Thursday June 12

Visited Mr. & Mrs. Resnick at their home.

Mrs. Resnick is the ideal wife
helps her husband in business

They did not marry out of love
but with the understanding
for mutual respect,

In my impression they seem
very happy, she turned out
the way I expected, although
5 years married, and even
having no children, there is
happiness in the house. She
is the most inspiring life
partner anyone could wish for

Her naivety remains the same
as I’ve found it to be long ago
It’s good to have an example to
look at when I am in the campaign
of finding a wife.

——————-

Matt’s Notes

Until now, Papa’s tendency to idealize women and love itself has made it almost impossible for him to find, in the real world, a woman who does not disappoint him in some way. Yet we know he met his wife-to-be, my “Nana,” in 1925, a year after he wrote this diary, and those of us who knew her remember her as a bit of a hard case. Though attractive, it’s hard to imagine that she fit the description of the dream girl Papa pines for in his diary (in fact, she used to say herself that she didn’t know why he married her).

This means that, at some point during the course of 1924, something started to turn, to shift Papa away from his pursuit of a romantic ideal, to make him understand that, if he was going to spend his life with someone, she was going to be a real person whose imperfections he’d have to live with. This entry, in which he romanticizes the practical partnership of his friends the Resnicks rather than their poetic love story, may be a sign of this development. Papa turns his effusive admiration toward the very lack of love in the Resnick’s house, finds their “mutual respect” to be “inspiring” and admires their collaboration on business matters. He idealizes them, as is his wont, but not in sonnet form.

It’s as if he’s testing a different calculation in which finding someone to whom he can talk his heart out and with whom he can dance all night is not as important as finding someone he can live with. He even refers to his search for a wife as a “campaign,” a far more purposeful take on his romantic pursuits than he’s presented before (I also expect the word “campaign” crept into this entry because the country was now in the thick of the 1924 Presidential race).

Papa has, as we know, vowed to redouble his efforts to marry and carry on his family name since his father died. Is that promise behind his new line of thinking?