't know that they read the book or not, of course. 00:03:54.830 --> 00:03:59.160 align:middle line:84% They liked, at least, the idea that they were in a book. 00:03:59.160 --> 00:04:05.280 align:middle line:84% This is Miss MacIntosh's story of her own baldness. 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:10.500 align:middle line:84% "Things had been so sad and her constitution unwritten 00:04:10.500 --> 00:04:12.900 align:middle line:90% and her days numbered. 00:04:12.900 --> 00:04:17.970 align:middle line:84% Always this baldness, it had pursued her from place 00:04:17.970 --> 00:04:23.580 align:middle line:84% to place, leaving her no peace but in the eyes of others. 00:04:23.580 --> 00:04:26.550 align:middle line:84% And that had been her life from the beginning, 00:04:26.550 --> 00:04:30.690 align:middle line:84% when bald she had come out of her mother's womb, 00:04:30.690 --> 00:04:35.670 align:middle line:84% having no hair or feather to cover her. 00:04:35.670 --> 00:04:38.730 align:middle line:84% Bald, she would sink into her grave, 00:04:38.730 --> 00:04:42.660 align:middle line:84% she did believe, her old eyes smiling, 00:04:42.660 --> 00:04:46.020 align:middle line:84% and it was ever so on the night before her marriage 00:04:46.020 --> 00:04:47.490 align:middle line:90% to the preacher." 00:04:47.490 --> 00:04:50.670 align:middle line:84% She showed him her baldness, that was her mistake, 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:56.520 align:middle line:84% and he fled, as if he had seen the end of time. 00:04:56.520 --> 00:05:00.840 align:middle line:84% "Why, however, should she have trusted him or any preacher who 00:05:00.840 --> 00:05:05.490 align:middle line:84% was himself the lost soul, the bald heart so much worse, 00:05:05.490 --> 00:05:07.710 align:middle line:84% according to her way of thinking, 00:05:07.710 --> 00:05:12.630 align:middle line:84% than the bald head whom God hath created? 00:05:12.630 --> 00:05:15.930 align:middle line:84% Whom God hath created, let God not 00:05:15.930 --> 00:05:19.350 align:middle line:84% put away with the brown leaves falling, 00:05:19.350 --> 00:05:22.380 align:middle line:90% with the stars going out. 00:05:22.380 --> 00:05:26.100 align:middle line:84% Oh, the weariness of her mother, it 00:05:26.100 --> 00:05:29.040 align:middle line:84% was that, she believed, which had caused 00:05:29.040 --> 00:05:34.980 align:middle line:84% this baldness, the failure of her mother to love her father, 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:39.510 align:middle line:84% and the bald meeting the bald, and the death meeting 00:05:39.510 --> 00:05:43.170 align:middle line:84% the death, and the whirlwind, and the waters, 00:05:43.170 --> 00:05:48.240 align:middle line:84% and the everlasting baldness of snowy altitudes 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:54.030 align:middle line:84% unshadowed by one hair or feather or wing. 00:05:54.030 --> 00:05:57.240 align:middle line:84% Even as a little child, she had wept, 00:05:57.240 --> 00:06:02.040 align:middle line:84% hiding her tears in the dark, carrying her head as high 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:03.240 align:middle line:90% as any. 00:06:03.240 --> 00:06:06.660 align:middle line:84% When she was three years old and had first noticed 00:06:06.660 --> 00:06:09.480 align:middle line:84% that she had no hair, she had worn 00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:13.920 align:middle line:84% a little toupee which she had snapped from an old doll's 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:14.880 align:middle line:90% head. 00:06:14.880 --> 00:06:17.700 align:middle line:84% Why, it was hard to believe now-- 00:06:17.700 --> 00:06:22.920 align:middle line:84% but bald, she had gone to school until she was seven years old, 00:06:22.920 --> 00:06:26.550 align:middle line:84% for her little toupee would not even cover her, 00:06:26.550 --> 00:06:29.910 align:middle line:84% and she had no wig, and perhaps no one 00:06:29.910 --> 00:06:32.100 align:middle line:90% thought she should have one. 00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:34.950 align:middle line:84% Each morning she had looked at herself in a mirror, 00:06:34.950 --> 00:06:36.770 align:middle line:84% thinking that perhaps she had grown 00:06:36.770 --> 00:06:42.040 align:middle line:84% her hair during the night, but there was not a single hair. 00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:45.960 align:middle line:84% She had looked at herself in streams and had thought perhaps 00:06:45.960 --> 00:06:48.030 align:middle line:90% she had seen her hair-- 00:06:48.030 --> 00:06:52.770 align:middle line:84% and sometimes there might seem one, until the waters moved, 00:06:52.770 --> 00:06:54.840 align:middle line:84% and she knew that what she had thought 00:06:54.840 --> 00:06:58.440 align:middle line:84% was a hair was the hair of a flower 00:06:58.440 --> 00:07:02.430 align:middle line:84% or the hair of a moth passing over her, 00:07:02.430 --> 00:07:07.380 align:middle line:84% or a thin hair of light coming through a cloud. 00:07:07.380 --> 00:07:11.340 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it was the thin thread of a minnow. 00:07:11.340 --> 00:07:14.220 align:middle line:90% Perhaps it was a minnow star. 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:16.740 align:middle line:84% She had looked into frozen streams, 00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:21.600 align:middle line:84% dreaming that she might have hair if she waited long enough. 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:24.090 align:middle line:84% How she had envied her sisters who 00:07:24.090 --> 00:07:27.030 align:middle line:84% had been endowed with the most beautiful hair, 00:07:27.030 --> 00:07:30.300 align:middle line:84% hair into which they had brown corn flowers, 00:07:30.300 --> 00:07:35.610 align:middle line:84% and even her brothers who had had fine heads of hair. 00:07:35.610 --> 00:07:40.080 align:middle line:84% But she was this old baldy even then. 00:07:40.080 --> 00:07:42.390 align:middle line:84% And yet it was she who had gotten 00:07:42.390 --> 00:07:48.090 align:middle line:84% the pearl-handled penknife from the journeyman phrenologist, 00:07:48.090 --> 00:07:51.810 align:middle line:84% who was a great designer of octagon houses 00:07:51.810 --> 00:07:56.250 align:middle line:84% and who had visited the little one-room country school 00:07:56.250 --> 00:08:01.200 align:middle line:84% and had sheltered her head as the most beautiful head of all 00:08:01.200 --> 00:08:03.750 align:middle line:84% because of the structure, because 00:08:03.750 --> 00:08:08.190 align:middle line:84% of the great common sense, because of the capacity, 00:08:08.190 --> 00:08:13.560 align:middle line:84% he had said, for the greatest dreaming and faith in something 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:18.810 align:middle line:84% good, and she would go farther than all the others. 00:08:18.810 --> 00:08:21.030 align:middle line:84% He had brought the penknife with him 00:08:21.030 --> 00:08:25.170 align:middle line:84% because he had expected to find that a boy's head was 00:08:25.170 --> 00:08:29.760 align:middle line:84% the finest head, was willing to concede that a little girl's 00:08:29.760 --> 00:08:33.360 align:middle line:84% head was the finest, was greatly surprised 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:38.309 align:middle line:84% to find this bald head gleaming like mother-of-pearl 00:08:38.309 --> 00:08:42.210 align:middle line:84% or like the moon when there are no clouds. 00:08:42.210 --> 00:08:46.530 align:middle line:84% He was a peregrine and never in his wandering 00:08:46.530 --> 00:08:51.480 align:middle line:90% had tapped such a head as this. 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:55.020 align:middle line:84% Usually, the thatch of the grass hair 00:08:55.020 --> 00:09:00.720 align:middle line:84% intervened between him and his studies, 00:09:00.720 --> 00:09:03.180 align:middle line:84% but this bald dome was beautifully 00:09:03.180 --> 00:09:08.400 align:middle line:84% exposed like a map where a man might see himself 00:09:08.400 --> 00:09:14.100 align:middle line:84% when there was no deceptions, no deceits, no illusions, when 00:09:14.100 --> 00:09:17.460 align:middle line:84% the only premise or foundation stone given was 00:09:17.460 --> 00:09:20.700 align:middle line:84% the bald head dreaming waters and clouds 00:09:20.700 --> 00:09:25.110 align:middle line:84% and winds, hair, feathers of birds, 00:09:25.110 --> 00:09:31.530 align:middle line:84% grass, flowers, all man's imaginings, all woman's loves. 00:09:31.530 --> 00:09:33.480 align:middle line:84% Here was the most beautiful brain 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:36.930 align:middle line:84% box he had ever seen in the world of the living 00:09:36.930 --> 00:09:40.570 align:middle line:84% and he had not visited the world of the dead. 00:09:40.570 --> 00:09:45.750 align:middle line:84% Leaning close, he could hear a buzzing, snoring sound. 00:09:45.750 --> 00:09:48.510 align:middle line:90% Indeed, he had grown rhapsodic-- 00:09:48.510 --> 00:09:52.320 align:middle line:84% was quite carried away by his own oratory, 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:55.960 align:middle line:84% Miss MacIntosh believed, her face turning of green to 00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:59.950 align:middle line:84% rose to gold in the sweepings the swayings of life 00:09:59.950 --> 00:10:03.910 align:middle line:84% as she remembered the old phrenologist with his penknife, 00:10:03.910 --> 00:10:06.460 align:middle line:84% his fingers tapping upon her forehead 00:10:06.460 --> 00:10:10.780 align:middle line:84% as if she were that melon which is hardest to know, 00:10:10.780 --> 00:10:13.690 align:middle line:84% and remembered the astonishment of everyone else 00:10:13.690 --> 00:10:17.890 align:middle line:84% that he had chosen her for the great prize. 00:10:17.890 --> 00:10:18.940 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:10:18.940 --> 00:10:21.730 align:middle line:84% Perhaps everyone else was wondering. 00:10:21.730 --> 00:10:24.520 align:middle line:84% He predicted that she would live and lives of clouds 00:10:24.520 --> 00:10:28.390 align:middle line:84% and live among kings of gold and castles and towers, 00:10:28.390 --> 00:10:32.020 align:middle line:84% for she showed this great ability although her dome was 00:10:32.020 --> 00:10:36.370 align:middle line:84% bald as earth must have been the day before God moved 00:10:36.370 --> 00:10:38.380 align:middle line:90% over the face of the waters. 00:10:38.380 --> 00:10:41.680 align:middle line:84% The way the mosaics of her skull-bones 00:10:41.680 --> 00:10:44.890 align:middle line:84% fitted into the mosaics of her skull-bones 00:10:44.890 --> 00:10:49.810 align:middle line:84% was something marvelous, and hers was that large bump which 00:10:49.810 --> 00:10:54.070 align:middle line:84% was common sense, and hers was the bump of the dreamer who 00:10:54.070 --> 00:10:58.210 align:middle line:84% was mirror man, and hers was that sea greater 00:10:58.210 --> 00:11:00.580 align:middle line:90% than the Sea of Azov. 00:11:00.580 --> 00:11:02.830 align:middle line:84% He said that her bare head would be shadowed 00:11:02.830 --> 00:11:06.820 align:middle line:84% by the wings of birds and moths and many hurricane 00:11:06.820 --> 00:11:08.860 align:middle line:90% and lights of stars. 00:11:08.860 --> 00:11:11.050 align:middle line:90% He had encouraged her. 00:11:11.050 --> 00:11:14.380 align:middle line:84% He had praised her so much that all those old nonconformist 00:11:14.380 --> 00:11:17.187 align:middle line:90% Bible quoters had got mad. 00:11:17.187 --> 00:11:19.270 align:middle line:84% He had praised her so much that her mother thought 00:11:19.270 --> 00:11:21.610 align:middle line:84% that her head might be turned, that she 00:11:21.610 --> 00:11:24.850 align:middle line:90% was vain, vain of her baldness. 00:11:24.850 --> 00:11:26.950 align:middle line:84% Her mother had made her a black velvet 00:11:26.950 --> 00:11:29.830 align:middle line:84% hood with which to cover her head, 00:11:29.830 --> 00:11:33.240 align:middle line:84% to hide her baldness from the world."