I Tatti November 7, 1956 Dear Yashiro, Thanks for your good letter of October 31st. The Wrightsmans wrote most enthusiastically and most gratefully about your opening to them treasures that otherwise they would not have seen. I am sure they will be delighted to see you when you return to America and you may find them useful as well as good company. I am glad as well to learn that you have been seeing the Guis. They are near neighbors and dear friends. It is wonderful news that there is a prospect of publishing a new edition of your Botticelli. Every book published as long ago is unsatisfactory to the author if in the meanwhile he has grown. You certainly have and you will have as excellent opportunity to recast it, or at least to repair it and bring it up to date. My library and photographs will naturally be entirely at your disposal and I need not say how happy I shall be to see you. It will seem like the return of good old times. I look forward to seeing your masterpieces of Japanese art. Inadequate as it may be, it will be at least as good as anything that can be produced on this side of the world. I am as well as can be expected in my 92nd year, but it is not very satisfactory and I cannot recommend living so long unless one can have the guarantee that body and mind will work together. In my case they scarcely do. My best to your dear wife, Affectionately. B.B. |