Lipton’s Journal/January 31, 1955/382

Word echoes. Her and err. I’m beginning to feel the h. It has connotations of head, hair, has, his—in other words it puts a human connotation on an act, emotion, idea, etc. (For example—history. H. . . I story.)—the total human collectivity of my story.) To err is human, to forgive is divine. But man has always see her, ’er (One of these days I’ll have something to say about Cockneys) as erring all over the place. Man puts onto the woman his own masculine strivings, desires, etc. When ’er errs, man is always delighted with a part of him because he wishes to despise the inconstant, the striving, the wandering since it is really his nature to do that were it not so antipathetic to society. H seems to give a general philosophical quality, erect to a philosophical generality, some concrete aspect of the spirit. Air and Hair of course seem to be the opposite. A very ambiguous letter.