Rachel Carson was born in 1907 and had a rugged upbringing in a Pennsylvania farmhouse. She acquired a love of nature from her mother—a love that destined her to write one of the most important books of the latter half of the 20th Century. Her passion for writing also caught on early, and she began her career as a writer for a U.S. Bureau of Fisheries radio program, Romance Under the Waters. In 1936 she was the first woman to take and pass the American civil service test. The bureau hired her as a full-time marine biologist and she went on to become editor of all publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
In 1952, at the age of 45, Carson had already published two books of her own devoted to the sea. The second one, The Sea Around Us, explored a world as yet unfamiliar to many people. It became a bestseller, launching her career as a popular author. In autumn of that year she met Dorothy Freeman, a 55-year-old wife and mother. Freeman wanted to be a writer herself and, by her own later admission, placed the younger Carson on a pedestal, an emotional remoteness which quickly dissolved. Drawn by mutual interests, the two women began an active correspondence which continued for the rest of Carson's life.
The hyacinth letterOn February 6, 1953 Carson wrote a letter to Freeman which galvanized their relationship:
- I don't suppose anyone really knows how a creative writer works (he or she least of all, perhaps!) or what sort of nourishment his spirit must have. All I am certain of is this; that it is quite necessary for me to know that there is someone who is deeply devoted to me as a person, and who also has the capacity and the depth of understanding to share, vicariously, the sometimes crushing burden of creative effort, recognizing the heartache, the great weariness of mind and body, the occasional black despair it may involve—someone who cherishes me and what I am trying to create, as well. Last summer I was feeling, as never before, that there was no one who combined all of that....And then, my dear one, you came into my life!"
In the same letter she said:
- Do you remember what someone said to the effect that (I'm quoting very inexactly) if he had two pennies he would use one to buy bread and the other to buy "a white hyacinth for his soul"? You, dearest, are the"white hyacinth" in which I invest part of my time—and I couldn't invest all of my time pennies in the "bread" of the book, even for two months, if it meant giving up all that you do for me.
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