Steinbeck (95 page)

I have not really wandered away from the theme. At our best we live by the legend. And when our belief gets pale and weak, there comes a man out of our need who puts on the shining armor and everyone living reflects a little of that light, yes, and stores some up against the time when he is gone—the shining stays and the light is needed—the fierce and penetrating light.

Remember? We spoke of sorrow. (So many things we spoke of.) And also anger, good healthy anger. The sorrow and the anger are a kind of remembering. I know there is a cult of dismal, Joblike acceptance, a mewing “Everything that happens is good.” Well that is
not
so and to say it is is to be not only stupid but hopeless. That same cult of acceptance would have left us living in trees.

You see, my dear, how huge and universal the theme is and how one might well be afraid of it. But in our time of meager souls, of mole-like burrowing into a status quo which never existed, the banner of the Legend is the great vocation.

The Western world has invented only one thing of the spirit and that is gallantry. You won't find it in any Eastern or Oriental concept. And I guess gallantry is that quality which, when faced with overwhelming odds, fights on as though it could win and by that very token sometimes does.

I shall try to find a form for this theme. Meanwhile, if you should have a feeling for talking or reminiscing or speculating, I shall be available. I shall come to you at your request or, if you would care to think without physical reminders, please come to us. Our house is one of love and courtesy and we hope of gallantry. I am sending you a version of the Morte. Meanwhile I enclose as promised, Sir Ector's lament over the body of Sir Launcelot, in the Maiden's Castle in Northumberland.

Yours,
John Steinbeck

 

It may take a swatch of time to find the clothing for the Legend. And it is possible that I never can, but I will try my best.

J.S.

 

 

“A, Launcelot!” he sayd, “thou were hede of al Crysten knyghtes! And now I dare say,” sayd syr Ector, “thou sir Launcelot, there thou lyest, that thou were never matched of erthely knyghtes hande. And thou were the curtest knyght that ever bare shelde! And thou were the truest frende to thy lovar that ever bestrade hers, and thou were the trewest lover of a synful man that ever loved woman, and thou were the kyndest man that ever strake wyth swerde. And thou were the godelyest persone that ever cam emonge prees of knyghtes, and thou was the mekest man and the jentyllest that ever ete in halle emonge ladyes, and thou were the sternest knyght to thy mortal foo that ever put spere in the reeste.”

New York
February 28, 1964

Dear Mrs. Kennedy:

I have been thinking about what you said regarding lost causes. And it is such a strange subject. It seems to me that the only truly lost causes are those which win. Only then do they break up into mean little fragments. You talked of Scotland as a lost cause and that is not true. Scotland is an
unwon
cause. Probably the greatness of our country resides in the fact that we have not made it and are still trying. No—I do believe that strength and purity lie almost exclusively in the struggle—the becoming. That is why it is so important to me —for my own sake—to write about the President. You said you hoped he was not a lost cause. But you must see that by the terrible accident of his death he can't be. His cause must get stronger and stronger and it cannot weaken because it is a piece of everyone's heart. All of us carry a fragment of him. And we must have some goodness in us—else we could not perceive goodness in him.

You can see how this theme is haunting me. My Irish mother had the second sight and I picked up a little of it in her blood. It is because of this that I make the following request. I have no picture of the President nor of you. Would it be possible for you to send these to me? I want a focus of attention. You will know if there exist such pictures. I don't want the posed state pictures but rather those with complexities. If you know such as that, perhaps I can stare deeply into the eyes and beyond into the brain; it might make it easier for me. I want to
know
to the best of my ability. Sometimes in moments of perplexity or pain, the eyes and face open and allow a passage through.

As we all do—I have need, and consider the New Testament many times. And it has seemed to me that Jesus lived a singularly undramatic life—a straight line life without deviation or doubt. And then we come to that heart-breaking moment on the cross when He cried “Lama sabachthani.” In that one moment of doubt we are all related to Him. And when you said you had questions to ask, please remember that terrible question Jesus asked: “My Lord, wherefor hast thou forsaken me?” In that moment He was everyone—Everyone!

I have looked for a Marcus Aurelius and the ones I have found are big and pretentious. I want one for you, small as a breviary like my father's which he gave to me—small enough to put in your purse. I will find one for you sooner or later.

I seem to be committed but I have no idea whether or not I can do it. Please believe that if I can do it—only you and Elaine will see it until it is as perfect as I can make it.

Can you, or will you, tell me—did he at any time in his life write any poetry? Prose can be from the mind but poetry comes from the soul.

Finally, please tell me whether these letters trouble you or bother you in any way. They are a manner of thinking.

Yours,
John Steinbeck

New York
March 2, 1964

Dear Dook:

This note is prompted by the desire to talk when one hasn't anything to say. It's what they call
visiting
in Texas.

My 62nd birthday has just come and gone—and I must say I felt older at 35—yes and wiser too. It is very strange. When we are very young, we have the feeling that we can aim and position our lives. But looking backwards, I at least seem to see that it was all a series of unforseeable accidents and that nothing we could have done would have made any difference.

I have finally worked out to my own satisfaction anyway how it can be that some people are lucky and some unlucky. For example—do you remember Ritch Lovejoy? Everything he touched turned to tragedy, in health, in economics, in his work. It was almost as if he called tragedy to him.

Then we have known those to whom everything good happens. I don't for one moment think that there is automatic punishment for the lucky. There are runs of luck. And from this stems my theory. Theoretically if you play enough times there will be an equal number of reds and blacks. But in the events of a human life, there aren't enough spins to make it balance. So some people win mostly, and others lose. If we lived forever, it would all balance out but we don't. Oh! I know it's possible to rig the game a little but not a great deal. Luck or tragedy, some people get runs. Then of course there are those who divide it even, good and bad, but we never hear of them. Such a life doesn't demand attention. Only the people who get the good or bad runs. Now that is the only bit of speculation which seems to hold water for me. And perhaps it isn't very interesting. 62. And I think you are the better part of a year ahead of me, aren't you?

I think of you very often but more in one direction than in others. You see when my second wife divorced me, I had to build a new reference library and I did it very thoroughly—dictionaries and facts—and then some really complete specialties. As far as possible I wanted to be able to look up nearly everything without going to a library. For the rare things kept under guard in the great repositories I was able to gather microfilm. I hardly ever turn to my bookshelves, loaded with goodies, without thinking—“How Dook would love this!” And you would. But there is a hazard which you will recognize. Starting to look something up, I get stopped ahead of the place and quite often never get to the thing I started for.

But there is one bad thing my collection does. It holds up to me a constant mirror of my ignorance. When I am faced with what I don't know a kind of despair sets in. And in addition to all the things about the past which I don't know there are all of the new fields of research into which I can't even step my toe. And these go whirling away ahead of me. It must have been a pleasant time when a philosopher could know everything. That time is long gone. But you would love the books. Of course the casual books come flowing in but the designed library is a staunch bastion. I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now—only that place where the books are kept.

Odd thing is that I wish I had learned more. I am stamping the ground trying to get started on a new book that means a lot to me. I want it to be very good and so far I have the tone of it and what it is about and that is all. I'll have to kick it around for some time.

I have thought about writing an autobiography but a real one. Since after a passage of time I don't know what happened and what I made up, it would be nearer the truth to set both down. I'm sure this would include persons who never existed. Goethe wrote such an account but I have not read it. Can't find it yet. He called it Fiction and Fact. I didn't know about this when I got to thinking about such an account. Do you know the work? I have put a search out to find it. But surely the fictionizing and day dreaming and self-aggrandizement as well as the self-attacks are as much a part of reality as far as the writing is concerned as the facts are. And even the facts have a chameleon tendency after a passage of time.

I must go today for my periodic medical check. I do it for my dear wife. And eventually they will find that internally I don't exist. But so far they have found only that I am perfectly normal even in my degenerations. Nothing spectacular at all—only erosion.

I guess this is about the end. I have to answer the packet of letters from strangers which just came in. I wonder why I do it. Some kind of vestigial courtesy, I guess.

Anyway I'm glad to talk to you but I'd rather hear you talk back.

Yours
John

(New York]
April 20, 1964

Dear Mrs. Kennedy:

Forgive please, my apparent slowness in answering your two letters. The delay arises from a kind of remorseful rethinking. I had no intention of joining the cackling flock who are pulling and pushing and nibbling at you.

You see, it was never any plan of mine to rush in while the wound is fresh and while eager memories feed on themselves. I can't make up my mind to write of this or not to. All I can say is that I will think and feel and out of this something may emerge. A great and a brave man belongs to all of us because he activates the little greatness and bravery that sleeps in us. And unfortunately an evil man finds his signals in us also.

And you are quite right when you say a book is only a book and he was a man and he is dead. The book could only be of value if it helped to keep the essential and contributing part of him alive, and such a thing will have to wait until the agony and the poison drains away and only the surviving permanence remains.

I have had to find this in my own small measure of pain and confusion and I am sorrowful if I have contributed to yours.

I think your three letters and our conversation have told me in a large and feeling sense all I need to know. And you are quite right when you say you probably wouldn't like what I wrote if I write it now. I don't think I would either. No, it's a thing to put into the half-sleeping mind, to think of in the half-dawn when the first birds sing, and in the evening; they call it the dimpsy in Somerset. These are the times for the good and the permanent thinking which is more like musing —the garden path toward dream.

I have always been at odds with those who say that reality and dream are separate entities. They are not—they merge and separate and merge again. A monster proportion of all our experience is dream, even that we think of as reality.

I wish I could help you although I know not anyone can. I've thought that after all of the required puppetry and titanic control that has been asked of you and given—it might be good and desirable if, like those bereft squaws I spoke of, you could go to a hill and howl out your rage and pain—yes and defiance against the cold stars, against God and the gods. If your husband loved the Greeks, he would understand this with his whole soul. I am not speaking religiously at all when I suggest that only after we have been driven to the “Lama sabachthani,” only then are we capable of the “Father, into Thy hands.” Who has not had the first cannot have the second.

Oh! Lord, I hope I am not lecturing you. I don't want to.

I'm having a miserable copy of the Meditations bound for you. It will be along in time.

Now, I come to the end. I shall ask no more questions. But if the cloud of thought persists, one day I do hope to write what we spoke of—how this man who was the best of his people, by his life and his death gave the best back to them for their own.

Take care, and when you can, please laugh a little. I think I've been a bore but if so, that's what I am.

Yours with admiration but never with pity.

John Steinbeck