The Mystery of Everett Ruess
Page 15
Should one submerge oneself in sacrifice? That depends. Not for the sake of sacrifice, that would be masochism. He that loseth his life for my sake, said Jesus, shall find it. So says the Great Idea or the Grand Old Cause at any time. A man should follow the gleam. He should be wise, not a fool, but a man must sometimes be a fool for the glory of God. There are no better words in which to express the thought.
Does not one serve most by doing what one does best? Yes, if the world needs that or can use that service. On the other hand, it may be selfish, where it is done to please oneself solely, without regard to the needs of one’s time or one’s fellows. As to art, beauty, the world always needs that, but it flourishes best when one is part of a world that has found itself and is going somewhere, when art is the expression of the time.
Is it possible to be truly unselfish? No, because even Jesus fed his ego: a man who dies for a cause does express himself, achieve his goal, perhaps. God does not ask unselfishness in an absurd sense. Asceticism and self-mortification, and all that sort of thing, are abnormal attitudes. A man must be first a healthy animal. Then he must be more than an animal, too. He must be a human.
Is there any fulfillment that endures as such, besides death? I doubt if death fulfills. It seems to end but I doubt that it ends much. Not one’s influence or the influence of one’s work. Perhaps even the echoes of your voice may go on forever. Some instrument might pick them up years or ages hence. Beauty is an ultimate fulfillment, as is Goodness, as is Truth. These are ends in themselves, and are for the sake of life. Many things are worthwhile that are not enduring. Eternity is just made of todays. Glorify the hour.
Is there anything perpetual besides change? Yes, the tendency to change, to unroll or evolve, and possibly the direction of change. The fact, if so, that things hold together, make sense, is perpetual. Why should we object to change? Maybe it is the essence of life.
Is passage from the sensual to the intellectual to the spiritual a correct progression of growth, and if so, should that growth be hastened? Why not live in all three at the same time? Why such sharp demarcations? A house has a foundation, a first story, and a second story. Why not all three at the same time? “Nor flesh helps spirit more now than spirit flesh,” or the like, is a saying of Browning’s. The Greeks separated flesh and spirit. We moderns tend not to do so, but to respect all parts of creation, each in its place.
Now you tell me, where did you get all these mind-twisters anyway?
Love,
Father
December 13
San Francisco
Dear Father,
I was very pleased with your carefully considered replies to my questions, and I think you have answered them very well.
The other day, I was talking with Alfred Fiske, and he believed, and won me over to the idea that we are not asking enough of life. When people find that we do not expect fine, splendid things of them, or that we do not appreciate them and scoff at them, naturally they cease to aspire. If more people felt that fineness was hoped for from them, and would not be scorned, they would respond and the world would be more beautiful. As it is, many people are ashamed of deep feelings when they have them, and always try to hide them. Don’t you think this is true?
As to Briffault’s statement that no first rate mind in this day of crisis can possibly be interested in beauty or in art when the world is going through death throes and birth throes, I naturally say that he is wrong, because if I agreed with him, I would contradict my whole life.
His thought is not new to me. A year ago my Communist friends were firing it at me when I told them that beauty and friendship were all I asked of life. I am not unconcerned with the crisis of our civilization, but the way of the agitator, the social leader, and the politician is not my way. It is not in my nature to deal with masses of people and be an organizer, and I don’t propose to make any fundamental changes in my nature. I couldn’t change that anyway.
Meantime, suppose a year past, I had heeded my friends, and thrown myself into the struggle. What would I have now to show for it? Most probably, if I had gone into the thing with any intensity, I’d soon have been just one more of the hundreds of political prisoners who are so utterly without any real influence on the stream of things. If, on the contrary, I had been cautious in my enthusiasm, what could I have accomplished in that way? And, as I said before, I consider it a hopeless, thankless task to struggle with the blind apathy of the masses. Neither can we persuade the leaders, the capitalists, to cut their own throats, so there you are. Am I right?
So, instead, during this last year, I have continued to seek beauty and friendship, and I think that I have really brought some beauty and delight into the lives of others, and that at least is something.
Love from Everett
December 13
San Francisco
Dear Waldo,
You must have been surprised at the rather senseless letter I remember sending you last. It was very good of you to send me that Thanksgiving letter. Doubtless my landlord was thankful for the green paper. I have been living a life of wild extravagance and utter penury, with an undercurrent of starvation and an overtone of magnificent music. Thus far, I’ve always managed to pay my debts sometime, and I’ve been trying my best to bring beauty and delight into the lives of others, with varying success.
In many respects my life here in the city has been a fulfillment. At last I have been able to turn to some account many of my hard won experiences in the past. I have some fine, sincere men, and several fine women, and one girl with whom I am intimate.
In short, I often feel in a conquering mood, and I am proud of my life, for I believe that I have really lived life at its most intense, and that I shall continue to do so.
Everett
In the last letter Everett says that he has “one girl with whom I am intimate.” This girl was undoubtedly Frances. Who she was or how Everett met her, remains unknown. But for a brief period, at least, romance had entered Everett’s life. In earlier years Everett referred to other girls in his life—a “Polish girl” in 1932 and Doris Myers in 1933—but neither seems to have made the impact that Frances did. See also two letters to Frances written from Arizona in May 1934.
December 14
Polk Street
Dear Frances,
I have just acquired the most heart-rending symphony you ever heard. You must come out to my mean hovel Saturday night to hear it, for I have to share it with you. In addition, there are two things I want to read to you, and a new picture I want you to see. Don’t refuse, for I must see you, and I have laid in a store of Roquefort cheese as a special inducement. Yesterday and today I have been working spasmodically, and then drowning myself in music. I saw two girls on the streets this morning who reminded me of you.
I’m going out to Charley’s tonight, but I’ll try to call you sometime tomorrow. Meanwhile, don’t despair, for I’m trying not to.
Love from Everett
Monday Afternoon
Frances dear,
Teresine dances tomorrow night at 8:20, so sleep sweetly tonight.
Everett
December 19
To Frances,
I wish the most blithe and serene Christmas that anyone could wish.
Everett
Though not swept up by radical organizations, his thoughtful discussions with friends gave him a pessimistic turn.
An abundance of social, political, and moral ideas, many of them contradictory, led Everett to question his own emotional stability, especially in regard to his frustrated need to express himself artistically.
December 22
2048 Polk St.
San Francisco
Dear Waldo,
I did not answer your letters earlier because most of the time I have been in a very restive, unstable mood, and did not feel like writing. I feel particularly that way tonight, but Father remarked that you were hurt by my silence.
Perhaps, as someone said the other day, it is just b
ecause I am nineteen and sensitive, but it is small consolation to be told that. I have been discovering new moods, new lows, new and disturbing variations in myself and my feelings for individuals, and people as a whole.
On the other hand, there is a lot of fun in me yet, and I have had some unusually gay times that were not feverishly so. But for the most part there has been an undercurrent of resentment or unrest.
I am sorry I could not send you anything at Christmas. I did have a gift for you, but I decided it was unsuitable. Your check rather embarrassed me; my first feeling was that I did not want it. I know too that you could ill afford to spare it. I have been spending what is, for me, a good deal of money lately. I sold a couple of pictures today, and spent the money already. Half the time I am broke or without money for carfare and telephone. I am not sure what I will do next month. I am tired of the place where I am staying. I shall probably spend a week in Berkeley, and then go up the coast, but probably I will hit the worst of the rainy season and sleep in mud puddles most of the time. I thought a while ago that I might be able to loosen up and really do a quantity of good work, because I was able to see some very splendid things; but I have not been able to loosen up for some while.
After various turnings, twistings, and recoils, I still have not been able to find any proper outlet for my feelings. Perhaps there is none and perhaps it is necessary for my feelings to die of weariness and refusal.
I won’t apologize for my emotions because I don’t feel completely responsible. I can trace certain reactions in them when I am analytic, but I do not care to now. I don’t expect you to understand them any more than anyone else, nor would it matter much if you did, because it seems to be up to me.
Don’t let my straying from normalcy disturb you; doubtless it is part of a somewhat symmetrical scheme which I seem to see dimly.
Your brother,
Everett
Blockprint and greeting on Everett’s Christmas cards he mailed from San Francisco in 1933.
December 29
Dear Uncle Emerson,
I want to tell you again how keenly I enjoyed the symphony last Saturday and how much I appreciated your taking me. I have since taken great pleasure remembering some strangely vivid phrases from the Mozart symphony, and the very delicately beautiful string passages in L’Oiseau de Feu. And the Wagner too; there are things in Wagner that always make me feel like flying. The music itself certainly soars.
Yesterday I went to the opera house and talked to Merola and to Mr. Ross, who, refusing to trade, generously gave me tickets to the next two concerts. I am taking Mrs. Maynard Dixon tonight. Last night I talked with Mr. Bern, and I expect to be able to hear his concert, too.
This afternoon I am downtown to get some fine photographs from Mr. Dassonville, in exchange for some prints I gave him the other day.
So you see, I am having a glorious time of it, and I’m glad I followed up your suggestions about the concerts.
Best wishes for a most joyful new year.
Your nephew,
Everett
* * *
[12] Everett here refers to Gargantua and Pantagruel, a satirical work by Francois Rabelais, originally published in five parts from 1532 to 1564.
[13] Paul Elder Bookstore in San Francisco was a significant cultural institution in the Bay Area. Along with books, Elder exhibited paintings, sold Rockwood pottery and Tiffany glass, and sponsored lectures of cultural interest to the community. The bookstore was designed by famed architect Bernard Maybeck. It was a significant achievement for the young Ruess to have placed his woodblockprints there.
[14] Dixon’s paintings can be found in many major museums. His murals may be seen on the walls of the Interior Department Building in Washington, D.C., as well as in several public buildings throughout the West. In his later life he moved to Mount Carmel, Utah, and commuted seasonally to Tucson, Arizona, where he died in November 1946.
[15] Other photographers on the staff of the Farm Security Administration were Walker Evans, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, and John Vachon. Lange also took striking photographs of the Japanese Americans interned in relocation camps during World War II. She divorced Maynard Dixon in 1935 and married Paul Schuster Taylor. In later years she owned a studio in San Francisco, She died in October 1965.
[16] “Uncle Emerson” was Emerson Knight, brother of Everett’s mother, Stella. Knight was a noted landscape architect in San Francisco and throughout northern California. Two of his best-known projects are the series of trails around Point Lobos and the amphitheater on Mount Tamalpais. He continued working on landscape projects until his death in 1960.
[17] Practically all readers will be familiar with the work of Ansel Adams, the dean of American landscape photographers. By this time, he was already well known. Adams had opened a studio gallery in downtown San Francisco at 166 Geary Street in the summer of 1933. His goal was to “bring things to San Francisco that should have come years ago,” with sales of his own work hopefully paying the rent and expenses. But in January 1934, Adams withdrew from the pressures and commercial concerns of operating the gallery to “the simple photographic life.” Ruess was fortunate to have entered San Francisco just during the few months Adams was manning his gallery, and it was during this period at the gallery that he became acquainted with Adams.
Chapter 6: The Letters 1934
January 2
235 Grenville Way
San Francisco
Dear Father,
On Sunday afternoon when the rain stopped for a while, I went for a long walk on the north side of the city. I watched the clouds shifting on the skyline, the stevedores loading tons of copper on a freighter, the gulls wheeling over the Bay, the clean, wet grass on hill slopes, the shacks and slums of the poor, and the mansions of the rich. I paused for about a quarter of an hour to admire the trunk of a symmetrically towering old eucalyptus on Russian Hill. I never saw more vivid or more beautiful coloring in a eucalyptus before.
This afternoon I went back there and made a painting of it, finishing at sunset. I knocked at the door of the house to show it to the owner, a woman, who was very interested. It turned out that her house is the second oldest in San Francisco, being built in 1852. All sorts of famous old characters have lived in it. I was invited to return and see the place more thoroughly.
This evening I just finished reading Pitkin’s introduction to the History of Human Stupidity. It is a long book and occupied me much of my time in the last few days. I was quite enthused for the first three hundred pages or so, and enjoyed the mental stimulation of it. It was strongly recommended to me by a boy I met in Sequoia, and it happened to be in at the library. I think I’ve had enough of Pitkin’s style for a while, but I’ll ask again at the library for the Psychology of Achievement. Do you know any other really good books on psychology that would be in the library?
I think you would be interested in this book if you have not read it. I enjoyed it for its range, and made a number of notes from it. Here are some that might interest you:
“The ability to perceive objects starts to decline as early as the seventeenth year. At fifty a man perceives things around him about as well as when he was fourteen, and at eighty, no better than a six yearold.
“The commonest and mildest form of stupidity caused by the ego is the habit of talking too much.
“Whitman (Walt) had a peculiar lack of normal motor reactions, especially on social relations. He also lacked the normal aggressive behavior of the erotic male. The one positive, creative urge in his nature was his narcissism. (Pitkin gives a lengthy exposal of Whitman’s stupidities.)
“Relatively as many people succeed in criminal careers as in noncriminal careers.
“The Church is the easiest way for frail and sickly stupid people, while the State is the easiest way for healthy, active dullards.
“In submission due to weakness and inability is the origin of the lure of Church and State, monastery and army, hierarchy and bureaucr
acy.
“The Golden Rule builds on a silly psychology, assuming, first, that people know their own minds, and secondly, that they can penetrate the minds of others.
“Things do not work themselves out for the good, as imbecile optimists say; they work out their own natures, whatever these happen to be, under conditions at hand, whatever they may be.”
You say that an artist must live deeply before he can achieve, but a person capable of it can achieve in music from eight until eighty. I contest that. There has been no great composer who has not lived long and deep, and to a large extent, you can trace improvement with the years. I think the same thing is true of performers, though in a lesser degree, for it requires less to interpret than to create. If you study the dates of the great musical compositions, you will find they were not written by eight-year-olds, not, on the other hand, by eighty-year-olds. So I don’t agree with Pitkin that music (the composing at least) is very different from the other arts in respect to age.
For myself, I am doing my best to have variety and intensity of experience, and largely succeeding, I think. I see no grounds for complaint on that score. There is no need for fearing that I will be a “one-sided” freak artist, to use your phrase, for I am interested almost equally in all the arts and in human relations and reactions as well.
As to this half-baked pother about my always feeling inferior in the presence of college graduates, that fear is groundless too. I am not nonplussed in the presence of anybody, and I am seldom at a loss with anyone I am interested in.
As to the million-dollar endowment of going through the college mill, I have three million dollar endowments already, that I am sure of, and I don’t have to go begging, I have my very deep sensitivities to beauty, to music, and to nature. In addition, thanks to you and Mother, I have an intellect that is capable of analysis and of grappling with things almost anywhere I turn.