Transkription
Berkeley, California July 18, 1949.
Dear Mrs. Mahler-Werfel:
Even if our acquaintance had not led me to respect, admiration, and even affection, your generous offer to establish a Franz Werfel Archive on the Los Angeles campus, clearly makes you a member of the University family. Therefore, I wish, as a matter of course, to be counted among the host of well-wishers who will congratulate you on your seventieth birthday anniversary. My congratulations are not directed at your success in achieving three score years and ten so gracefully, although that alone is an accomplishment, but rather at your skill in crowding so much of personal charm and service to others into so relatively short a period of time. Your mind and heart have contributed to the genius of two great men, I know: a contribution that cannot be counted in notes or words. Few women have been so privileged; fewer still could have lived up to the privileges so well. Believing these things to be true, I pay my respects on this significant anniversary, and wish for you the old wish: many happy returns of the day!
Sincerely, Robert G. Sproul.
Kommentar
Mit der Diskussion um die Einrichtung eines Franz Werfel Archivs an der UCLA stand Alma Mahler-Werfel mit mehreren Vertretern der Unversität in Kontakt. Es handelte sich dabei um den Präsidenten der UCLA, Robert Gordon Sproul und den Provost C. A. Dykstra. Besonders das Ehepaar Sproul war mehrfach bei den Werfels zu Gast (Foltin/Spalek, 648).
Robert G. Sproul
(1891-1975)