xt7nzs2k9s8b https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7nzs2k9s8b/data/mets.xml  Thomas Merton 1959-04-28 This letter is from collection 75m28 Thomas Merton papers. archival material 75m28 English  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Thomas Merton correspondence Letter from Thomas Merton to Victor Hammer, April 28, 1959 text Letter from Thomas Merton to Victor Hammer, April 28, 1959 1959 1959-04-28 2023 true xt7nzs2k9s8b section xt7nzs2k9s8b =9

3

OUR LADY OF GETHSEMANI
TRAPPIST,KENTUCKY

.;‘-_pI‘il 2 8 , 1959.

13-Dear Victor:

It is already a week since the ”all—memorable day" of ny‘visit to
lexi wn gton and to the Stemperia del santuccio. The happiness of it has not faded.
I still thin]; with pleasure and edification on your very monastic house and
all the things in it whicl give glory to God by their workmanship.

I have not written because: have been waiting for a moment to look up
some Latin texts for your silver plates. I have looked only in the Vulgate,
though perhaps the texts more appropriately might cone from Virgil, but I am
too much OUt of touch Ldth him now. That is to say I would not know where to
bejin to look. But at any rate here are a few from the VUl3ate. I put the
one i which seems to me most appropriate in first place. The others... tell.

Argentum electum lingua justi. (Proverbs 10:20)

(This seems to me best for dinner pla.tes—-a sociM text, referring to conversar
tion.)

Habet argentum venarum suarum principia (Job 28:1)
(A mysterious text, in a chapter on Wisdom.)
You mig ht also checlc Exodus 35:31-32, about Deseleel, who had the

rit of God in him to work in gold and silver, and finally III Yings 10:22
famous text about the ships comin3;?ron Tharsis with gold, silver, ivory

Spir
tLe
apes and peacbcks. I stilI think the first one is appropriate. 'The others
don't seem to fit,sxcept perhaps the one from Job.

I am also enclosin3 some Lati n from the Verbs“ Seniorum which will
_ hope serve :Eor yours cover project. Is there eUOUrn 0i WEE?"‘
Lax and Reinhardt we; e down over the weekend OUt I could not find a way
for them to get over to Lexington. They would have liked to come very mn_ch.
They brought two interesting Jewish records, texts from the Canticle of Canticles
and the Psalms etc sung in hebrew by a sin3er called hagdalith. Very impressive.
(Very primitive). Th iou;h Re: nhardt is a very'abstract painter, he is perhaps
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on Clanicisnk- thou3h his paintin3 is very two dimensional. I don‘t know why.
an mmtmnk
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