In today's encore excerpt, John Steinbeck
eulogizes his recently deceased friend, Ed
Ricketts, who was the real-life model for the character
Doc in Steinbeck's novel, Cannery
Row:



"I have tried to isolate and inspect the great talent that
was in Ed Ricketts, that made him so loved and
needed and makes him so missed now that he is
dead. Certainly he was an interesting and charming
man, but there was some other quality that far
exceeded these. I have thought that it might be his
ability to receive, to receive anything from anyone, to
receive gracefully and thankfully, and to make the gift
seem very fine. Because of this everyone felt good in
giving to Ed--a present, a thought, anything.



"Perhaps the most overrated virtue in our list of
shoddy virtues is that of giving. Giving builds up the
ego of the giver, makes him superior and higher and
larger than the receiver. ... It is so easy to give, so
exquisitely rewarding. Receiving, on the other hand, if
it is well-done, requires a fine balance of
self-knowledge and kindness. It requires humility and
tact and great understanding of relationships. In
receiving, you cannot appear, even to yourself, better
or stronger or wiser than the giver, although you must
be wiser to do it well.



"It requires self-esteem to receive--not self-love but
just a pleasant acquaintance and liking for
oneself."



John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of
Cortez, Appendix, "About Ed Ricketts", Penguin
Books, 1951, pp. 272-3.


From delancyplace.com