BERENSON, Bernard (1865-1959). Series of sixty-seven autograph letters signed (three incomplete, lacking 1st or 2nd pages) and three typewritten letters signed to Mally Dienemann, Italy and France, 10 December 1949 - 10 December 1957 , the first in reply to one from her, ('Your letter touches me deeply'), then giving his opinion on nationalism and assimilation, on Jewishness and religion; in many letters discussing literature and his own preferences for Goethe, 'the great Russians, from Aksakov to Gorki', 19th-century English and French novelists, also on Kafka, being 'fascinated that he came out of such a squalid ghetto', Thomas Mann, 'always an overrated writer', and several American authors including Santayana, Steinbeck and Penn Warren; commenting pessimistically on the changing social order in England, 'I sympathise with your feeling about the squalor of London and the slovenliness of the English 'lower orders' ... The aristocratic leaven is still there, and when exhausted ... I expect England to become another Belgium', and generally giving his views on many other subjects, together approximately 156 pages, 8vo and 5to , with photocopies of Mrs. Dienemann's letters to Berenson, envelopes and 3 cards by Nicky Mariano. Following the publication of various works after the Second World War, Berenson received letters from a number of admirers. One was Mally Dienemann, widow of the Rabbi of Offenbach who, having survived imprisonment in Buchenwald, died in Israel. Mally then moved to Chicago. In these delightfully conversational letters, Berenson expresses with increasing warmth his enthusiasms and antipathies, writing in an early letter 'I too have always fought nationalism and been an assimilationist and still remain so', but explaining his conversion to Zionism after the war. He discourses on the classics, 'Yes, Thucidides is ultra-modern and like Frederick the Great ... I recommend you to read Tacitus. There you will find perfect parables to Hitlerian German history'. They exchange views on religion, Berenson declaring 'I am happy to find God sub specie of Christ, the Virgin, the Saints ... these are TRUTHS without being FACTS', and he recalls reading in Hebrew, as a child in Lithuania. Later he encourages Mally to visit London museums, responds to her impressions of Europe, and welcomes her warmly in Florence. (70)
BERENSON, Bernard (1865-1959). Series of sixty-seven autograph letters signed (three incomplete, lacking 1st or 2nd pages) and three typewritten letters signed to Mally Dienemann, Italy and France, 10 December 1949 - 10 December 1957 , the first in reply to one from her, ('Your letter touches me deeply'), then giving his opinion on nationalism and assimilation, on Jewishness and religion; in many letters discussing literature and his own preferences for Goethe, 'the great Russians, from Aksakov to Gorki', 19th-century English and French novelists, also on Kafka, being 'fascinated that he came out of such a squalid ghetto', Thomas Mann, 'always an overrated writer', and several American authors including Santayana, Steinbeck and Penn Warren; commenting pessimistically on the changing social order in England, 'I sympathise with your feeling about the squalor of London and the slovenliness of the English 'lower orders' ... The aristocratic leaven is still there, and when exhausted ... I expect England to become another Belgium', and generally giving his views on many other subjects, together approximately 156 pages, 8vo and 5to , with photocopies of Mrs. Dienemann's letters to Berenson, envelopes and 3 cards by Nicky Mariano. Following the publication of various works after the Second World War, Berenson received letters from a number of admirers. One was Mally Dienemann, widow of the Rabbi of Offenbach who, having survived imprisonment in Buchenwald, died in Israel. Mally then moved to Chicago. In these delightfully conversational letters, Berenson expresses with increasing warmth his enthusiasms and antipathies, writing in an early letter 'I too have always fought nationalism and been an assimilationist and still remain so', but explaining his conversion to Zionism after the war. He discourses on the classics, 'Yes, Thucidides is ultra-modern and like Frederick the Great ... I recommend you to read Tacitus. There you will find perfect parables to Hitlerian German history'. They exchange views on religion, Berenson declaring 'I am happy to find God sub specie of Christ, the Virgin, the Saints ... these are TRUTHS without being FACTS', and he recalls reading in Hebrew, as a child in Lithuania. Later he encourages Mally to visit London museums, responds to her impressions of Europe, and welcomes her warmly in Florence. (70)
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