December 9, 1931--Champaign, Ill.

Here I am down at the University of Illinois striving toward my masters degree in Zoology. What an illusion I continually labor under. Up at Ely, I believed that I would be happy down here doing work that I loved. At the same time doubts assailed me and I knew that if I came it would be the same old struggle. Then don't know down here any more what brings happiness than anywhere else. Although they are zoologists and should be working toward the ultimate which is finding happiness through the study of nature, they are as far off as the average business man. Not a one of them care any more for their work outside of the privilege it gives them to make money than so many bookkeepers. It is all cut and dried and I am horribly disappointed. I am beginning to see that my salvation must be worked out by myself alone and that the only way it can be done is to say up north and do it. Reading Burroughs and Thoreau give me so much comfort. How they would smile at it all. Burroughs secret of happiness, "To find some congenial work, in which a man can lose himself," how false that sentiment rings down here. All a group of automatons. They are not in love with their work, they get little real pleasure out of it. I cannot wait until I get back to the north where again I will have a chance to write and dream.

Write and dream. That is the keynote of happiness for me. I must write, I cannot get away from that. I thought if I came down that I might forget the urge in my scientific pursuits but it is useless. I can no more forget the thrill and satisfaction that I get from writing than I can forget how to eat. My stories coming out this winter, four of them all told, will help get me started in the outdoor writing field. I believe that with the work I have done that it will be possible to enter into the other magazines as well as Sports Afield. I already have a pretty good start and if I put in the time, it should not be difficult to make a go of it.

Writing up problems, how they bore me. Will I ever get through my thesis I wonder. I hate the very sound of it. That sort of thing I simply cannot get joy out of. I must be working in my philosophy and joy in the out of doors. The rest is mechanical as though I were pasting labels on cans.

Game management - what an empty thing that will be. To get stuck somewhere in the country that I don't care about working out graphs and tables. How I would hate it. Leopold's job I would go crazy on. That sort of thing would ruin what little disposition I have left. No Sig you are beginning to know yourself and should soon reach the age where you could step out and decide exactly what it is that you want for happiness. Elizabeth is no doubt getting tired of the continual feeling around I have been doing and discontent and dissatisfaction and I cannot blame her. She is doing her best to keep up but how she would love to have me finally decide what I wanted to do and stick to it. How I have thought and explored the innermost reaches of my nature and found nothing but confusion. For ten years that has been going on, still I am at sea. However not so much at sea as I was. I am gradually eliminating those things that for a while I thought would give me happiness. For a while I thought that a University Job would do it. Down here I would soon go insane as at any other University. It would be the same wherever I go. Tonight I am going to be initiated to Sigma Xi. What a travesty that is. Recommended because of potential possibilities as a research man. I could laugh and wouldn't Thoreau and Burroughs laugh with me. Research, yes, into the hearts of men and how best to go fishing and roaming through the woods. I agree with Thoreau, I am not a scientist and never will be one, I am a mystic and a philosopher. I can never change that in me....