WILD HONEY

But now, as I smelled the wild honey midway the trestle and meditated the direction of modern poetry, my discouragement blackened. It seemed to me that Mallarmé and his followers, renouncing intelligibility in order to concentrate the music of poetry, had turned off the road into a narrowing lane. Their successors could only make further renunciations; ideas had gone, now meter had gone, imagery would have to go; then recognizable emotions would have to go; perhaps at last even words might have to go or give up their meaning, nothing be left but musical syllables. Every advance required the elimination of some aspect of reality, and what could it profit me to know the direction of modern poetry if I did not like the direction? It was too much like putting out your eyes to cultivate the sense of hearing, or cutting off the right hand to develop the left. These austerities were not for me. ... Circa 1914 — from the introduction to Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems

1887–1905

For one destined to become a visionary poet concerned with nature, civilization, and the fate of humankind, Jeffers could not have had a better nor a more intellectually challenging childhood. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now a part of Pittsburgh, and raised in nearby Sewickley and Edgeworth. His father, Dr. William Hamilton Jeffers, was a Presbyterian minister and professor of church history, biblical literature, and ancient languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Babylonian, and Assyrian). At the time Robinson was born, Dr. Jeffers was forty-nine and teaching at Western Theological Seminary in Allegheny. Jeffers' mother, Annie Tuttle Jeffers, was twenty-seven.

Dr. Jeffers had been married once before. His first wife, Louisa Maria Robinson, was the daughter of Thomas and Margaret Robinson, a prosperous Ohio couple involved in farming and cattle dealing. The Robinsons' only other child, a son named Clark, died in infancy. Dr. Jeffers and Louisa married in 1868. In 1869 Louisa remained with her parents when her husband embarked upon a study tour of Egypt, the Middle East, and Greece. When Dr. Jeffers returned, the couple moved to Wooster, Ohio, where Dr. Jeffers accepted a position at the University of Wooster. Their son William "Willie" Robinson Jeffers was born in February 1872. He died of cholera the following July during a visit to the home of his maternal grandparents. The couple had no other children. Louisa died in 1882 as a result of "paralysis." How long she had been disabled prior to her death is unknown. Louisa's mother died the year before while visiting the Jeffers home, and her father died the year after, broken by his losses. The entire family is buried at Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. Dr. Jeffers placed a large memorial obelisk at the gravesite, with "Robinson" inscribed on one side and "Jeffers" on the other.

Dr. Jeffers met his second wife, Annie Tuttle, at the home of her foster parents, John and Philena Robinson (no known relation to Louisa's family), who lived in Sewickley. A brief engagement led to marriage in April 1885 and the birth of their first son, John Robinson Jeffers, in 1887. A second son, Hamilton Moore Jeffers, was born in 1893.

Jeffers' parents preferred his middle name (possibly given with Dr. Jeffers' first wife in mind), so he was always called Robinson or Robin. As a little boy he attended private schools in Pittsburgh and received additional lessons from his father at home. Instruction in Greek came first, along with study of the Bible and church doctrine, and then Latin. When Robinson was eleven, having already visited Europe six years before, he was enrolled in a school in Leipzig so he could study Greek and Latin while learning German. The following year he was sent to a school in Vevey, Switzerland in order to further his classical studies while learning French. Courses in Greek, Latin, and other basic subjects, taught in French or German, continued in Switzerland for three more years. Jeffers' mother, who spoke French and was an accomplished musician, stayed in Europe with her son at this time; Jeffers' father joined them each summer.

A September 1901 letter (located in the archives of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary), written by Annie in Zurich to her husband in the United States, provides a glimpse into Robinson's academic regimen. Knowing that Dr. Jeffers regarded German as the language of scholars, especially in the field of philology, and anticipating his professorial concern, she tells him that Robinson "is translating his Latin into French still instead of German; his teacher is an Italian & does not know German well enough to translate into it." In regard to frequency of use, English was Jeffers' third working language when he lived in Europe; it was his fifth language overall, counting Greek and Latin.

Dr. Jeffers brought his family back to America in 1902. At fifteen, Robinson enrolled as a sophomore at Western University of Pennsylvania, now called the University of Pittsburgh. For a curriculum he selected the Classical Course, which allowed him to continue along the path already laid out for him. According to the university catalog, the Classical Course was designed to help students become "well versed in ancient languages, German, French, and English Literature, with the usual courses in Science and Mathematics."

It is worth noting that the acting chancellor of the university at the time Robinson was there was John A. Brashear, one of Pittsburgh's most famous and popular citizens. Brashear was a self-taught mechanical genius who became a celebrated astronomer and manufacturer of precision scientific instruments. The telescopes he made were among the best in the world. As a director of the Allegheny Observatory and as a committed educator (who had a special interest in reaching out to children), Brashear helped make Pittsburgh a center for astronomical research. Jeffers' own lifelong interest in the stars may have been stimulated by the attention given astronomy in his hometown. The same could be said for his younger brother Hamilton, who eventually earned a Ph.D. in the field and devoted his career to research at Lick Observatory.

In 1903 Dr. Jeffers retired from teaching at the seminary and, wanting to live in a healthier climate, moved his family to southern California. Soon thereafter he purchased property and built a home in Highland Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. As an accomplished public speaker, Dr. Jeffers participated in chautauqua programs in Los Angeles and remained active in Presbyterian Church councils. Robinson was given advanced standing at Occidental College in Highland Park and, though younger than his fellow students, participated fully in college life. He joined and later became an officer of the Philomathian Society, a literary club, and served as literary editor of the Occidental (formerly known as the Aurora), the college newspaper. He published poems in the paper and also composed and recited them for official college events. By the time Jeffers graduated in 1905, at age eighteen, he had also published poems in the Los Angeles Times and in two national magazines, the Youth's Companion and Out West. His parents were no doubt anxious to see what their precocious son would do next.

1905–1910

"In or about December, 1910, human character changed." This famous assertion, which appears in a 1924 essay by Virginia Woolf titled "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown" (also titled "Character in Fiction"), is often used to date the beginning of the Modern Age. Woolf makes the same point a little later in her essay when she says "All human relations have shifted — those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature. Let us agree to place one of these changes about the year 1910." While Woolf is referring to the end of the Edwardian Age and the beginning of the Georgian Age in England, her observation has been applied to a seismic shift felt around the world. Novelists who lived at that time, she says, had to invent new ways to capture reality in words, especially the interior reality of their protagonists. The same challenge faced other writers. Old ways of doing things no longer worked: "And so the smashing and the crashing began. Thus it is that we hear all around us, in poems and novels and biographies, even in newspaper articles and essays, the sound of breaking and falling, crashing and destruction." What was true for writers was true for other artists. Indeed, among the intelligentsia in Europe and America, an unsettled feeling around 1910 was pandemic.

Jeffers himself was something of a lost soul at the time. After graduating from Occidental in the spring of 1905, he decided to pursue graduate studies at the University of Southern California in the fall. Along with courses in Spanish, Old English, and Oratory, Jeffers enrolled in Advanced German, which featured a reading of Goethe's Faust. He left the University of Southern California after the spring semester and traveled with his parents to Switzerland, where he entered the University of Zurich. His curriculum there included Introduction to Philosophy, Old English Literature, French Literature from 1840 to 1900, Dante's Life and Work, Spanish Romance Poetry, and History of the Roman Empire. Though others might have struggled with courses requiring facility with several languages at once — Old English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin, with lectures in French and German — Jeffers was right at home. Nevertheless, he abandoned his studies after a semester and returned to California alone.

Jeffers drifted for several more months, during which time he translated German medical papers for his mother's physician. Intrigued by the science involved, he enrolled in the Medical School at the University of Southern California in the fall of 1907. He also joined a fraternity, caroused with friends, wrote poetry, and competed in sports. In November he tried out for the cross-country team, earning a berth by finishing among the top six runners in a 4-mile race. The winner completed the distance in 24 minutes and 58 seconds, so Jeffers' pace was close to that. Following two years of preparatory work, Jeffers entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he distinguished himself as the best student in his classes. After his third year of studies, however, he lost interest in medicine and decided to pursue a forestry degree at the University of Washington in Seattle. His mother and father accompanied him to Seattle, and he enrolled in courses there in the fall of 1910, but he did not complete them. A few months passed before he gave up and returned to Los Angeles, uncertain what to do.

Jeffers' goals for the future, his relationship to his parents, and his sense of himself were all called into question by another problem in 1910: he was deeply in love with a married woman named Una.

Una Lindsay (Call) Kuster was born in Mason, Michigan, January 6, 1884. At age seventeen, seeking adventure and a good education, she left her hometown and moved to Berkeley, where she enrolled at the University of California. An older half-sister who lived in San Francisco acted as a guardian and chaperone. Una soon met Edward Gerhard Kuster, a young man who had graduated from Berkeley in 1900 and was completing his studies in law. Teddie, as he was called, was the son of a Los Angeles physician and a member of a wealthy extended family. He qualified for the California bar in 1902, married Una in May of that year, and began his career as a well- connected Los Angeles attorney. Kuster's success in the courtroom was soon matched by his increasing social stature. He was a member of several athletic and country clubs, he performed as a cellist with the Los Angeles Symphony, and he served as a leader of the newly formed Automobile Club of Southern California. Una joined him in some of his activities, but she was more interested in completing her education than in helping her husband advance his career. She entered the University of Southern California in the fall of 1905. One of her classes the following spring was Advanced German — the same class Jeffers was in.

The friendship between Robinson and Una, which began in 1906 with the study of Faust, continued through the following years. The two saw each other regularly on campus when Robinson was in medical school and Una was earning her degrees, a B.A. in 1908 and an M.A. in philosophy in 1910. Their friendship gradually deepened into love, and by the time Jeffers decided to study forestry in Seattle, their passion was all-consuming. In a letter dated September 14, 1910 (one of the few that survive from this time), written to Robinson when he was on his way north, Una expresses her longing and despair: "I didnt mean to cry today," she says, "I meant to show you how brave I could be, — but not to see your dear eyes — not to feel your lips against my throat the intolerable pain I am to feel through endless months, came over me like a flood." A letter written the following day repeats the same lament:

I do not see how I am to live, very dearest, — I cannot see anything ahead for many months but unending blankness — How can I tell you my utter love — my utter devotion, but — you know it! I do not think that time or distance or evil circumstance — or — cruelty can separate us anymore. I am yours and I shall walk softly all my days until we can take each others hands and fare forth for those wild red vivid joys we two must know together.

Despite such love, or partly because of it, when Jeffers abandoned his plans in Seattle and returned to Los Angeles, his situation seemed hopeless. He was twenty-three, five years had passed since he finished his only degree, he was romantically involved with a married woman, and he had no vocational prospects. He began to drink heavily and spend his days in idleness.

If there is truth to Virginia Woolf's assertion that a seismic shift occurred in 1910 that disquieted artists and intellectuals around the world, then Jeffers' torment was doubtless more complicated. Indeed, for sensitive individuals like Jeffers, stress was felt along a variety of cultural, intellectual, and spiritual fault lines.

Jeffers had been raised during the Gilded Age in America — at the very peak of that period, the Gay Nineties. He grew up in Pittsburgh, the thriving city of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. Educated in Europe, he experienced all the pleasures of La Belle Époque, including a full measure of Swiss gentility. In the major capitals of Europe and America, he saw construction on a grand scale: new schools, libraries, museums, hospitals, government headquarters, opera houses, orchestra halls, and private mansions graced just-widened boulevards and looked out upon beautiful gardens and stately parks. Many of the buildings were designed in the popular Beaux-Arts style and thus recaptured an earlier Baroque splendor. When Jeffers moved to California, he fulfilled a dream shared by millions of people: a chance to live in the fabled land of health, wealth, and sunshine, where opportunities were endless and anything was possible. He also witnessed the invention of the automobile, the airplane, and other technological wonders that, at the cultural level, were changing the world.

Intellectually, however, he knew that many great thinkers of the recent past had grave doubts about Western Civilization, even human life as a whole. Despite the ebullience of La Belle Époque, a fin de siècle miasma filled the air. Artists affiliated with the Decadent movement, for instance, believed Western Civilization had reached a state of decay and was on the way to death. They questioned the gaudy materialism they saw around them; they were tired of ordinary pleasures, especially those provided by cities; and they sought relief from boredom through art, immorality, and exaggerated behavior. Their feelings of estrangement and disaffection were similar to those found in Bohemian circles and among a restless avant-garde.