THORNS AND WILDERNESS - The Final Alaska Letters Part 3 of 3

ROCKWELL KENT WILDERNESS CENTENNIAL JOURNAL

100 YEARS LATER

by Doug Capra © 2018-19

April 14, 2019

ABOVE -- The ruins of the Kent cabin in 1940. Photo by Dale Nichols, a Nebraska artist whose reading of Wilderness brought him to Alaska and in later years led him to a correspondence with the artist. The two women in the photo are his wife, and Mrs. Don Carlos Brownell. Kent was a friend of Brownell and often stayed at his house when he was in Seward. They later corresponded. Photo from the Resurrection Bay Historical Society collection. BELOW -- I'm standing at the at the site of the Kent cabin outhouse. You can see how over grown the area is today. You can barely see the southern headland of the cove. Photo by Bob and Alice Hunt, owners of the property on which the Kent cabin sat.

Thorns and Wilderness

The Final Alaska Letters

Part 3 of 3

Feb. 16, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: I’m jealous of you having planned to go skating with the crowd. You never would go with me, always hated it! Well, after this you shall, by God. And you speak beautifully of George’s friendship. It is wonderful; and how deeply grateful I should be to him and I am. Do understand, darling, that I am upset not because it is to George that you now owe your virtue, but that you have not faith enough in me to be true to the core and steadfast for my sake and your own. But you will be, won’t you...I ask you now as a favor not to touch one drop of liquor until I come back. Not one drop. I have a right to ask this. You have confessed your own weakness and that you have hung on the verge of shame. I asked you before I left New York not to drink. I think you promised me. Did you and have you kept it. Please do, Kathleen. I wanted to ask your promise of this before but I didn’t want to encroach on your freedom. But now after what you’ve told me of your state of mind I must ask for your promise. And I’ll promise to be true to you and to touch no drop off this island. Here I do it only to please Olson, and then very rarely. Alaska became dry beginning Jan. 1, 1918, but Olson always seemed have a supply. He may have had a still on Fox Island. He probably fished around Resurrection Bay for hidden caches of liquor stored in nets. As far as I can determine, Kent was not a heavy drinker in his early years. That changed after his success through the 1920’s. Kathleen responds to his concerns below.

On March 7, 1919 Kathleen to Rockwell: Please know that I am not a weakling in that respect. I know how to take care of myself and I have never in my life drunk myself into a state where {I’ve}…regretted or would not live or love in cold blood. I can remember how you had to beg and beg me to drink at all, do you? Now dear I shall not promise not to drink, but know too that I am well able to take care of myself in every way… Another reminder that Kent need not return because of her. Kathleen will accept the blame in public for his return to protect his ego, reputation and career. But between them, the truth will be acknowledged – she insists.

BELOW -- The southern headland of Sunny Cove, the cove south of where the Kent's stayed. You can see the edge of Hive Island at right. Capra photo.

Feb. 17, 1919 Rockwell to his Mother: Dr. Wagner, an officer in the Corn Products Co. has been very nice to Kathleen. I did some work for him last winter for which he paid me with particular generosity. Well now he offers, through Kathleen, to secure more money for me to continue my work here this summer and asks how $2000 would do. Isn’t that wonderful? I’d accept it at once but that Kathleen seems to be in a  blue and despondent a state of mind that there’s nothing for me to do but return. I have written her to send me the money for it. However, if more gloomy letters arrive I’ll have to wire for the money and return at once. As Zigrosser suggests, later in life Kent grew to have more respect for his mother. At this point in his life, he fears her disapproval and strives for her esteem. She must never know his true reason for returning early from Alaska. He would be shamed by her disapproval.

Feb. 17, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: And then I despair. I repeat that you cannot well realize the utter hopelessness of my situation here under the spell of unhappiness. There is no relief and I approach insanity. Again – the “happiness/unhappiness” motif along with his hopelessness, loneliness, isolation and near insanity. Today we look back, knowing the art he produced on Fox Island will secure him the fame and financial security he’s struggled for years to achieve. We must look forward from his point of view. He’s not merely uncertain of his future, but fearful that the Alaska venture will turn out to be just another Newfoundland failure. Deep down, as Kathleen suggests, he may also not trust himself to keep his promise of faithfulness to his wife.

BELOW -- The southern headland of Kent's cove on the kind of day he experienced during the first August and September 1918.

Feb. 18, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: I wonder if I can tame down what I have to say. I think we understand only the language we ourselves speak. I think that I probably misinterpret the lack of the expression of love in your letters and that, similarly, you misunderstand my ardent outpourings. I believe myself incapable of speaking as I do not feel… When Rockwell gets into the “flow” while letter writing during those dark, lonely, early-morning hours, he holds nothing back. When he writes about an attempt to “tame down” his letters, he means being more kind and less critical – which means thinking twice before writing down every thought that comes to his mind. And mother be truthful even if you must hurt me. I think it is a fact that I do not understand what you write. I believe you intended to express love. To me it {is} generally decent. I think I don’t understand the language. I wonder if you could practice up and acquire the power to make me understand by speaking my tongue. If you do love and want me to know it, you surly think it worth trying. And I promise that if you want me to quiet down my letters I shall do it for I think I can. My letters are perhaps one sided with affection but you must realize that they’re to be taken in conjunction with the journal which gives the prosaic happenings. If Rockwell thinks his letters are “perhaps one sided with affection” he clearly doesn’t understand his wife’s point of view. The love he proclaims is sometimes so over the top that Kathleen questions their authenticity. Rockwell has compartmentalized his Fox Island experience. The illustrated journal – that became the draft for Wilderness along with some personal letter excerpts – is all positive. It represents the “Quiet Adventure” Rockwell emphasizes in the book’s subtitle. Yes, many of his letters to Kathleen are one-sided – filled with his anxieties, fears, anger, uncertainties, criticisms, and longings. 

Kathleen, too, can go back and forth in her moods. On March 9, 1919 she writes: I’m not going to attempt to answer any of your letters in the way of argument for it is hopeless at this...time, but let me simply say this: you and I have made no resolution for our family life, that you require many things from me that I have not given you in the past. This I don’t understand, for I don’t know anything of myself that I have not given you in the past. You will have to explain this to me when you get back home. The two can't communicate at such a distance and time lag. Will Rockwell be able to explain what he means when he returns? Do they speak the same language when they're together? At least face to face they can attempt to explain themselves. By March 17th Kathleen has received more of Rockwell's letters and her tone changes: Three more letters and the journal and photos arrived this morning. I am very happy. Darling, do make the railroad trip. I hope my letters have made you happy enough to put off your return that long. I should hate to think that I had robbed you of that trip. Your letters received today made me happier than any I have yet received. No reproaching in them! 

Feb. 19, 1919 Rockwell to Kathleen: To-night as I sat on Rockwell’s bed his head in my lap as I read to him, I thought how dearly you really would love the life we lead. And then I thought of your poor distracted state of mind and wondered if the dirty, rotten filth of “men’s attentions” wouldn’t dawn on you and {that} you{‘ll} suddenly crave finer. Darling, do try hard to get upon your feet. I have done it; now you do it. I’ve written Mr. {Ferdinand} Howald {his patron}quite a long letter and told him of my coming home. I just said that you were pretty blue and lonely and I didn’t think I could leave you alone any longer. That’s about as near the truth as I came in speaking of it. Please if it happens that you must speak of it to Dr. or Mrs. Wagner do me full justice. I don’t of course want you to tell them what you had written & wired that brings me home. But do not let them think that I have failed in determination to carry out what I started. I’m very much ashamed of my failure and fear that my supporters will lose confidence in me. You know I am homesick and I do long beyond thought to be with you. But I also know that my work must be done; and nothing but such things as you have written me would bring me back – unless it were an outright need of me on your part… {I’ve published much of what Kathleen has written that upsets him. Going back to Sept. 1918, there are the letters about the attention the Coastguardsman, Mr. Walker shows her. It’s her need for real love, the kind she tells Rockwell that he has told her she can’t give him and he can’t give her. It is that fact that he believes her faithfulness depends not on her love for him, but upon George Chappell’s friendship and mentoring. It is her spending time enjoying the night life of NYC, which, Rockwell believes, alienates her from the ideal of womanhood and tempts her faithfulness. Don’t tell anyone of my coming back. I don’t want to see people…Darling, I believe implicitly in your promise. That’s the only reason I can stay even the little while I do. I know that you are true beyond all question. I have always known that. It is not doubt of your promise that brings me home but that your promise was made as you made it; and because of the state of your mind. If only you were clean for love of me! And supposing George shouldn’t arrive in the nick of time! Now I’m getting wild again. He’s affirming his narrative for his return in Kathleen’s mind and his own. Rockwell’s letters often begin attempting to be positive, but they gradually slip into despair and criticisms as he “gets wild.” He is ashamed. Deep down he knows why he’s leaving early. He must somehow obliterate that narrative and create a new one, as he begins to do in these letters.

BELOW -- Samples of the Kent's illustrated journal and pen and inks.

March 6, 1919, Rockwell to Kathleen: Put fences of thorns all about me and I’ll help you in building them; take me into the wilderness and hide me from temptations and, even if I don’t like it for its own sake, I’d go for yours; but above all please please mother darling try to be to me that compliment that my wild and unstable nature, rightly or wrongly, requires,- and these thorns and wilderness can be or not be -- our happiness will be secure. No – I know that your happiness too must be achieved; but we assume now, don’t we darling, that when we’re both true and loving to each other we’ll both be so happy that nothing else will matter a bit?

Rockwell Kent wants his life to change. Kathleen is perhaps a bit skeptical – she has reason to be -- but she also is hopeful that her husband has indeed had an epiphany. If only they can settle somewhere away from the city where Rockwell can be away from Hildegarde and other temptations. If only Rockwell can figure out a way to continue both working on his art and supporting his family. He’s already written Zigrosser and Chappell about incorporating himself. His friends are working on it. If only he could spend most of his time producing art, he could easily pay back his stockholders. If all this can come together – regardless of the success of his Alaska work -- there’s hope for both is art and his marriage.

As far as I can determine, Rockwell’s last letter to Kathleen from Alaska was written on Fox Island before he left for Seward and dated March 7, 1919.

“There – see what you miss, my darling! All about our little excursion will appear in to-days diary which I’ll not write until tomorrow for I’m tired (dead). The little picture at the top counts for five pages of letters, and the love that follows counts for ten times as much. But that’s impossible! Darling, last night I did dream as I said I would – amazingly I’m doubly tired tonight. One day nearer to you means one day happier. I love you ever ever so dearly my new true little sweetheart. And so forever faithfully your Rockwell.

This is a tragic love story. Like many writers and artists of this period, Rockwell Kent has serious flaws that drive his intensity and genius. In no way am I justifying his flaws. They are part of who he is. I’m no art critic. I won’t suggest to you how all this personal history has influenced the art he produced on Fox Island. Perhaps as he says, his letters were as much his art as his paintings – and he emptied all that negative energy into the correspondence with Kathleen. As Jorge Luis Bores wrote:

“A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”

There may be another part to “The Final Alaska Letters” series if I discover anything new and significant. I’ll later cover Kent’s search for his rural paradise, his finding the farm in Arlington, Vermont, and the 1919 show of his and Rockie’s pen and inks and the reviews. With the help of friends, Kent does incorporate himself. In the summer of 1919, there’s a nasty editorial in the Seward Gateway in response to a Literary Review article about Rockwell Kent’s Alaska art. I’ll summarize his correspondence with Olson who is still on Fox Island. Kent urges him to join him in Vermont, which the old Swede does. Seward gives him a pioneer’s send-off with some funds, and Kent helps him navigate the long journey and provides him with some money. Olson doesn’t stay with Kent long. I’ll cover the publication of Wilderness and the New York show of his art in the spring of 1920. I’ll publish some of the reviews. Kent rises to fame rapidly and his financial situation becomes more secure. This success, I contend, plays in important role in his failure to remain faithful to Kathleen. He breaches the “fences of thorns” he asked Kathleen to build around him. He obliterates the “Unquiet Adventure.” His early return does not matter because Alaska wasn’t Newfoundland. The venture proved successful. All that negative energy served its purpose and can now be eradicated. Kathleen is now unable to take him into the wilderness of their refuge and hide him from temptations. To pursue his success, he must leave his Vermont home – his sanctuary from society’s lures and -- as he writes at the end of Wilderness – “Ah God, and now the world again!” But the world he faces now is not the abyss of rejection and failure he feared while on Fox Island. It’s the New York City of the 1920’s where his work is not only admired but actually purchased, and where his genius is recognized. Temptations abound everywhere.