My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

first we went to Lookout Ledge and Crescent House, on the twenty-fifth
to Pine Mountain, and on the twenty-seventh to Madison
Huts via Valley Way, returning via Knife Edge.bn one of these
hikes we unexpectedly met Richard, Lu's brother, and his future
wife, a well-known mathematician and for many years Richard's
assistant.
Lu always insisted he would not work during the summer-that
is to say, he would not write. He kept his resolution so strictly that
he even did not write to his friends. That was my task. "That's
what I married you for," he joked. But on our walks I frequently
saw him deeply lost in his thoughts; then I would stay absolutely
quiet. I knew how necessary this complete silence was for the
working of his mind, and I also knew that he was happy, because
-though lost in his thoughts-he knew he was not alone; I was
with him. From time to time he took my hand or he put his arm
around my shoulder, never saying a word, just to assure himself
that I was near.
The next summer (1944) we spent at Lake Placid, where we met
many friends, made beautiful excursions, and decided in the end
that New Hampshire was more to our liking. On our walks every
day Lu tried to convince me I should not neglect what he called
my "talent for writing," which he felt I had proved so successfully
in Vienna with my stage adaptations. "Write short stories," he told
me. "You can do it." And he ordered a book for me to study the
composition of short stories. "Actually," he said, "there is only one
important thing to observe. You must build up the whole story for
a surprise ending. I~ you can do that, you have a good story." That
summer I wrote one: short story after the other; I had ideas enough.
Butwhen we came back to New York, I was much too busy working
for Lu to be-able to follow his advice.
On October 12, 1944, Lu made his first long trip alone since our
arrival in the United States. (He had not yet learned Hazlitt's
"prescription" for getting me invited.) This trip was arranged by
the NAM Advisory Croup, with the purpose of having Lu talk at
two meetings, one in Los Angeles, the other in San Francisco. For
Los Angeles he hadichosen as his subject "Depression and Unemployment,
Are They Inevitable?" In San Francisco he was to talk
about "The Crisis o£ Free Enterprise."
A letter which Uu got shortly before he left-signed "JAR"
(name unreadable), director of Braun Corporation, Chemicals and
Laboratory Supplies, Los Angeles-gives an interesting description
of California at that time:
Southern California is very definitely and vitally interested in the
problem of the depression and unemployment. Probably, we, in
Southern California, have one of the most critical areas in the United
93