181. Wright, Frank Lloyd. Autograph Letter Signed "Father" to his daughter Catherine describing his disappointment in his children. 13" x 4-1/4". written on the recto and verso of a single folded sheet of Taliesin stationary, includes original envelope; light wear, margin stains, creased at folds.

[Tokyo], 1920s [2000/3000]

"Dear Catherine,Your letter reached me by Endo (?) this morning.It is the same old thing in the same old graceless, thankless way. I think it would have been better for you to have put your money and the share of it I agreed to pay into a fund for the necessaries of life but I had promised to help you and did no wish to break my promise. No, I can not assure your mother a regular monthly allowance - she will have to take her chances on it as I take mine - and sometimes it is pretty hard for me to get it. I have asked something of your mother in return for what I have given to her and must continue to give and she has demanded a price for it out of my power to pay. The consequence to her will be greater insecurity - less regular and smaller payments as my positions react, on her - She can not complain. She knows how she could improve her own financial position by ceasing to injure mine.Neither you as her children nor has she ever felt that any of you should do anything for me - except hang on to me as a financial asset [sic] for all I was worth - and like a fool that I am in my relation to you all - I have meekly submitted to that senseless imposition because I felt myself unable to do more or any less as I loved my children and had chosen to separate my life in its personal bearings from them.I expected however to find on their part a love and kindness, and in time an understanding that would be based upon something besides selfishness and"interests" and the animal pursuit of "a good time": How bitter my disappointment is I think no one can ever know. Everything I have invested of myself - my earning capacity, my hopes, in my children has been evident more and more as, misguided forms of self indulgence on my part that found its way into a bottomless pit of thoughtlessness, of rampant animalism unbelievable, of gross appetites and a thankless assumption of "rights" in a parent to whom they yielded neither true allegiance, nor respect and toward whom they recognized no duties - As an "excuse" they have put the blame upon him for finding his life with them under former circumstances intolerable and upon the terrible break and tragedy [sic] that ensued. Blaming everything, anything but the real cause of their and his real position.Young children loving blindly a suffering mother all unaware of her own share in the causes of these terrible "effects" could only be expected to blindly sympathize with her in her position. You have all been taught by me I think that your allegiance was first of all to her.But now you are (all but one) grown men and women and that has ceased to have the virtue of good sense.The whole thing has become a monstrosity of selfish indulgence that fosters all kinds of real iniquity in self justification - seeking always to lay the blame for it upon others - never squarely facing itself or its own merits - for what it is.Every time I have come into contact with it I have been disappointed and betrayed - until I have made up my mind that until I am recognized as having a right to my own life and the legal title to it again by a sensible, kind and considerate agreement - in this case it would be called a divorce (although that really took place ten years ago.I shall do nothing whatever to bring my children closer to me nor will I seek in anyway to come closer to them. You will not see in this statement anything more than something opposed to your own hard headed will and desires but someday (too late probably) you will see and regret the loss that must come and has already come because of it to "father and children"Father"