BIB_ID
318253
Accession number
MA 2519.25
Creator
Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968.
Display Date
[1966] Feb. 12.
Credit line
Gift of John Steinbeck, 1966.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 32.3 cm
Notes
A note by Steinbeck at the top of p. 1 says "Going Home--last one of this trip / Letter 24 or 25 (I've lost count);" he has scratched through 24 or 25 and a penciled notation numbers this letter as "# 25."
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written from New York and during his travels in Ireland, England, Israel in 1965-1966. Alicia Patterson Guggenheim was the editor and publisher of Newsday from 1940 until her death in 1963 and Steinbeck addressed his letter "not....to someone who is dead, but rather to a living mind and a huge curiosity" (see MA 2519.39). Steinbeck wrote the letters in this series as a weekly column for Newsday. Letters in the collection have been cataloged individually; see collection-level record for more information.
The majority of the letters in this collection were undated and therefore, the date given for the letter is its publication date in Newsday provided in "John Steinbeck and Newsday by Robert H. Harmon in the publication noted below; this letter is dated by Steinbeck as February 12; the publication date was April 2, 1966.
Written on white legal pad paper.
Part of a collection of letters from John Steinbeck to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim, written from New York and during his travels in Ireland, England, Israel in 1965-1966. Alicia Patterson Guggenheim was the editor and publisher of Newsday from 1940 until her death in 1963 and Steinbeck addressed his letter "not....to someone who is dead, but rather to a living mind and a huge curiosity" (see MA 2519.39). Steinbeck wrote the letters in this series as a weekly column for Newsday. Letters in the collection have been cataloged individually; see collection-level record for more information.
The majority of the letters in this collection were undated and therefore, the date given for the letter is its publication date in Newsday provided in "John Steinbeck and Newsday by Robert H. Harmon in the publication noted below; this letter is dated by Steinbeck as February 12; the publication date was April 2, 1966.
Written on white legal pad paper.
Provenance
Gift of John Steinbeck in 1966.
Summary
Relating how one knows that the travels must come to an end and it is time to go home; pondering how one's powers of observation are "conditioned by our background and experience, but do we ever observe anything objectively, do we ever see anything whole and as it is? I have always fancied myself as a fairly objective looker, but I'm beginning to wonder whether I do not completely miss whole categories of things;" relating the story of an Italian photographer who came to American and "in every American city he had unconsciously sought and found Italy;" adding that he hates "to miss things, Alicia. I am incurably, double-eyed curious. I know I can't see everything or even understand everything I see, but I do resent my limitations, some of ignorance, some of stupidity and, I'm afraid, some of indolence. But we do know some people, don't we, who take pride in their inability and their refusal. Everyone has played the fairy wish game. Maybe we never stop playing it. If I could be granted a magic wish, it would be understanding because there is so very much I don't."
Catalog link
Department