Coming from the old pornographer who has been monotonously celebrating himself for years in such tomes as Sexus, Nexus and Plexus, the report was an astonishing relief. "I've written everything I want to say," announced Henry Miller, 74--at long last. From now on, said Miller as he opened a show of his fanciful watercolor paintings in Los Angeles' Westwood Art Association gallery, he will chase down his muse primarily with brushes. "It seems to me that the battle for freedom on the sex problem has been won," he proclaimed. Then, in a meditation that many wish he had made years ago, he added: "I would hope that younger writers would find something more important to rebel against."

The joint will feature an art gallery, a color-TV lounge, a little boutique selling hippies' clothes from London's Carnaby Street and three loud, plangent go-go bands. Cheetah, a "center of happenings" opening this month on Broadway, ought to be a great spot for mods to rock in. Yet the co-partner financing the fun house will probably never frug there. "I seldom go to discotheques," explains Entrepreneur Borden Stevenson, 33. "This is a business investment." Then he brightened a bit when he thought of his late father, Adlai Stevenson. "I'm sorry he's not around to see this place," said Borden. "I'm sure he would have had a lot of laughs."

"Not long ago in Paris," recalled the speaker at Washington's Boiling Air Force Base, "I went to buy a ticket on the helicopter service. The girl at the counter asked me to spell my name. 'Oh,' she said, 'you spell it like our helicopter.' " Exactly. Aviation Pioneer Igor Sikorsky, 76, reminisced about the romance and passion of flying at a banquet honoring the father of the helicopter. "My first one was more vibration, dust and noise," he laughed, "and it couldn't fly. But now as an old man and as a designer, I am pleased most that altogether the helicopter has saved more than 100,000 persons from death" --through rescue and supporting work in Viet Nam, Korea, World War II and many peacetime disasters.

Because Johann Sebastian Bach hymned religiously in dozens of soaring masses, magnificats, motets and fugues and developed the contrapuntal organ that still accompanies the Gregorian chant, three pious Venetian music lovers wrote the Vatican's weekly Osservatore Delia Domenica that he should be considered for sainthood. Alas, replied Theologian Benvenuto Matteucci, a Protestant is a Protestant, however sublime his music. "There is an esthetic and artistic religious sentiment in his musical expressions," Monsignor Matteucci sympathized, "but it is only through the true and only church of Christ that salvation and sainthood come." So Lutheran Bach must remain unbeatified except to secular ears.

She can read a novel now, though slowly. She walks well, except for a slight limp. So well, in fact, that Actress Patricia Neal, 40, recovering remarkably from three massive strokes during pregnancy last year, left her healthy seven-month-old baby at home in Buckingham and rode down to London's Grosvenor House to attend the British Film Academy's annual awards ceremony. Smiling as Actor James Mason ticked off some of the winners in the lesser categories, she suddenly heard him intone: "Best Foreign Actress . . . Patricia Neal"--for her role as Admiral John Wayne's girl friend in the Pacific war epic In Harm's Way. Now weeping as well as smiling, Pat accepted the British "Oscar" and said: "It shouldn't have been me." The audience exuberantly disagreed.

An eleven-year-old girl named Grace Bedell had written, saucily suggesting that "if you will let your whiskers grow, you would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin." Bemused by the note, Republican Presidential Candidate Abraham Lincoln wrote back to Grace in October 1860: "As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection [sic] if I were to begin now?" Affection or not, Lincoln grew the beard and won the election. His note to Grace survived through three generations in her family, until it was sold at auction last week in Manhattan for $20,000 to TV Documentary Producer David Wolper.

Disney's Pollyanna is looking more like an aging Lolita now, but it's perfectly all right. Old Child Actress Hayley Mills, who will reach 20 this month, arrived in Manhattan under the proud chaperonage of her parents--though a photographer did manage to ascertain that the kid has lovely legs. In fact, she is such a family concern that for her latest picture, the Upcoming Gypsy Girl, Mother Mary Bell Mills wrote the script, Father John Mills directed and Daughter Hayley acted as a 17-year-old who falls in love with a gypsy. "This silly thing about age," mused Father John. "One day she looks twelve, the next day 24."

Bob Hope's Christmas TV special from Viet Nam was a heartwarming show, but it wasn't all that great: Nielsen ratings scored it as one of history's most popular specials on the tube. Now Nielsen may know why. Gathering material for his book, How to Rig TV Ratings for Fun and Profit, former Congressional Investigator Rex Sparger had mailed out phony questionnaires to the A. C. Nielsen Co.'s normally top-secret sample viewers, designed to ensure that they would watch Bob's performance. "I chose his show to rig because he is such a great man," joked Sparger. "Maybe I'll hire him," cracked Hope. Sparger repeated the prank three other times, but Nielsen was not amused. The company filed a $1,500,000 damage suit in Oklahoma City's Federal District Court.

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