On a Farther Shore

by William Souder

  She had insisted that Oxford abandon: Carson to Philip Vaudrin, December 16, 1950, Beinecke.

  Carson and Rodell were angry with Oxford: Marie Rodell to Henry Z. Walck, August 23, 1951, Beinecke.

  Not so believably, Oxford pleaded: Henry Z. Walck to Carson, August 7, 1951, Beinecke.

  she complained even more bitterly: Carson to Henry Z. Walck, n.d., ca. fall 1951, and Marie Rodell to Henry Z. Walck, August 14, 1951, Beinecke.

  The Sea Around Us made the: New York Times, July 22, 1951.

  It was still at number five a week later: Ibid., July 29, 1951.

  In mid-August it was at: Ibid., August 19, 1951.

  and by early September: Ibid., September 2, 1951.

  In November 1951, as sales of: William M. Oman to Carson, November 9, 1951, Beinecke. Oman was vice president of Oxford University Press.

  There was some question: William M. Oman to Marie Rodell, November 30, 1951, Beinecke.

  In December, Rodell sold: A.B.C. Whipple to Marie Rodell, December 18, 1951, Beinecke. Whipple was an editor at Life.

  On April 20, 1952: New York Times, April 20 and 27, 1952.

  Sales of The Sea Around Us: Chicago Tribune, February 3, 1952.

  One was that more than: Memphis Commercial Appeal, March 18, 1952.

  Still another claim: Ibid.

  Both she and Rodell thought: Marie Rodell to William M. Oman, August 5, 1952, Beinecke. Carson’s dubiousness about the sales figures for Under the Sea-Wind were conveyed in an exchange of letters with Rodell that summer.

  Carson and Rodell also quarreled: Carson to Marie Rodell, n.d., ca. August 1952, Beinecke.

  The previous October, Carson had spent a strange: New York Herald Tribune, October 17, 1951.

  Carson had campaigned to have: Carson to Philip Vaudrin, July 10, 1950, and Philip Vaudrin to Carson, July 14 and 26, 1950, Beinecke. Carson’s letter is not preserved but is referenced in Vaudrin’s of July 14.

  In April 1952: Lear, Rachel Carson, pp. 220–21.

  she learned she’d won: Fon W. Boardman, Jr., to Carson, January 8, 1952, Beinecke. Carson had already received a telephone call from Henry Walck with the news.

  Although she misplaced the original letter: Carson to Fon W. Boardman, Jr., January 15, 1952, Beinecke.

  as there was a heavy schedule of interviews: Fon W. Boardman, Jr., to Carson, January 18, 1952, Beinecke. 161 The award ceremony was held: Ibid., January 8, 1952, Beinecke.

  At the head table with Carson: New York Herald Tribune, January 30, 1952.

  Jones was widely rumored to have been: Boston Herald, February 10, 1952; and Providence Journal, February 17, 1952.

  In her acceptance speech: Carson, acceptance speech, National Book Award for Nonfiction, January 29, 1952, Beinecke.

  We live in a scientific age: Ibid.

  “Perhaps if we reversed the telescope”: Ibid.

  RKO, the movie company: Publishers Weekly, January 12, 1952; and Marie Rodell to William M. Oman, August 22, 1952, Beinecke.

  When Carson saw a first cut of the movie: Carson to RKO, January 19, 1952, and Henry Z. Walck to RKO, January 21, 1952, Beinecke.

  Marie Rodell complained to Oxford: Marie Rodell to Henry Z. Walck, January 29, 1952, Beinecke.

  In February, Allen and Carson: Carson to RKO, February 29, 1952, Beinecke.

  The finished film: Personal observation. The film is available on DVD and is, I must say, an unusual period piece.

  it would “cheapen and misrepresent”: Carson to Henry Z. Walck, April 12, 1953, Beinecke.

  In March 1952: Marie Rodell to Carson, March 24, 1952, Beinecke.

  In the spring of 1952, Carson got away: Carson to Fon W. Boardman, Jr., March 14, 1952, Beinecke.

  On her resignation: U.S. Department of the Interior, personnel records, resignation, May 12, 1952, NCTC.

  Carson bought some land on Southport Island: Carson to Marie Rodell, September 9, 1952, Beinecke.

  It was long and low: Personal observation. In the summer of 2010, I spent a week at Carson’s cottage, which is owned by Roger Christie and his wife, Wendy Sisson. The cottage has changed little in the past half century. The shoreline and its tide pools evolve slowly and continuously, the tides rise and fall, and the long swell running into Sheepscot Bay from the Atlantic is never the same, and so all these things, too, are just as they were in Carson’s time.

  “blowing and rolling”: Carson to Marie Rodell, September 9, 1952, Beinecke.

  Back in New York, Marie Rodell: Marie Rodell to Carson, November 17, 1952, Beinecke.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: DOROTHY

  In 1953, Southport Island had: “Annual Report of the Town Officers of the Town of Southport,” year ended January 31, 1953, Southport Memorial Library.

  the actress Margaret Hamilton: Personal communication with Ron Orchard of the Southport Historical Society and Hendricks Hill Museum.

  In the 1880s a Massachusetts Civil War veteran: Personal communication with Stanley Freeman, Jr.

  In 1939, Stan and Dorothy: Ibid.

  On Stan Freeman’s birthday, July 15, 1951: Ibid.; Dorothy Freeman’s unpublished account of her early friendship with Rachel Carson, and Dorothy Freeman’s “round robin” letter, February 17, 1953, Muskie. The “round robin” letters were periodic updates exchanged among Dorothy Freeman and her friends, whom she often greeted in the letters as “Dear Gals.”

  But Carson did respond: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, December 15, 1952, Muskie. This letter, like the great majority in the Dorothy Freeman collection at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library at Bates College, was published in Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman 1952–1964, edited and annotated by Dorothy’s granddaughter, Martha Freeman.

  A half year later, on June 2, 1953: Dorothy Freeman diary entry, Muskie.

  called on Rachel Carson at her new cottage: Ibid.

  Carson advised them to wear sneakers and pants: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, September 3, 1953, Muskie.

  It was a happy affair: Ibid.

  Dorothy was startled by the wealth of sea life: Dorothy Freeman’s “round robin” letter, September 21, 1953, Muskie. This account of the collecting party also includes Dorothy’s initial impression of Carson.

  Stan had given Carson a picture: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, September 10, 1953, Muskie.

  The Freemans had also commiserated: Ibid., September 3, 1953, Muskie.

  She sent Dorothy a farewell note: Ibid., September 10, 1953, Muskie.

  Carson sent off a long letter: Ibid., September 28, 1953, Muskie. Dorothy (whose early letters to Carson are not preserved) had apparently mentioned that she and Stan hoped to see Irwin Allen’s movie version of The Sea Around Us. Carson expressed her dislike of the film and said she’d been gratified when a reviewer for the Washington Post had “roasted” the script. Carson said, however, that she would be “quite prepared to forgive” her new friend if Dorothy saw the movie and somehow enjoyed it.

  A week later, Carson wrote again: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, October 5, 1953, Muskie.

  Carson went off to Myrtle Beach: Ibid., November 5 and 6, 1953, Muskie. Letters that ran on from one day to the next or that started in one part of a day and were continued at a later hour became a fixture in the Carson-Freeman correspondence.

  In mid-November, Dorothy proposed that: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, November 19 and 20, 1953, Muskie.

  She told Dorothy she liked to imagine: Ibid., December 11, 1953, Muskie.

  Carson admitted that Jefferies was: Ibid., November 19 and 20, 1953, Muskie.

  “I am sure that my own style”: Ibid.

  Cryptically, Carson added: ibid.

  In early December, Carson wrote: Ibid., December 11, 1953, Muskie.

  And, as you must know in your heart: ibid.

  Carson’s AAAS talk: Alfred C. Redfield to Carson, April 15, 1953, Beinecke. The theme of the meeting was “The Sea Frontier.”

  Carson was listed on the program: From the printed text o
f her talk, December 29, 1953, Beinecke. The title of Carson’s talk was “The Edge of the Sea.”

  The edge of the sea is a laboratory: Ibid.

  As Carson was leaving the hall: Dorothy Freeman to Carson, n.d., ca. Christmas 1954, Muskie. This unpublished letter summarizing their first extended time alone with each other survives only as a draft. Carson apparently destroyed most of the letters she received from Dorothy in 1953 and 1954. Martha Freeman reports in Always, Rachel that on one occasion at Carson’s home the two women burned some of Dorothy’s letters to Carson. Although they often discussed the special nature of their friendship and the need to keep some of their correspondence completely private, Dorothy was evidently less diligent in destroying letters from Carson than Carson was in getting rid of hers.

  Carson slept fitfully on the train: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, January 1, 1954, Muskie.

  A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Ibid. Carson is quoting the famous opening lines from John Keats’s 1818 epic poem “Endymion.” Although those lines endure, the poem was widely panned when it was published.

  Carson was already imagining: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, January 25, 1954, Muskie.

  Carson thought it was going to be difficult: Ibid.

  Eventually they began referring to: Carson, Always, Rachel, p. xvii.

  Just when it was hard to imagine: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, February 6, 1954, Muskie. This long, tender letter is surely one of the most unguarded professions of love ever composed. It was almost certainly one of the private “apples” that Carson and Dorothy sent inside letters that might be shared with friends or family, as it was intimate and Carson sent another more newsy letter on the same date. Even so, Dorothy apparently decided to share the “Hyacinth Letter” with Stan anyway—and reported to Carson that Stan had been completely understanding. The parable of the white hyacinth seems to have originated with a thirteenth-century Persian poet named Mosleh od-Din Sa’di. Carson may have read a reference to it in the description of the Italian village of Correggio in Little Journeys, by the obscure American writer Elbert Hubbard.

  I don’t suppose anyone really knows: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, February 6, 1954, Muskie.

  Brooks envisioned something practical: Paul Brooks to Carson, September 1, 1950, Beinecke.

  Brooks said he didn’t have any: Ibid., September 22, 1950, Beinecke.

  Carson, unwilling to be rushed: Marie Rodell to Paul Brooks, October 4, 1950, Beinecke.

  Carson and Brooks decided on: Paul Brooks to Carson, May 1, 1951, and Carson to Paul Brooks, May 14, 1951, Beinecke.

  He told Carson her reports: Paul Brooks to Carson, December 12, 1951, Beinecke.

  Lovell Thompson, Houghton Mifflin’s publisher: Carson to Paul Brooks, July 6, 1952, Beinecke. The imperious tone of this letter probably didn’t surprise Brooks, who had watched Carson become a superstar over the course of the past year—a fact Carson herself was never shy about pointing out in her letters to him. Knowing that the seashore guide was now certain to be a bestseller—regardless of how she wrote it or when she turned it in—contributed hugely to his inexhaustible patience.

  This set off alarms at Houghton Mifflin: Memo from Paul Brooks to Lovell Thompson, July 8, 1952, Beinecke.

  Thompson, not entirely satisfied: Thompson jotted this response on the memo Brooks had sent to him on July 8, 1952, Beinecke.

  Around Christmas 1952: Note from Carson to Paul Brooks, n.d., Beinecke.

  At New Year’s, she got off a portion: Ibid.

  She also proposed a title: Paul Brooks to Carson, January 7, 1953, Beinecke.

  Brooks was pleased with the copy: Ibid.

  Rodell asked Houghton Mifflin to: Marie Rodell to Paul Brooks, February 5, 1953, Beinecke.

  In March, Carson and Brooks: Carson to Paul Brooks, March 3, 1953, Beinecke.

  Brooks, hoping to ease: Paul Brooks to Bob Hines, March 10, 1953, Beinecke.

  Relieved, Carson thanked Brooks: Carson to Paul Brooks, March 11, 1953, Beinecke.

  Not long after the Hines discussions: Marie Rodell to Paul Brooks, March 13, 1953, Beinecke.

  Only a few days later: Carson to Paul Brooks, March 17, 1953, Beinecke.

  Brooks, diplomatically changing the subject: Paul Brooks to Carson, March 27, 1953, Beinecke.

  Carson responded that: Carson to Paul Brooks, April 1, 1953, Beinecke.

  Carson was ill in May 1953: Telegram from Carson to Paul Brooks, May 26, 1953, and Carson to Paul Brooks, May 28, 1953, Beinecke.

  Then her mother suffered: Carson to Paul Brooks, July 29, 1953, Beinecke.

  In late June: Ibid., June 24, 1953, Beinecke.

  In July, Bob Hines was finishing up: Bob Hines to Paul Brooks, July 5, 1953, Beinecke.

  who promised to deliver: Carson to Paul Brooks, July 29, 1953, Beinecke.

  He even visited Carson: Paul Brooks to Bob Hines, September 21, 1953, Beinecke.

  In October, Carson told him: Carson to Paul Brooks, October 13, 1953, Beinecke.

  Carson and Brooks agreed: Ibid., March 5, 1954, Beinecke.

  March came: Ibid.

  because she told Dorothy: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, January 25, 1954, Muskie.

  One day she spoke to: Ibid.

  But just two weeks after telling Brooks: Carson to Paul Brooks, March 20, 1954, Beinecke.

  This time, Brooks pushed back: Memo from Paul Brooks to Lovell Thompson, April 4, 1954, Beinecke.

  Brooks then wrote to Carson: Paul Brooks to Carson, April 6, 1954, Beinecke.

  One editor told Brooks: Memo to Paul Brooks from “ACW,” April 15, 1954, Beinecke. ACW was evidently Ann Wyman of the editorial staff at Houghton Mifflin.

  Brooks took this criticism to heart: Paul Brooks to Carson, April 20, 1954, Beinecke.

  To Brooks’s relief: Carson to Paul Brooks, April 27, 1954, Beinecke.

  but she also reminded him: Carson to Paul Brooks, May 4, 1954, Beinecke.

  He told her she’d managed: Paul Brooks to Carson, May 4, 1954, Beinecke.

  calling Carson’s latest efforts “wonderful”: Memo to Paul Brooks from “ACW,” May 4, 1954, Beinecke.

  The editor who had: Ibid.

  Carson was happy to hear this: Carson to Paul Brooks, May 5, 1954, Beinecke.

  but she urged Brooks to hold: Ibid., May 16, 1954, Beinecke.

  everyone involved was overjoyed: Paul Brooks to Carson, August 25, 1954, Beinecke.

  In August 1954, Brooks again visited: Ibid.

  But back in Maryland in November: Carson to Paul Brooks, November 2, 1954, Beinecke.

  Brooks wrote back to say: Paul Brooks to Carson, November 4, 1954, Beinecke.

  But in early January: Carson to Paul Brooks, January 10, 1955, Beinecke.

  At the end of January she told Brooks: Ibid., January 30, 1955, Beinecke.

  A month later she said: Ibid., February 8, 1955, Beinecke.

  Then, on March 15, it was done: Paul Brooks to Carson, March 17, 1955, Beinecke.

  Brooks wrote to tell Carson: Ibid. In an act of exceeding gallantry, Brooks added that the manuscript had arrived on March 15 “as promised.”

  which Dorothy described as “The Revelation”: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, February 20, 1954, Muskie.

  Carson’s only regret was: Ibid., February 13, 1954, Muskie.

  Dorothy said they were caught up in: Ibid.

  Carson said it was a process of “discovery”: Ibid., February 20, 1954, Muskie.

  In late March 1954: Ibid., March 20, 1954, Muskie.

  Carson met with Paul Brooks: Ibid., and Carson to Dorothy Freeman, April 3, 1954, Muskie.

  Dorothy had promised to bring: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, March 20, 1954, Muskie.

  She also admitted to Dorothy: Ibid., March 1, 1954, Muskie. Carson had earlier told Dorothy that part of what made work on The Edge of the Sea so difficult was the not knowing whether she could “do it again.” She said—far too grandly—that her work was a matter of “destiny” and that she had a hard-to-explain feeling that she was merely �
�the instrument” though which something fine had been created, a process that had “little to do with” herself (Carson to Dorothy Freeman, February 20, 1954, Muskie).

  In April, Carson delivered two speeches: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, February 21, 1954, Muskie.

  Carson thought it odd that: Ibid., May 3–4, 1954, Muskie.

  Carson told Dorothy she didn’t like: Ibid., May 1, 1954, Muskie.

  Then, for five days in May 1954: Carson, Always, Rachel, p. 41. Editor Martha Freeman gives the dates for this retreat as May 17–21, 1954. 192 They stayed mostly at Carson’s cottage: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, May 3–4, 1954, Muskie.

  They had lazy, laughter-filled: Dorothy Freeman to Carson, n.d., ca. Christmas 1954, Muskie.

  Carson, who was happy that: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, April 11–12, 1954, Muskie.

  One day they heard: Dorothy Freeman to Carson, n.d., ca. Christmas 1954, Muskie.

  Another time Dorothy surprised Carson: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, May 23, 1954, Muskie.

  Carson briefly returned to Silver Spring: Ibid.

  Carson bought a “terribly sporty looking”: Ibid., June 22, 1954, Muskie.

  Carson told Dorothy she loved: Ibid., May 27, 1954, Muskie.

  Dorothy enjoyed exploring the shoreline: Dorothy Freeman to Carson, n.d., ca. Christmas 1954, Muskie.

  One time Carson took Dorothy to a special place: Dorothy Freeman to Paul Brooks, June 21, 1971, Muskie. Brooks had asked Freeman to read and comment on the manuscript for his book about Carson, The House of Life.

  Under water that was clear as glass: Carson, Edge of the Sea, p. 3.

  Dorothy seemed to remember everything: Dorothy Freeman to Carson, n.d., ca. Christmas 1954, Muskie.

  Months earlier, the woman who: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, February 6, 1954, Muskie.

  Then, on the day of their cruise: Ibid., July 28, 1955, and Dorothy Freeman to Carson, n.d., ca. Christmas 1954, Muskie.

  Carson and Dorothy agreed to think: Carson to Dorothy Freeman, May 30, 1954, Muskie.

  In a candid, almost elegiac letter: Dorothy Freeman to Carson, April 15, 1956, Muskie.