elections are the crazy things they are. We only feel the emotions of the group beast in times of religious exaltation, in being moved by some piece of art which intoxicates us while we do not know what it is that does it. Are you as nuts as I am now?
love
john
To Carlton A. Sheffield
Salinas
June 30, 1933
Dear Dook:
I had your letter in answer to my hectic one. And I was sorry that you went off into consideration of the technique of the novel which will result. I can see how it will be done all right, but I am in more interest just now to get the foundation straight and the physical integrity of it completed.
My sister Beth is coming over for a few days. Perhaps we might get up to Sausalito while she is here to relieve us. Canât tell, though. Everything gets out of hand this year. Thereâs probably something wrong meteorologically.
Nothing is changed here. This is going to be a very long siege. The doctor says it may last for years. Thereâs a sentence for you, for we canât leave while it lasts. There is no way out. I finished one story and it is ready to be typed, about ten thousand words, I guess [The Red Pony]. There was no consecutive effort put on it. If it has any continuity it is marvelous. I canât think of any possible medium which would include it. It was good training in self control and thatâs about all the good it is. Now I have my new theme to think about there will be few loopholes in my days. I can think about it while helping with a bed pan. I can make notes at any time of the day or night, and I think I shall delay the writing of it until I have the ability for sustained concentration. However, if the time is too long I canât even wait for that. Iâll have to go to work on it. The pieces of it are fast massing and getting ready to drop into their places.
I think this is all of this letter.
love
john
Now he began using the word âphalanxâ for the âgroupâ or âgroup unitâ he had been describing.
To George Albee
[Salinas]
[1933]
Dear George:
I have your letter of this morning. Mary just went home. We liked having her, but she brought her children which took all her time from helping, and the noise they made was out of place in this house of gloom and melancholy. They made us nervous. I like them. They are the best children. But this is no place for any child. We are taking care of a dead person. We work as hard as we can to keep from thinking of it. We try all we can to keep out of her mind.
I can answer all of your questions now. But I hesitate because of the work it entails. I shall try though, because you need help and this will help you, not because it is something I have discovered. I havenât discovered it. The discovery has come as all great ones have, by a little discovery by each of a great number of men, and finally by one man who takes all the little discoveries and correlates them and gives the whole thing a name. The thesis takes in all life, and for that part, all matter. But you are only interested in life and so am I.
We know that with certain arrangements of atoms we might have what we would call a bar of iron. Certain other arrangements of atoms plus a mysterious principle make a living cell. Now the living cell is very sensitive to outside stimuli or tropisms. A further arrangement of cells and a very complex one may make a unit which we call a man. That has been our final unit. But there have been mysterious things which could not be explained if man is the final unit. He also arranges himself into larger units, which I have called the phalanx. The phalanx has its own memoryâmemory of the great tides when the moon was close, memory of starvations when the food of the world was exhausted. Memory of methods when numbers of his units had to be destroyed for the good of the whole, memory of the history of itself. And the phalanx has emotions of which the unit man is incapable. Emotions of destruction, of
love
john
To Carlton A. Sheffield
Salinas
June 30, 1933
Dear Dook:
I had your letter in answer to my hectic one. And I was sorry that you went off into consideration of the technique of the novel which will result. I can see how it will be done all right, but I am in more interest just now to get the foundation straight and the physical integrity of it completed.
My sister Beth is coming over for a few days. Perhaps we might get up to Sausalito while she is here to relieve us. Canât tell, though. Everything gets out of hand this year. Thereâs probably something wrong meteorologically.
Nothing is changed here. This is going to be a very long siege. The doctor says it may last for years. Thereâs a sentence for you, for we canât leave while it lasts. There is no way out. I finished one story and it is ready to be typed, about ten thousand words, I guess [The Red Pony]. There was no consecutive effort put on it. If it has any continuity it is marvelous. I canât think of any possible medium which would include it. It was good training in self control and thatâs about all the good it is. Now I have my new theme to think about there will be few loopholes in my days. I can think about it while helping with a bed pan. I can make notes at any time of the day or night, and I think I shall delay the writing of it until I have the ability for sustained concentration. However, if the time is too long I canât even wait for that. Iâll have to go to work on it. The pieces of it are fast massing and getting ready to drop into their places.
I think this is all of this letter.
love
john
Now he began using the word âphalanxâ for the âgroupâ or âgroup unitâ he had been describing.
To George Albee
[Salinas]
[1933]
Dear George:
I have your letter of this morning. Mary just went home. We liked having her, but she brought her children which took all her time from helping, and the noise they made was out of place in this house of gloom and melancholy. They made us nervous. I like them. They are the best children. But this is no place for any child. We are taking care of a dead person. We work as hard as we can to keep from thinking of it. We try all we can to keep out of her mind.
I can answer all of your questions now. But I hesitate because of the work it entails. I shall try though, because you need help and this will help you, not because it is something I have discovered. I havenât discovered it. The discovery has come as all great ones have, by a little discovery by each of a great number of men, and finally by one man who takes all the little discoveries and correlates them and gives the whole thing a name. The thesis takes in all life, and for that part, all matter. But you are only interested in life and so am I.
We know that with certain arrangements of atoms we might have what we would call a bar of iron. Certain other arrangements of atoms plus a mysterious principle make a living cell. Now the living cell is very sensitive to outside stimuli or tropisms. A further arrangement of cells and a very complex one may make a unit which we call a man. That has been our final unit. But there have been mysterious things which could not be explained if man is the final unit. He also arranges himself into larger units, which I have called the phalanx. The phalanx has its own memoryâmemory of the great tides when the moon was close, memory of starvations when the food of the world was exhausted. Memory of methods when numbers of his units had to be destroyed for the good of the whole, memory of the history of itself. And the phalanx has emotions of which the unit man is incapable. Emotions of destruction, of
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