Bruce Lee: Letters of the Dragon. Bruce Lee

      

      The Bruce Lee Library

      An Anthology of

       Bruce Lee's Correspondence

       with Family, Friends, and Fans

       1958-1973

      Edited by John Little

      TUTTLE Publishing

       Tokyo | Rutland, Vermont | Singapore

      ABOUT TUTTLE

       “Books to Span the East and West”

      Our core mission at Tuttle Publishing is to create books which bring people together one page at a time. Tuttle was founded in 1832 in the small New England town of Rutland, Vermont (USA). Our fundamental values remain as strong today as they were then—to publish best-inclass books informing the English-speaking world about the countries and peoples of Asia. The world has become a smaller place today and Asia’s economic, cultural and political influence has expanded, yet the need for meaningful dialogue and information about this diverse region has never been greater. Since 1948, Tuttle has been a leader in publishing books on the cultures, arts, cuisines, languages and literatures of Asia. Our authors and photographers have won numerous awards and Tuttle has published thousands of books on subjects ranging from martial arts to paper crafts. We welcome you to explore the wealth of information available on Asia at www.tuttlepublishing.com.

      All photos appearing in this book are courtesy of the archive of Linda Lee Cadwell, the Estate of Bruce Lee, and Warner Brothers Films.

      Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

       www.tuttlepublishing.com

      Copyright © 2016 Bruce Lee Enterprises, LLC First edition, 1998

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from Tuttle Publishing.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data in Process

      ISBN 978-0-8048-4709-4

       ISBN 978-1-4629-1903-1 (ebook)

      Second Edition

       20 19 18 17 16 5 4 3 2 1 1602MP

      Text design—Vernon Press, Inc.

       Printed in Singapore

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      DEDICATION

      To the letter writers

      To those among us who understand that, while historians may concentrate on coronations and battles, it is to the letter writers that we must turn when we want to truly understand. Like the journals and private papers of the classic gossips and diarists—Pepys, Boswell, Saint-Simon—the function of letters is “to reveal to us the littleness underlying great events and to remind us that history once was real life.” For it is in letters that history and biography meet, to form the most intimate of all forms of literature.

      Some have said that the theater is what literature does at night. If so, then letters are what the creators of such literature do and think in the evening of their thoughts. For it is there, in the darkened, innermost recesses of one's mind, well behind the glare of superficiality and trivia, that our passions, desires, and truest selves reside. G. K. Chesterton once described the mailbox as “a sanctuary of human words,” adding that “a letter is one of the few things left entirely romantic, for to be entirely romantic, a thing must be irrevocable.”

      Finally, this book is for the person who understands the true significance of letters; who appreciates the fact that it is upon the page of personal correspondence that the true soul of a human being is revealed and preserved in a fashion that makes them always present, oblivious to the ravages of time. It is here that one finds empathy with what Heloise wrote to her beloved Abelard:

      What cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart; they have all the fire of our passions. They can raise them as much as if the person themselves were present. They have the tenderness and the delicacy of speech, and sometimes even a boldness of expression beyond it. Letters were first invented for consoling such solitary wretches as myself! Having lost the substantial pleasures of seeing and possessing you, I shall in some measure compensate this loss by the satisfaction I shall find in your writing. There I shall read your most sacred thoughts.

      — John Little and Linda Lee Cadwell

      CONTENTS

       Acknowledgments

       Patterns, by Linda Lee Cadwell

       Introduction, by John Little