Monday, Dec. 11, 1950

"I like the stamina and spunk of these people," wrote Mrs. Lois Dean, of Washington, D.C. last week in a letter containing her contribution to the rebuilding of Pastor Ye Yun-Ho's church in Seoul. "Thanks a million for the good news that he is safe; we had been inquiring about him through the YMCA," was the way another reader put it.

Since my Letter of Nov. 20, telling of Pastor Ye's troubles with the Communists in Korea and the war damage to his church-hospital, we have been receiving TIME-readers' contributions toward a fund for repairing the damage. Some had given money to Presbyterian Ye when TIME first told about his efforts to organize his first parish in 1948 among the swarms of poor children living in packing cases in Seoul's city dump. Others, hearing about him for the first time, wanted to help him, too.

In view of the present state of affairs in Korea, we are sending your contributions to Dr. George A. Fitch, of the International YMCA, 291 Broadway, New York, N.Y., who was treasurer of the first Pastor Ye fund.

Seldom has a TIME story evoked such an enthusiastic response as our October 9 cover story on Poet Robert Frost. In this space and in the Letters section we have already told you something about this reaction--not only to the story itself but also to Boris Chaliapin's cover portrait. Concerning the latter, a college English professor has written us: "Boris Chaliapin has caught the essential things we have learned to revere about the poet: birches, a wall, a running brook, and above all, the searching friendliness of his eyes."

These qualities were also discernible to the authorities of Dartmouth and Amherst colleges, who asked, simultaneously, if they could have the original cover painting. Each college has a special interest in Frost. Both have extensive collections of Frostiana. Frost has been a fellow at Dartmouth and an English professor at Amherst, where he is now a lecturer in literature. Naturally, lie has many personal friends at both colleges.

These twin requests posed an obvious dilemma. We could not very well give one painting to two colleges. We finally decided that the only solution of the problem was to ask Chaliapin to do another Frost portrait as nearly like the "original original" as possible. It has been completed, and the two paintings will be presented soon to the two colleges, which plan to place them on permanent display. Only Chaliapin will know which college got the original original -- and only if they are set side by side will anyone be able to tell them apart.

Dartmouth and Amherst have expressed their satisfaction at our solution. With a fine diplomatic flourish, Amherst President Charles Cole wrote : "I would say that Judge Linen had beaten Judge Solomon, for he has doubled instead of halved the baby."

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