The Roy Bedichek Family Letters

Portada
University of North Texas Press, 1998 - 464 páginas
Roy Bedichek, author of Adventures with a Texas Naturalist and close friend of J. Frank Dobie and Walter Prescott Webb, loved both reading and writing letters. His often expressed wish that more letters and journals would be published has been brought to bear on his own work by his daughter-in-law, Jane Gracy Bedichek, who offers a selection of the Bedichek family correspondences.

The collection shows once again what talent Bedichek had for describing the world around him, and for expressing his opinion of that world, but they also reveal his interest and involvement in his children's lives and his sense of humor in dealing with them, with his pets, and with the wildlife he became famous for observing. Always the letters are rare vintage Bedichek.

From the book, a letter Lillian Bedichek, June 18, 1949: Evidence accumulates against the blue jay. This morning I saw a jay deviling a young martin sitting on a telephone wire. One killed a baby inca; I suspect one in the death of one of my screech owls; one stole the rag-strips I had prepared with great pains to tie up my tomato-vines with; and this morning I found almost half of a large green tomato eaten away and can think of no other bird which would commit such an atrocity. And yet he is a proud, gay, gorgeously colored creature whose arrogance becomes him. But I have a temper: he'd better not let me catch him killing a baby inca.

From the book, a letter to daughter Sarah Bedichek, July 8, 1937: We saw five magnificent white pelicans, scooping with their enormous bills and throwing their heads up now and then, exhibiting their pale yellow pouches. Immediately behind them walking in solemn procession, like Egyptian priests performing some ancient rite, were seven (mystic number) wood ibises, with their bills plunged into the water up to their eyes, treading along without raising their bills for five minutes at a time. Flanking this procession on either side were several roseate spoonbills, in full mating plumage this procession went forward in the glow of the rising sun, and it is hard for me to believe that it wasn't some kind of solemn religious pageant.

Dentro del libro

Páginas seleccionadas

Contenido

Jumping Off Place
1
19081927
27
1930s
95
1940s
207
1950s
331
Chronology
439
Bedichek Genealogy
443
Greer Genealogy
445
Index
447
Derechos de autor

Términos y frases comunes

Pasajes populares

Página 177 - Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate...
Página 108 - Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, A wretch ! a villain ! lost to love and truth ! That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Página 32 - And bend each wandering step to this one end — That, one day, out of darkness, they shall meet And read life's meaning In each other's eyes. And two shall walk some narrow way of life So nearly side by side, that should one turn Ever so little space to left or right They needs must stand acknowledged face to face.
Página 33 - Color and form to mine, Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night for me. I break all slighter bonds, nor feel A shadow of regret : Is there one link within the Past That holds thy spirit yet? Or is thy faith as clear and free as that which I can pledge to thee?
Página 191 - I think that many a man falls into the practice against his will. When he thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking ; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion.
Página 32 - Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart, And speak in different tongues and have no thought Each of the other's being, and no heed. And these, o'er unknown seas, to unknown lands Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death; And all unconsciously shape every act And bend each wandering stop to this one end — That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.
Página 33 - Is there within thy heart a need That mine cannot fulfil? One chord that any other hand Could better wake or still? Speak now - lest at some future day my whole life wither and decay. Lives there within thy nature hid The demon-spirit Change, Shedding a passing glory still On all things new and strange? It may not be thy fault alone - but shield my heart against thy own.
Página 115 - Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them...
Página 33 - O, tell me before all is lost ! Look deeper still : if thou canst feel, Within thy inmost soul, That thou hast kept a portion back, While I have staked the whole, Let no false pity spare the blow, But in true mercy tell me so.

Acerca del autor (1998)

Jane Gracy Bedichek, a graduate of Wellesley College and Columbia School of Social Work, currently serves on the board of Scarsdale Audubon and Weinberg Nature Center and is active in the Archaeological Institute of America.

Información bibliográfica