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326 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
Perhaps his success as a teacher lay in the fact that he never
tried to teach his students one thing—he always tried to teach
them everything. In his earlier years, this meant that he furiously
exposed Yeats and Eliot to Provençal and Chinese poetry, the Noh
plays and Walt Whitman. Later, the student could not get poetry
without economics, or history without poetry.
He confirmed the gloomiest predictions of Dr. Overholser that
he would never "improve" when he issued the following manifesto
a few days after leaving the madhouse:
"Notes on this and that, May, 1958
1.
"Towards a new bill of rights: Any man, even a lousy pinko or
a putrid Spew Dealer has the right to have his ideas examined
ONE at a TIME.
"The skunks use package words to prevent all communication of
fact and intelligence.
2.
"The map of Washington having been elucubrated by an idiot,
that it be federal offence if any house owner fail to put his house
number in VISIBLE position
numerals 8 inches high
"That numerals on corner house be illuminated after twilight.
"That NO fund be allocated to the apes on the District Board
until the STREET signs, on ALL streets, be printed 12 inches
high, and VISIBLE from opposite corners, whether N.S. or E.W.
"And god DAMN the bastards who put street names in HALF
the size of the present lettering on some of the street signs.
3.
"That the poor kids be told what is SOVEREIGNTY.
4.
"That a sane bill re / college entrance exams be brought into
Congress not only for service academies, but for land grant
colleges.
"NOT coercion from the central govt. but ADVICE.