_By the Sea--California._
We seem to have been divinely led to this most beautiful and secluded
place. One can hardly believe it was mere chance. So near civilization
we are, and yet no one passes this way. As far as the eye can see the
curving beach belongs to the sea-birds. There is a fresh water lake
full of preserved wild duck, and word has been sent by the proprietor
that we may shoot, hunt, cut wood, and do whatever we like! We surely
picked a good spot, and then the sand dunes! We discovered such a high
one yesterday, and Dick took a header down it, as if he were diving. So
we got no further on our walk, but lingered there and spent the entire
afternoon scrambling up and sliding down head first. Charlie brought
it to a fine art, he came down slowly with a rhythmical movement as if
swimming; even sand sliding he does beautifully. Once we rolled down,
and fetched up dazed and giddy at the bottom.
When the sunset sky became streaked pink and purple, Charlie kicked
off his shoes, and danced with his beautiful small feet naked on the
sand. He did imitations of Nijinsky and Pavlowa--he does it so well and
with so much grace that one doesn’t know whether to laugh or silently
appreciate.
The more I see of Charlie, and the more I know him, the more I
appreciate him. He never does, says, or thinks an ugly thing. I have
never met anyone like him. I find myself dominated by his intensity,
and metaphorically sitting at his feet, accepting his judgment. He
is so immensely bigger than the work he is engaged on. I believe
that if he survives, he may in a few years take a very big place in
international public life. We have discussed half jokingly the project
of his standing for Parliament. I assured him no one would dare to
contest him and that he would have a “walk-over.” I have heard him make
impassioned speeches to imaginary crowds. He has harangued the sand
dunes. Not only did he talk well but he talked sense, and his magnetism
and vision recalled to my memory that leader of men: Trotzky. The only
pity is that he is too emotional, he is almost consumed by the flame
within him. This is, I suppose, inevitable in so great an artist.
His intensity is terrific. Whatever he does he does it intensely. He
is intensely funny, but he is intensely tragic too, he shoots with
such intensity that when he lost a duck it nearly broke his heart.
He puts the same spirit into the tunneling of sand bridges for Dick,
or the story he invents about the wrecked ship on the beach. He is
as intensely materialist as he is idealist. As intensely sincere and
honest, and now because he wants to be sound on some new philosophical
doctrine, he is studying mathematics with equal intensity. I can
imagine that at night he must sleep with clenched fists and eyelids
tight shut, and all the intensity of unconsciousness.
In moments of intense depression he exclaims: “I must get back to
work--but I don’t feel like it. I don’t feel funny. Think--think of it:
if I never could be funny again!”
It is his visit to England that has shattered him emotionally.