On a Farther Shore

by William Souder

  Not long after Carson finalized her decision: Carson to Mary Frye, March 14, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 39, Chatham.

  A few weeks later, Carson learned: Carson to Mary Frye, April 23, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 42, Chatham.

  Disconsolate, Carson: Ibid., and Carson to Mary Frye, July 23, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 43, Chatham.

  She applied for admission: Carson to Mary Frye, April 23, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 41, Chatham; and Lear, Rachel Carson, p. 46.

  By the middle of her senior year: Legal agreement between Carson and PCW putting up two of her father’s lots as collateral, January 28, 1929, plus various notes, invoices, and correspondence between Carson and PCW, including two pleading letters to Margaret Stuart, the college’s secretary and assistant treasurer, on February 27, 1931, and August 26, 1932.

  Skinker was replaced by: Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 45, Chatham.

  Whiting held a PhD: Dysart, Chatham College, p. 179. 37 But Whiting turned out: Lear, Rachel Carson, pp. 48–49. 37 To keep their spirits up: Carson to Mary Frye, July 23, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 44, Chatham.

  Carson’s thoughts about life after PCW: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, November 8, 1954, Muskie.

  When the poem was published in 1842: In an email exchange with Brian Goldberg of the University of Minnesota English department, Goldberg explained for me the darker, more militaristic themes of “Locksley Hall.” He said Carson could certainly have read those lines as a call to adventure but only by contemplating them outside of the poem’s overall context.

  CHAPTER THREE: BIOLOGIZING

  The Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole: Maienschein, 100 Years Exploring Life, 1888–1988, pp. 19–25, 51–71.

  During her time at PCW, Mary Scott Skinker: Mary Scott Skinker to Mary Frye, July 11, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” pp. 26–30, Chatham.

  At Woods Hole, students collected: Maienschein, 100 Years Exploring Life, 1888–1988, p. 134.

  And the immersion in biology there: Mary Scott Skinker to Mary Frye, July 11, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 30, Chatham.

  Skinker sent Carson clippings: Carson to Mary Frye, August 6, 1928, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 45, Chatham.

  Carson, with a recommendation from: Lear, Rachel Carson, p. 50.

  In June, she graduated magna cum laude: Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 55, Chatham.

  She went first to Baltimore: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, August 4, 1929, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” pp. 56–58, Chatham. Carson’s long, detailed account of this trip, including her first encounter with the sea, was almost dreamlike. For a young woman who had never been anywhere but who was smitten with the world and all its wonders—from the great ocean to the divine Miss Skinker—it was an unforgettable passage.

  Carson wrote to a friend that Woods Hole: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, August 25, 1929, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” pp. 58–62, Chatham.

  Carson particularly liked exploring: Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 62, Chatham.

  The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries: Ibid.

  Carson also enjoyed collecting trips: “Memo for Mrs. Eales on Under the Sea-Wind,” Beinecke. Linda Lear, who included Carson’s ten-page memo about the origins of Under the Sea-Wind in the anthology Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, believes it was written as part of Carson’s response to a standard author’s questionnaire requested by a Mrs. Eales in the marketing department at Simon and Schuster. But in a letter to her editor at Simon and Schuster, Carson explained that Mrs. Eales was, in fact, a radio book reviewer in Washington, D.C., on whose program Carson had been interviewed. The memo, then, was background information Carson provided in advance for the interview (Carson to Maria Leiper, March 15, 1942, Beinecke).

  But Carson’s two months of study: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, August 25, 1929, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” pp. 58–62, Chatham. Carson also declared her intention to study the terminal nerve in reptiles on her application to the Marine Biological Laboratory, NCTC.

  “We thought we realized”: Ibid.

  Of the twenty-three students: Maienschein, 100 Years of Exploring Life, 1888–1988, p. 91.

  Ann Haven Morgan: Morgan, Field Book of Ponds and Streams.

  But Carson had never shared: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, November 10, 1929, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 70. I’m extrapolating backward here from Carson’s statement in this letter that at Johns Hopkins she was “getting used to tearing through the experiments as fast as the men do.” Since her visit to the MBL a couple of months earlier was the first time she’d shared lab space with men, it seems she must have been impressed by their skills from the outset.

  At Johns Hopkins she briefly: Seif, “Letter from Rachel Carson,” p. 83, Chatham.

  Her days were long, beginning just after seven: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, November 10, 1929, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 70, Chatham.

  She told a friend that she liked living in Baltimore: Ibid., p. 73.

  In her second year at Hopkins: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, October 16, 1930, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 81, Chatham. Carson admitted to Thompson that “impecuniousness” was for her a “constant affliction.”

  and to help support her family: Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 74.

  In 1932, after many missed payments: Carson to Margaret Stuart, August 26, 1932, Chatham.

  Much later, a neighbor: Personal communication. I was told this anecdote, which has a ring of Depression-era truth, by Diana Post, president of the Rachel Carson Council, and her husband, Clifford C. Hall. They spoke to the neighbor in question on a visit to Stemmers Run.

  She gave up on snakes: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, August 23, 1931, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 92, Chatham.

  “I don’t have time to think any more”: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, October 16, 1920, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 82, Chatham.

  Eventually Carson’s adviser: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, August 23, 1931, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 92, Chatham.

  The pronephros is an embryonic precursor: Carson, “Development of the Pronephros During the Embryonic and Early Larval Life of the Catfish (Ictalurus punctatus),” master’s thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1932, Beinecke.

  When Carson later received letters: Lear, Rachel Carson, p. 76.

  She started teaching biology: Carson to Dorothy Thompson, August 23, 1931, in Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 91, Chatham.

  which was a long ride: Seif, “Letters from Rachel Carson,” p. 93, Chatham. 49 but she did fall in love with an animal: Ibid., pp. 94–95.

  In the same lab where she studied: Ibid., p. 94.

  Carson thought another way: Ibid.

  Robert Carson collapsed and died: Lear, Rachel Carson, p. 77.

  At the urging of Mary Scott Skinker: Ibid., p. 78; and Department of the Interior personnel records, Application for Federal Employment, April 20, 1943, NCTC.

  In October she was hired as a: U.S. Department of the Interior personnel records, Personal History Statement, August 17, 1936, NCTC.

  Her job entailed: U.S. Department of the Interior personnel records, Application for Federal Employment, April 20, 1943, NCTC.

  These duties consisted mainly of: Carson, “The Real World Around Us,” Beinecke. This was a speech Carson delivered on April 21, 1954 to the Theta Sigma Phi Matrix Table Dinner in Columbus, Ohio, in which she recounted some of the events of her early career.

  The job was, as Carson later reported: U.S. Department of the Interior personnel records, Personal History Statement, August 17, 1936, NCTC.

  The Bureau of Fisheries had come into existence: “Historical Note,” U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, records ca. 1877–1948, Smithsonian Institution Archives, htt
p://​siarchives.​si.​edu/.

  The Fish Hawk, a 157-foot: U.S. Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center, http://​www.​history.​navy.​mil/.

  The Albatross, a majestic, white-hulled behemoth: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, http://​nefsc.​noaa.​gov/​history/.

  Oceanic Ichthyology, the 1895 classic: “Historical Note,” U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, records ca. 1877–1948, Smithsonian Institution Archives, http://​siarchives.​si.​edu/.

  The commission continued to grow: “Administrative History,” National Archives Finding Guide to Records Group 22, and “Records of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Record Group 22,” NARA.

  Carson’s boss was Elmer Higgins: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Fisheries, “Progress in Biological Inquiries,” report of the U.S. commissioner of fisheries, 1936 and 1937, NARA.

  Carson’s first newspaper story: Baltimore Sun, March 1, 1936, Beinecke. Filed with the story clipping is a check receipt for twenty dollars.

  Carson also sold a couple of stories: Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 20, 1938, Beinecke.

  In July 1936, Carson was appointed: Department of Commerce, Appointment Division, personnel records appointment notice, July 13, 1936, NCTC.

  CHAPTER FOUR: THE ENGLISH CONNECTION AND THE OCEAN DEEP

  Christmas Eve 1914 was clear and cold: Weintraub, Silent Night. This condensed account is derived entirely from Stanley Weintraub’s superbly detailed book about the Christmas Truce.

  Among the participants: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, p. 42.

  The son of a stern bank clerk: Ibid., p. 17.

  Williamson had been at the front: Ibid., p. 44.

  Williamson had shaken hands: Ibid., p. 42.

  The trenches on the front: Ibid.

  Only a few weeks after: Ibid., pp. 46–48.

  By March he was better: Ibid., p. 49.

  That spring Williamson got accepted: Ibid.

  and in March 1917: Ibid., p. 54.

  Williamson again saw heavy fighting: Ibid., pp. 56–57.

  He recovered and was returned to the war: Ibid., p. 58.

  Williamson had begun a novel: Ibid., p. 60.

  tearing around the countryside on a Norton motorcycle: Ibid., p. 63.

  Sometime in the summer of 1919: Ibid., p. 65.

  Lying down on the grass: Jefferies, Story of My Heart, pp. 3–4.

  “Human suffering,” he wrote: Ibid., p. 119.

  His natural companions: Ibid., p. 103.

  “I burn life like a torch”: Ibid., p. 95.

  Reading the book was a transforming experience: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, p. 65.

  He’d also been intrigued: Ibid., p. 96.

  Williamson began spending time: Ibid., p. 94.

  A vivid and at times brutal: Henry Williamson, Tarka the Otter.

  A few months after Tarka was published: Lawrence, Correspondence with Henry Williamson, pp. 11–33. Lawrence’s letter was written in Karachi in 1928 and forwarded to Williamson by their mutual friend, the writer and critic Edward Garnett.

  Their long, affectionate correspondence ended: Ibid., pp. 179–81.

  The new book had been inspired: Henry Williamson, Clear Water Stream, p. 189.

  It was a cottage named Shallowford: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, p. 127. A “deer park” is a private hunting reserve on which deer are maintained. At one time there were hundreds of such hunting parks in England (New York Times, January 23, 1887).

  He wondered if anything in ordinary life: Henry Williamson, Clear Water Stream, pp. 20–21.

  The Williamsons moved to Shallowford: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, p. 129.

  So I rediscovered the delights of water: Henry Williamson, Clear Water Stream, p. 31.

  Finally, in January 1935: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, p. 179.

  Williamson would later recall: Henry Williamson, Goodbye, West Country, p. 18.

  In his last letter to Lawrence: Lawrence, Correspondence with Henry Williamson, p. 177.

  And yet by August 1935 the book: Henry Williamson, Goodbye, West Country, p. 19.

  Salar knew of neither the fisherman: Henry Williamson, Salar the Salmon, p. 154.

  Anita Moffett wrote a long, adoring review: New York Times, June 21, 1936.

  Exhausted but happy to be done: Henry Williamson, Goodbye, West Country, pp. 225–57. My version of this trip is based wholly on Williamson’s lengthy account, which is coolly told and, of course, harrowing in hindsight.

  “He was very quick in his head movements”: Ibid., p. 244.

  Williamson had been favorably disposed: Ibid., p. 9.

  He even thought it possible: Ibid.

  The One to rule a better world: Jefferies, Story of My Heart, pp. 120–21. In a passage that seems at odds with Jefferies’s solitary nature, he argues that all human affairs would be better managed if “a man of humane breadth of view were placed at their head with unlimited power.”

  There was a renewal in Germany: Henry Williamson, Goodbye, West Country, p. 226. Williamson said that everywhere he went in Germany he met people who seemed to be breathing “extra oxygen” and who were firm in their belief that there would not be another war.

  In the spring of 1936, the Dorset County Chronicle: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, pp. 190–91. Anne Williamson is Henry Williamson’s daughter-in-law. In both her biography, Henry Williamson, and in an epilogue for T. E. Lawrence’s Correspondence with Henry Williamson, she argues convincingly that Williamson’s infatuation with Hitler and his appreciation for Germany between the wars were mainly the result of his experiences in the trenches in World War I and during the Christmas Truce, when he became convinced that the Germans were not a natural enemy. Less convincingly, she also contends that Williamson was never truly a fascist except in his belief that fascism in Germany would prevent another war. She concedes that Williamson’s wholesale invention of a planned radio program with Lawrence was inexplicable, though it was, she insists, made without “malicious intent” and probably in the genuine belief that, had he lived, Lawrence would have agreed to the idea.

  Whatever temporary luster this myth: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, p. 22.

  In the spring of 1936: Carson, “The Real World Around Us,” Beinecke.

  This she did not do right away: Carson, “Memo for Mrs. Eales on Under the Sea-Wind,” Beinecke.

  In the spring, Carson entered: Carson to Reader’s Digest contest editor, April 30, 1936, Beinecke.

  Then, in early 1937: Lear, Rachel Carson, p. 84.

  In June, Carson finally sent: Edward Weeks to Carson, July 8, 1937, Beinecke.

  In August, she received a check: Statement from the Atlantic Monthly, August 2, 1937, Beinecke.

  Carson had the magazine: Carson to Edward Weeks, July 18, 1937, Beinecke.

  The ocean is a place: Carson, “Undersea,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1937.

  Even the largest pair of hands: Personal communication with diatom expert Mark Edlund of the Science Museum of Minnesota’s St. Croix Watershed Research Station, who provided this estimate of how many diatoms two human hands might hold.

  If the underwater traveler might: Carson, “Undersea,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1937.

  As early as 1521, while exploring: Murray and Hjort, Depths of the Ocean, p. 2.

  Early in 1840, during the British Antarctic Expedition: Ibid., p. 5.

  But this was soon disproven: Ibid., pp. 9–10.

  The picture of the world’s oceans: Corfield, Silent Landscape, pp. 2–13.

  By the time she returned to England: Ibid., p. xiii.

  On March 23, 1875: Ibid., p. 204.

  “In the silent deeps a glacial cold prevails”: Carson, “Undersea,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1937.

  Individual elements are lost to view: Ibid.

  Van Loon conveyed his enthusiasm: Quincy Howe to Hendrik van Loon, September 9, 1937, Beinecke.

  Howe wrote to Carson:
Ibid.

  While the September issue of the Atlantic: Hendrik van Loon to Carson, September 10, 1937, Beinecke.

  Carson, feeling unprepared: Carson to Hendrik van Loon, October 14, 1937, Beinecke.

  In December 1937, van Loon told her: Hendrik van Loon to Carson, December 18, 1937, Beinecke.

  finally went north in mid-January: Mrs. Hendrik van Loon to Carson, January 7, 1938, Beinecke.

  Van Loon—a great man, she realized: Carson, “Real World Around Us,” Beinecke.

  Explaining her plan to van Loon: Carson to Hendrik van Loon, February 5, 1938, Beinecke.

  A delighted van Loon wrote back: Hendrik van Loon to Carson, February 6, 1938, Beinecke.

  whose editors were initially receptive: Edward Weeks to Carson, June 7, 1938, Beinecke.

  But when she sent a sample: Ibid., July 20, 1939, Beinecke. The date is correct; Carson had been toiling away for more than a year since she first proposed selling parts of the book to the Atlantic.

  Carson and the editors discussed: Ibid., August 9, 1939, Beinecke.

  Meanwhile, she wrote some book reviews: Statement from Atlantic Monthly, April 18, 1938, Beinecke.

  In April 1938, Carson implored the Atlantic: Carson to A. G. Ogden, April 26, 1938, Beinecke.

  The magazine declined: A. G. Ogden to Carson, April 27, 1938, Beinecke.

  But a month later they relented: Ibid., May 23, 1938, Beinecke.

  I have been more impressed with Mr. Williamson’s: Carson to A. G. Ogden, April 26, 1938, Beinecke.

  In 1936, feeling dispirited with his life: Williamson, Goodbye, West Country, pp. 100–105.

  When most of the line was out: Ibid.

  A photograph of Williamson’s eventual triumph: Anne Williamson, Henry Williamson, p. 181.

  Carson’s review of Goodbye, West Country: Carson, “Nature through English Eyes,” Atlantic Monthly, December 1938.

  “ ‘I am all with you when it comes to’ ”: Williamson, Goodbye, West Country, p. 10.

  As early as 1933, in a review: New York Times, October 11, 1933.

  Writers in Germany were required: Evans, Third Reich in Power, p. 158.

  Under National Socialism, German literature: Ibid., p. 155.