“I Know I’m Just a Grain of Dust”
In 1938, the famous novelist Thomas Wolfe went to the hospital with pneumonia, and was soon diagnosed with tuberculosis of the brain. He died just a few months later, when he was only 37 years old. While he was on his deathbed, Thomas wrote a letter to his friend and editor Maxwell Perkins, because they had a falling out, and he wanted to make amends before he died.
“August 12, 1938
Dear Max:
I’m sneaking this against orders, but I wanted to write to you.
I wanted most desperately to live, and I thought about you all a thousand times, and wanted to see you all again. There was the impossible anguish and regret of all the work I had not done. I know now I’m just a grain of dust, and I feel as if a great window has been opened on life I did not know about before. If I come through this, I hope to God I am a better man, and in some strange way I can’t explain, I know I am a deeper and a wiser one. If I get out of here, it will be months before I head back. But if I get on my feet, I’ll come back.
Whatever happens—I had this “hunch” and wanted to write to you and tell you, no matter what happens or has happened, I shall always think of you on that Fourth of July day three years ago when you met me at the boat. And we went out to the café on the river and had a drink and later went on top of the tall building, and all the strangeness and the glory and the power of life and of the city was below.
Yours always,
Tom”
