Against Wind and Tide Read online

  I am going into town to have a thorough examination of those disagreeable parts that bothered me this summer. It is unpleasant but probably wise. I must take two ounces of castor oil tomorrow morning. “Pewy!” as Reeve says.

  No word from you!

  It is beautiful but cold today. The leaves are beginning to turn. Scott and Anne and Reeve are collecting chestnuts!

  New Boston Inn, New Boston, Mass.

  February 9th, 1951

  Dearest C.,

  Your wonderful long letter has just reached me, much delayed by the train strike and my being away this week to work—Hah! I have read it over four times already. In fact I devoured it. It has given me such a sense of elation and I do not really know why—I guess just to feel in touch with you again, chiefly. I have been feeling so out of touch—so out of touch. I went home happier that night because I knew you must have gotten my letter and just to have that touch from you.

  I hasten to answer although this letter may never get to you and it would take me all afternoon to say all the things I want to say and I don’t want to spend all the afternoon on it because I want to go skiing! Write all morning, ski all afternoon. Ahh!

  It was wonderful to get your letter here. I had been thinking of you so vividly. At home I haven’t really time to miss you much. Sometimes at night. Sometimes outside, piling wood with Scott, or Sunday suppers. But I am so busy, trying so hard to live up to something—what? Your idea of me, perhaps. For I am conscious of you all the time. All the time I am thinking anxiously, “Charles would approve of this” or—quite often!—“Charles would disapprove of this.”* You would have done quite a lot of disapproving last week, but I’ll go into that later!

  But here I just think about you—pure, so to speak. Spontaneously or with joy. The first day I felt not down to earth enough to write. It was a beautiful warm sunny day with still quite a crust of snow on the ground. And I went out on skis and did gentle curves on the hill and took long strides over untouched snow through the woods. It was so beautiful, so still—the real stillness that Picard* speaks of, “Silence—which is not something negative—a mere absence of speech: it is an original phenomenon like love, faithfulness, death and life.”

  I could see the beauty of the world again. The dried seed pods with their fists full of snow. The bare branches black and beautiful against a soft evening sky. The rough pine-bearded hills, the soft blue-breath birch trees here and there, the strong hillside and strong fences capped with snow. Blue jays flashing through the trees, tracks of rabbits and squirrels like notes of music on a white page. Everything had significance again in the silence, in the winter space—in the bleakness of a New England winter. And I, coasting downhill, finding myself racing a stream—the stream that runs through this tiny village—felt alive and young and part of the world around me—and full of joy and suddenly very close to you. If only he were here, I thought. He would love you too.

  Each morning before I start to work, I go out and climb the incredibly strong hillside behind the inn. (You know those hillsides in New England that are so strewn with boulders and rocks that you don’t see how even God could have done it?) It is quite a climb, especially in snow, now crusty so you fall through up to the knee and now thin and wind-swept, just powdered over the stubbly grass stalks. And I sit in a special spot—on a stone, backed against a wood of white pines, with white pines around me, sheltering me—quite a circle of them, holding me in their arms—and marching a little in front of me, guarding me and my rock on either side and framing the view in front, to the side, across the narrow valley to the gentle pine-covered rounded hills of New England.

  It is not a spectacular view. Round stubby hills, pine-bristled and stony—softened here and there with the blue breath of birch trees. But there is a gap in the hills where they come down and meet in the valley and you can see through to other hills, other valleys. I love this view and it makes me think of flying with you, and of Tegernsee, too. I know it is not Tegernsee. There are no Alps—there is no lake.

  It doesn’t pretend to be beautiful, but I feel nested in these New England hills. I suppose I am not really very adventurous and my roots are in New England very deeply. I longed for you to be there too, sitting on the rock with me. I have sat there so many times. In midsummer when the cool dark of the pines felt good. And in autumn—bare November weather when the hills were still grape-colored. But now—only white and black—and the blue shadows of trees on snow. I thought: I must bring him here, I must sit with him here, where I have so often seen my life more clearly. Even if he doesn’t feel about New England as I do, even if we could never live here.

  It would not be the peaceful retreat it is now to me if I should move all my family here. And you would never be happy here. (You—Charles.) But perhaps we could have a weekend together here. You would see what it means to me. It would speak to you also. It recaptures something of Tegernsee for me. The Tegernsee person comes to life here. I thought, dreaming to myself, that I would like to build a chalet up on that hill, backing to the pines, and come here—even if we do move to the West. Not for the children. For me, and you, if you wanted to come. It would be a kind of Point House and we could lock it up and leave it and it could be my base in the East forever, so I would always have something of New England. And I would be three to four hours from New York, so I could see friends from here. Well, it is dreaming and impractical.

  I realized that you perhaps were at that very moment also sitting on a hillside—finding your Tegernsee—somewhere else. I felt sad, a little, that you could never never find your identity in New England. It would always cramp you—those narrow valleys, those stubby hills, those strong, grim, eke-out-a-living-if-you-can pastures. Those prim clapboard houses and stiff little red barns. But I understand this: you could not fit here. Just as I, perhaps, am always going to feel deracinated in the sandy soil of California—in the dry sunshine—among the brittle ever-leafy trees who never dare to stretch their arms out bare, bone bare, against a steely sky.

  But I do not mind really. I would like to travel, to buy, to taste, perhaps to base where land is good—there is space and opportunity for the children. But I shall have to come back regularly to this sparse, cold, stony, and yet warm and cradling New England landscape because it is in me. My fruit won’t ripen without the frost—the winter—the surcease from sun.

  Later—Evening

  I have just come in from a ski-walk (from 4:30–5:45) just at sunset. I love this hour: no sun in your eyes, a clear golden sky tinged with pink behind the blue hills, and all the bare branches as black against the sky as the dry weeds are against the snow. It is very cold. I love winter—real bare-trees-and-snow winter—as you may love the desert. It is the season of the spirit, just as the desert is the landscape of the spirit. I would like always to have some of it. And I feel so good when I come in from that kind of a walk. It is as good as sleep, as food, as water to the thirsty. It is like a sun-bolt or like swimming, in that you feel united to nature again—part of the element you are bathed in.

  I have had a very constructive week here: sleeping, overeating, skiing, thinking out my life—our life!—writing. I pulled the conclusion into shape. And drinking in the beauty of earth and air and solitude, and feeling very close to everyone I love in the process—you especially.

  Why am I afraid of isolation, I think? Because it is only in solitude that I ever find my own core—out of which I can write, out of which I can love, out of which or through which I can feel related to people. We are so wrong about solitude, about relatedness. One must get related to one’s own core first. Only through one’s own core can one be really related to others. It is not by living next to them or by seeing them every day that you get related to people—sometimes this only succeeds in separating you. No, you must get related to your own core first and then you are not separated from anyone you love, no matter where they are in the world.

  Certain places, certain modes of living, allow you to get related to your core.
The place that may do it for you may not do it for me. The place that does it for me may not do it for you. But we must allow ourselves those differences. We must live where it is best for group life—for together family life—but we must always allow each other to be free to go back to the tap-root place or work that connects us to ourselves again for a renewal period. Then we shall never be separated, in the deepest and truest sense.

  Dear Charles—what a long, long letter. I have spend half an afternoon and a whole morning on it. But it was good and I feel so close to you and sure that you will understand, somehow, all I am trying to say. I do not begrudge the last morning spent on this. I have done some good work here. I have rested. I have touched my tap-root again. And you with your delicate perceptions will feel this through my hastily written letter. You will understand. And if I came away only to be able to write all this to you, it would have been worth it.

  But I go back full—happy—and at ease—and no sense of pressure. There is Captiva ahead!

  Ah, but I do wish—despite not feeling separated from you—that you were here and we could go out after lunch or this evening just after the sun has set and ski gently down a slope, not speaking a word, just bathed in the same crystalline air—and in joy.

  My love—my love to Jon, too.

  A.

  [Early 1951]

  Dearest Jon,

  My first reaction to the Herald Tribune announcement that a schoolmate of yours had written an article about you was: What a dirty trick. I still feel that way now after having read the article. Even though the article is what is called “favorable,” and seems to have been written with the best of intentions, reasonable accuracy and some degree of taste, not to speak of obvious admiration.

  Very few people realize that any publicity is bad. It makes one’s life more difficult, more artificial, less natural. It insulates one from normal natural life and relations with other people. I once told your father that to be famous was like having Medusa’s head—life was arrested, turned to stone around one. People ceased to be themselves, to talk and act naturally in your presence. He said it was like having the Midas touch.

  Of course, it isn’t as bad as that for you and one or two articles aren’t going to do it, but they make life more difficult. I’m sorry it has hit you but it’s just as well to know about it—be on guard and see how best to handle it.

  Now—there are two extremes here. One is to be so much on guard that you never talk naturally to friends at all for fear they may sell it to the papers: withdrawing into a shell, distrusting people, looking on everyone as a possible reporter. I don’t myself think it’s worthwhile living this way. It’s better to act normally—make friends and trust them. If once in a while one gets caught—well, so what? It is better to get caught occasionally than to live perpetually in fear of it.

  On the other hand, there is no use being naïve about it. One should be aware of the problem—that it exists—that people are apt to make capital out of you and that you have got to keep your wits about you and outsmart them.

  Actually, I think the most destructive element in that article will be its effect on the readers—not on you. Young men who will read this article glorifying dangerous exploits and think that is the way to be a hero and gain fame. This article glorifies danger per se, which I think and hope you don’t do! Since you have now been pointed out and put in the limelight as an example, it puts a responsibility on you to show that flirting with danger is not a sign of courage or greatness, but just being a damn fool or an exhibitionist. I don’t think you are an exhibitionist or a “damn fool” but young people with poor judgment reading that article may become both those things and lose their lives in rash exploits trying to be that kind of a hero. It is too bad, but your actions will have to answer articles like this. You will have to show extra care, extra judgment, extra balance, to offset the adolescent attitude that risking one’s life is inevitably noble. Sometimes one has to risk one’s life but the bravest and best-balanced people don’t take unnecessary risks. Courage is not rashness. Your father doesn’t take unnecessary risks.

  Actually, Jon, it was exactly this kind of courage that I felt you showed the last time you were back here—speaking your own mind, and standing on your own opinions, honestly and simply and fearlessly. And it impressed me more than all the mountain climbing or deep-sea diving in the world!

  The courage to be oneself is so difficult to achieve. This is one of my grudges against publicity, now I come to analyze it. Publicity makes it so difficult to be oneself. It puts up a false picture and you find yourself acting up to it or reacting against it. It’s like suddenly being surrounded with mirrors—it’s almost impossible not to pose.

  In fact it’s worse than mirrors, because mirrors reflect truthfully, and publicity distorts. It reflects back an image distorted by the sense of values of the person writing. I suppose that’s why I was irritated by that girl. She thinks I’m the kind of mother who doesn’t care whether her son falls into a crevasse or drowns under a boat. “She’s used to it”!! Hah!

  You don’t “get used to” worrying about the people you love!

  Hence this long letter. Well, I assume you did not give an interview to this girl, or else gave it to her for the college paper, not expecting her to sell it to the world. I can remember the first time it happened to me—in Mexico—when your father and I were engaged and we went out to dinner and one of the guests asked me questions which I answered freely not suspecting she was a reporter—and then she made an article about it the next day in the paper! It came out that I preferred motoring to flying, etc., etc. And I felt humiliated and betrayed. I had just been naïve and a sucker. And she was definitely unethical. But there are quite a proportion of people like that around and one has to learn to look out for them.

  Now (I’ve got that off my chest!).

  We are going back to Stowe tomorrow for the weekend, I hope. All of us in the ranch wagon, how we will miss you!

  Captiva Island

  Friday, March 9th, 1951

  Dear Dr. A.,*

  I have been here a week and I am just beginning to let the mind work—a little! I think one should spend the first week of a Florida vacation all alone, or with very dull people, or with people one knows so well it doesn’t matter. The effect of so much sun, warmth, leisure and the general softness of Florida atmosphere is soporific. I suppose it is good, this letting down. (I hope you can manage to get some of it—although it is hard to imagine you soporific!)

  Or maybe it is just me. I do nothing but sleep and eat and lie in the sun and occasionally bicycle to the store for groceries. I can’t manage to do anything the least bit useful. I can’t even worry. I say to myself: I have only a week or ten days more. I have done no work—I may never come back again. I have plans, decisions, to think about. But I can’t think ahead or back. A lotus-eater lethargy has enveloped me. Nothing seems to matter and the past and the future have melted away. Only the soft, soft nest I am sinking into. Perhaps it is necessary, this temporary amnesia. Perhaps it is weariness and the body taking its due again (it is nice to establish the habit of sleep anyway). I am sure C. would approve. Back to nature, the physical etc. There is something in me always that resents the body taking over completely. It seems so far away from the spirit.

  But perhaps that is a false puritan conflict. I am not sure that the relationship between spirit and body isn’t closer than that between mind and body. Spirit seems to leap up after bodily rest and ease, at the touch of physical beauty often: quick, flame-like, joyous and pure. The mind follows more slowly—and not spontaneously at all—harnessed and bridled and pulling a cart!

  Anyway, I haven’t recovered my mind yet. Con has been typing away at Henry James since the first morning. Margot has written out the outline of a skit for a club play. But I just sit and let myself sink down into the deep well of quietness in myself. I feel instinctively it is good to do. But it is rather blind and numb. Sinking down through the upper layers of articulaten
ess—leaving them behind—through thoughts—through emotions—down to where everything is dark and still and formless. I feel I must sink to the bottom of the well before I can be renewed or be creative again.

  You are probably in your last few days and much too busy to read drowsy philosophical discussions. The last days before one goes off are always—for me—so crowded that you feel it is hardly worth going away. It is, though, it is.

  I have heard nothing from Charles, so I don’t know what the Marquands said in reply to him and whether we are all going to see each other on Treasure Island or not. All the transportation decisions etc. are left in his hands—which at this point just seems blissful to me (don’t have to think about that either!).

  I think it would be rather sad to be there without you—like that last day last year when it seemed hardly worthwhile saying anything at all because you weren’t there to catch it! However, at this point I don’t feel I’ll ever have anything to say to anyone again. I’m only halfway down the well.

  I’m still walking around in a daze (light-struck, I think one is at first in Florida. I feel more at home under the stars at night). The other day I stepped backwards on a rickety pier through a hole in the planks. But with the traditional immunity of drunks and somnambulists (I was the latter), I escaped with only a skinned leg.

  Con and I will now pedal up to the post office and collect groceries (Margot has just left). We look like a French bicycle race in our shorts and shirts and jockey caps, pumping down the road against the wind. I have the new Koestler book but I feel it’s too intense to read here. Did you see Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech? Very beautiful and positive (“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail”). I thought of you and Bill.*