“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(During last week Jane told me she’d picked up that my troubles had been set off by the death of Bill Crowder on October 2. Betts didn’t write us about the death until we received her letter of the 25th on the 26th—which date being the day before I became ill. I hadn’t paid more than normal attention to Bill’s death, I thought, beyond feeling sympathy, and speculating with Jane about the money he must have left. Not that we wanted any of it. I hadn’t thought his death could bother me that much, for certainly I hadn’t dwelled upon it consciously at all.

(I also think Prentice-Hall will go through the formality of protesting the cuts to the foreign publishers, without exacting much of any retribution, especially with all that money invested in plates. Jane and I will be left with the situation as it exists, then. Except that theoretically at least we’ll be able to prevent it happening any more if we control foreign rights from now on. There doesn’t appear to be any money worth mentioning involved, at least for us. I always thought the foreign sales were great for the foreign publishers, though, since they owe Prentice-Hall only 6%.

Crowder, you think, left a large moneyed estate—far more than either you or Ruburt possess. At the same time, you are more than a little contemptuous of what we may gently call the mental culture of Bill Crowder’s life and mind. A part of you even thinks “Ma is that what you wanted me to be?”