A letter on Tenderness.
Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe.


Dear Marilyn

You asked me to write you a letter about tenderness.  I'll try it. I write how I think and what I can.
The most important thing is to write simply and honestly and everything else will follow.

So, about tenderness:Tenderness consists of two parts:of words and gestures.
First, about the word. When people die,  they remain words: Words of anger, words of love, words of envy, words of wisdom.
Generally we have no idea how many entities we have in the form of words.
Words can kill, words can be resurrected, even the God we have is only some text. So God is also the word.
The Bible itself begins with the words, "In the beginning was the word...".

When people break up, they also in a sense, die for each other and then also remain only words.
Nothing more and often people remember the other person as only this: as the words he once said
and suffer remembering and why things went wrong, there was a misunderstanding and so things fell apart.
That is all it was words, words, words...

But of all the billions of words- there is one little category of words that never, under any circumstances can't hurt.
They can bring only joy and happiness.

These words are words of endearment. They can safely say all you want without fear of being misunderstood.
They accurately and will always be gladly heard but people are embarrassed to say them.
Only after lengthy efforts, in the struggle with themselves, finally squeezed, "honey" or "sweetie"...

In the words of tenderness there's some kind of magic.
They get stuck in the throat if they are addressed to the wrong person.

Sometimes – on the contrary. You can't stop it. They flow from you like a waterfall.
You enjoy saying them, you want to invent new ones, everything is softer and more
tender still and you caress her ear with these words. The more you say it, the more she wants to hear them.

Among the words of tenderness there is a very intimate word. These so-called "our words".
When people love each other they come up with these "our words".

If a person takes some "our words" and transfers them to another love, then he understands
that he is committing an enormity. "Our words" — are a very fragile thing.
If they speak not together – they are creepy, saccharine vulgarity and when only to each other
that is the best word of affection to have in the world.

This is important, Marilyn. It is very important not to speak to others of “our words".
I hope you understand that.

And here I finally come to the conclusion. What is tenderness?
The tenderness of Marilyn is when you say words of endearment and even the best "our words"
and also make gestures of tenderness. And one to whom it is addressed – does the same thing.

That is the tenderness. Sometimes it is also called happiness.
That's all.

Yours,
Arthur Miller.