| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1948/04/25 | Marcel Aubert | Architecture cistercienne en France |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 199
| The two volumes of Marcel Aubert on Cistercian architecture in France finally arrived. Fr. Anselme Dimier got them for us, and it is a wonderful book. |
| 1948/05/22 | Marcel Aubert | Architecture cistercienne en France |
Jnl 2 ('41-'52) p. 206
| I am reading the Aubert book on Cistercian Architecture, and it is fine. I think of those monasteries. I am trying to figure out whether or not a village church Father and I looked at near Lexos was Beaulieu abbey (Tarn et Garonne). |
| 1960/12/12 | Edward Deming Andrews | people called Shakers : a search for the perfect society |
Ltrs: HGL p. 31-32
| It was indeed a pleasure to get your kind letter. I had been thinking of writing to you myself for some time, as I know several of your fine books on the Shakers and indeed have the two most important ones here. (I take it that The People Called Shakers and Shaker Furniture are among your most important studies.) So first of all I want to express my gratitude to you for the fine work you have done and are doing. I shall certainly have to depend very much on you, if I do any work at all in this field, and I am grateful for your offer of assistance. |
| 1960/12/12 | Edward Deming Andrews | Shaker furniture : the craftsmanship of an American communal sect / by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews ; photos by William F. Winter |
Ltrs: HGL p. 31-32
| It was indeed a pleasure to get your kind letter. I had been thinking of writing to you myself for some time, as I know several of your fine books on the Shakers and indeed have the two most important ones here. (I take it that The People Called Shakers and Shaker Furniture are among your most important studies.) So first of all I want to express my gratitude to you for the fine work you have done and are doing. I shall certainly have to depend very much on you, if I do any work at all in this field, and I am grateful for your offer of assistance. |
| 1961/09/23 | Lewis Mumford | Art and Technics |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 163
| Bright hot weather. A Coast Guard jet plane flew low over the hermitage and monastery after dinner and circled and came back and finally took off at great speed into a white cloud to the north. No denying the beauty of it, though I am finishing, and with complete agreement, Lewis Mumford's Art and Technics [New York, 1952]. |
| 1961/09/25 | Lewis Mumford | Art and Technics |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 165
| Finished Mumford's Art and Technics yesterday. His last pages on the interior life are very good. He is another for whom I feel great sympathy. |
| 1963/07/16 | Paul Standard e.a. | Chapters of Writing and Printing |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 171
| By the way I forgot to say how much I liked the little books, Carolyn's history of the press, and Victor's gression [note 147 Chapters on Writing and Printing (Lexington, KY.: Anvil Press, 1963) included four essays from Paul Standard, Victor Hammer, R. Hunter and Carolyn R. Hammer]. I thought Carolyn's was particularly good reading, a very good little book. The dialogue on the Roman letter is very well done too. I appreciated the remark about men not proceeding gently, and "even the gentle teachings of Christ have not met with success." That is unfortunately quite true. |
| 1963/09/15 | Victor Hammer | Concern for the Art of Civilized Man |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 172-73
| About your book, I wanted to say how excellent it is [note 151: Victor Hammer, Concern for the Art of Civilized Man (Lexington KY.: Stamperia del Santuccio, 1963).]. I like its informality and its reality. There is no nonsense in it, and it is very simple and prefectly right. It is a unique book. I want to quote your lines on Dalí in my own book, if I may - my book is very silly in comparison [The work Merton is referring to is "Art and Worship," which was never published.]. |
| 1963/09/15 | Victor Hammer | Concern for the Art of Civilized Man |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 73
| I am enjoying the Leopardi book in the hospital and will look forward to doing the translations. All best wishes and blessings to you and Carolyn |
| 1963/10/03 | Edgar Wind | Art and Anarchy: The Reith Lectures |
Ltrs: Hammer p. 181
| Yesterday I finished Art and Anarchy and am returning it. - really an exceptionally good book. All the essays were solid and full of new insights (or old ones perhaps that had been forgotten). I particularly liked the one on "Art and Mechanisation," a topic that is too seldom regarded as presenting problems. I know how much you are concerned with this. It is very good about the dangerous implications of things that everyone takes for granted (Skira books on painting!) precisely because they are "good" (technically). These things need to be said. Yet he never gets into a mere dirge or Jeremiad, and this is good too. Thank you for the book. |
| 1964/07/14 | Edward Deming Andrews | Shaker furniture : the craftsmanship of an American communal sect / by Edward Deming Andrews and Faith Andrews ; photos by William F. Winter |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 127
| Must write the preface to E[dward] D[eming] Andrews' new edition of Shaker Furniture. But first a short article for Père Herve Chaigne, O.F.M.-a French Franciscan interested in non-violence. And I still have to proofread the typescript of Seasons of Celebration which has been lying around for several months. The job does not appeal! I have heard a rumor that E. D. Andrews is dead. Am not sure and have not dared to write to his wife [Faith Andrews] to find out. |
| 1964/07/18 | Edward Deming Andrews | Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 128
| Yesterday, which is the Feast of Our Lady of Carmel in our Order, I wrote that Shaker preface ["Religion in Wood"]. It still needs to be revised. Perhaps I brought too much of Blake into it. A fine quiet afternoon, with one long intermittent thundershower. |
| 1964/07/20 | Edward Deming Andrews | Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture |
Ltrs: HGL p. 40
| You are perhaps wondering what has become of the preface I was asked by him to write for Religion in Wood. I have been delayed, by a variety of tasks and chores. But the preface is now finished and needs only to be retyped. I will get it in the mail to you perhaps this week, perhaps later. But in any event I will be as quick about it as I can. In the preface I have been bold enough to bring in quite a lot about William Blake. I hope you will not think this too venturesome, but I thought it would be worthwhile to write a preface that was an essay in its own right, and I hope it will add to the book. The text which Ted sent is very clear, interesting and even inspiring, as was all that he wrote. I am most eager to see the new material in the illustrations. |
| 1964/08/31 | Edward Deming Andrews | Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture |
Ltrs: CforT p. 174
| It has been a hot and busy summer, in which I have tried to get some work done. Possibly I have undertaken too many short things, like prefaces. But sometimes the chances are too good to miss, for instance a preface to a marvelous book on the furniture and art of the Shaker sect [Religion in Wood: A Book of Shaker Furniture by Edward Deming Andrews]. Do you know of them? I think Ernesto does. I will try to get copies for you and for him. Also copies of New Directions' new anthology. |
| 1967/09/30 | Gaston Bachelard | Poetique de l'espace |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 295
| I am beginning to get acquainted with G[aston] Bachelard (discovered him through David Kilburn at Birmingham U.). Tried his Psychanalyse de Feu [The Psychoanalysis of Fire, Paris, 1938] and found it rather obvious so I am dropping it and taking up La Poetique de l'espace [The Poetics of Space, Paris, 1948] which is quite another thing again! Very good material - phenomenology of poetic experience. And he is not afraid of ontology either. I suppose now that the Catholics are abandoning ontology the secular thinkers they claim to be imitating will rediscover it. |