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Show Idealism, Unrequited Love, and Glorious Understanding 93 active sunbath. Surely such primitive exuberance is wholesome; it is complete relaxation. "19 Madelyn had a week of real joyousness, more than she had experienced in three years, and then returned to her teaching job in Salt Lake City where, as she duly noted, she became depressed, burned the bread she was cooking, incurred the wrath and disgust of Papa, hurt the feelings of Mama, and near ly "went to pieces." She made Aunt Annie "lose all hope for me." She did not "clinch her hold" on herself until she took Papa to the ranch. She continued to write Caldwell even after they had "split ," and received weekly letters from him, "but to me he seems infinitely far away"-not just geographically but intellectually and emotionally. For the winter of 1927-28 she vowed to fulfill five aims: 1. Create a cheerful demeanor and spirited poise. 2. Create or recover or absorb the "beautiful thoughts" that once so glorified and enriched all my existence. 3. Gather about me, through correspondence or other con tact, a rich and inspiring circle of friends. 4. Retain and increase my health and bodily 5. Complete and enjoy my trousseau." vigor. Shortly after this was written, Madelyn and her family went trip to Oregon-to see Caldwell. They were gone two weeks. Caldwell was now at Oregon State University in Corvallis. With him they toured the Northwest. Madelyn was thrilled with the miles upon miles of pine forests; visited Baker, Bend, the Columbia, The Dalles, Mount Hood, Crater Lake, on a Klamath Falls, and Newport, on the Pacific Coast. She was entranced by the snow-covered peaks, the blue sky, the sweet, cold smell of the air, and by the glimpse of a doe with twin fawns. She was glad to see Corvallis "which is now the nucleus for tiny flutters of dreams." At Newport the ocean was causing "a strange roar and long lines of gray breakers in a darker mist." All night long, she wrote, "the sea called to me, without the ecstasy of Massachusetts [when she was there in 1924], but with the same unresistible insistence All night I felt the .... |
