Correspondence with
Margery Gumbel

You are quite right in saying that none of us have all the truth. I have found this in my experience. And Penington says that all truth is a shadow except the last.¹ And St. Augustine says that we cannot know what God is but we can know what He is not.²

That Birmingham incident. Quite irrespective of the merits of the case, such methods can never reach the goal. They are horrible and negative.³ If this species does not hit the mark, another will.

Instead of writing at length as I should like to, I am sending you a sermon by an Episcopal rector after the assassination of President Kennedy in which you might be interested. I, too, am convinced that violence leads nowhere.

Under separate cover I am sending you a book by Kenneth Walker, Diagnosis of Man.⁴ I am a great admirer of Kenneth Walker because he is a man who grew very much. He was originally a rather stodgy London physician. But he developed to a great understanding. This whole book is valuable but I am sending it to you because it has a chapter on existentialism which you wanted to know about and I don't think you will find anywhere an easier explanation.

Next week the doctor is going to start fitting me with glasses,⁵ and I fear that I may not long after have to write my own letters.

Your controversial sermon I am turning over, as you request, to LC.⁶ It probably is controversial to the generality, but it really ought not to be considered controversial at all. Difficulties ought to be recognized and overcome, and this is not done by evading them. We must do, each of us, what little we can, but we must not be impatient. Such impatience only means a human anticipation of the Kingdom of God, or, in other words a premature destruction of the struggle which gives meaning to life.

First of all I am sending you an article⁷ "Rethinking the Queries" which apparently [shows that Queries] are somewhat different from what I have described to you. In my day the Queries were directed to the individual rather than the community. The Ten Commandments were put up to the individual as matters of personal concern but now the emphasis seems to be on the community rather than the individual. I think this is not a bad thing because it indicates growth, and growth is the right direction because it indicates concern for the whole of mankind rather than the individual. In this particular it would seem to be taking the tendency of your Peace Corps work which certainly shows a concern for all mankind.

¹ Isaac Penington (1616–79) was an early member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

² Augustine of Hippo: "From the moment that we speak of God, why are you surprised if you don't understand? In truth, if you understand, it is not God ... [O]nce one attains to God (attingere) even a little with thought it is a great blessing; for in as much as to understand him (comprehendere), on the other hand, is absolutely impossible." (Sermones, 117, 3, 5).

³ "Birmingham incident" likely refers to the march led by Martin Luther King on Good Friday, April 12, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama. As is well known, during this march non-violent blacks encountered violent K-9 and white law enforcement. "[M]ethods ... horrible and negative" may be intended to describe this police action. Alternatively, the phrase may be intended to describe Dr. King and the marchers, as elsewhere in his letters Mr. Brown faults his black contemporaries for lacking the understanding — perhaps even the capacity for understanding — proper methods for effecting social evolution.

⁴ Kenneth Walker (1882–1966) was working with P. D. Ouspensky when he wrote Diagnosis of Man (London: Jonathan Cape, 1942).

⁵ Note by Thea Wheelwright: After a cataract operation.

⁶ Possibly Lise Courtney Howe, another of Mr. Brown's Episcopalian correspondents.

⁷ Note by Thea Wheelwright: From Friend's Journal.