December 2, 1941: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr.
I believe I am correct in assuming that required revisions and corrections can wait until I get to New York. Most of the changes, if any, would need to be made in the second installment. I think I have ducked around the taboos sufficiently; compare this story [“Beyond This Horizon”] with any issue of Ladies’ Home Journal-this story is much more discreet than the stuff now printed in domestic magazines. I remember a story in Street and Smith’s National Magazine, in which the hero scrubs the heroine’s back-both raw. Me, I did not even suggest that sexual intercourse was an old human custom, and you can search the yarn from end to end without finding any reference to anatomical details.
I did include a scene involving telepathy with an unborn child-you suggested it. But I kept the mother off stage. I don’t think there is a leer in the story. Lots of boy-meets-girl and some will object to that, but, dammit, there had to be-if the story was to be at all true to life.
December 8, 1941: John W. Campbell, Jr. to Robert A. Heinlein I never meant to give you a feeling of extreme urgency.
Perhaps your interpretation-your personal emotional index-of “desire” comes closer to my intent than “need.” Partly, that can be due to the situation best expressed this way: I need-in the sense of “must have without fail” — some tall stories. I need manuscripts. I desire some tall stories from you; I ardently desire manuscripts of the quality you produce.
(Curious-you and I each possess a vocabulary of perhaps 300,000 words, with a pretty fair ability to distinguish between the shades of meaning involved. And I can’t quite adequately express the exact tone and intensity of value of the basic thought “I want you to write stories for Astounding.”)
But for the future. I don’t know what you’ll be doing. I have no idea what pressure of work will be on you. I don’t know whether you can ever write a story as a method of relaxation. (I can; it’s as much fun as reading someone else’s work.)
December 9, 1941: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr,
This is the first time in forty-eight hours that I have been able to tear myself away from the radio long enough to think about writing a letter. Naturally, our attention has been all in one direction up to now. We are still getting used to the radical change in conditions, but our morale is extremely good, as is, I am happy to report, that of everyone. For myself, the situation, tragic as it is, comes to me as an actual relief and a solution of my own emotional problems. For the past year and a half I have been torn between two opposing points of view-and the desire to retain as long as possible my own little creature comforts and my own snug little home with the constant company of my wife and the companionship of my friends and, opposed to that, the desire to volunteer. Now all that is over, I have volunteered and have thereby surrendered my conscience (like a good Catholic) to the keeping of others.
The matter has been quite acute to me. For the last eighteen months I have often been gay and frequently much interested in what I was doing, but I have not been happy. There has been with me, night and day, a gnawing doubt as to the course I was following. I felt that there was something that I ought to be doing. I rationalized it, not too successfully, by reminding myself that the navy knew where I was, knew my abilities, and had the legal power to call on me if they wanted me. But I felt like a heel. This country has been very good to me, and the taxpayers have supported me for many years. I knew when I was sworn in, sixteen years ago, that my services and if necessary my life were at the disposal of the country; no amount of rationalization, no amount of reassurance from my friends, could still my private belief that I ought to be up and doing at this time.