November 9, 1944 (kh)
Hugo Philip, in New York City, to Thomas Layton, in College Park, Maryland, for Tom’s second birthday (Nov. 13).
Hugo Philip
New York City 34
My beloved little wild boy Thomas,
I am really very glad that I can call you wild boy, because it proves to me conclusively that you, thank God!, have become a healthy and strong little lad. Your dear mother wrote in her last letter that nothing escapes your natural desire to play and to learn everything in your little world, so that sometimes your mother has trouble taming you. But how often have these wild boys become serious and striving persons. So, we will hope that you, my little darling, will also become a valuable human being someday. This is what I wish for you and your parents for your second birthday on November 13.
Your first name, Thomas, originated in the Greek language and means “Zwilling” in German, or “Twin” in English. But anyway, I hope that you will develop a personality that the world has never seen before! That does not mean that you have to become famous, but that you may become a member of the part of humanity that is comprehensive and complete.
We must consider it lucky that you, my sweet boy, are not conscious yet that you live in an apocalyptic time, which has no parallel in the history of the world. If, today, you were a mature and thinking person, trying to understand life, I think that the terrible life in this horrible time of war would make you a “Non-believing Thomas” (by the way that is the title of a famous painting by Rubens). May you, God willing, never lose your belief in humanity, because without belief life loses its meaning. In this sense may you become a follower of the great men of yore, Thomas à Kempis and Thomas von Aquino.
The German people, who have now become inheritors of a Mad Man, were once one of the most admired people in the world, and by the work of their great men once created monuments of science, art and beauty. These everlasting achievements should still be recognized and admired in the land of the New World, America. And so, with the aid of the Allies, the time may not be too distant when the misled German nation will be led back to the former standard of life, where decency, honesty and brother love — qualities that the German people once had — will once again be the norm. Without those humanitarian qualities no nation could have produced such masters of art and science, as the German people once did. “Glory is the Sun of the Dead” Balzac once wrote in his diary, and that sun still illuminates all of the civilized world today. May this sun also shine for you, when you are grown up, my little birthday child, and then you will not lose the belief, which is the causa finales of all humanity.
Your Grandpapa,
Hugo Philip
