Dear Thomas,

I am so very sorry you didn't get the job you wanted. For what is worth I really think you would have been great and it is their loss. I know none of this is of much help. As you probably know, and I am discovering daily ... the whole world of the written words is struggling everywhere, and for many different reasons, although mostly greed in all its incarnations, including prestige, influence, etc. I could be wrong of course, but it seems to me that the real reason you didn't get the job has little to do with you but a lot to do with so-called inner circles. I have come to know you as a kind and gentle soul and life is always more difficult for such souls. As someone who had already walked 'the blue fields' twenty years longer than you, it saddens me that you would think of your life as 'an ageing scaffolding,' even though I like the expression! But I think you know that, after all, scaffoldings are made for support ... even as they age.

Take Care,

D