Once a theme was established we subjected observable nature to it. The following is an example of our game-one developed quite a long time ago.
We thought that perhaps our species thrives best and most creatively in a state of semi-anarchy, governed by loose rules and half-practiced mores. To this we added the premise that over-integration in human groups might parallel the law in paleontology that over-armor or over-ornamentation are symptoms of decay and disappearance. Indeed, we thought, over-integration might be might be the symptom of human decay. We thought: there is no creative unit in the human save the individual working alone. In pure creativeness, in art, in music, in mathematics, there are no true collaborations. The creative principle is a lonely and an individual matter. Groups can correlate, investigate, and build, but we could not think of any group that has ever created or invented anything. Indeed, the first impulse of the group seems to be to destroy the creation and the creator. But integration, or the designed group, seems to be highly vulnerable. the symptom of human decay. We thought: there is no creative unit in the human save the individual working alone. In pure creativeness, in art, in music, in mathematics, there are no true collaborations. The creative principle is a lonely and an individual matter. Groups can correlate, investigate, and build, but we could not think of any group that has ever created or invented anything. Indeed, the first impulse of the group seems to be to destroy the creation and the creator. But integration, or the designed group, seems to be highly vulnerable.
Now with this structure of speculation we would slip examples on the squares of the speculative graphing paper.
Consider, we would say, the Third Reich or the Politburocontrolled Soviet. The sudden removal of twenty-five key men from either system could cripple it so thoroughly that it would take a long time to recover, if it ever could. To preserve itself in safety such a system must destroy or remove all opposition as a danger to itself. But opposition is creative and restriction is non-creative. The force that feeds growth is therefore cut off. Now, the tendency to integration must constantly increase. And this process of integration must destroy all tendencies toward improvisation, must destroy the habit of creation, since this is sand in the bearings of the system. The system then must, if our speculation is accurate, grind to a slow and heavy stop. Thought and art must be forced to disappear and a weighty traditionalism take its place. Thus we would play with thinking. A too greatly integrated system or society is in danger of destruction since the removal of one unit may cripple the whole.
Consider the blundering anarchic system of the United States, the stupidity of some of its lawmakers, the violent reaction, the slowness of its ability to change. Twenty-five key men destroyed could make the Soviet Union stagger, but we could lose our congress, our president, and our general staff and nothing much would have happened. We would go right on. In fact we might be better for it.
That is an example of the game we played. Always our thinking was prefaced with, "It might be so!" Often a whole night would draw down to a moment while we pursued the fireflies of our thinking.
Ed spoke sometimes of a period he valued in his life. It was after he had left home and entered the University of Chicago. He had not liked his home life very well. The rules that he had known were silly from his early childhood were finally removed.
"Adults, in their dealing with children, are insane," he said. "And children know it too. Adults lay down rules they would not think of following, speak truths they do not believe. And yet they expect children to obey the rules, believe the truths, and admire and respect their parents for this nonsense. Children must be very wise and secret to tolerate adults at all. And the greatest nonsense of all that adults expect children to believe is that people learn by experience. No greater lie was ever revered. And its falseness is immediately discerned by children since their parents obviously have not learned anything by experience. Far from learning, adults simply become set in a maze of prejudices and dreams and sets of rules whose origins they do not know and would not dare inspect for fear the whole structure might topple over on them. I think children instinctively know this," Ed said. "Intelligent children learn to conceal their knowledge and keep free of this howling mania."
When he left home, he was free at last, and he remembered his first freedom with a kind of glory. His freedom was not one of idleness.
"I don"t know when I slept," he said. "I don"t think there was time to sleep. I tended furnaces in the early morning. Then I went to cla.s.s. I had lab all afternoon, then tended furnaces in the early evening. I had a job in a little store in the evening and got some studying done then, until midnight. Well, then I was in love with a girl whose husband worked nights, and naturally I didn"t sleep much from midnight until morning. Then I got up and tended furnaces and went to cla.s.s. What a time," he said, "what a fine time that was."
It is necessary in any kind of picture of Ed Ricketts to give some account of his s.e.x life since that was by far his greatest drive. His life was saturated with s.e.x and he was to a very great extent preoccupied with it. He gave it a monumental amount of thought and time and a.n.a.lysis. It will be no violation to discuss this part of his life since he had absolutely no shyness about discussing it himself.
To begin with, he was a hyper-thyroid. His metabolic rate was abnormally high. He had to eat at very frequent intervals or his body revolted with pain and anger. He was, during the time I knew him, and, I gather, from the very beginning, as concupiscent as a bull terrier. His s.e.xual output and preoccupation was or purported to be prodigious. I do not know beyond doubt about the actual output. That is hearsay but well authenticated; but certainly his preoccupation with s.e.xual matters was very great.
As far as women were concerned, he was completely without what is generally called "honor." It was not that he was dishonorable. The word simply had no meaning for him if it implied abstemiousness. Any man who left a wife in his care and expected him not to try for her was just a fool. He was compelled to try. The woman might reject him, and he would not be unreasonably importunate, but certainly he would not fail for lack of trying.
When I first met him he was engaged in a scholarly and persistent way in the process of deflowering a young girl. This was a long and careful affair. He not only was interested in a s.e.xual sense, but he had also an active interest in the psychic and physical structure of virginity. There was, I believe, none of the usual sense of triumph at overcoming or being first. Ed"s physical basis was a pair of very hot pants, but his secondary motive was an active and highly intellectual interest in the state of virginity and the change involved in abandoning that state. His knowledge of anatomy was large, but, as he was wont to say, the variation in structure is delightfully large, even leaving out abnormalities, and this variation gives a constant interest and surprise to a function which is basically pleasant anyway.
The resistance of this particular virgin was surprising. He did not know whether it was based on some block, or on the old-fashioned reluctance of a normal girl toward defloration, or, as he thought possible, on a distaste for himself personally. He inspected each of these possibilities with patient care. And since he had no shyness about himself, it did not occur to him to have any reluctance about discussing his project with his friends and acquaintances. It is perhaps a fortunate thing that this particular virgin did not hear the discussions. They might have embarra.s.sed her, a matter that did not occur to Ed. Many years later, when she heard about the whole thing, she was of the opinion that she might still be a virgin if she had heard herself so intimately discussed. But by then, it was fortunately, she agreed, far too late.
One thing is certain. Ed did not like his s.e.x uncomplicated. If a girl were unattached and without problems as well as willing, his interest was not large. But if she had a husband or seven children or a difficulty with the law or some whimsical neuroticism in the field of love, Ed was charmed and instantly active. If he could have found a woman who was not only married, but a mother, in prison, and one of Siamese twins, he would have been delighted.
It will be impossible to put down much anecdote concerning his activities. The more interesting affairs were discussed with such freedom, not only by Ed but by any number of amateur referees, that they acquired a certain local fame. This may be perfectly acceptable as confirmed gossip, but in print the protagonists might be inclined to consider the histories libelous, and they surely are.
His taste in women was catholic as long as there were complications and no thin lips. Complexion, color of hair and eyes, shape or size, seemed to make no difference to him. He was singularly open to suggestion.
Ordinarily Ed was able to view his fellow humans with the clear sight of objectivity only slightly warped by like or dislike. He could give the best and most valuable advice based on great knowledge and understanding. However, when the strong winds of love shook him, all this was changed. Then his objectivity was likely to blow sky-high.
The object of his affection herself contributed very little to his picture of her. She was only the physical frame on which he draped a woman. She was like those large faceless dolls on which clothes are made. He built his own woman on this form, created her from the ground up, invented her appearance and built her mind, furnished her with talents and sensitivenesses which were not only astonishing but downright untrue. Then the woman in process was likely to come with surprise to the conclusion that she loved poetry she had never heard of, and could not understand if she had, that she breathed shallowly over music the existence of which was equally unknown to her. She became beautiful but not necessarily in any way that was familiar to her. And her thoughts-these would be likely to surprise her most of all, since she might not have been aware that she had any thoughts at all.
I cannot think of this tendency of Ed"s as self-delusion. He simply manufactured the woman he wanted, rather like that enlightened knight in the Welsh tale who made a wife entirely out of flowers. Sometimes the building process went on for quite a long time, and when it was completed everyone-even Ed-was quite confused. But at other times the force of his structure changed the raw material until the girl actually became what he thought her to be. I remember one very sharp example of this.
One of our friends was a sardine fisherman who had an interesting and profitable avocation. The sardine season continues only part of the year, leaving some months of idleness, which is the financial downfall of most fishermen. Our friend, however, was never idle and never broke. He managed, booked, protected, disciplined, and robbed a string of women-never many, rarely over five. He was successful and happy in his hobby. He was our friend and we saw a good deal of him.
This story is to ill.u.s.trate the force and reasonableness of Ed"s woman-building. I don"t know how he got confused in this matter but he did, and the subsequent history bears out my belief in his success.
Our friend, in a moment of playfulness, brought one of his clients to a party, a small but unfragile blonde of endurance and experience. Ed met her and in a lapse of reason made an error about her. He went to considerable effort to get her away from her protector. He had an idea that she was not only inexperienced but quite shy-this last probably because she barely had acquired the power of speech and did not trust it as a means of communication. Ed thought her beautiful and young and virginal. He took her away on a vacation. He rebuilt her in his mind. And he tried to seduce her, he tried manfully, persuasively, philosophically, to seduce her. But he had built too well. In some way he had convinced her that she was what he had mistaken her for and she resisted his advances with maidenly fiber and consistency. At the end of a month he had to give up. He never did get to bed with her. But he took up so much of her time that she had to work very hard to make a stake for our friend when the sardine season was over.
In Ed"s ecstasy he was able to make true things which lacked a certain scientific verification. One of his loves, one of his greatest, lasted a number of years. Every night he wrote a letter to his love, sometimes three lines, sometimes ten pages of his small, careful typing. He told me that she did the same, that she wrote to him every day, and he believed it. And I know beyond any doubt that in five years he received from her not more than eight childish scribbled notes. And he truly believed that she wrote to him every day.
Ed"s scientific notebooks were very interesting. Among his collecting notes and zoological observations there would be the most outspoken and indelicate observation from another kind of collecting. After his death I had to go through these notebooks before turning them over to Hopkins Marine Station, a branch of Stanford University, as Ed"s will directed. I was sorry I had to remove a number, a great number, of the entries from the notebooks. I did not do this because they lacked interest, but it occurred to me that a student delving into Ed"s notes for information on invertebratology could emerge with blackmail material on half the female population of Monterey. Ed simply had no reticence about such things. I removed the notes but did not destroy them. They have an interest, I think, above the personalities mentioned. In some future time the women involved may lovingly remember the incidents.
In the back of his car Ed carried an ancient blanket that once had been red but that had faded to a salmon pink from use and exposure. It was a battle-scarred old blanket, veteran of many spreadings on hill and beach. Gra.s.s seeds and bits of seaweed were pounded and absorbed into the wool itself. I do not think Ed would have started his car in the evening without his blanket in the back seat.
Before love struck and roiled his vision like a stirred pool, Ed had a fine and appraising eye for a woman. He would note with enthusiasm a well-lipped mouth, a swelling breast, a firm yet cushioned bottom, but he also inquired into other subtleties-the padded thumb, shape of foot, length and structure of finger and toe, plump-lobed ear and angle of teeth, thigh and set of hip and movement in walking too. He regarded these things with joy and thanks-giving. He always was pleased that love and women were what they were or what he imagined them.
But for all of Ed"s pleasures and honesties there was a transcendent sadness in his love-something he missed or wanted, a searching that sometimes approached panic. I don"t know what it was he wanted that was never there, but I know he always looked for it and never found it. He sought for it and listened for it and looked for it and smelled for it in love. I think he found some of it in music. It was like a deep and endless nostalgia-a thirst and pa.s.sion for "going home."
He was walled off a little, so that he worked at his philosophy of "breaking through," of coming out through the back of the mirror into some kind of reality which would make the day world dreamlike. This thought obsessed him. He found the symbols of "breaking through" in Faust, Faust, in Gregorian music, and in the sad, drunken poetry of Li Po. Of the in Gregorian music, and in the sad, drunken poetry of Li Po. Of the Art of the Fugue Art of the Fugue he would say, "Bach nearly made it. Hear now how close he comes, and hear his anger when he cannot. Every time I hear it I believe that this time he will come crashing through into the light. And he never does-not quite." he would say, "Bach nearly made it. Hear now how close he comes, and hear his anger when he cannot. Every time I hear it I believe that this time he will come crashing through into the light. And he never does-not quite."
And of course it was he himself who wanted so desperately to break through into the light.
We worked and thought together very closely for a number of years so that I grew to depend on his knowledge and on his patience in research. And then I went away to another part of the country but it didn"t make any difference. Once a week or once a month would come a fine long letter so much in the style of his speech that I could hear his voice over the neat page full of small elite type. It was as though I hadn"t been away at all. And sometimes now when the postman comes I look before I think for that small type on an envelope.
Ed was deeply pleased with the little voyage which is described in the latter part of this book, and he was pleased with the manner of setting it down. Often he would read it to remember a mood or a joke.
His scientific interest was essentially ecological and holistic. His mind always tried to enlarge the smallest picture. I remember his saying, "You know, at first view you would think the rattlesnake and the kangaroo rat were the greatest of enemies since the snake hunts and feeds on the rat. But in a larger sense they must be the best of friends. The rat feeds the snake and the snake selects out the slow and weak and generally thins the rat people so that both species can survive. It is quite possible that neither species could exist without the other." He was pleased with commensal animals, particularly with groups of several species contributing to the survival of all. He seemed as pleased with such things as though they had been created for him.
With any new food or animal he looked, felt, smelled, and tasted. Once in a tide pool we were discussing the interesting fact that nudibranchs, although beautiful and brightly colored and tasty-looking and soft and unweaponed, are never eaten by other animals which should have found them irresistible. He reached under water and picked up a lovely orange-colored nudibranch and put it in his mouth. And instantly he made a horrible face and spat and retched, but he had found out why fishes let these living tidbits completely alone.
On another occasion he tasted a species of free-swimming anemone and got his tongue so badly stung by its nettle cells that he could hardly close his mouth for twenty-four hours. But he would have done the same thing the next day if he had wanted to know.
Although small and rather slight, Ed was capable of prodigies of strength and endurance. He could drive for many hours to arrive at a good collecting ground for a favorable low tide, then work like a fury turning over rocks while the tide was out, then drive back to preserve his catch. He could carry heavy burdens over soft and unstable sand with no show of weariness. He had enormous resistance. It took a train to kill him. I think nothing less could have done it.
His sense of smell was very highly developed. He smelled all food before he ate it, not only the whole dish but each forkful. He invariably smelled each animal as he took it from the tide pool. He spoke of the smells of different animals, and some moods and even thoughts had characteristic odors to him-undoubtedly conditioned by some experience good or bad. He referred often to the smells of people, how individual each one was, and how it was subject to change. He delighted in his sense of smell in love.
With his delicate olfactory equipment, one would have thought that he would be disgusted by so-called ugly odors, but this was not true. He could pick over decayed tissue or lean close to the fetid viscera of a cat with no repulsion. I have seen him literally crawl into the carca.s.s of a basking shark to take its liver in the dark of its own body so that no light might touch it. And this is as horrid an odor as I know.
Ed loved fine tools and instruments, and conversely he had a bitter dislike for bad ones. Often he spoke with contempt of "consumer goods"-things made to catch the eye, to delight the first impression with paint and polish, things made to sell rather than to use. On the other hand, the honest workmanship of a good microscope gave him great pleasure. Once I brought him from Sweden a set of the finest scalpels, surgical scissors, and delicate forceps. I remember his joy in them.
His laboratory practice was immaculate and his living quarters were not clean. It was his custom to say that most people paid too much for things they didn"t really want, paid too much in effort and time and thought. "If a swept floor gives you enough pleasure and reward to pay for sweeping it, then sweep it," he said. "But if you do not see it dirty or clean, then it is paying too much to sweep it."
I think he set down his whole code or procedure once in a time of stress. He found himself quite poor and with three children to take care of. In a very scholarly manner, he told the children how they must proceed.
"We must remember three things," he said to them. "I will tell them to you in the order of their importance. Number one and first in importance, we must have as much fun as we can with what we have. Number two, we must eat as well as we can, because if we don"t we won"t have the health and strength to have as much fun as we might. And number three and third and last in importance, we must keep the house reasonably in order, wash the dishes, and such things. But we will not let the last interfere with the other two."
Ed"s feeling for clothes was interesting. He wore Ba.s.s moccasins, buckskin-colored and quite expensive. He loved thick soft wool socks and wool shirts that would scratch the h.e.l.l out of anyone else. But outside of those he had no interest. His clothing was fairly ragged, particularly at elbows and knees. He had one necktie hanging in his closet, a wrinkled old devil of a yellow tint, but no one ever saw him wear it. His clothes he just came by, and the coats were not likely to fit him at all. He was not in the least embarra.s.sed by his clothes. He went everywhere in the same costume. And always he seemed strangely neat. Such was his sense of inner security that he did not seem ill dressed. Often people around him appeared over-dressed. The only time he ever wore a hat was when there was some chance of getting his head wet, and then it was likely to be an oilskin sou"wester. But whatever else he wore or did not wear, there was invariably pinned to his shirt pocket a twenty-power Bausch and Lomb magnifying gla.s.s on a little roller chain. He used the gla.s.s constantly. It was a very close part of him-one of his techniques of seeing.
Always the paradox is there. He loved nice things and did not care about them. He loved to bathe and yet when the water heater in the laboratory broke down he bathed in cold water for over a year before he got around to having it fixed. I finally mended his leaking toilet tank with a piece of chewing gum which I imagine is still there. A broken window was stuffed with newspaper for several years and never was repaired.
He liked comfort and the chairs in the lab were stiff and miserable. His bed was a redwood box laced with hemp rope on which a thin mattress was thrown. And this bed was not big enough for two. Ladies complained bitterly about his bed, which was not only narrow and uncomfortable but gave out shrieks of protest at the slightest movement.
I used the laboratory and Ed himself in a book called Cannery Row. Cannery Row. I took it to him in typescript to see whether he would resent it and to offer to make any changes he would suggest. He read it through carefully, smiling, and when he had finished he said, "Let it go that way. It is written in kindness. Such a thing can"t be bad." I took it to him in typescript to see whether he would resent it and to offer to make any changes he would suggest. He read it through carefully, smiling, and when he had finished he said, "Let it go that way. It is written in kindness. Such a thing can"t be bad."
But it was bad in several ways neither of us foresaw. As the book began to be read, tourists began coming to the laboratory, first a few and then in droves. People stopped their cars and stared at Ed with that gla.s.sy look that is used on movie stars. Hundreds of people came into the lab to ask questions and peer around. It became a nuisance to him. But in a way he liked it too. For as he said, "Some of the callers were women and some of the women were very nice looking." However, he was glad when the little flurry of publicity or notoriety was over.
It never occurred to me to ask Ed much about his family background or his life as a boy. I suppose it would be easy to find out. When he was alive there were too many other things to talk about, and now-it doesn"t matter. Of course I have heard him asked the usual question about his name. Ricketts. He said, "No, I was not named after the disease-one of my relatives is responsible for its naming."
When the book Studs Lonigan Studs Lonigan came out, Ed read it twice very quickly. "This is a true book," he said. "I was born and grew up in this part of Chicago. I played in these streets. I know them all. I know the people. This is a true book." And, of course, to Ed a thing that was true was beautiful. He followed the whole series of Farrell"s books after that and only after the locale moved to New York did he lose interest. He did not know true things about New York. came out, Ed read it twice very quickly. "This is a true book," he said. "I was born and grew up in this part of Chicago. I played in these streets. I know them all. I know the people. This is a true book." And, of course, to Ed a thing that was true was beautiful. He followed the whole series of Farrell"s books after that and only after the locale moved to New York did he lose interest. He did not know true things about New York.
One of the most amusing things that ever happened in Pacific Biological Laboratories was our attempt to help with the war effort against j.a.pan and the complete fiasco that resulted.
When we came back from the collecting trip which is recorded in the latter part of this book, we went to work on the thousands of animals we had gathered. Our project had been to lay the basis for a new faunal geography rather than a search for new species. We needed a great amount of supplementary information regarding the distribution of species on both sides of the Pacific Ocean and among the Pacific Islands, since many species are widely placed.
By this time Pearl Harbor had been attacked and we were at war with j.a.pan. But even if we had not been, there were difficulties. Soon after the First World War a great number of the islands of the Pacific were mandated to j.a.pan by the League of Nations. And j.a.pan"s first act had been to draw a bamboo curtain over these islands and over the whole area. No foreigner had been permitted to land on them in twenty years for any purpose whatever.
These islands had not been well known in a zoologic sense before the mandate and nothing had been heard from them since-so we thought.
We sent out the usual letters to universities, requesting information that might be available concerning these curtained islands. The replies delighted us. There was a great deal of information available.
What had happened is this. j.a.pan had certainly cut off the islands from the world, but, perhaps with the future war in view, j.a.pan had wanted to make a survey of her new possessions in the matter of food supply from the ocean. The j.a.panese eat many more sea products than we do. Who better to send to make this survey than certain eminent j.a.panese zoologists who were internationally known?
What followed is truly comic opera. The zoologists did make the survey-very secretly. Then afterwards, since they were good scientists and specialists, what was more natural than that they should study their specialties together with the ecological theater? And then, being thoroughly good men, they completed their zoologic survey.
Now a careful zoologic survey notes not only the animals but their neighbor animals-friends and enemies and the conditions under which they live. Such conditions would include weather, wave shock, tidal range, currents, salinity, reefs, headlands, winds, nature of coast and nature of bottom, and any interesting phenomena which might interfere with or promote the occurrence, normal growth, and happiness of the animals in question. Such matters might be mentioned as the discharge into tide pools of by-products of new chemical plants which would change the ecological balance.
Having finished their sea-food reports to the j.a.panese government, the zoologists with even more loving care wrote their papers on the specialties. And then, what was more natural than that they should send these papers to their colleagues around the world? j.a.pan was not at war. They knew their brother zoologists would be interested and many of the j.a.panese had studied at Harvard, at Hopkins, at California Inst.i.tute of Technology-in fact at all of the American universities. They had friends all over the world who would appreciate and applaud their work in pure science.
When these surveys began to arrive Ed and I suddenly lost our interest in the animals. Here under our hands were detailed studies of the physical make-up of one of the least-known areas of the world and one which was in the hands of our enemy. With excitement we realized that if we were ever going to go island-hopping toward j.a.pan, which seemed reasonable, here was all the information needed if we were to make beach landings-depth, tide, currents, reefs, nature of coast, etc. We did not know whether we were alone in our discovery. We wondered whether our naval or military intelligence knew of the existence of these reports. Often a very obvious thing may lie unnoticed. It seemed to us that if our intelligence services did not know, they should, and we were quite willing to take the chance of duplication.
We drafted a letter to the Navy Department in Washington, explaining the material, its possible use, and how we had come upon it.
Six weeks later we received a form letter thanking us for our patriotism. I seem to remember that the letter was mimeographed. Ed was philosophical about it, but I, who did not have his military experience and cynicism, got mad. I wrote to the Secretary of the Navy, at that time the Honorable Frank Knox, again telling the story of the island material. And then after the letter was sealed, in a moment of angry impudence, I wrote "Personal" on the envelope.
Nothing happened for two months. I was away when it did happen. Ed told me about it later. One afternoon a tight-lipped man in civilian clothes came into the laboratory and identified himself as a lieutenant commander of Naval Intelligence.
"We have had a communication from you," he said sternly.
"Oh, yes," Ed said. "We"re glad you are here."
The officer interrupted him. "Do you speak or read j.a.panese?" he asked suspiciously.
"No, I don"t," Ed said.
"Does your partner speak or read j.a.panese?"
"No-why do you ask?"
"Then what is this information you claim to have about the Pacific islands?"
Only then did Ed understand him. "But they"re in English-the papers are all in English!" he cried.
"How in English?"
"The men, the j.a.panese zoologists, wrote them in English. They had studied here. English is becoming the scientific language of the world."
This thought, Ed said, really made quite a struggle to get in, but it failed.
"Why don"t they write in j.a.panese?" the commander demanded.
"I don"t know." Ed was getting tired. "The fact remains that they write English-sometimes quaint English but English."
That word tore it, just as my "Personal" on the envelope probably tore it in Washington.
The lieutenant commander looked grim. "Quaint!" he said. "You will hear from us."
But we never did. And I have always wondered whether they had the information or got it. I wonder whether some of the soldiers whose landing craft grounded a quarter of a mile from the beach and who had to wade ash.o.r.e under fire had the feeling that bottom and tidal range either were not known or were ignored. I don"t know.
Ed shook his head after he told me about the visit of the officer. "I never learn," he said. "I really fell into that one. And I should know better. And I used to be a company clerk." Then he told me about the Navy tests at Bremerton.
The tests were designed to develop some bottom material or paint which would repel barnacles. The outlay of money was considerable-big concrete tanks were built and samples of paints, metal salts, poisons, tars, were immersed to see what material barnacles would be most likely to stay away from.
"Now," Ed said, "a friend of mine who teaches at the University of Washington is one of the world"s specialists in barnacles. My friend happens to be a woman. She heard of the tests and offered her services to the Navy. A very patriotic woman as well as a d.a.m.n good scientist.
"There were two strikes against her," Ed said. "One, she was a woman, and two, she was a professor. The Navy was gallant but adamant. She was thanked and informed that the Navy was not interested in theory. This was hard-boiled realism, and practical men-not theoreticians-would see it through."
Ed grinned at me. "You know," he said, "at the end of three months there wasn"t a single barnacle on any of the test materials, not even on the guide materials, the untouched wood and steel. My friend heard of this and visited the station again. She was shy about imposing theory. But she saw what was wrong very quickly.
"The Navy is hard-boiled but it is clean," Ed said. "Bremerton water, on the other hand, is very dirty-you know, harbor stuff, oil and algae, decayed fish and even some human residue. The Navy didn"t like that filth so the water was filtered before it went to the tanks. The filters got the water clean," said Ed, "but it also removed all of the barnacle larvae." He laughed. "I wonder whether she ever told them," he said.
Thus was our impertinent attempt to change the techniques of warfare put in its place. But we won.
I became a.s.sociated in the business of the laboratory in the simplest of ways. A number of years ago Ed had gradually got into debt until the interest on his loan from the bank was bleeding the laboratory like a cat in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Rather sadly he prepared to liquidate the little business and give up his independence-the right to sleep late and work late, the right to make his own decisions. While the lab was not run efficiently, it could make enough to support him, but it could not also pay the bank interest.
At that time I had some money put away and I took up the bank loans and lowered the interest to a vanishing point. I knew the money would vanish anyway. To secure the loan I received stock in the corporation-the most beautiful stock, and the mortgage on the property. I didn"t understand much of the transaction but it allowed the laboratory to operate for another ten years. Thus I became a partner in the improbable business. I must say I brought no efficiency to bear on it. The fact that the inst.i.tution survived at all is a matter that must be put down to magic. I can find no other reasonable explanation. It had no right to survive. A board of directors" meeting differed from any other party only in that there was more beer. A stern business discussion had a way of slipping into a consideration of a unified field hypothesis.
Our trip to the Gulf of Lower California was a marvel of b.u.mbling efficiency. We went where we intended, got what we wanted, and did the work on it. It had been our intention to continue the work with a survey of the Aleutian chain of islands when the war closed that area to us.
At the time of Ed"s death our plans were completed, tickets bought, containers and collecting equipment ready for a long collecting trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands, which reach so deep into the Pacific Ocean. There was one deep bay with a long and narrow opening where we thought we might observe some changes in animal forms due to a specialized life and a long period of isolation. Ed was to have started within a month and I was to have joined him there. Maybe someone else will study that little island sea. The light has gone out of it for me.
Now I am coming near to the close of this account. I have not put down Ed"s relations with his wives or with his three children. There isn"t time, and besides I did not know much about these things.
As I have said, no one who knew Ed will be satisfied with this account. They will have known innumerable other Eds. I imagine that there were as many Eds as there were friends of Ed. And I wonder whether there can be any parallel thinking on his nature and the reason for his impact on the people who knew him. I wonder whether I can make any kind of generalization that would be satisfactory.
I have tried to isolate and inspect the great talent that was in Ed Ricketts, that made him so loved and needed and makes him so missed now that he is dead. Certainly he was an interesting and charming man, but there was some other quality which far exceeded these. I have thought that it might be his ability to receive, to receive anything from anyone, to receive gracefully and thankfully and to make the gift seem very fine. Because of this everyone felt good in giving to Ed-a present, a thought, anything.
Perhaps the most overrated virtue in our list of shoddy virtues is that of giving. Giving builds up the ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and larger than the receiver. Nearly always, giving is a selfish pleasure, and in many cases it is a downright destructive and evil thing. One has only to remember some of our wolfish financiers who spend two-thirds of their lives clawing fortunes out of the guts of society and the latter third pushing it back. It is not enough to suppose that their philanthropy is a kind of frightened rest.i.tution, or that their natures change when they have enough. Such a nature never has enough and natures do not change that readily. I think that the impulse is the same in both cases. For giving can bring the same sense of superiority as getting does, and philanthropy may be another kind of spiritual avarice.
It is so easy to give, so exquisitely rewarding. Receiving, on the other hand, if it be well done, requires a fine balance of self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and tact and great understanding of relationships. In receiving you cannot appear, even to yourself, better or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must be wiser to do it well.
It requires a self-esteem to receive-not self-love but just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for oneself.