A Letter to Roy Chapman Andrews

Reprinted from Art Thoughts and Remembrances Blog:

Roy Chapman Andrews signature “As some of you might know, my company 33Delivered has partnered with the American Museum of Natural History to help lead their digital strategy and the implementation of their future digital presence.

One day, deep in the library archives we came across a letter written by an 18-year-old girl to a former President of the museum – Roy Chapman Andrews. He is often sited as the role model for the Indiana Jones character in the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg movies of the same name. See: http://www.roychapmanandrewssociety.org/who_was.html

The letter, when read aloud caused quite an emotional stir from both the men and the women in the room. Read and see for yourself how eroticism and sensuality were expressed in the early 20th century, when people were skilled in language.”

Dear,Very Very Dear Roy Chapman Andrews:

My warm, mad eighteen-year-old heart beats furiously as I write your name and I am trembling as I did when, from a distance, I watched you come down the gangplank of the Mauretania after your long “trek” in China. This longing to know you is more than I can well endure. In these pulsing years of eighteen, to be near you would be to live a dream which has “you” for the hero and us” for the theme.

You are going away again they tell me, crowned with greater honors and other medals. I despair of knowing you in person unless I cut the conventionality and ask you frankly to meet me for tea a Pierre’s on Wednesday, March Eighteenth at five o’clock. I shall be in the reception room wearing a Skipper Blue Costume with silver fox furs and three rose orchids on my left shoulder. I am tall, blonde and slim with Skipper blue eyes that would be glad to be filled with the sight of you.

I should like to tell you from my heart the worship I have had for you all these years. I have all your pictures from the Artgravures in a scrapbook; all your books, Saturday Evening Post and other magazine stories; all the press notices that concern you and one very special distinguished photograph which I stole from a friend of yours and keep with me always beside me on the pillow.

It is the last face I see before the night light is extinguished and the first in the morning when day wrenches the dream of you from me.

I shall never be content until I meet you. The thought drives me to restlessness. As an explorer, there is no one in the world like you; no one half so fascinatingly ideal. You have had the splendid courage to put your dreams to the test.

You have willed; you have worked and you have achieved.

I am so certain there can be no other man more tender.yes”> You are so witty, so wise, so worldly. I think to be loved by you would be to know and experience the very essence of the love of all men in one being.

Your very name in all its beautiful resonance of syllables has the power to make my pulses thrill with delight. How much greater could this ecstasy be if I had the intense joy of being near you with your sensitive fingers so close to mine – I am well nigh fainting with the imagery.

Surely when I care so much, you cannot go away from me without consummating this meeting. I do not live at the Ritz-Carlton, but a note left there will be called for. If I do not hear from you, I shall be waiting at Pierre’s on Wednesday at five.

Please, please, please say you will not fail me.

Toujours a toi

[Name Withheld], The Ritz Carlton, New York, March Fifteenth