Bill Manville's 'Saloon Society' -- A Dissenting View

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Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives.

June 29, 1961, Vol. VI, No. 36

Adolescent Conceit

Dear Sir:

Bill Manville's harping about marriage and married people [in 'Saloon Society' columns] is laughable, an adolescent conceit. Married people are not much different from anybody else, in the sense they're searching, too. And life's a lot cozier when you've got the yang and yin all matching and simpatico. Poor Bill admits he's been unlucky that way and, worst of all, he takes his ill-luck seriously.

Maybe Bill should get married again - and again - until he learns that marriage is not much different than singleness as a human institution, and that in the end we're all left alone with ourselves, our own little wins and losses - and left alone with each other, for better or worse, till death us do part.

And Bill: don't worry about D.H. Lawrence "lacking in excitement" and being "flat-sounding, thin, and emotionless." There was a man and there was a writer. I hope you live so long to do as well. -- Lew Arthur, New York

[Each weekday morning, we post an excerpt from another issue of the Voice, going in order from our oldest archives. Visit our Clip Job archive page to see excerpts back to 1956.]

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